Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, strolled down High Street in Columbus, Ohio during the Gallery Hop on Saturday. Weingarten came to Ohio to support Hillary Clinton's campaign, which the UFT and OFT has endorsed. Weingarten appeared at rallies around the Buckeye state with Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the UFT’s sister union. Click here to see a photo slide show

Some Ohio teachers are complaining about the rising cost of a teaching license — now up to $200 — but the state Department of Education says it needs the extra money to cover the cost of more thorough background checks required by a new law.

The State Board of Education voted to raise the fees, saying the money is needed to support a more-stringent system for unearthing criminal and ethical infractions within the profession. OFT believes the fees are excessive and unfairly impact the 99.9 percent of educators who adhere to professional conduct codes.

Franklin County Children Services workers yesterday voted overwhelmingly to change their union representation to the Ohio Federation of Teachers. The vote was 369 to 7.

Are the presidential hopefuls in the March 4 primary talking about education enough? See what OFT President Sue Taylor and other Ohio educators had to say.

It seems Barack Obama was opposed to vouchers before he was open to them before he opposed them again.

COLUMBUS -- The Ohio Federation of Teachers -- an AFL-CIO union that represents public school classroom instructors in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo -- is attempting to gin up some pre-primary controversy. The union sent Illinois Sen. Barack Obama a letter demanding to know "whether or not you support using taxpayer dollars to allow students to attend private schools."

Inquiring minds in Ohio want to know: Is Obama open to vouchers, or isn't he?That's the gist of a letter the Ohio Federation of Teachers sent to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign this week after the Illinois Democrat recently told newspaper reporters in Milwaukee that he might reconsider his opposition to vouchers.

It sounds like a Zen riddle: If the State Board of Education is stripped of its power, will anyone notice? That perception - fair or not - is at the heart of Gov. Ted Strickland's plan to appoint an education czar who will report directly to him. The governor's proposal would relegate the 19-member state school board and State Superintendent Susan Tave Zelman to advisory roles.

Critics of Ohio's tax-funded school-choice programs have long argued that charter schools and tuition vouchers drain much-needed resources from traditional public schools. See OFT President Sue Taylor's response to a charter school report.

OFT President Sue Taylor challenges a report suggesting that Ohio's eight urban school districts would face a shortfall of more than $300 million if the legislature eliminated charter schools and private school vouchers.

With the gloomy news of budget cuts and state layoffs made during a press conference last week, Gov. Ted Strickland focused his second State of the State speech on new far reaching proposals that he said will add up to 80,000 jobs and improve the state's education. See what OFT President Sue Taylor had to say about the plan.

A three-year labor agreement expired this week, but Franklin County Children Services cannot begin to negotiate a new contract until workers decide which union represents them. An election is expected to take place Feb. 27, with 520 workers deciding whether to leave the Professionals Guild of Ohio and join the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

Proponents of using public tax dollars to fund private school tuition have created a cal center to promote state education vouchers. See why Ohio Federation of Teachers President Sue Taylor says the program is bad public policy.

ODE cuts to target administration and teacher development

Strickland announced this Thursday as one of many steps to save $733 million and keep the state budget in the black.

ST. MARYS — Legislation signed into law in November gives schools an additional tool to weed out teachers who have a record of sexual misconduct with students. Darold Johnson, director of legislation for the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), said there are more than 100,000 teachers in Ohio — making the number of allegations and charges small in comparison.

Only passing reference to local control and union opposition were made in opening hearings for Sen. John Carey’s (R-Wellston) legislation stripping teachers of their right to strike; those issues would dominate testimony this week, with the Senate Education Committee taking polite but pointed comments from the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT).

Bush pushes Iraq mission in address

Bush also proposed spending $300 million to help low-income children in public schools pay for the cost of either attending a private school or a public school in another district. Read why OFT and others oppose federal vouchers.

Ohio will pay nearly $6.9 million in bonuses this year to public-school teachers who have earned national board certification, which is considered the profession's highest credential. Find out why OFT opposes eliminating the program that helps raise student achievement.

