Our friend Bill Phillis of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition posted the following news:
On June 29 Geneva Area City Schools adopted a resolution to invoice the state for charter school deductions
School Treasurer Kevin Lillie’s message and the Board’s resolution were forwarded to over 30 public officials and media persons. The spreadsheet should be of particular interest.
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
This is treasurer Kevin Lillie’s message:
At the regular meeting of the Geneva Area City Board of Education on June 29, 2016, the Board unanimously approved a Resolution to invoice the State of Ohio through the Ohio Department of Education for past charter school deductions consisting of state and local funding. Please see the attached Resolution and invoice. Over the past 16 fiscal years, $4,265,924.70 has been taken away from Geneva Area City Schools via State Foundation Settlement deductions and sent to under-performing charter schools. What originally started as a five-year experiment, which was never completed or never evaluated for effectiveness, has turned into a monster at a tremendous waste of taxpayer funds and irreparable harm to Ohio’s school children. Many of these charter schools are for-profit ventures, draining money from Ohio to outside individuals and greedy corporations whose only motive is to line their pockets with easy cash. These charter schools lack oversight and regulation and are wrought with fraud and corruption. How does one explain away the NCAA not accepting transcripts form a particular online charter school, or FBI raids on a chain of charters operated by a Turkish Islamic cleric which imports teachers from Turkey instead of hiring Ohio citizens (only a small part of the problems with these particular charters), or a Dayton-area charter school spending $4,167 per pupil to rent the building it uses from a sister company? It is for these reasons that the Geneva Area City Board of Education has chosen to invoice the State of Ohio and ODE for the full amount of the charter school deductions.
These charter school deductions have drained needed funds from our District and districts all over Ohio. These deductions along with state funding reductions over the past seven years have forced many districts like ours to cut teachers and support staff, increase class sizes, reduce course offerings, cut some student activity groups and sports, and institute pay to participate fees to keep other sports. Meanwhile, much of the taxpayers’ money taken from our District and sent to charter schools is being used for fraudulent advertising, high administration salaries, and campaign contributions. It is time to clean up the fraud and corruption in charters and stop wasting taxpayer funds.
Also attached are spreadsheets comparing the performance Geneva Area City Schools to the charter schools receiving our resident students. I hope you will take the time to read the resolution and invoice and view the charter school comparisons.
Sincerely,
Kevin Lillie, Treasurer/CFO
Geneva Area City Schools
135 S. Eagle St.
Geneva, OH 44041
Ph: 440-415-9304
Fax: 440-466-0908
Email: kevin.lillie@genevaschools.org
Please note new email address: kevin.lillie@genevaschools.org
Here is the Board’s resolution.
I can’t copy and paste the Board’s resolution. Please read it. It is powerful.
It makes clear that Ohio’s charters have made the state the “laughing stock of the nation” and that the state’s charters perform below public schools and are rife with corruption and fraud.
This is one impressive school board!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Blah blah blah – old news. What a waste of time and resources. One would think that the district has more important things to work on besides posturing and stunts…. like maybe figuring out why their students are leaving for other options… and what they can do to improve. Things that make you go hmmmmmmm. If i were a parent of students there, I’d be asking for a tax refund for the paid time invested in these shenanigans. http://www.ecotpals.org/blog/local-school-boards-posture-against-public-education-choice
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Well,Ohio actually deducts a portion of the state share of funding from every public student who remains in the school when the charter student leaves.
That means the public school students get a smaller share of state funding.
You can read about it here:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/09/09/ohios-charter-schools-essentially-get-local-property-tax-money.html
For example- the state share of Columbus public school per student funding is around 3k. But the state deducts 7k for each charter student who leaves. The public school kids are picking up the difference. The state puts in 3 and then subtracts 7.
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Profound thanks to Geneva Schools for speaking out about the fleecing of Ohio taxpayers and the harm done to districts and students.
I expect Sen. Portman to support those you make a killing through the charter school contrivance for the wealthy (at the taxpayer’s expense). But, why it took Sen. Brown, until this summer, to recognize the plot and, why he wants $71 mil. more, from the wholly captured US Dept. of Ed., to expand charters, requires explanation.
Gates gave $22 mil. to New Schools Venture Fund, with the marching orders to “develop a diverse supply of charter school management organizations to produce different brands on a large scale.” If Brown doesn’t support the nation’s greatest common good-public schools, he is not committed to a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
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Well said, Linda!
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The REAL public schools have fixed costs that do not go down when a child leaves for a charter school. In NJ, the district school system has to pay for charter bussing expenses. Charter schools duplicate executive and administrative positions which is wasteful and doubles expenses for administrators. The district pays big bucks for the superintendent of schools who has no say about the charter schools since the charter schools have their own version of a superintendent.
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Your state has, in common with Ohio, grandstanding about elimination of costly duplication of services. But, when it comes to the duplication of services, in the form of failing charter schools, it’s nothing but, cheerleading.
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Ohio…hmmm… Doesn’t the Gulen Network have 19 charter schools there, all under F.B.I. investigation?
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Thanks to Democrat Sherrod Brown and, the Republican, heads of the state, House and Senate (and, their willing accomplices), Ohio is governed like a national travesty. If it wasn’t for the state auditor, and Doug Livingston of the Akron Beacon Journal, run-of-the mill taxpayers wouldn’t know they’re fish in a barrel, ripe for the taking.
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Wow! Ohio has a State Auditor watching over this for run-of-the-mill citizens and actual investigative reporters looking into charter school corruption?
That’s progressive! I wish I could say the same for California.
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Karen Wolfe,
My sympathies to all of us, in our failed democracy.
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And in Detroit, yet again: why schools shouldn’t be run like business. This business closed, stranding 900 kids.
https://t.co/mZak2Qdkyv
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The students are only temporarily stranded. The taxpayers, fleeced by their politicians, will once again rely on their under appreciated and underfunded public schools to save the day. Unlike the politically-connected charter villains, communities understand the importance of education and economic multiplier effect. It’s a shame that the communities’ state politicians are self-serving, to the detriment of the state’s future.
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