Received this e-mail today from former Rep. Betty Sutton’s (D. OH) gubernatorial campaign:
Betty Sutton (D. OH)
Far too many of Ohio’s charter schools, often run by for-profit companies, have been failing our families and our children for far too long. The culture of corruption and pay-to-play created by politicians in Columbus is hurting our students while benefiting only the most well-connected.
The lack of oversight has led to increasingly failing and unaccountable charter schools — and the worst ones have been allowed to run rampant. They consistently misspend and mishandle tax money while producing worse and worse results.
For instance, the Electronic Classroom ofTomorrow(ECOT) has been fighting an order to return $60 million in taxpayer money for inflating the number of their full-time students. ECOT’s challenges to this and similar orders in the courts means more misspent tax dollars which should be going to educate our children. A sham school like ECOT is a clear waste of taxpayer dollars and needs to be shut down.
I’ve been speaking about the problems plaguing the Ohio charter school crisis for over 20 years — and under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, we can only expect things to get worse. Just last week, it was revealed that the Trump administration’s education plan would spend $400 million to expand charter schools and vouchers for private schools while slashing public education funding by over $10 billion.
We need to fight to support public schools, and reign in failing charter schools with appropriate oversight. I’m not new to this game, having stood up to lobbyists and special interests in the Statehouse and Congress, and it is time for Ohio to have a governor with a backbone who will do the same.
