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Ohio Charter School Program

In Ohio, charter schools are called Community Schools. The program has been marked by corruption, political cronyism, and poor academic results. The Legislative Office of Education Oversight issued a report in 2003 documenting numerous irregularities and making many recommendations for improved oversight, some of which were later adopted by the legislature.

The 2006 Report on Ohio’s Charter School Program published by the Ohio Education Association is a detailed analysis of the program based on recent Ohio Department of Education electronic records. The report indicts the program as “terribly flawed and, ultimately, counterproductive to the goal of providing every child in the state the opportunity for a quality public education.” Among its findings:

- The program was allowed to grow rapidly before results were available to adequately evaluate its success.

- In 2003, the legislature removed responsibility for overseeing ostensibly public charter schools from the State Department of Education. The Department is currently only permitted to authorize charter school sponsors.

- More than 13,000 of the 72,000 students enrolled in 297 charter schools come from districts rated excellent or effective.

- For the 2004-05 school year, 71 percent of charter schools were rated in academic emergency or academic watch (the two lowest levels), up from 57 percent in the 2003-04 school year.

- Local report card results show that public schools outperform charter schools in each of the state’s 21 proficiency and achievement tests. The result was also true for the sub-set of African-American students.

- Contrary to charter school claims that they have to deal with a more diverse and challenging student population, their schools in Ohio’s eight largest cities have fewer economically disadvantaged students, fewer non-African American minority students, fewer disabled students and fewer limited English proficiency students than the traditional public schools they compete with.

- The participation rate in state-mandated testing at charter schools is among the lowest in the state—45 of the 50 schools lowest in math test participation were charter schools while 47 of the 50 schools lowest in reading test participation were charters.

- Charter schools received $487 million in state foundation payments for the 2005-06 school year--$6045 per pupil.

- While the argument is complex because the funding formula is complex, the OEA report makes a strong case for the fact that charter schools are receiving more aid per pupil that traditional public schools. These payments in some cases come from local funds as well.