Maureen Reedy is an experienced teacher and advocate for Ohio’s public schools. She wrote a letter to the editor which all public school supporters should read:
To the Editor:
Let me get this straight: James Ragland, a first-term Columbus school board member, is also a paid advocate for private and for-profit charter schools in Ohio? (Dispatch article, Sept. 23)
In the business world, Ragland’s roles would be a blatant conflict of interest — the fox guarding the henhouse in violation of his fiduciary obligation as a publicly elected board member.
Which hat was Ragland wearing when he joined Betsy DeVos at the School Choice Roundtable in July? Was he participating as the director of provider outreach for School Choice Ohio or as a Columbus City Schools board member?
Clearly, Ragland, while working for School Choice Ohio, has been a player in moving almost $1 billion from Columbus City Schools to fund lower-performing charter and private voucher schools from 2017 to 2021. During this same period, Ohio’s higher performing public schools have lost close to $5 billion to charter and private voucher schools.
Ohio’s public schools are the schools of choice for over 90% of Ohio’s schoolchildren who attend their neighborhood public schools.
Ohio’s public school four-year graduation rate is 85%, about double the graduation rate for charter schools in Ohio.
Caught in this COVID pandemic, we are in the grip of an unprecedented public health and economic crisis where it is clearly unsustainable to drain billions of dollars from Ohio’s public schools.
Ragland cannot have it both ways. Supporting the mission of Columbus City Schools as a board member while being paid to advocate for taking almost a billion dollars a year from Ohio’s public schools to fund lower-performing private and charter schools is wrong.
This conflict of interest in “robbing Peter to pay Paul” must end.
Maureen Reedy, Columbus
Reedy’s letter is important and great.
Ohio’s GOP politicians care more about filling their own bank accounts or the Party’s coffers than they care about Ohioans. They repeatedly prove it with gerrymandering, with ECOT, with E-check, with ALEC memberships, by encouraging the billionaire-financed Fordham to write education policy, ignoring Figlio’s research about vouchers. not forcing Steve Huffman out of office after his racist comment,…
Columbus School Board member James Ragland is employed by “School Choice Ohio,” an anti-public school group that helps recruit public school students for charters and vouchers.
The address listed for School Choice Ohio, 1335 Dublin Road, Suite 50A, Columbus, Ohio 43215, is former ALEC legislator Kevin Bacon’s law office.
That same address is listed for Provost Academy, a Columbus-based online charter school scam that was paid $1 million in state funding, but was found to have been overpaid by $799,492 in 2016.
“A man is known by the company he keeps.” (Aesop)
known by the company he keeps and the massive amount of money he steals: given a million and being overpaid by $799,000? wow
Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, “Ohio’s Bishops urge immediate action on EdChoice program”. The accompanying photo is interesting for its singular demographic.
Two white, GOP Ohio legislators who promote school choice- Matt Huffman (Catholic) and his first cousin, Steve Huffman.
Ugh the very expression “school choice” annoys me right off the bat. It’s underhanded and cynical.
The concept of “choice” as a self-evident benefit is just baffling with bs à la consumer marketing, and used by politicians in the same way— as a distraction from public attention to quality [of education] and cost [to society].
Sadly, education is not a significant issue in Ohio. That’s why letters like Maureen’s matter; we need more of them. The ECOT scandal was met with a “ho-hum” and the players behind it all won their elections. They are aided by a lazy journalistic (I use the term very lightly) corps that is submissive to big money, especially in the age of dying local papers and corporate consolidation. Recently my local paper–which in the past occasionally reported on the criminality of privatization, but no more–ran a story on Ann Brennan, the widow of Dave, who “donated” $2.5 million to Case Western Reserve’s law school. I sent in a letter, but they were too timid to run it:
Re: Ann Brennan Donates $2.5 million to Case Western Law School
To the editor:
The lack of journalistic integrity displayed by the Akron Beacon Journal in “reporting” about Ann Brennan’s $2.5 million donation to the Case Western School of Law is egregious.
Leaving out the fact that “David Brennan, known for his business skills and, in later years, for founding charter school management company White Hat Management” fleeced more than $1 billion from Ohio taxpayers while using his political connections with the Taft and Kasich administrations for a failed charter school scheme is malfeasance at best.
Those unaccountable funds, plus millions of federal funds White Hat raked in, were taken from public schools and allowed White Hat to double dip by leasing properties that were publicly owned.
The Brennan “philanthropy” is nothing more than a funneling of public funding for private gain and false reputation building. Mrs. Brennan would do better to return all the money made from this racket to Ohio taxpayers and public schools instead of being praised for giving a pittance to a private law school.
I would expect more of a newspaper than to print a press release and call it news.
Great letter, Greg!
When was it submitted?
I would have posted it.
It was sent but never published. Too close to the quick, I suspect. The ABJ, a once great paper, is now part of the Gannett machine. And I basically plagiarized your arguments.
Should have been published.
This one is for chiara go girl