Stephen Dyer is a former state legislator who keeps close watch on school finance in Ohio. I missed this post when it was posted a few months ago, but it retains its ability to shock. Open the link to see his graphs and documentation.
Dyer wrote:
Despite House Bill 2, which was supposed to slim down our notoriously poor-performing charter school sector and the closure of the nation’s largest online school — ECOT — which closed because the school literally stole hundreds of millions of tax dollars to educate kids they never educated, we are currently spending more on charter schools than any other year on record.
By a mile.
According to the latest Charter School funding report from the Ohio Department of Education, we are set to spend $999.7 million. The previous record was $955 million from the 2015-2016 school year — the high-point of the ECOT years.
Despite this massive recent increase (an extraordinary $111 million jump … over two years), it’s not because we’ve had more students attending charters than ever.
No. That record remains the 2013-2014 school year when 122,130 students attended charters.
As I’ve recounted for more than a decade, because of the way we fund charters, that means that local property taxes have to subsidize charter school kids.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Rocket Science to understand that if you’re removing $8,500 in state aid from a district for a kid the district was only getting about half of that from the state to educate that the difference has to come from somewhere.
This year, that subsidy is slated to be $148 million. And in some districts, it’s really high. Like in Columbus where $62 million in local revenue has to subsidize the state funding deduction for charters…
Anyway, the data demonstrates pretty clearly that charter schools have plenty of money right now to educate their kids. Why? Because they don’t have to adhere to 150 plus state regulations, pay for buses and pay their teachers 40% less, on average, than districts with leaner benefits.
So you don’t have to spend nearly as much in a charter as you do a district…
Dyer then reviews the abysmal performance of charter schools compared to district schools and concludes:
I give you this overall horrible performance for you to mull over as the state considers investing more than $1 billion in this education sector that’s produced more state report card grades of F than all others combined since we’ve had the A-F system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It doesn’t take a racket scientist to figure out what the Charter Industry does spend its money on is hiring lobbyists (pimps) to recruit the “services” of whatever politicians (prostitutes) suck the most tax dollars back to the Charter Industry.
I like that new phrase “racket scientist”
Great minds think alike. I put that in my notes for future retrieval. I will definitely be plagiarizing it.
Yes. Me, too.
There’s a new phrase, “crisis entrepreneur”. Exploiting people seems like the obvious description.
racket scientist! If that was a Freudian slip it is a doozy 🙂
The behavior of the Texas and Ohio legislatures confirm that privatization is not based on evidence and quality. It is a gigantic pay to play scheme designed to funnel public funds into favored private pockets with total disregard for the harmful impact on the public schools most students attend.
Song of the “Conservative” State Legislator
Snowflakes and libtards can moan and can scoff,
but nothing beats feeding at the taxpayer trough.
We give the big bucks to the charters to burn
And campaign donations come back in return.
And so we conserve to ourselves all that dough,
Conserving our power with the old quid pro quo.
You won’t read any actual analysis of Ohio charters on any of the ed reform sites.
This is the only permissible analysis of charters:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/11/02/school-choice-covid-parents-chose-charter/6231122001/
Written by a (well) paid charter lobbyist, 100% positive, 100% cheerleading. That’s what passes for “analysis” in the ed reform echo chamber.
If you read exclusively within the ed reform echo chamber, you would not know that Ohio charters performed substantially worse than public schools did in the pandemic, but it’s true- that information was negative, so they omitted it.
If it’s not rah rah pro charter you won’t hear about it- not from Gates or from Walton or from Koch nor from any of the university departments and lobbying groups who are funded by Gates or Walton or Koch. It’s lockstep charter cheeleading all the way.
If ed reformers actually wanted to analyze privatized districts they could do it. They’ve pushed charters so aggressively they make up half the schools in a lot of cities. They have an entire privatized city to study- New Orleans. Did those cities fare better than cities with public schools in the pandemic? If not, why not? The ed reform theory was that charter schools would be higher quality than public schools. Is that true?
