Ron Packard: The New David Brennan

Not many people paid much attention to the passing of the torch, but when Ron Packard -- the infamous former owner of the oft-maligned K12, Inc. (whose diplomas aren't accepted by the NCAA) -- started buying up David Brennan's former White Hat Management empire in 2015, it didn't mark the end of an era.

It marked its continuation. (Except for the massive political contributions -- for now.)

A little background. Packard founded K12, Inc. and was paid millions to run the only school operation ever sold on the New York Stock Exchange -- a notoriously poor-performing online charter school operation that at the time of his departure was the nation's largest. Now he runs the Accel Schools chain in Ohio, which according to the latest data from the Ohio Department of Education operates 37 Ohio charter schools.

Tellingly, Accel started barely a handful of these schools. Nearly all were snatched up from mostly White Hat Management, including OHDELA -- long the cash cow of the White Hat operation, along with the dropout recovery Life Skills operation. And while Packard portrays himself as a turnaround guy, what he really seems to be is the education sector's Gordon Gecko -- an education corporate raider.

Accel recently took another page out of White Hat (which has dissolved into several small operations that run one or two Life Skills schools) and started splitting off some of its schools. Instead of operating all 37 under the single Accel Schools umbrella, now Accel schools in Akron, Canton, Columbus and Cleveland are run by splinter Accel Schools operators. 

Why would Packard do this?

Perhaps to boost the academic rating of the Accel Schools umbrella brand? 

See, prior to the splintering, Accel rated a D as a charter school operator, according to the state. This year, with those schools now run by "different" operators, the ones remaining under the umbrella Accel Schools operation got a C.

That's a higher grade than the D received each of the last three years by the revered Breakthrough Schools in Cleveland (a result I will examine more closely in a future post).

But see, here's the thing. In a recent story about how Ohio Charter Schools want a 22% raise from the state, Packard is quoted as saying, 

"Brick and mortar schools are a very low margin business."

This is what happens when you say you want to run schools like a business. You get guys talking about profit margins in education like they're restaurants or something.

But aside from that, this quote is straight Brennan. Remember K12, Inc.? The nation's largest online charter school operator that Packard founded and ran for many years?

Guess which state propped up his national operation? If you said, "Ohio", you'd be half right. Between Ohio and Pennsylvania's generosity with their taxpayers' money, Packard consistently reported to the SEC that about 1/4 of his company's total revenue came from those two states.

As he reported in his annual 10-K from 2012 (and other years around that time):

"In fiscal year 2012, we derived approximately 12% and 13% of our revenues, respectively, from the Ohio Virtual Academy and the Agora Cyber Charter School in Pennsylvania. In aggregate, these schools accounted for approximately 25% of our total revenues. If our contracts with either of these virtual public schools are terminated, the charters to operate either of these schools are not renewed or are revoked, enrollments decline substantially, funding is reduced, or more restrictive legislation is enacted, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected."

He knows that in Ohio, there is a TON of profit to be made in the online charter school sector. In fact, there's enough for Ohio taxpayers to essentially subsidize an entire national operation.

Which is why he felt the need to qualify his "low margin business" quote to the PD to just the brick and mortar sector. And why he probably leaped at the chance to grab OHDELA from Brennan's fire sale.

But see, here's the problem. Brick and Mortar schools are not a very low margin business. We are told, even by charter school proponents, that they are a "non-profit" business. In fact, all charters are considered "non-profit" by the state.

Except the schools can hire sharks like Packard to run their operations. And Packard is allowed to make a profit. This profiteering hasn't led to billion dollar scandals or anything, has it?

Wait. Perhaps it has. 

Which is why Packard's growth and increased voice in Ohio should worry Ohio taxpayers who have been burned by 20 years of charter school profiteering.

This is why I'm so encouraged by House Speaker Larry Householder saying a few weeks ago that "those management entities, I believe should be nonprofit."

Not low profit margins. No profit margins.

Amen, brother. Amen.

How Contracts Trump Good Public Policy

Yesterday, I wrote about the recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling that found that White Hat Management can profit from failing kids. While I spent most of my post talking about the campaign contributions Brennan and his family have given to the Justices that ruled for him, I wanted to discuss a little bit about the legal reasoning the court gave for its ruling.

