Center for Christian Virtue is the new White Hat Management, just as Jesus intended

Unlike the notorious Charter School operator, though, CCV's operation is far, far less transparent.

The Center for Christian Virtue is making quite a play in Ohio’s education policy landscape. They are using a multimillion dollar Capital Square office to run the lobbying effort to continue the state’s unconstitutional private school tuition subsidies. They also are running a so-called $3.2 million Scholarship Granting Organization, which is really just a fancy way of funneling millions more of our tax dollars into unaccountable private schools.

And, potentially most harmful of all, they’re running an operation they call “school planting” where they use the unconstitutional private school tuition subsidy to kick-start “schools” inside of churches across Ohio.

They are now claiming to have done this with 15 “schools” so far, publicly naming four new ones that opened this school year and another 4 next school year. Here’s how they brag about it in their news release about this initiative:

“Through our innovative school-in-a-church model, God is expanding access to Christian education for families in every corner of the state. By leveraging existing church facilities, we help keep costs low, making it possible for more families to afford a high-quality, Christ-centered education.

Let’s set aside the fact that having schools pop up in churches is an ancient practice and not in any way “innovative” (having American taxpayers subsidize these things is “innovative”, though).

Anyway, here’s the thing: a total of 25 kids in only 1 of these schools — Westside Preparatory, which is the shining example displayed on CCV’s education website — has ever been tested for proficiency in reading and math, with only 9 ever being deemed “proficient” in both¹.

This performance reflects these kids’ scores on tests the schools gets to pick from scores of options allowed by the state.

Public schools, in contrast, do not get to pick their kids’ tests.

All taxpayers had to do for 9 private school kids to test proficient on tests the school picked was to unconstitutionally subsidize these schools by about $2 million.²

But at least the schools’ scores are 51 percentage points worse last year than the previous year in Math. Not an awesome trend, by the way.

Quite a return, wouldn’t you say? I mean, considering that none of these kids ever attended a public school. I am deducing this because in the schools’ first year of existence, only kindergarteners and first graders are included in their enrollment counts.

And that’s it. That’s all we know about the quality of these 15 “schools.” Hence my quotation marks around the word “school”.

Because what these “schools” really seem to be are money makers for CCV so it can finance the elimination of public education.

This is why I call them the new White Hat.

For those who aren’t familiar with White Hat, it was the company run by David Brennan that made millions running Charter Schools in Ohio and simply flipped a small percentage of those profits into Republican campaign war chests with the goal of de-funding public schools and the teachers unions that backed Democrats.

CCV is running the same White Hat playbook — set up a bunch of bullshit shell corporations, siphon millions of public dollars from Ohio’s 1.5 million public school students, use a small percentage of that money to lobby Ohio legislators and governors (who are notoriously cheap to buy) who allow CCV to continue stealing that money from kids, then watch public school kids suffer from it all.

All in the name of Jesus — they call this a ministry even!

Because robbing money from poor kids in Columbus, Athens, Steubenville and Findlay is exactly what Christ would have done.

What CCV is doing to Ohio’s public school kids is blasphemy. Pure and simple.

But get this: Because CCV’s operation involves advocating for the state to shovel money to private schools, we have no idea how much of that largesse CCV is accumulating. We do know that CCV staff is making bank — again, just as Jesus intended.

According to their 2024 990 form (the latest publicly available), here’s how much their staff is making:

If the name Robert Kilo sounds familiar, it’s because he was one of the strongest proponents for the Breakthrough Charter School group in Cleveland about 15 years ago when those schools were advocating for differentiated Charter School funding based on quality rather than enrollment. Breakthrough has had issues since then. Specifically, its founder John Zitzner was picked up for human trafficking in 2023 and their number of schools has contracted rather than expanded over the years.

However, in the interest of transparency, I worked with Kilo on a lot of stuff around House Bill 2 in 2013 and other initiatives during my time at Innovation Ohio. He was a good-faith actor at the time and I actually supported his independent run for Cleveland City Council in 2017. I knew he was quite religious. But he never really played it up in my interactions with him.