After 20 years of agressive (and ideological) lobbying for privatized systems, why aren’t we seeing any gains in my state? Why does Ohio continue to fall in national rankings despite ed reform directing public education policy for two decades now?
Seems like “researchers” would want to look at that. But you won’t see that research. That’s not permitted. Instead we’ll just get demands to open more and more charters and hand out more and more vouchers.
Ed reform can’t fail. It can only be failed. The answer is always more charters, more vouchers, more market dogma. If the last 20 years of privatization didn’t improve education in this state, well, all that means is we need more privatization!
There isn’t a public school student in this state who can point to anything positive this “movement” has contributed to the public school they attend. We’ve pumped billions of dollars into the ed reform “movement” in Ohio and we have nothing to show for it.
During the pandemic, if you were reading the ed reform echo chamber, you read article after article on how people were “fleeing” public schools and that there were “millions” of missing students and how all this “proved” the public had rejected public schools and were ready for the ed reform-engineered privatized systems of their ideological dreams:
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/11/10/22773039/kindergarten-enrollment-rebounds-student-headcounts-down
Uh,oh. Enrollment in public schools is climbing back up. Let’s see if any of the “analysts” in ed reform correct their predictions. Don’t bet on it.
The anti-public school narrative must be served. If that means pronouncements that are proved false just months after they make them, well, no matter. It’s not like anyone is checking their work anyway.
Speaking of Ohio-
Karma’s a bitch for Josh Mandel. Mandel is a supporter of Trump and Majorie Taylor Greene. Today, Mark Pukita, one of Mandel’s opponents in the GOP primary for U.S. Senator (also a Trump supporter) told voters in an ad that Mandel shouldn’t expect support from evangelicals because he’s Jewish. Pukita is doubling down on the ad stating, “He’s got the Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other. But, he’s Jewish.” According to Ballotpedia, Pukita is Eastern Orthodox Christian (like Putin). He admires Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Christ and Ayn Rand. He’s “100% MAGA”.
Mandel likes education vouchers (doesn’t like LGBTQ). His wish has been delivered, vouchers to Christian schools and even more to the other major religion. The agenda of a majority of right wingers and anti-Semitic political candidates enacted-what could possibly go wrong for those of Mandel’s faith?
The Jerusalem Post has a good article about Mandel and Pukita, 11-12-2021.
He is dumber than Greene and Boebert put together. An incredibly foul human being.
Evidence that Ohio is firmly in the hands of Cut-Throat cultist capitalists that worship the golden calif, willing to cut children’s throats if it means they get their filthy fingers in the public’s money trough.
All wrongdoing can be traced to an excessive attachment to material wealth. This saying comes from the writings of the Apostle Paul. It is sometimes shortened to “Money is the root of all evil.” – dictionary.com
Love of Money …
Sometimes, Charles Koch must sit back and cackle. In addition to Tom Daschle who is on the CAP board (his lobbying firm, Daschle Group, has Stride Inc. f/k/a/ K12 Inc, as a client), there is Andrew Hauptman on the board. Hauptman is the co-founder and trustee of the Charles Bronfman Prize. In 2009 the prize ($100,000) went to the founders of KIPP.
In 2012, the prize went to Eric Grietens (subsequently disgraced while Republican Missouri Governor).
Grietens is currently running for Senate. Today, Steve Bannon’s indictment was announced. Grietens tweeted his support for Steve.
The self-described progressive CAP has 11 members on his board of directors. Guess how many are women? Two. Guess how many are people of color?
This will continue until the public schools change their racist system of education
Whereas, private and religious schools are less racist?
Georgetown University’s history?
Harvard’s selective enrollment results in more students from the wealthiest 0.1% than from the entire lowest 20% of U.S. income families.
Add sexism to the complaint and what do you think private and religious schools exhibit?