Ultimately, this case was about a business' right to contract its way around good public policy. And that interpretation of contract law has its roots in the 1990s and early 2000s fight over tort reform. Ohio was one of the ground zero states for business interests' attempts to put Justices in place who were pro-business. Ohio Supreme Court candidates have to spend upwards of $1 million to win their seat.

I wrote stories for the Beacon Journal in the 2002-2004 era about Ohio's place as the number one state for negative campaign spending for Supreme Court races. Nobody paid more for negative ads against Supreme Court candidates than was spent in Ohio.

Ultimately, the beneficiaries of these efforts were current Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, Justice Judith Lanzinger (who wrote the pro-Brennan ruling), Justice Terrence O'Donnell (who recused himself from the White Hat case after taking $15,000 from Brennan and his family), and lately Justices Judith French and Sharon Kennedy. These are the Justices who found that Brennan could profit from the stuff he bought while running schools with public money, even if his mismanagement (White Hat is easily the worst performing big charter school operator in Ohio) caused the school's closure.

And why is that? Because they have a contract.

One of the big things tort reformers wanted was to have contract provisions override other consumer rights. Whether it's through arbitration clauses or other things, businesses want contracts they draft upheld by courts so the business can control the outcome. It's just good business.

But one of the very real consequences of the fealty to contract is the development of potentially really horrible public policy.

Like the White Hat ruling. I'm encouraged that pro-business reformers like the Fordham Institute are now calling for legislative changes to fix this ruling. I'm skeptical that the body whose political ties to Brennan and other for-profit charter school operators run even deeper than the Ohio Supreme Court will do that.

But I hope they do heed Fordham's call.

Back to the ruling.

While a majority of Justices found for White Hat -- saying they owned the property they purchased while running the school -- a lower court found against White Hat, saying instead that public funds used to procure equipment for charter schools are the school's property. So it's not like contract law makes it impossible for a competent judge to rule for the public over White Hat.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Nearly all first-year law students take Torts and Contracts. In Contracts class, you learn how difficult it is to get a contract voided. And for good reason. Caveat Emptor, right? We want contracts to be enforceable, otherwise what's the point?

But there are contracts that get voided for good reasons. I would argue that letting failing charter school operators profit from the equipment they purchased, using public dollars, for the school they ran into the ground is just such a reason.

It would prevent the bad operator from making money off their failure.

But the Justices thought the fact the board signed the contract means Tough Luck.

Never mind that in many cases, these boards were actually hand picked by White Hat. Or that Ohio operators historically have been able to essentially fire truculent board members. Or that the White Hat contract is not negotiated -- White Hat gives the board the contract on a take it or leave it basis.

In fact, the White Hat contract was not an agreement between two parties; it was a document drafted by a company and agreed to by a company-approved panel. However, when that panel turned on the operator, as they did in this case, the operator can now hold the rebellious board hostage by saying, "Sure, you can drop us. But only if you buy back all the equipment we bought for you using public money, or buy new desks, chairs, books, computers, etc."

Yet none of this matters to the Justices. What matters is whether the board signed it.

This is a pure textual argument that illustrates the peril of judges ignoring the context of their decisions. It leads to simplistic legal analysis and blinded public policy.

There is no doubt that textual arguments are sound legal arguments. However, textual arguments in a vacuum can lead to poor outcomes. And, I fear, that's what happened here.

One more thing.

I know many talk about focusing on kids rather than adults when it comes to education policy. I'm struggling to see how allowing White Hat to profit from failing those kids helps kids succeed. Instead, it seems that it will discourage charter schools from firing their failing operators because it would cost them money they don't have to retain their publicly funded equipment. So, in fact, this ruling will most likely have a potentially profound negative impact on kids. But the adults running bad charter school operations? They'll do just fine.

Plain Dealer Shows Faith in Authorizers Misplaced, and David Brennan's Power

An absolutely amazing story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer came out yesterday the demonstrated emphatically why all this charter reform talk focusing on sponsors (authorizers in every other state) is so flawed.

