Denis Smith is a retired educator who worked in the state charter school office. This opinion piece was published by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.
Is the Public Records Act working in Ohio, particularly when it comes to receiving information about charter schools? If one recent example is typical of compliance with the statute, the answer is probably no.
According to the attorney general’s website, “When it receives a public-records request for specific existing records, the public office must provide inspection of the requested records during regular business hours or provide copies within a reasonable period of time.”
The key question, of course, is who provides the definition of a reasonable period?
On May 2, William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, filed a public-records request with three organizations that are central to the state’s charter-school industry. These entities include the Ohio Department of Education, which provides the overall legal oversight, and two of the largest charter-school sponsors, or authorizers, as they are also known.
The first sponsor addressed was the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West. Like ODE, the ESC of Lake Erie West, formerly known as the Lucas County ESC, is a public agency fully accountable under the Public Records Act. Some readers may recall the ESC as the long-time sponsor of the now-defunct ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.
Phillis also sent a records request to an additional sponsor, the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, which, unlike ODE and the educational service center, is a nonprofit organization.
The nature of the public-records request was to examine correspondence between the sponsors, the Ohio Department of Education, and the schools regarding compliance, reviews by the sponsors, governance and overall school performance.
In particular, the two sponsors are responsible for providing oversight and ensuring legal compliance with a chain of 17 schools that operate under the names Horizon Science Academy and Noble Academy and are affiliated with the management firm Concept Schools, based in Chicago.
These schools, which are associated with the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, have been the subject of controversy for years. For example, three of the Ohio schools in the Gulen chain were the targets of an FBI raid in 2014, and that investigation appears to be ongoing.
On a national level, the Gulen schools are known for their practice of hiring Turkish nationals to fill teaching positions at some of their schools. One investigation found that in Ohio alone, 657 H-1B visa applications, which are designed to enable the temporary use of skilled workers, were filed by the management organization in a 15-year period. In theory, every guest international teacher replaces a qualified American teacher, all at taxpayer expense.
In the area of management and governance, there are concerns, as the Akron Beacon-Journal reported earlier, that these “schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens,” of money transfers to individuals in Istanbul, Turkey, and other issues, some of which appeared in state audits. Additional questions involve a foundation with ties to the chain for its practice of offering trips to Turkey for public officials. Former Ohio Speaker Cliff Rosenberger was one individual awarded all-expense-paid travel prior to his accession to the House leadership.
The ever-developing ECOT scandal has validated the need for more-active oversight of all state charter schools, and the Horizon-Noble Gulen chain is a clear example of additional monitoring that must be performed by the state and the two authorizers, which receive millions in state tax dollars for such purposes.
An extended period of time has elapsed since the Ohio Coalition requested the public records. On June 4, the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation did respond through an attorney. “The Buckeye Community Hope Foundation is not a public entity subject to public records,” was part of its reply to Phillis. As of this writing, there has been silence from the two public entities. This is unacceptable and violates the spirit and the letter of the statute.
As the ECOT debacle has shown, there is a major problem with the management and governance of Ohio charter schools, and the public has a right to know more about questions surrounding one of the national charter school chains operating in Ohio.
For years, the American Society of News Editors has sponsored an event called Sunshine Week in honor of the public’s right to know about their government. Schools are a basic part of our system of self-governance. We cannot allow this public-records request to be ignored by those who otherwise benefit from the receipt of public funds.
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” Louis Brandeis once said. Ohio citizens need to insist that the Public Records Act must be the vehicle to provide answers to lingering questions about how our tax money is expended for what should be a proper public purpose.
http://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20180608/denis-smith-charter-schools-are-withholding-public-records
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Public school families in Ohio need a plan for when the US Supreme Court eradicates teachers unions.
They are the one and only entity who act as advocates for the 90% of children in this state who attend public schools. We will be lost without them.
