Democrats in Ohio have had it out for for-profit charter school operators since the state passed its first charter law in 1997. Cries of ???????corporate takeover of public schools??????? and ???????making money on the backs of our children??????? have been part of the anti-charter rhetoric used by the teacher unions and their allies from the start here.
Yet, it is important to note that in Ohio all charter schools are governed by non-profit boards who may, or may not, decide to hire for-profit operators to run their schools. This is not dissimilar to how school districts decide to purchase curricula, text books, and food services from for-profit providers like McGraw-Hill and Aramark.
Knowing the history, it is not surprising then that the Democratic governor and the House Democrats, who run that chamber for the first time in 14 years, have painted a giant bull's eye on the backs of for-profit school operators. They especially hate White Hat Management (which runs more than two dozen schools in Ohio) and its founder, and major Republican campaign contributor, David Brennan.
If successful, this would be the first time an entire segment of a state's charter community has been tossed out en masse regardless of school performance. And, if they leave, many families and children in Ohio would soon be looking for new schools. Last year roughly 70 Ohio charter schools (out of about 320 charters statewide) were operated by for-profit companies and collectively they served about 36,000 children. Under the governor's proposal, for-profit operators would be prohibited from operating in the state after their current contracts expire.
There is nothing wrong with closing charter schools. (Indeed, as a charter school authorizer our sister organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, has been doing some school closing of its own.) It is part of the charter school bargain, and frankly too many floundering schools have been allowed to continue in the Buckeye State with impunity (though the state has made headway in recent years with a charter academic death penalty). But schools should be closed because they don't deliver academic results or don't work economically, not because of the label they wear, for-profit or otherwise.
Take Dayton's Pathway School of Discovery. The school serves nearly 600 students, grades K-8, and is the top-rated elementary school in Dayton. Last year, Pathway's students outperformed their Dayton peers (charter and district) on the state's achievement tests, and it is the only elementary school in the city ranked higher than ???????C??????? by the state. Yet, because Pathway is operated by the for-profit National Heritage Academies, Strickland wants to close its doors and force its students into one of the city's many academically inferior district or charter schools. Further, what will become of the state-of-the-art facility National Heritage Academies built to house the school? It would most likely become another boarded-up blight on the landscape of a city Forbes already calls one of the country's top-ten fastest dying.
Governor Strickland and Ohio's lawmakers need to stop, take a deep breath, and think about what they are proposing to do. Do we, as a state, really want to say to the private sector: you aren't welcome here, and to our children: your education is less important than partisan politics?
Photograph by ogimogi on Flickr