In it, the PD explained that the worst-performing general education schools in the state -- E-Schools -- are not being counted by the state when they calculate the performance of sponsors. SO, for example, even though the Ohio Council of Community Schools sponsors two of the worst-performing schools in the state -- the Ohio Virtual Academy and David Brennan's OHDELA, the astounding number of Fs those schools get on the state report doesn't count for OCCS's rating. So the state says they're academically perfect, even though OCCS gets $1.5 million in taxpayer money to oversee these schools.

The other schools not counted? Dropout Recovery schools. So the schools David Brennan earns his money on aren't counted on sponsor ratings? So that means that no sponsor should fear oversight of a horrible White Hat school, especially now that they'll only be online schools or dropout recovery schools, because they won't count.

Amazing what $4 million will buy you these days, isn't it?

I've said from the beginning that one of the biggest flaws in the current charter reform effort is the almost singular focus on sponsors, whose effectiveness in this state has been feckless, rather than the schools themselves. I would much rather figure out how to close the schools in which children are being "educated", not the sponsors, who don't actually have the kids.

This amazing PD story demonstrates the point clearly to me.

White Hat Sale Proves Ohio Charter Regime Failing

Finally.

Now we know what White Hat Management is all about. There was always a pretty strong indication that White Hat was about making money, not educating children.

After all, when you get exactly 1 A on a state report card and have 72 opportunities to get an A, you're probably not in the game for the same reasons most educators are.

When you've collected more than $1 billion in taxpayer money without having to make a single appearance before a legislative committee, as White Hat founder David Brennan has been able to do, you're probably not in the game for the same reasons most educators are.

When you contribute more than $4 million to politicians, you're probably not in the game for the same reasons most educators are.

But then we got the news last week that Brennan's White Hat Management was going to sell off their least profitable, "highest performing", and most at-risk for closure schools to a group run by K12, Inc.'s founder Ron Packard. That's right, the same guy who gave us the Ohio Virtual Academy and all its "success."

But White Hat will keep its cash cow online school, OHDELA, which has the worst performance index score of any statewide E-School -- and that's saying something, given how abjectly horrible Ohio's statewide E-Schools perform. Its performance index score actually dropped more than 4% from four years ago, the only statewide E-School to see such a precipitous drop. Again, that's saying something.

It will also keep its other bloated carcass -- Life Skills -- which proudly graduated 2 out of 155 students in one of its locations last year. But don't worry, the state won't ever be able to close these schools because Brennan had the legislature essentially create an exemption for his atrociously performing schools.

So White Hat is now able to sit back and rake in the money from its online operation (the state pays OHDELA enough that the school could provide 15:1 student-teacher ratios, $2,000 laptops to every child every year and still clear 34.5%), while continuously milk Ohio taxpayers through the perpetually operating Life Skills schools, which will never be able to be closed even though no one in their right mind would possibly think that graduating 2 out of 155 children is, in any way, serving our communities' most at-risk children.

Why am I cynical about this sale? Well, look at the reasons White Hat has had schools close. The only ones to ever close because of the state's closure law were the Hope Academies (now called simply the Academies). Five of those schools have closed overall (then re-opened under different names). Only one Life Skills has ever closed, and that was for slipping enrollment, which means the school wasn't hitting their profit margin. This relative instability in the Academies led to this sale, not any other reason.

What's so ironic is the Academies are White Hat's best performing schools. Again, a little perspective is helpful. When your other schools don't get As or Bs on the state report card and graduate as few as 2 out of 155 students, that's not a very high bar. But the 1 A and 5 Bs White Hat schools earned on the state report card last year came out of the Academies. So the company is dumping its "highest performing schools" so it can keep their worst performing schools because they don't really have to worry about closing.

Is there a greater indictment of the state's charter school regime, by the way, then saying it makes business sense to keep your worst schools because at least they'll stay open?

Obviously, the greatest danger to White Hat's bottom line is a strong state school closure law. Even this state's pretty weak one (only 24 of the 571 schools that have opened in Ohio have ever been closed under that statute) has nailed a few White Hat schools.

So this sale will minimize any instability in the White Hat portfolio. They will just sit on their remaining, horrible educational options, collect their millions from us taxpayers, and enjoy their lives.

