Ohio lawmakers: Don’t go soft on charter accountability

The last several months have seen some behind-the-scenes efforts that, if enacted, would roll back charter school accountability in Ohio by weakening sponsor evaluation, sponsor hopping limitations, and automatic closure provisions. Lawmakers should stop these anti-accountability efforts dead in their tracks. Here’s why:

1. Stronger accountability has moved the charter sector in the right direction…

For many years, Ohio had a nationally-recognized charter school sector—but for all the wrong reasons. To give just a few examples of this troubled past: In fall 2014, more than a dozen startup charters failed spectacularly in a single year. Worrying stories circulated about questionable practices, including claims that charter operators were hiding financial information and allegations of sweetheart facility leasing deals. Then, there was the ECOT meltdown, which made shocking headlines and left thousands of students scrambling midyear to find another school. As for academic outcomes, the results were just not good enough.

Under the leadership of former Governor Kasich, Ohio began a much-needed cleanup by passing a landmark charter reform law in 2015. The legislation strengthened the evaluation system of charter sponsors (a.k.a. authorizers), the entities that oversee and hold schools accountable (of which Fordham is one). The basic premise: Increased pressure on sponsors would incentivize them to shut down underperforming charters and push for improvements in schools that remain open. The bill also put much-needed guardrails around “sponsor hopping”—when low-performing schools on the brink of being forced to close by their sponsor seek a “friendlier” sponsor. And it added much-needed transparency requirements for both sponsors and management companies.

These measures had an almost immediate impact on the sector. Between 2015 and 2022, more than 100 underperforming charters shuttered their doors and dozens of low-capacity sponsors decided to close shop rather than face more stringent oversight. A rigorous study by Ohio State University’s Stéphane Lavertu found that students benefitted from the reforms: Charter performance—as measured by pupil learning gains in math and reading—ticked upward in the wake of these reforms. Some of that progress slowed during the pandemic-era, when accountability writ large was put on pause, but there is evidence from the most recent report card that sector performance is on the upswing again. 

2. …But charters still have significant room for improvement

Ohio’s turn toward heightened accountability has stabilized the sector and put it on firmer footing. It’s also helped build policymaker confidence to support path-breaking funding initiatives, including the recent addition of extra dollars for high-performing charters, increased facility aid, and a new equity supplement for all brick-and-mortar charters. These efforts have narrowed longstanding charter funding gaps, and have given schools more resources to expand and serve more students.

This is good news for charters—and the students they educate. But the “mission accomplished” banner shouldn’t be unfurled just yet. Consider a few data points from last year’s report cards (2023–24):

• Twenty-eight charters received abysmal one-star Achievement and one- or two-star Progress ratings. These are extremely low-performing schools, where students are far behind and the school is simply failing to help them catch-up. Together, these underperforming schools enrolled roughly 11,500 students, or nearly one in ten charter students statewide.

• In fifty-six charter schools, more than 60 percent of students scored “limited,” the rock-bottom achievement mark on state exams. These rates far outpace the fraction of students statewide who score limited (24 percent).

• In terms of proficiency, one-third of students attending urban charter schools achieve “proficient” or above on state tests. While slightly exceeding the rate in comparable urban districts, student proficiency in charters still falls well below the statewide number (58 percent).    

No one—and I mean no one—should be satisfied when a majority of charter students still struggle to achieve proficiency. Yes, progress is being made. But the work isn’t finished.

3. Weakening key accountability policies would be a major setback for Ohio charters

Ohio has three key policy tools that help maintain quality control in the charter sector. Together, the trio form a credible threat of closure when charters underperform, helping to drive urgency and action to improve. They also ensure that chronic poor-performers do actually close. Not unexpectedly, some charter groups push back hard against these policies. Let’s take a look at each more closely, and why softening them would be a setback.

• Sponsor evaluations. One of the three elements of this system rates sponsors based on the academic performance of their schools.[1] This component is critical, as it puts healthy pressure on sponsors to authorize quality schools—and close underperforming ones—or face consequences of their own. The academic element has repeatedly come under fire, but state policymakers cannot leave sponsors unaccountable for the learning that happens in the schools they authorize. Ohio has been down that road before, and the sector quickly became riddled with low-performing schools. No one wants that again.

• Sponsor hopping. In Ohio’s multi-sponsor system, low-performing schools could “hop” from a stricter sponsor to a more lenient one to avoid accountability. Recognizing the loophole, lawmakers put in place guardrails to deter the practice—most notably, low-performing schools must now receive state approval to change sponsors. State oversight of this process must remain intact to ensure that schools aren’t allowed to limp along, just with a new sponsor.

• Automatic closure. In the hopefully rare event that a sponsor does not close an underperforming school, statute requires automatic closure when schools fail to meet extremely low performance criteria. Over the years, this law has forced the closure of just a handful of charters, but it remains a necessary fail-safe mechanism when sponsors are asleep at the switch. Several attempts have been made to neuter the closure provisions so that they become less and less likely to identify a school for closure. A current Senate bill, while commendable in other ways, would weaken the automatic closure law. Like the other policies discussed above, defanging automatic closure is just another way to let poor-performing schools off the hook.

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Responding to years of ridicule and mediocrity, Ohio policymakers rightly committed to stricter charter accountability in 2015. The move has led to significant improvements in charter performance over the past decade and has helped rebuild confidence that the sector is working toward the best interest of students. But all is not yet perfect—there are still too many ineffective charters, and as a recent story of an ugly Cincinnati school closure reminds us, the sector isn’t immune to failure. State leaders need to keep insisting on a responsible and accountable charter sector. That’s the path toward healthy charter schools that give students what they need to succeed in life.