Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio says that the state senate passed a charter reform bill that could help eliminate some of the scandals in that sector. He warns that if the bill goes to a conference committee, the lobbyists will eviscerate it.
He writes:
All:
A meaningful charter reform bill passed out of the Ohio Senate late last night. While there were a couple changes that would help shelter some of the ways for-profit operators spend their money, it would for the first time have the state track, rate and account for their spending. In addition, it would force charters with Fs AND Ds on the report card that have been dropped by sponsors (authorizers) to have to go to a highly rated sponsor and then have that sponsor join the school at a hearing before the Ohio Department of Education to explain why they should remain open.
In addition, it creates better transparency, forcing charters to actually put who’s on their board on the school’s website, restricting who can be on the board, bans self-dealing, and several other worthwhile provisions. It doesn’t directly deal with tightening the state’s closure law (which has only closed 24 schools in 10 years), nor does it address the greatest issue out there — funding — but it is a big step forward for our nationally ridiculed charter school sector.
Today, the Ohio House was set to send the Senate bill to a conference committee — a secretive negotiation setting — which would have allowed Mssrs. Brennan (White Hat) and Lager (ECOT) to wield their typical legislative “magic”. There was a strong push last night and this morning from me and some friends on the pro-charter and pro-public school side of the ledger to have the House vote to concur in the Senate bill, meaning it would go to the Governor’s desk as is — a far more preferable outcome.
The good news is our work paid off. There were enough Democratic and Republican votes to avoid conference committee. So Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, who wants a conference committee, pulled the bill from the House Calendar — literally erasing it from members’ laptops just before they were set to take it up.
The General Assembly is in session Tuesday for the last time until September. We are ratcheting up the public pressure through media outlets and networks to try to convince the House to simply concur with the Senate bill, which while not perfect, is certain to be weakened in conference.
I am asking each of you to reach out to your media friends, your social media contacts, and to your legislators to encourage them to accept the Senate bill as is — in legislative parlance, Vote to Concur. We can’t let the same people who drove our charter school system into the ditch to undo the good work done in the Senate.
For the first time in my memory, Ohio’s charter school law has a shot of not being written primarily by those who profit from it. That is a good step for us. Please help me keep it that way.
Best Regards,
Stephen Dyer
Education Policy Fellow
Innovation Ohio
35 E. Gay St.
Columbus, OH 43215
http://www.innovationohio.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I just read an email from the OEA detailing HB2 and it’s UNANIMOUS passage in the Senate!! WooHoo!!
Also, the biennial budget bill is going to GovKasich for signature. Includes calling for a single testing period, reduced testing time, prohibition of use of general revenue funds for the purchase of PARCC assessments, removal of online testing requirements, and quicker return of testing results. 4th era budget bill also extends ‘safe harbor’ thru the 2016-17 school year. Another bonus: reduces to 35% the weight of student growth measures (test results) and increases the weight of teacher performance to 50%, with 15% to be determined via locally-determined components.
Big YAY from this 20yr classroom vet!!
Let’s just hope the gov uses his line-item veto verrrrry sparingly, if at all.
Don’t know how “4th era” got in there
A previous post stated “Ohio Drops Democracy, Follows ALEC Script”. Based on that I had decided never to travel to Ohio. Now It appears that democracy is alive and well in the state of Ohio.
I am so relieved!
Why are you relieved, Raj? Ohio legislature enacted the dictatorship approach for Youngstown schools. Abolishing local control, replacing it with a single CEO whose decisions are final. Yes, democracy is dead in Youngstown. As in Detroit, and numerous other mostly African American districts.
Many have been lead to believe that HB 70 is targeted just towards Youngstown only – that is not true – 3 or 4 more districts will be added next year. This is an attack on Public Education! Districts with high percentage of poverty, ELL populations and students with special needs could eventually be under the control of a state appointed CEO. That person can legally waive provisions of any Collective Bargaining Agreement and begin to charter out any school in the district. No local input or vote. Once a school is chartered out they may not collectively bargain. This is a law to accelerate the privatization of public education. Ohio will have a two class public education system- one for the haves and another for the have nots. This is a civil rights issue.
For the retiring teacher, who is just glad to make it for two more years. What do you think this will do to your pension stability? Vouchers teachers do not pay into the system and Charters usually earn less and pay less.
Because “A meaningful charter reform bill passed out of the Ohio Senate late last night.”
I’m further relieved! This Ohio teacher retires at the end of the 2017 school year! I will be protected by “Safe Harbor”. My prayers are that legislators come to their senses and make the profession of teaching attractive again. Our students deserve good teachers, and good teachers will only come to our profession if teaching becomes respected again. To get rid of the February PARRC PBA testing is HUGE! I lost so much precious instructional time to the PARRC monster this past year. All we did was practice test and test this past year. Honestly, I lost my second semester of teaching. Sad, but true . . .
I don’t understand why Ohio charters aren’t required to follow the same financial reporting and accountability rules that Ohio public schools follow.
Other than an ideological preference for deregulation, what is the public interest that is served by two sets of rules, one much less rigorous than the other?
I understand that the promoters want and often get different treatment but what is the PUBLIC interest there?
At a minimum, I would expect full financial reporting on the sponsors- who works there, how much are they paid, what exactly do they do to justify their cut of public funding for education? We’ve seen glimpses of really high salaries- last week the Akron paper reported two executives at one sponsor were making in excess of 200k. each How many schools do they have? What do they do to earn that? How does that compare to what we’re paying public school employees or public regulators?
Since federal and state government are promoting charter schools so heavily, I would think we could at least create a level playing field by insisting they follow the same reporting rules public schools follow.
We’re in the middle of a national scandal on for-profit colleges, where federal lawmakers took campaign donations and promoted the schools and didn’t regulate them, which really, really hurt millions of (mostly) lower income students. Why would we head down the same road in K-12?
I think it should also be mentioned that this attempt at regulation comes amid another state and federal push to open more charter schools in Ohio. State government is still pushing the schools aggressively on local communities and the federal government is ready to allocate a big chunk of federal money towards building more of them.
If we can’t competently regulate the charters we have in Ohio, and we obviously can’t, why would we rush to open more of them? They really don’t outperform public schools in this state, so that justification doesn’t hold water. Is this just an ideologically-driven policy preference by the Obama and Kasich administrations?