If only the children they refuse to serve could too.

I know it was automatically generated, but I found meaning in the fact that the link to the Cleveland Plain Dealer story about the White Hat sale ended in "opera" (short for operation) because that's exactly what the Ohio White Hat story has been -- a Wagnerian, tragic, endless tale of cursed gold, hopelessly flawed, even evil gods, and fallen heroes. Only this isn't an opera. It's kids lives -- lives that have been sacrificed so one man's epic quest for gold can continue.

Where is our kids' Brunnhilde? We need her to brave the flames. Now.

Ohio Charter School Advocates Say More Public Scrutiny is a Bad Idea

For years now, Ohio's charter schools have insisted they are public schools. They bristle when you don't distinguish between "traditional" public schools and public charter schools.

However, in a brief filed August 4 before the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education (OCQE) -- the most radically pro-charter advocacy group in the state (whose president, Ron Adler, is actually defending the horrors at Horizon Science Academies) -- argues that considering for-profit and non-profit charter school operators who collect as much as 97% of the taxpayer money sent to charters as "public officials" would irreparably harm kids.

No joke.

What's more is that Chad Readler -- the chairman of the subcommittee examining education policies in the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission -- wrote this, bringing his objectivity on public school funding into clear question.

Here is their whole argument, just so I can't be accused of taking it out of context (though I will add emphasis to spare you having to read the whole thing):

"4. The public official theory would have damaging consequences forcommunity schools.

Holding management companies to be public officials would also have substantial detrimental effects on the operation of community schools in Ohio. If management companies are considered public officials, they unexpectedly would be subjected to a number of additional rules and regulations, posing additional costs and efficiency problems. Management companies would generally be subject to audit by the State Auditor for all of their revenues and expenses.
See R.C. 117.10. Management companies could be open to public records requests regardless of whether the records requested are related to the operation of a public school. See R.C. 149.43. And officers of the companies may be subject to public employee ethics obligations. See generally R.C. 102.01, et seq. 

There are undoubtedly other unforeseen consequences of the trial court's decision as well.

All of these new judicially imposed legal requirements would not only impose new compliance and other regulatory costs on management companies, but they would also change the business model under which management companies have operated in this State (and nationally) for years. 

The proposed rule of law would essentially rewrite the management agreements as public contracts. Inevitably, management companies will need to alter the way they structure their agreements and, ultimately, run their businesses, potentially leading to inefficiencies, if not an undermining of the quality of education available at community schools.

Indeed, the Schools' theory threatens not only the quality of community schools, but also the viability of the entire community school program. The additional costs and responsibilities imposed on management companies as public officials may well dissuade them from offering their services to Ohio public schools. Many new charter schools would never get off the ground without the assistance of a management company, and current schools may be forced to close, if their management companies terminate the relationship. At the very least, declaring management companies to be public officials would upset the carefully balanced statutory scheme that establishes the respective roles of community schools, management companies, and others. The end result is a reduction in school choice in Ohio, with Ohio's schoolchildren the ultimate victims."

I look at this in utter amazement. I want to know simply this: does anyone other than the for-profit management companies think it's bad policy for companies that receive 96% of the money sent to a charter school to have to be subject to public audit, public records, or public ethics laws? Charter school operators have never been accused of not being brazen, but this is amazing.

I know there are responsible charter school advocates who feel these provisions -- holding operators to the same level of public scrutiny as public schools -- are absolutely essential to improving charter school performance. So I won't attribute OCQE's position to the entire sector, but someone in that sector needs to publicly disagree with this position. Like now.

And the "efficiency" argument? Bunk.

White Hat Management (the subject of the lawsuit) receives more state money per pupil than any other for-profit charter school operator (could it be because its founder, David Brennan, has contributed nearly $4 million to Ohio Republicans since the program began?). In fact, the $7,793 per pupil it receives is more than all but 10 of Ohio's 613 school districts receive from the state -- districts that have to comply with all the provisions White Hat and OCQE claims would be a "detriment" to their success.

Oh, and charter schools spend nearly 24% of their money outside the classroom -- the average district only spends 13% outside the classroom. It seems to me that (using OCQE's logic) having more public scrutiny makes schools more efficient, not less so.

