RAVITCH: Why Does Ohio Give More Money to Lowest-Performing Charters?

[yurbud]

This is what the corporate-backed education reform movement is really all about: funneling taxpayer dollars to companies who made the right campaign donations.

Do we really want K-12 education to be as corrupt as defense and intel contracting?

Pretty soon regular public schools will be told there's no money for chalk, but the for-profit charters will be using million dollar per piece, radar guided chalk, and we'll be paying for it.

Supporting links in original.

Innovation Ohio, which keeps a close watch on the education budget and policy issues, reports that the state increased the budgets for charter schools operated by men who are generous donors to Republican elected officials.

The point:

"Republican mega-donors David Brennan (White Hat Management) and William Lager (ECOT) saw major increases in their funding. Meanwhile, Charter Schools that actually do a far better job educating children received far less additional revenue.

"To give you an idea of just how much better Brennan and Lager's schools do, take a look at this statistic: Brennan and Lager run 33 of the state's 369 Charter Schools, or 9 percent. Yet according to the Ohio Senate's Charter Schoolsimulations, Brennan and Lager's schools will receive $8.6 million additional over last school year. That represents 38 percent of all the increases to the rest of the 336 Charter Schools. So 38 percent of the increase to Charters went to 9 percent of the schools."

This is called rewarding political friends, not rewarding excellence.

http://wp.me/p2odLa-57F

[Doctor_J]

1. I would think that RICO laws may apply to this sort of corruption

I'd love to see Holder dig into this.

[yurbud]

2. that would lead to the Justice Department investigating the Education Department

but it's a nice thought.