Among the measures proposed are annual rankings of sponsors and charter school operators, background checks for governing board members, stricter conflicts of interest rules, and limits on compensation for board members.
“Being one of the first states in the country to create charter schools, we had little experience to go on, and many of our laws reflect that inexperience,” said Lehner, chair of the Senate education department. “Out of a desire to provide as much room as possible for innovation and experimentation, we failed to put up the sort of guardrails that would assure responsible governance, and a transparent and accountable system.”
The legislation still faces committee hearings, votes and eventual reconciliation with similar measures put forward by the House and governor. Lehner said a bipartisan team is expected soon to introduce companion legislation in the House. The Senate bill is the product of a panel that met over nine months and includes both political parties, state officials and experts from the charter school industry and public schools.
Lehner cited a recent national study that found Ohio charter students make less progress than kids in traditional public schools, while the opposite is true in cities such as Boston, Newark and Memphis.
“We aim to revise our laws to assure that provisions are in place that allow Ohio charter schools to be the best in the nation,” Lehner said.
This can be accomplished, she said, by providing incentives for charters to raise their academic standards and assuring that low-performing and poorly run schools are closed.
Democratic leaders said they’d like to see charter schools forced to follow the same laws as traditional public schools.
“I don’t think (this legislation) goes as far as we want it to go … but I think this definitely makes a step forward in improving education for students in the state of Ohio,” Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni said. “I think we’re finally getting to the point you can’t turn a blind eye anymore to what’s happening in these charter schools.”
Chad Aldis, Ohio policy director for the charter school think-tank and sponsor Fordham Institute, lauded parts of the bill that increase oversight of charter sponsors and transparency of the companies that run the schools.
“This bill will absolutely make a difference in the charter school sector as a whole,” he said.
The Ohio School Boards Association, a traditional public school group that is sometimes at odds with charter schools, applauded the new Senate bill. Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for OSBA, said stronger attendance policies for charters and data reporting requirements for school operators (not just sponsors), are key accountability and transparency improvements.
Asbury said Lehner is smartly putting more emphasis “on looking at actual student performance in addition to the performance of the school sponsor and operator. That’s the bottom line — is it working for the students?”
Ron Adler, president of the charter advocacy group the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education, said he is concerned about the volume of proposed change.
“There are so many mandates and new burdens placed on schools, new reporting requirements,” Adler said. “It’s a difficult job to run a school, whether charter or district. And when you pile on pages and pages and pages of mandates, it just puts that many more obstacles in the way.”
The legislation gives the Ohio Department of Education new powers and mandates to oversee every level of charter school governance. Here are some of the ways that would work:
Sponsors
Nonprofit entities — ranging from universities to daycare centers — are essentially deputized by ODE to open and close charter schools. They monitor compliance with state law, provide administrative assistance and are paid up to 3 percent of each school’s state funding. SB 148 would:
- Adopt Kasich's proposals that ODE annually rate sponsors. Sponsors rated "poor" could be shut down and those rated "ineffective" could not open new schools.
- Make it easier for a sponsor to shut down a school, and prevent a school from simply going to a new sponsor afterwards.
- Prohibit sponsors from selling services to schools they also oversee.
Governing boards
Charter school boards are appointed, often by the person starting the school, who may later enter into a contract to run the school. They are the ultimate legal authority at the school. SB 148 would:
- Require a criminal background check of board members and disqualify them if they owe the state money as the result of an audit or if they engaged in an act that would lose a teacher his or her license.
- Lower maximum compensation for board members from $425 per meeting to $125 per meeting — in line with school districts.
- Concur with the House that governing board members must disclose conflicts of interest with the school sponsor, authorizer or vendor.
Fiscal officers
For those managing the school’s books, the bill would:
- Require the fiscal officer to report to the governing board, instead of the sponsor or operator.
- Force the fiscal officer to be bonded, to get the public's money back if a school closes.
Operators
These can be for-profit or nonprofit. They hire and fire teachers and actually run the school, often under a contract with the school board that guarantees them nearly all of the state funding. The bill would:
- Toughen a House proposal to rate operators similarly to how sponsors are being rated.
- Require operators getting more than 20 percent of a school's revenue to provide a detailed accounting of the nature and costs of goods and services they provide.
- Force online schools to keep track of student learning hours and confer with parents if a student's performance declines while enrolled.
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