MALDEN - Mitchell Chester, the state’s incoming education commissioner, is so new to Massachusetts that he’s still learning names, which can be a good thing for someone who has said he doesn’t want to come here to "manage the status quo." Chester is praised in Ohio as a consensus builder. Read why...

Even as House and Senate committees kicked off hearings yesterday on identical bills designed to toughen rules for teacher misconduct, a state teachers union expressed worry that the state is dropping a sledgehammer on all educators just to deal with a few bad ones.

Ohio's public school teachers earn as much as accountants, computer programmers, registered nurses and others in comparable occupations, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Education Week magazine.

A national report card that rates public schools and education policy gave Ohio a C-minus for academic achievement and an F for college-readiness policies. See what OFT President Sue Taylor says about the report.

The board is poised to more than double the fee teachers pay for a professional educator's license in Ohio. A board committee recommended that the annual fee be increased to $30 a year. Currently, it's $12, a rate that has been unchanged since 2000. OFT calls the increase "excessive."

Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener, graduate of Columbia High School, has earned the first Tom Mooney Memorial Scholarship. She will use the $2,000 scholarship at the American University in Washington, D.C., where she will study political science and international affairs.

The charter school movement that helped create charter schools in Ohio 10 years ago argued that they were needed to give parents an alternative to persistently failing schools. But today, as the traditional schools lift themselves out of academic crises, new charter schools continue to open, calling into question one of the prime rationales for the experiment.

We know what children bring to school. Some begin with huge vocabularies, while others have to learn basic words and numbers. But what value does the school itself add to a student's learning experience?

Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener, 18, a freshman at American University in Washington, D.C., won the Tom Mooney Memorial Scholarship, established in honor of the late president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, who was from Cincinnati.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio charter school operators were given $2.55 million in state and federal planning grants to start 33 schools that were never opened — nearly 10 percent of the 352 grants that have been issued by the state, state records showed.

Every day, thousands of Ohio teachers pour their hearts and souls into expanding young minds. Teachers also work hard to make sure schools are among the safest places a child will visit during his or her day. Read OFT President Sue Taylor's letter to the editor ...

The Senate Education Committee attached a number of amendments to a sub-bill dealing with issues involving all-day kindergarten and teacher discipline to HB190-Hite before reporting it out Tuesday.

Legislators are likely to permit tuition-based all-day kindergarten despite Attorney General Marc Dann's ruling that public schools cannot charge for classes because Ohio law requires a free education be made available to all children. OFT and the education department have long sought state funding for schools to provide all-day kindergarten for free to all students, but lawmakers have balked at the price tag.

Overlapping questions of due process and requisite student safety returned Wednesday before the House Education Committee, which is holding prospective hearings on future legislation in response to news articles on teacher misconduct. Darold Johnson, director of legislation and political action for the Ohio Federation of Teachers, led off testimony with the following assurance: "OFT does not stand by any teacher or school paraprofessional who is guilty of sexual misconduct with a student."

Nearly one out of every four public school pupils in the city was enrolled in a charter school last school year. Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said the number of children moving to charter schools is "alarming."

Ten years after Ohio created charter schools, about 300 of the privately run public schools attract nearly 77,000 students and about $540 million in state funding a year. But most of these independent public schools don’t perform as well as the local public schools they compete with, according to state report cards.

In his Oct. 4 column, Peter Bronson chastised Attorney General Marc Dann for suing to close three Dayton-area charter schools that have failed to meet the state's academic standards for several years to the tune of millions of taxpayer dollars. By failing to meet the state standards, these charter school operations failed to educate the many children who were lured there by the promise of an educational alternative that would better serve them.

Ohio's teachers and college professors face an uncertain outlook for their retirement health-care plan given that the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio is projecting it could go bust by 2025. But legislation could help re-establish a solid financial footing for the health-care plan, by making school systems and educators pay more to shore up a program battered by soaring medical costs.

Despite crucial decisions ahead and two incumbents departing, only four people are vying for three seats in this year's race for the Cincinnati school board. The last time voters had only four people to choose from to fill three spots was 1987. "That's troubling in our democracy, particularly when the board is making such important decisions," said Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

Attorney General Marc Dann moved to shut down two failing Dayton charter schools yesterday, vowing to take similar legal action against others across Ohio that fail to meet state academic and financial standards.