It will be all charters and vouchers all the time, and our public schools will continue to decline from either neglect or outright hostility on the part of lawmakers. They’re captured. They don’t lift a finger for public schools down there. They spend whole legislative sessions expanding charters and vouchers, regulating charters and vouchers, deregulating charters and vouchers.
Ohio’s current school ranking system wasn’t designed by and for public schools. Charter lobbyists wrote it. It was designed to benefit charters. Every public school in the state will be subject to it and it has nothing to do with them or their needs. Charter lobbyists rewrote Ohio ed funding to benefit charters and they almost succeeded. The whole state apparatus is captured. If you’re a public school parent know this- your schools and your kid are not even considered in Columbus. What the charter lobby wants, the charter lobby gets.
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Sickening.
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The Fordham Institute is, right now, today, lobbying the legislature for still more unregulated charter schools.
Incredibly, they point to ARIZONA as the state Ohio should follow. Arizona, where ed reform is even more of an unregulated corrupt mess than Ohio.
They learned nothing. They’re not budging an inch. In fact, they’re doubling down.
Meanwhile our huge cadre of state employees spend all their time either promoting or opposing ed reform. They haven’t contributed anything of value to the public schools in the state in years. The schools that right now educate 90% of Ohio kids. Those are the schools they sacrificed for this ideological battle.
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The Thomas B. Fordham Institute should be regarded as an operating arm of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which first sent it money to support charter schools in 2003.
in addition to having an outsized budget to do mischief, the Institute’s last two grants were for operating expanses, about $1 million for each year.
Battelle for Kids is another money-laundering operation promoting policies that damage public schools while pretending to do otherwise.
I hope that the persistent efforts of William Phillis, Denis Smith and others will get the frauds exposed to public view and succeed in helping throwing a lot of the payola players out of office. That would be no small feat.
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I’ve been inquiring about Battelle For Kids for years. Their Formative Instructional Practices program is a nightmare. Please share more info if you have it.
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Gates’ hobby is: Using others for self-aggrandizement.
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When there is little transparency, accountability or oversight of public money shifting into private hands, it is an open invitation to grifters and opportunists to come and get some “free money.” The taxpayers should hold public officials accountable for such reckless policy. That money is tax dollars that are being subtracted from the Ohio public schools for schools of questionable legitimacy and value. Taxpayers should work to vote out complicit representatives that think so little of the Ohio taxpayers and public schools.
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“When there is little transparency, accountability or oversight of public money shifting into private hands, it is an open invitation to grifters and opportunists to come and get some “free money.” ”
You mean like in the military supply industries?
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You’re right. I live in a military community, and my husband has done taxes for military contractors. One of them admitted that he keeps a double set of books so that he can report less income. I don’t know how widespread this practice is.
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Ohio readers: what’s up with Ohio? First, okayed by SOTUS to purge voters, now this.
& right you are, Chiara–“parents need a plan for when (SOTUS) eradicates teachers unions.”
Join OK, NC & WVA & go to the streets, Ohio.
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US Congress spends yet another workweek promoting charter schools and doing nothing of value for public schools:
“Parents should determine which school is best for their children — not zip codes. With the rise of charter schools across the country, more students are able to escape underperforming schools and receive the high-quality education they deserve. In fact, the success and popularity of the charter school movement during the last 25 years is truly remarkable.
What started as one school in Minnesota has grown to nearly 7,000 charter schools located across the country”
What a shame that the schools 90% of US children attend are shut out of all discussion in DC.
It’s ludicrous. We’re employing thousands of federal employees who pretend our schools don’t exist, because they’re ideologically opposed to them.
When does the US Congress hear from public school supporters? Can we get an audience with these people we’re paying? They take public schools, and public school families and students, for granted. Apparently they don’t need the support of 90% of their school-age family constituents. I know very few of these folks attended public schools or would ever send a child there, but they must know public schools exist, right? They are at least speeding by one or two on the way to the fundraiser.
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