A study conducted by the Ohio Department of Education shows that charter schools score well below public schools in state-mandated testing results, although they receive upwards of 500 to 600 per cent more state per-pupil funding than do public schools.
      Charter schools do not provide the overall curriculum offerings as do the public schools, and most provide a very limited amount of extra-curricular opportunities, if any, when compared to public schools.
      The study, ‘The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project,’ shows the Boardman Local School District far outperforms Mahoning County’s 17 charter schools academically; but the charter schools receive at least 500 per cent more in per-pupil funding. In several comparisons, a few charter schools in Mahoning County receive more than 1000 per cent more in per-pupil funding.
      While the state of Ohio throws more and more money to charter schools, the Supreme Court in the state of Washington has declared charter schools are unconstitutional.
      In Florida, under Gov. Jeb Bush, a charter school in Miami was heralded as a beacon of educational excellence, with strong support from Mr. Bush. When he left office, the charter school closed.
      In the Houston, Texas area, charter school officials kickback thousands of dollars to local politicians and their election campaigns. The politicians, in turn, support charter schools.
      Charter School Accountability Project
      Data from the Ohio Charter school Accountability Project reveals the historic disparity in performance between local public school districts and the state’s charter schools
      Overview
      In comparing school district and charter school performance, the results mirror much of what’s been true since the state’s charter school program began---public school districts substantially outperform charters overall.
      And while, according to the preliminary data, charters overall generally outperform the state’s urban districts, in many urban districts they don’t.
      For example, Akron outperforms charters in all English Language Arts categories and seven of eight categories in math. Cincinnati outperforms charters in 16 of 21 comparable areas.
      “It is important to remember whenever one compares Ohio’s overall charter school performance with urban districts that about half of Ohio’s charter school students do not come from the state’s urban districts. Yet urban districts are more than holding their own with their charter counterparts,” the accountability project concluded.
      Statewide Results
      Ohio’s public school districts, all of whom lost students and state funding to charter schools last year, substantially outperformed the state’s charter schools on the 24 state tests last year. The tests were administered in various grades over four broad topics: English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies.
      On average, public school districts outperformed charter schools in each broad subject area by between 20 and 30 percent on average.
      The biggest difference in any subject was in Integrated Math II where the average Performance Index score in charters was barely above the 30 minimum while the average district Performance Index was 102.8, not far from the maximum score of 120.
      Charter schools did not outperform districts overall in any of the 24 tested subject areas. The closest they came was in geometry, but districts still outperformed charters by more than 19% in that category. It is important to remember when making statewide performance comparisons that about half of charter school students come from districts outside the state’s urban districts.
      And while there are high-performing charters, high-performing districts outperform even them. The Accountability Project analyzed the top 25 scores of each charter and district in each broad category, regardless of which grade level test those scores occurred. In each case, the average high district score was much higher than the average high charter school score.
      Likewise, the average of the 25 lowest-performing districts were much better than the average of the 25 lowest-performing charter schools. In fact, the disparity was so great in English Language Arts that nearly 20 percent of all charter tests in that subject area were lower than the lowest performing urban district in any category.
      Boardman Local Schools Outperform
      The 17 Charter Schools In Mahoning County
      According to the Accountability Project, the Boardman Local School District lost some $864,155 in state subsidies last year to vastly underperforming charter schools. And, that money was provided to charter schools with little or no oversight, and no public representation through elected officials such as local school boards.
      For example, the Horizon Science Academy of Youngstown, operated by the Chicago-based Concepts School, scored a D on the performance index established by the Ohio Department of Education. Boardman Local Schools lost $27,516 in state subsidies to the Horizon Academy, that gets $7,479 in state funding per student.
      By contrast, the Boardman Local School’s Performance Index is at B-plus, according to Supt. Frank Lazzeri, and the local public school system receives just $1,543 in state subsidies per-pupil funding.
      In addition, the average teacher experience in the Boardman Local Schools is 15 years, while at the Horizon Academy, teachers have an average of just two years of classroom experience.
      Concept Schools have known links to the ‘Gulen Movement.’ The Gulen movement is a transnational religious and social movement led by Turkish Islamic scholar and preacher Fethullah Gulen, who now lives in exile in Pennsylvania.
      Wikpedia describes the Gulen movement as---“Sources state that the Gulen movement is vying to be recognized as the world’s leading Muslim network, one that is more reasonable than many of its rivals.”
      Jeb Bush’s Charter School
      The New York Times said this about a charter school in Miami, founded with the strong support of Jeb Bush.
      “Now trash and fronds from the palm trees that students planted litter the grounds, and cafeteria tables are folded away in a dark doorway. Jeb Bush’s charter school is a ruin baking in the Miami sun.
      “Co-founded in 1996 by Mr. Bush with what he called in an email a ‘powerful sense of pride and joy,’ Liberty City Charter School was the first school of its kind in Florida and a pioneer in a booming industry and national movement.
      The New York Times article said Bush championed “charter schools, funded largely by taxpayers but run by private companies, as a free-market antidote to liberal teachers’ unions and low performance.”
      It would appear from the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project findings, low performance has become a hallmark of charter schools in Ohio, especially when compared to the public schools, just like Liberty City.
      By 2008 and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars later, Liberty City Charter School closed.
      In The State of Washington
      Supreme Court Said Charter Schools Illegal
      In the state of Washington, the Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 4 that the state’s voter-approved charter school law is unconstitutional, mainly because the schools are overseen by boards that are appointed rather than elected.
      In Ohio
      Sandy Theis is the executive director of ProgressOhio, which has long been critical of Ohio’s charter-school industry.
      “The worst performing charter schools own all three branches of state government,” Theis says.
      Theis says Gov. John Kasich has taken no leadership to clean up charter schools, and state lawmakers have been sitting on a charter-school reform bill.
      The Ohio Supreme Court hasn’t shown the collective wisdom of the Washington State Supreme Court and in the Buckeye state, these vastly underperforming charter schools continue to drain millions of dollars away from the public schools, with little or no accountability.
      Such a lack of oversight has put the teachers unions at public schools on notice, and in the background, that is where the battle lines have been drawn, as the unions fear their demise if public dollars keep going to largely private, charter schools, that too often operate under the misnomer, “Public charter schools.”