In less than a year in office, state Attorney General Marc Dann has busied himself policing everything from mortgage deals to Internet chat sites. Add charter schools to the list.

Dann on Wednesday sued to close two Dayton-area charters that since their inception in 2001 have produced students with terrible academic marks.

One of the biggest questions in the state budget before Gov. Ted Strickland is whether he will use a line-item veto to reject a new voucher program for students with disabilities.

A recent study by a private group gave Ohio a middle grade for teacher quality . OFT President Sue Taylor said, "I'm quite proud of the fact that Ohio is trying to find a more valid way of measuring the progress of students within a school year."

Two motions that could have eased some of the turmoil in the school district died Saturday for lack of a second by members of the Board of Education. Neither motion was seconded, prompting angry outbursts from the audience, some shouting “cowards” and “liars.”

Brookfield teachers are hoping the president of their state union on Saturday can finally persuade school directors to approve a new contract. Mrs. Taylor plans to make some noise at Saturday’s monthly school board meeting when she and other leaders show up in support of Brookfield’s faculty, she said Tuesday.

At least a dozen public charter schools in Columbus are run by private, for-profit companies. These companies don't have to tell the state how much money they make. The lack of data is one reason that Gov. Ted Strickland says he wants to outlaw for-profit education companies.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and House Republican leaders are running out of time but still hope to compromise on Strickland's plan to place a moratorium on new charter schools and yank the state's school voucher program everywhere except Cleveland, both offices said Wednesday.

OFT President Sue Taylor praises Governor for veto of plan to fund separate transportation system for charters: "Until charter schools show greater accountability, why would we throw money at a failing system."

First-term Gov. Ted Strickland announced last week that he wants to end Ohio’s private-school-voucher program aimed at students from some of the state’s most poorly performing schools and limit existing state spending on public charter schools.

Columbus - Criticized on the campaign trail for lacking vision, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland delivered a State of the State address Wednesday chock-full of dramatic policy plans and a big tax cut. He pledged to provide affordable health care for all Ohio children, freeze tuition at Ohio public colleges next year and end the state's school voucher program, except in Cleveland.

Democrats stand behind Strickland's proposal, but Republicans make the case in favor of vouchers.

COLUMBUS — When Gov. Ted Strickland announced plans to eliminate most school voucher programs and stop adding charter schools, Democrats jumped to their feet for a standing ovation. Republicans sat in stony silence.

Would also keep out for-profit companies and increase monitoring

The Governor's budget proposal includes a moratorium on new charter schools and a ban on for-profit management companies running the schools.

COLUMBUS - Gov. Ted Strickland today laid out a dramatic series of new spending proposals and budget cuts in the first State of the State speech by a Democratic governor in almost two decades. Strickland proposed eliminating the state’s school voucher program except for the Cleveland program, giving record funding increases for Ohio public universities and ending a tax break for gasoline producers to save money in a budget that will shrink state spending next year.

A former Cincinnati teacher is stepping up to represent educators across Ohio. Sue Taylor was elected to serve as President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

Ohio Federation of Teachers delegates elected Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Sue Taylor as their new president. The election was Friday at the union's annual convention in Columbus.

The president of Cincinnati's teachers' union has a new job. The Ohio Federation of Teachers has elected CFT president Sue Taylor as its new president.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers has tabbed the leader of its Cincinnati chapter to serve as leader of the state’s second-largest teachers union.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) Friday elected Sue Taylor president during their Sixty-Ninth Annual Convention that was held in Columbus.

AKRON - State Rep. Brian Williams received a ``Friend of Public Education Award'' Friday at the 69th annual Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) convention in Columbus.

The state budget Gov. Ted Strickland will propose next week will include an emphasis on early childhood education as the basis of what should be an integrated life- long learning system, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said Thursday. Mr. Fisher told delegates at the 68^th annual convention of the Ohio Federation of Teachers that education and economic development begin with healthy mothers and children.

A state panel yesterday said it believes Ohio school districts can achieve "substantial" savings by pooling employee health benefits under statewide or regional umbrellas, but it recommended that lawmakers back off their intent of making participation mandatory.

