A recent Akron Beacon Journal headline grabbed my attention, and not in a good way: “Ohio tells federal investigators that charter schools are getting better, but evidence isn’t convincing.” It’s among the latest in a string of news stories about Ohio’s win of a federal $71 million Charter School Program (CSP) grant—and, more distressingly, its possible loss of said grant.
The article uses the current federal investigation of the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) as the hook (“Oh look! An article about that $71 million grant—I wonder what the status is.”), then launches into a discussion about the audit results from high-profile blow-up Next Frontier Academy and Ohio’s alleged inability to track misspent dollars. Another editorial from ABJ with an equally cynical title (“Ohio and its legacy of careless charter schools”) better explains the apparent linkage between the two topics: “Because of the shabby record-keeping, auditors could not reach firm conclusions about school enrollment and finances. Thus, conveniently enough, the Next Frontier story could not be included in the information sent to federal investigators. Next Frontier wasn’t alone, the records of other charter schools in similar disarray. That left the state in position to offer a rosier tally of the repayment required of poor performing charter schools.”
It’s true that the grant is on hold because Ohio’s original application for the CSP contained inaccurate information (which former Superintendent of State Dick Ross and his team painstakingly addressed last month, per the request of the USDOE). And I’m with the paper in wondering about misspent public money and wanting better record keeping of enrollment and finances at charter schools (district schools as well, for that matter). But the scandals that have occurred at a very small number of bad-apple-charter schools have little, if anything, to do with the ability of the state to oversee CSP funds for high-performers.
The USDOE was quite right to request corrected and updated information. That’s a lot of money to fork over, and the Ohio Department of Education should illustrate its ability to administer the grant competently. Critics are justified in questioning how Ohio mangled its application under former Director of School Choice David Hansen. And the ABJ is spot-on in its reproach of the Next Frontier Academy, a charter school disaster that has consumed several pages of their attention (and that Fordham criticized in October as well).
But for the love of whomever you worship—can we please stop discussing the federal CSP grant alongside the lurid details of blow-ups like Next Frontier? I ask this for three reasons. One, the CSP grant is designed to help high-performing charter schools grow and expand. It would not fund schools like Next Frontier, though reading about CSP in the same article as this poster child for charter failure seems to insinuate that the precious $71 million would go down the drain in the same fashion. That’s misleading journalism. Next Frontier’s blow-up is a reflection of many factors: poor sponsoring practices (which HB 2 will rectify and prevent), disastrous school management on the part of the operator, and a tremendous loss of funds to taxpayers that we should absolutely figure out how to recoup (and prevent in the future). But continuing to suggest that strong Ohio charter schools don’t deserve the opportunity to compete for federal grant dollars because of the mistakes (however egregious) of a few outliers is like saying other Ohio districts shouldn’t receive federal funds because Columbus City Schools was embroiled in its own data scandal in 2013.
Second, the loss of CSP funds would be devastating for Ohio’s top-performing charter schools and almost guarantee that our charter sector will be worse in terms of academic quality. If our best performers can’t expand and reach more students, the quality of the sector will continue to be mediocre at best. Bad schools will be closed, and hopefully bad ones will stop opening, but good ones will be thwarted. That’s not good for anybody. The truth is that past CSP winners have outperformed the charter sector as a whole. We have every reason to believe future winners will do the same.
Third, Ohio’s charter sector has had a rocky year. Hell, a rocky decade. But we are finally on the way toward fixing that. We passed landmark legislation that overhauled our charter school law and promises to prevent Next Frontier-like schools from opening in the first place. We installed a very rigorous sponsor evaluation system. ODE is searching for a new leader. It truly is a new day for Ohio.
There are high-performing charter networks currently waiting to learn the status of Ohio’s CSP funds before determining their expansion plans. One such network reports that the neighborhood in which it hopes to expand has zero—literally zero—highly effective schools for the children living there. Let’s not let the sins of our past continue to characterize the present or, worse, jeopardize our future.
