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Friday, January 4, 2008
Attorney: Dann overstepped authority
In a court filing today in Montgomery County, the attorney for Dayton’s New Choices Community School argued that Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann overstepped his authority when he filed suit to try to close the charter school.
The filing says Dann is not authorized to regulate charter schools, even though they operate as charitable trusts. Dann’s suit asked courts to close the schools arguing they failed to live up to their purposes as “charitable trusts” under Ohio law because their bad academic performance indicated they are not adequately helping students learn.
See the press release from the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools by clicking the “continued’ link:
As legal counsel for New Choices Community School, the defendant in Attorney General Marc Dann’s law suit filed on September 12, 2007, Jones Day filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings with the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas on December 26, 2007.
“Ohio law does not permit the Attorney General to close New Choices Community School, or any other public school for that matter, simply because he does not like the way the school is operated,” said Chad Readler, lead attorney in the case. “While the Attorney General is authorized to regulate certain charitable trusts, community schools are a far cry from the trusts over which the Attorney General typically and historically has exercised his powers.”
Readler also noted that Ohio law makes clear that it is the General Assembly, the Department of Education, and community school sponsors — not the Attorney General — who are responsible for community school regulation.
Additionally, New Choices is succeeding in its mission of providing an alternative educational choice to its students, many of whom have struggled in traditional school settings, as proven by its popularity with parents and students and its recent recognition by the State Superintendent of Instruction.
“No Attorney General, not in Ohio or anywhere else, has ever sought such broad authority over a state’s public school system,” observed Readler. “This unprecedented attempt by the Attorney General to interfere with public education should be rejected.”
The Ohio charter school community has rallied to the defense of New Choices. “We see this as an unwarranted attack on all of Ohio’s community charter schools,” said Bill Sims, CEO for the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Legislators have already taken steps to close chronically low-performing charter schools, making the attorney general’s actions completely unnecessary and inappropriate.”
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