With three-quarters of Ohio's 14,000 school vouchers left unused in the program's inaugural year, lawmakers yesterday again expanded the pool of students eligible to apply. "There just hasn't been much interest in the voucher program, so I don't see how expanding the program is going to make much difference,' said Kathy Young, interim president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

COLUMBUS - Just days before he leaves office, Gov. Bob Taft plans to fill four vacancies on the state board that oversees Ohio's schools. OFT President Tom Mooney says the state's newly elected governor should have input on which board members would determine Ohio education policy for the next four years.

Ohio Core proposal would increase high school graduation standards, but exempt some at-risk students

Students in dropout recovery schools, like the Life Skills charter schools run by David Brennan's White Hat Management, would not be bound by the stricter graduation standards found in the proposed Ohio Core plan moving through the legislature. OFT President Tom Mooney says that's a bad idea.

Districts' tax wealth sets standard for pay rates

AKRON - As the state Legislature moves to bolster the requirements students need to get into college, major differences are emerging over the plan's cost and whether the state is creating a two-tiered system that labels students as college material or blue-collar bound. Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said he is bothered that the business community continues to push the plan while also asking for tax breaks that shift more of the cost of paying for schools to local property owners.

Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, a 6,700-student online charter school in Ohio, had a 100 percent attendance rate last school year, according to data required by the state education department. ECOT is not alone. Twenty of the state’s 41 online charters reported perfect attendance last year. Those unlikely reports have prompted state officials to start rethinking the way attendance is calculated at the online schools.

The attendance numbers for many Internet charter schools look good. In fact, the number with perfect scores are a little too good, prompting the Ohio Department of Education to give them a second look.

Columbus - Attendance has been so good at some of Ohio's Internet charter schools that the state is wondering if the numbers are too good to be true. The Ohio Department of Education plans to give attendance figures a second look after 20 online charter schools reported perfect attendance for the last school year.

Taxpayers are pumping half a billion dollars a year into charter schools around Ohio. How is this experiment in educational choice working? Critics like Tom Mooney said many charter schools have failed.

Even with gains, statewide charter school scores did not match those of regular public schools. Critics said that was especially true with poor and minority students, according to a data analysis by the Coalition for Public Education, a group of public school advocates that sued the state over the constitutionality of the charter school program.

COLUMBUS - The report card on charter schools statewide isn’t good, and critics said the record indicates the private-school experiment has failed.

About 30 percent of Ohio charter school students attend schools in the state's lowest academic rating. The charter school ``experiment is a dismal failure,' said Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers and a strong opponent of charter schools.

The debate over Ohio's charter schools was rekindled this week with the release of state data showing almost half of those that received grades earned only a D or an F.

Charter Schools Failing?

The Coalition says disadvantaged and African-American students enrolled in regular public schools perform better on state achievement tests than their counterparts who attend charter schools. The data refutes claims by charter school advocates that the privately operated schools provide better educational options for poor and minority students.

While charter schools posted significant improvements last school year, public school district-operated community schools are largely responsible, a coalition of education groups said Wednesday. Of the 30 charter schools that were rated excellent on the state education report card released Tuesday, 15 are district-sponsored conversion schools.

The Coalition for Public Education says disadvantaged and African-American students enrolled in regular public schools perform better on state achievement tests than their counterparts who attend charter schools. The data refutes claims by charter school advocates that the privately operated schools provide better educational options for poor and minority students.

State report cards showed another sharp drop in the number of public school districts on academic watch, and graduation rates and average test scores rose again despite tougher requirements and ever more testing. Two hundred of the state's 610 districts moved into a higher category over the previous year - 491 landing an effective or excellent rating from the Ohio Department of Education.

How long a teacher’s been teaching doesn’t matter, a new study shows — even crummy teachers can have years of experience. But whether teachers are considered to be highly qualified does matter when it comes to how kids in traditional public schools do on state exams, according to "The Determinants of Student Achievement in Ohio’s Public Schools," which was released today. OFT refutes the report, saying that experience is an important factor.

