Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Adequacy and Equity writes:
Accel owner Ron Packard is in a tizzy because some of his charters did not qualify for Ohio’s charter bonus fund
This loophole provides that charter bonus money appropriated for “high performing” charters can be distributed to “low performing” charters solely because their operator ran schools in other states that had received a federal grant.
For-profit Accel charter chain operator Ron Packard, applied for bonus funds for dozens of schools that didn’t qualify for charter bonus funds; however, he anticipated funding on the basis that an Accel charter in Colorado Springs received a federal charter school expansion grant a few years ago. But the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) rejected the Accel application, citing the Ohio Accel operation fails to connect with those in Colorado. (Who do you suppose got that out-of-state loophole inserted into Ohio Law?)
Ron Packard left K12 Inc. a few years ago as a $5 million per year executive to start Accel. He has a gang of charters in Ohio. Is there any doubt why Mr. Packard is in the education business?
The Gulen charter school chain also applied for bonus money on the basis of the out-of-state provision. Fortunately ODE rejected it on the same basis as the Accel rejection.
|
|
Like this:
Like Loading...
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reform lobbyists and the ed reform legislators in Ohio inserted a whole range of additional funding and benefits for charters and private schools last session.
They got nothing at all accomplished for the +/- 90% of public school students in the state, other than designating half the public schools and students in Ohio as “failing”.
That’s all our kids got out of their work- yet another test and then a politically motivated “failing” designation.
They simply don’t serve the interests of public school students and families. Most of the time our students aren’t even considered valuable enough to mention. If they are mentioned it’s only to compare our students unfavorably to charter and private school students.
We could hire public employees who value public schools and students. That’s possible. We don’t have them now, but we could have them. We don’t have to retain the anti-public school status quo. A lot of other states have replaced ed reform lawmakers, and Ohio can too.