We Should Be Ashamed
Our ongoing struggle to provide a quality education to our children in Ohio, continues to be derailed by mostly Republican state lawmakers and lobbyists interested more in making private profits off tax payer funds than in education.

Doug Livingston at the Beacon has done an incredibly good job of reporting on this now decades-long corporate welfare scheme hurting our children and state. He reported again today, that Republican State Rep Andrew Brenner is proposing legislation to (again) make is easier for charter school operators to be held accountable for the flim-flams.

Keep in mind these same Republicans are those who have consistently made deep cuts in state spending on education (K-16) and have regularly subjected our public schools to ridiculously rigid testing schemes & rubrics that make teaching and learning even more challenging in Ohio--consistently punishing public schools who fail to score well on rubrics largely unrelated to learning.

Brenner wants to excuse charter school operators from accountability--that is, efforts to crack down on charter school corruption by sponsors. A lobbyist for charter schools had this to say about the 'problem' Brenner was 'fixing.'

"It's overreach. I think when we are evaluating a charter school [we should] sit down and say 'you're doing good on this and this and here's where we need to make improvements, but then we put together a rubric that nobody understands...and then say we're going to shut you down if you don't pass?'"

Precious. When this lobbyist pushes the state to treat public school teachers exactly the same way, he cheers. When he is then subjected to the same process and standard, he whines about it being a measure unrelated to performance. We should be ashamed that thinking like this, hypocrisy & profiteering being re-presented as public policy, dominates in Columbus.