Ohio officials have declined $22 million out of $71 million in federal charter school expansion grants, saying they don’t think enough potential schools will meet the high-performance ratings needed to qualify.
The grant money is for new schools opened by sponsors receiving ratings of “effective” or “exemplary.” Ohio officials say only five of 65 sponsors achieved effective ratings, and none was rated exemplary last fall.
David Hansen, Ohio’s former charter schools chief, resigned in 2015 after acknowledging he omitted data of poor-performing online charter schools in evaluations of their sponsors.
