Ohio Republican Lt. Gov. candidate wants failing Charter Schools to be exempt from Ethics Laws
Ohio Senate President Rob McColley makes curious Election Year decision. Along with Ohio Speaker Matt Huffman.
I never served with Rob McColley. So I don’t know the man. But judging from his recent efforts to make failing Ohio Charter Schools exempt from state Ethics Law, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s ever had to run in a competitive political race.
I’d been hearing rumors about Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman pressuring the Ohio Ethics Commission to exempt Ohio Charter Schools from scrutiny. But when Laura Hancock of cleveland.com called and asked me my thoughts on Huffman and McColley teaming up, my first thought was what she quoted here:
“It’s awfully interesting that the lieutenant governor candidate is trying to make sure that a $1.6 billion program can remain in the dark from Ohio taxpayers. During an election year, that’s certainly a choice.”
In order to understand what happened here, you need to understand how Charter Schools work in Ohio. Their operational structure is unique in the country.
Every Ohio Charter School has a governing board — a group of folks that oversee an individual school. Kind of like a local school board. They also have a so-called sponsor, which is typically a non-profit organization that serves as the school’s gateway to the Ohio Department of Education.1 They also can have operators that run nearly every aspect of the school. Operators can be for-profit companies, which has caused numerous problems for Charter Schools over the years. It’s these for-profit operators that spent much of the last 30 years lining the campaign coffers of Ohio Republicans specifically to limit oversight of their operations.
All Ohio Charters have governing boards and sponsors. Not every Charter School has an operator, though more than 3 in 4 Ohio Charter Schools do. And of those 264 Ohio Charter Schools who do have operators, all but 10 are for-profit entities2.
So the rule that the Ohio Ethics Commission sought to make was to require anyone who sits on a Charter School governing board to file financial disclosures, like nearly every public official has to do. These forms disclose where they make their money, who took them out to lunch (over a certain amount) and, most importantly, who they have a relationship with that may involve the school.
For example, if the CEO of a textbook company or gradebook software company is on the governing board of a Charter School — or multiple ones because Ohio law permits that — and that school or those schools only use that company’s textbook or gradebook software, that may be something the public should know about, right?
Not according to Rob McColley. Because Rob wants to keep that all secret.
What could possibly go wrong?
I mean let’s just look at the board of the Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA), which is Ohio’s largest Charter School boasting more than 14,600 students, or about 1,000 more than the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (the infamous ECOT) ever claimed when the New York Times found that ECOT failed to graduate more students than any high school in the country.
For the record, Ohio Virtual Academy has 2 out of 5 stars on the state report card, which is a worse rating than all but 13 out of Ohio’s 607 school districts. That’s a worse rating than Cleveland, Cincinnati, Canton and even Youngstown — the lone remaining Academic Distress Commission district that the state said performed so poorly that the state had to take it over!
Its rating is better than 0, that’s zero, Ohio Public School Districts — nearly all of whom lose at least a student or two to OHVA.
Yet the state provides $9,079 per pupil for this online Charter School. That’s more state aid than the state provides to students in 442 of Ohio’s 607 school districts. Those 442 districts account for just about 80 percent of all Ohio public school students.
Bottom line: Ohio gives OHVA more money than it grants 80 percent of Ohio’s pubic school students. All to fund a school that outperforms zero Ohio public school districts and has a worse performance rating than the only district still under state control for poor performance.
Might be a good idea to find out if the people running OHVA are really concerned about the education of their students or if they’re just benefitting from the school’s extraordinary state largesse, don’t you think?
Because it’s all about the kids, not the insane profits a virtual school (no buildings, buses, etc.) can make when it gets paid more taxpayer money per pupil than 80 percent of Ohio’s public school students, right?
I’m not saying these people below are doing anything corrupt. I am saying they should be required to disclose their financial interests as they oversee the $134 million Ohio taxpayers are sending them this year.
Stephen Vasquez, OHVA Board President
Mr. Vasquez, according to his LinkedIn profile, is “Creator of the Business Technology Blueprint & PlatformIQ … and helps mid-market executives gain strategic control over technology investments.” Wouldn’t it be a good idea to find out if the President of the OHVA Board is selling his business tech to the virtual school he’s overseeing?
Susan Lippens, OHVA Board VP
According to her LinkedIn, Ms. Lippens is the Campus President of the Professional Skills Institute — a private, for-profit trade school with 3 stars on Google reviews. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if students are being steered toward PSI upon graduation, or how many OHVA students are also being trained at PSI?
Adam Davenport, OHVA Secretary
Mr. Davenport is the President of Gorillas and Gazelles, LLC — a firm that analyzes business practices. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if OHVA uses them in some capacity?
Jacob Moeller, OHVA Treasurer
Mr. Moeller is a CPA with the same CPA firm that another OHVA board member, Kelly Arndt worked for. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if OHVA uses that firm to do its financial accounting?
I could go on.
There are 6 other board members. And this is just a very cursory check — Google and LinkedIn searches. But yeah. There are some questions that need answered, especially at a school that is virtual, yet gets paid nearly double what the average Ohio public school student receives and more than what 80 percent of Ohio public school students receive. All for a school that doesn’t rate better on the state report card than any Ohio Public School District.
(Did I mention that OHVA diplomas famously were not accepted by the NCAA from the school’s inception in 2002 until last year?)
Rob McColley, in a race that’s currently very close, decided to publicly attack the Ohio Ethics Commission for daring to suggest these board members have to file financial disclosure forms.
In an election year that will be defined by affordability and corruption issues.
I guess that’s a play.
Not a smart play.
But it’s a play.
I refuse to call the Department by its new name out of principle.
Ohio Charter School Operators used to hide their for-profit status in their names. Now, it’s just all out in the open. Of the 88 Ohio Charter School operators, 59 have LLC, Inc. or Corp. in their name. Those operators run 175 of Ohio’s 347 Charter Schools.