DAYTON — Ohio's charter movement continues to change rapidly, with Dayton leading the way. Statewide about 15 percent of charter schools changed sponsors after just one year of a new sponsoring law, but in Dayton, nearly a quarter of all charters changed sponsors. Those shifts have created concern that poor-performing schools could evade accountability by jumping to new sponsors and the state education department is just now putting in rules to try to prevent it.

The job market for teachers in Ohio is tough, but not entirely impossible to overcome, local and state education officials say. While other states such as North Carolina and Florida are in demand of teachers at all levels, Ohio's teaching market is much more selective due to a statewide funding crisis for public schools and because districts are cutting more than in past years.

The American Federation of Teachers, at its biennial convention here, approved a dues increase to pay for stepped-up recruitment and what the union hopes will be more-effective political programs. “We either get stronger or we get weaker in relation to other social and political forces in our society,” said Tom Mooney, the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

National charter-school advocates are digging deep to help underwrite Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign. No single issue has delivered more out-of-state $10,000 donations than school choice. Blackwell has received more than $100,000 from donors outside Ohio who favor voucher programs and taxpayer-funded private schools.

TAMPA - Florida is the next frontier for a politically powerful businessman who built Ohio's largest charter school operation and helped pass its charter school and voucher laws.

Following a political pattern in Ohio, David L. Brennan and White Hat Management have donated more than $100,000 to Florida candidates and campaigns. White Hat's Tallahassee lobbyist, who helped draft Florida's original 1996 charter school legislation as general counsel for the Department of Education, lobbied this year for new laws to benefit White Hat schools.

Do rank-and-file teachers want progressive or traditional relationship with administration?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — State school officials will give students at some of Ohio’s most troubled public schools a second opportunity to sign up for vouchers this summer after the first chance at free money for private education generated lukewarm interest.

June 8, 2006 - COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Nearly four out of 10 teachers are not considered highly qualified in the state's high-minority and high-poverty secondary schools, according to a study released Thursday. Overall, about 94 percent of Ohio's teachers meet the requirement, one of the best rates in the nation.

So far not many Ohio parents have signed up for a new state program offering them vouchers to get their children out of poorly performing public schools. School voucher critics say it shows maybe politicians wanted them more than customers.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Coalition for Public Education says a study it commissioned of Ohio's charter schools shows they aren't the public entities they claim to be.

The Coalition for Public Education says a study it commissioned of Ohio's charter schools shows they aren't the public entities they claim to be.

Governor's plan includes $20,000 signing bonus, loan forgiveness for tech and foreign language teachers.

COLUMBUS — W.G. Jurgensen, chief executive of Columbus-based Nationwide, provided a firsthand example Monday of why he has joined a new alliance to build public support for Gov. Bob Taft's plan to better prepare Ohio high school students for college and the work place.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- As it debuted in the Legislature, the fate of Gov. Bob Taft's plan to increase required coursework for high schoolers and toughen entry requirements at state universities faced an uncertain future.

Teachers have said for years that while all children can learn, the skills they begin school with vary widely. Now, they have the numbers to back up that claim.

Gov. Bob Taft announced a plan yesterday to train more teachers for his initiative to require tougher high-school courses, including a $20,000 signing bonus for new math, science and foreign-language teachers. The governor is asking legislative leaders to spend an additional $114 million during the next five years to attract and train teachers as a companion plan to his "Ohio Core" proposal.

The state’s largest teachers unions are prepared to make some peace with the enemy: charter schools. All three major unions — the Ohio Education Association, Ohio Federation of Teachers and Ohio Association of Professional School Employees — have said they are interested in gaining charter-school teachers as members.

COLUMBUS - LaTonya Robinson knows her son did well on tests at his elementary school. What she didn't know was the limits the school put on reporting his results. Federal law allows Clinton Elementary School to exclude breaking out the test scores of black children as a separate racial group - including those of her son, James - when measuring how well those children did on reading and math.

Students at three area public schools are now eligible to participate in the state's tuition voucher program because of a recent change in state law. The new private-school voucher rules mean thousands more students statewide can seek the tuition aid.

Gov. Bob Taft said he expects hearings to begin in May on legislation he’s promoting to require all high-school students to take more rigorous classes.