What he’s doing working for the organization whose goal is to destroy even the Charter Schools for whom Kilo so effectively advocated is a question only he can answer. He must know that the money CCV is advocating be transferred to private schools comes out of the same pot as money for Breakthrough Schools³.

Kilo hated White Hat in 2013. Now he’s joined its offspring.

Onward.

Remember that Scholarship Granting Organization CCV started?

While they had $3.2 million to give students to attend Christian schools in 2024, they only gave out $1.2 million — a $1.6 million drop from 2023. What changed?

Universal vouchers started in 2023.

Yet another piece of evidence demonstrating how the unconstitutional, taxpayer funded private school tuition subsidy program has dramatically reduced the need for more traditional scholarship programs at Ohio’s private schools.

Instead of those who use the private school system paying for it, CCV thinks we all should pay for it.

Just like how taxpayers are now funding every student at CCV’s “school plants” — at amounts that are more than what the state provides to kids in nearly 1/2 of Ohio public school districts. These “school plants” are designed, in CCV’s own words, as “leveraging existing facilities to keep startup and operating costs as low as possible.”

So if these are meant to be low-cost operations, why is the state paying them more per pupil than upwards of 280 Ohio public school districts⁴?

Because the state values those 9 students who tested proficient in both reading and math on school-selected tests at CCV-run schools about 5 times as much as the 5,357 Upper Arlington students (out of 6,397) who tested proficient or better on state-designated tests. UA kids only get $1,151 in state money.

Here’s what’s really caught my eye, though. It appears that CCV’s education policy offshoot — the Ohio Christian Education Network — is running something like a Charter Management Organization — a Charter School Operator in Ohio’s parlance.

Charter School operators in Ohio can be non-profit or for-profit entities that essentially run the school — they recruit and hire staff, run the backroom operation, buy the curriculum, etc. All those contracts are public and all the schools are audited.

If CCV were running a Charter School, for example, we’d know how much that school is paying OCEN for consulting, advocacy and curriculum help. However, in the voucher program, we have no idea. All we have are clues from OCEN’s website, like this one, which essentially describes what a Charter School operator does:

“OCEN provides guidance and advice through the entire process, from start to finish, at no cost to your school. Our team has the expertise to help you navigate the legal and bureaucratic landscape, develop school operations, build a faculty, and market it. We want to help you establish a locally run school that is unique to the needs of your community. Simply complete the information form at the bottom of the page for a no-obligation consultation on the process of starting a Christian school.”

I’d like to see the contract these schools sign with OCEN⁵ (I would agree that assuming there is a contract is a big assumption). Because that statement seems awfully lawyered to me. Especially the “at no cost to your school” bit.

While they may not be directly charging the schools they start up, what do you want to bet that under their contract with the school, they’re getting a cut of that school’s voucher money once they do start up?

This is exactly what White Hat would have done — claim they were riding in wearing a White Hat (it’s in the name!) to save a school, only to gobble up more than 90 percent of the state revenue a school received.

While the public was able to get those operator contracts with Charter Schools, Ohio’s unconstitutional private school tuition subsidy program has never been audited and we certainly can’t see any contract a private school signs with anyone (unless it’s with a public entity).

So what’s really going on with CCV’s “school planting” program?

I don’t know.

But I should.

We all should.

Because we’re all paying for it.

1. One year, 9 tested proficient in reading and 14 in math. The next year, 14 tested proficient in reading and 9 in math. So I’m assuming the same 9 kids tested proficient in both. But that’s a generous assumption, I’ll admit.

2. There’s more, if you include all of CCV’s schools, but I’m just talking about the ones that have been around longer than 1 year.

3. And it all comes out of the funding meant for the 85 percent of students who don’t attend charters or private schools.

4. Depending on which of the two schools, which voucher program and which year, the range went from $5,470 per pupil to $6,166. That $6,166 per pupil amount is more than 280 school districts get from the state and the $5,470 is more than 243 districts.

5. They have no separate 990s publicly available.