Akron industrialist David L. Brennan is reaping nearly $1 million in Ohioans’ tax dollars for each charter school operated by his White Hat Management Co.

Public schools and the teaching profession should welcome classroom help from experts in fields such as science and math, as well as history, literature and the arts. But recruiting such experts — whether from academia, business or other professions — on a part-time or temporary basis will do little to alleviate teacher shortages in crucial subjects or reduce staggering overall attrition rates from teaching.

In the name of reform, $1.4 billion has been re-routed to charters most of which can't get a passing grade

Nearly a decade after David Brennan set out to prove he could out-educate the educators and make money doing it, the godfather of Ohio's charter schools is now at the heart of what looks to many like a bungled experiment – of massive proportions.

Rep. Scott Oelslager (R-Canton) moved from public records to non-public schools Thursday in response to the open letter of White Hat Management to the Ohio General Assembly. The member of the House Education Committee is a co-sponsor of companion legislation that would extend the statewide cap on charter school startups until July 1, 2007 and create a Joint Study Committee on Ohio's Community Schools.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers, long a vocal critic of charter schools, issued a report last week that portrays one for-profit charter operator in the state as far more concerned about making money than improving student learning. It argues that the schools it operates are nothing more than a “chain of company stores” in violation of state law.

COLUMBUS - Students in five academically struggling Toledo schools could transfer to private or religious schools with taxpayer-funded tuition help under a bill placed on the fast track yesterday. After experiencing a lower-than-expected response to Ohio's first attempt to expand its school-voucher program, lawmakers have proposed opening the window to more than double the number of students who could apply. OFT says lawmakers are expanding a program with no evidence that it would help raise achievement.

A new report confirms that Ohio's largest operator of charter schools is setting up an education empire based on a chain of company stores that only masquerade as the type of independent nonprofit charters that state law requires. Read the full story

Change or lose out to charters, official says 

The head of one of Ohio’s largest teachers unions said yesterday that public schools must adopt "bold reforms" if they are to survive against burgeoning charter schools.

COLUMBUS - A teachers’ union official said an Akron-based company has turned its charter schools “into a chain of company stores” that invests little in staff and students “while maximizing profits.”

This is not the first time the statewide teachers union has criticized the company.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Ohio Federation of Teachers says White Hat Management, Ohio's largest charter school operator, is breaking state laws set up to govern charter schools.

Teachers claim state operation run to make profit, violates law
COLUMBUS - A state teachers' union released a lengthy report yesterday accusing the largest operator of charter schools in Ohio of violating state law and operating simply to make a profit.

A report was released by the Food and Allied Service Trades Division of the AFL-CIO in cooperation with the Ohio Federation of Teachers Tuesday which concluded that if a board of trustees of a White Hat-managed charter school decided to pick a new management company, it would have to start from scratch, including renaming the school.

The current seventh-grade class would be the first one affected by the change.

COLUMBUS (AP) -- Gov. Bob Taft's plan to require tougher math and science classes for high school students doesn't add up, some educators and researchers said.

In the state’s most significant education lawsuit since the long-running school-funding case, the Ohio Supreme Court is to hear arguments Tuesday in a dispute over the constitutionality of charter schools.

Head of state teachers' union wages new attack on charter school firm, wants tax dollars followed
COLUMBUS - A week after taking on Akron-based White Hat Management charter schools for children allegedly not taking mandated state tests, the head of a teachers' union launched another attack Thursday. Tom Mooney, Ohio Federation of Teachers president, now is asking State Auditor Betty Montgomery to take a closer look at the books for 33 White Hat charter schools.

State officials concur with allegation

The Life Skills Center of Toledo charter school near downtown, which serves dropouts and older children, is among 19 in a chain of charter schools under criticism this week by a state teacher's union for failing to administer the state-required high school graduation test.

Poor reporting has state looking at 25 facilities. 4 are Life Skills sites

COLUMBUS - The Ohio Department of Education is examining 25 publicly funded, privately run charter schools for failure to provide adequate data on mandatory state tests.

So few students are tested that it becomes hard to gauge school's effectiveness 

The low number of students taking state tests in the White Hat chain of charter schools has raised the ire of Gov. Bob Taft, who said Wednesday that the schools must test their students or should close. The controversy began with an analysis of 16 White Hat schools this week by the Ohio Federation of Teachers, which showed just 16 percent of the students attending those schools took required state tests.

Nearly one year after GOP lawmakers increased campaign contribution limits by 300 percent and placed new restrictions on the use of union dues in Ohio politics, state Issue 3 stands to wipe most of it out.

A teachers union's analysis of data provided by the state finds that 16 charter schools operated by White Hat Management failed to administer state exams to 84 percent of their students last year. Ohio Federation of Teachers President Tom Mooney called on state officials Monday to audit enrollment at those Life Skills Centers.

Low participation rates are ‘serious concern,’ official says

Akron businessman David L. Brennan gets nearly $50 million in state aid to operate a chain of taxfunded, privately operated schools that aim to help dropouts earn a high-school diploma and snag a job. But records show that most of the students attending 19 Life Skills Centers, including three in Columbus, are not taking proficiency tests required under state law.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) released this statement Monday: Ohio's biggest charter school business is paid tens of millions of tax dollars to educate high school students, but last year failed to administer mandatory state tests to 84 percent of them, an analysis by the OFT shows.

Charter operator disputes analysis saying 84% didn't take state exams

Board member Haugh sees no conflict; superintendent calls it awkward

An Akron school board member has been hired by a local charter school company that competes with the district for students -- and the tax money that follows them.

In a year already marked by several legislative victories for the school choice movement nationwide, Ohio is poised to become the state with the largest voucher program in the country by next fall.

They might sue to get funding equal to public schools

Charter school advocates are pushing anew for Ohio to direct more tax money their way, and a potential new legal battle over the schools may be brewing.

More in low-performance categories, but some raise test scores  

Charter schools might be a hot reform movement, but their test scores in Ohio remain ice cold.

Ohio is the only state where full-time faculty may bargain collectively, but not part-timers or graduate students. In 2003, 1,000 University of Cincinnati part-timers formed the Adjunct Faculty Association, an affiliate of the AFT. Now, the adjuncts must wait. Will U of C President Dr. Nancy Zimpher exercise her “permissive authority” to recognize their union, or with the Ohio legislature pass Bill 249? Or will the AFA simply remain unrecognized?

At a time when Akronites increasingly question the effectiveness of charter schools, Ohio's legislature has eliminated the government agency that has done the most to bring light to the problems with charter schooling. The agency -- the Legislative Office of Education Oversight -- has been ``zeroed-out' in the new two-year state budget that was passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Bob Taft earlier this summer.

After months of financial struggle, the Ohio Charter Schools Association has disbanded.

At a time of growing concern around the country about the academic accountability of charter schools, Ohio has mandated a new regime of testing solely for those schools that may force the shutdown of repeated low performers.

The Ohio attorney general's office is reviewing concerns raised by a state teachers' union about the legal status and operation of the Ohio Council of Community Schools - the Toledo-based operation that sponsors 39 charter schools statewide.

Charter-school advocate to be asked why his private talks with legislators don't make him lobbyist under law

Ohio's legislative inspector general will ask Akronindustrialist and charter-school operator David Brennan to provide details about his private meetings with state legislators in his high-rise condominium -- just blocks from the Statehouse.

Seven out of 10 Ohio charter schools receive academic emergency ratings.

YOUNGSTOWN — Throughout the visual environment of Eagle Heights Academy, 1833 Market St., there are signs that say, "Why are you here?"

Budget takes aim at subpar schools, expands vouchers

Three strikes, then you're out. Charter schools that can't help students improve enough on state reading and math tests in a three-year period will be shut down permanently , according to the state budget bill awaiting Gov. Bob Taft's signature. He must sign it by July 1 but has line-item veto power.

Schools at City Center had a rough rookie year, but their founder is sure they have a future

Charter schools are a growing part of the educational landscape in central Ohio. In an occasional series this school year, The Dispatch has followed the launch of the all-girls Harte School and its all-boys counterpart, Crossroads Preparatory Academy.