And remember that the Stanford Credo study found that Ohio's charter school kids are, on average, a full marking period behind their public school brethren in Math and a third of one in Reading.

So I ask you, would it be so terrible if charter school operators that caused this failure were forced to change the way they've previously done business in Ohio, and to actually be accountable to the taxpayers, whose money they have been eagerly taking with little consequence for 16 years?

Anyone?

White Hat Exemplifies Ohio Charter Issues

The Akron Beacon Journal is really just blowing the lid off the whole Ohio Charter School scheme, as it was envisioned by those who created it 16 years ago. In its latest installment, the paper speaks with board members at schools run by the infamous White Hat Management.

White Hat Management is run by David Brennan. Since 1998, schools operated by the for-profit White Hat Management have collected $1.07 billion in state revenue. That represents about 15% of all the $7.3 billion that has been sent to Ohio Charter Schools since their inception. White Hat has collected about one out of every seven dollars sent to Ohio Charter Schools. Meanwhile, White Hat Management (mainly through David and Ann Brennan) has sent more than $2.7 million to Republican politicians and campaigns since 1998.

To all my readers outside Ohio, this arrangement is exactly why Ohio's Charter School operations have ended up being a cynical ploy in far too many instances. The core of the issue is this: the for-profit management companies (like White Hat) get 97% of the taxpayer money that's sent to the "non-profit" Charter School, yet neither the State Auditor, nor the Ohio Department of Education can find out how White Hat spends that money.

A recent court case in Columbus ruled that Ohio Charter School Boards can find out how the money was spent, but the public (whose money it is, after all) still cannot. And, oh, by the way, if the for-profit company doesn't like the board nosing through their operations, as the Beacon Journal put it: "state law allows private companies to throw out nonprofit boards that challenge them."

Can folks outside Ohio finally recognize that this is a horrible arrangement in which to try educating kids? Does anyone think, "Yeah, you know I think it's a great idea to have one person collect one out of every 7 taxpayer dollars we spend on this without any way of finding out how that money was ultimately spent, and if folks do get interested, the company can just replace them. Yeah, that'll give kids better educational experiences."

Perhaps this is why White Hat schools are among the very worst performing schools in the state. Life Skills Academies -- White Hat's dropout recovery arm -- graduates an average of about 6.6% of its kids. The average non-Life Skills dropout recovery Charter graduates 27.3% of its kids. The average non-Life Skills Dropout Recovery Charter School has a 53.6% proficiency rate. The average Life Skills? 35.4%. But don't worry, White Hat will be able to keep running their "schools" just fine.

That's because in the state's new Dropout Recovery "standards", a huge exception was granted for Dropout Recovery Schools. If their graduation and proficiency rates improve by 10% a year for two years, they get to remain open. So Life Skills just needs to improve their graduation rate to 8% and their proficiency rate to about 42%, they can stay open. Want some real outrage? Look at Life Skills Columbus North. Their proficiency rate is 8% and their graduation rate is 6%. So if they improve to about a 10% proficiency rate and a little more than 7% graduation rate, they be considered to "meet standards" by the state.

Does anyone think that a school that graduates 7% of its kids, barely 10% of whom are proficient, is really educating anyone?

Do you see now, dear non-Ohio reader, why Ohio Charter Schools are generally such a disaster?

It is frankly a miracle that any Charters in Ohio are successful. But there are a few that do actually provide excellent educational experiences for children. However, far, far, far fewer taxpayer dollars find their way into these schools' coffers. Meanwhile, Mr. Brennan has received one third as much taxpayer money as Delaware spends statewide in a year.

And the taxpayers whose money it is cannot even find out how that money has been spent.

Because the state made it that way.

ABJ Details How White Hat Operates Above the Law

Last weekend, the Akron Beacon Journal did another classic Beacon Journal story about Charter Schools by pointing out huge state loopholes for well-heeled political contributors -- loopholes that allow poor performing Charter Schools to simply re-open under new names with little change and remain open for years.

And what it does exceptionally well is explain how David Brennan -- the state's largest individual Republican campaign contributor -- kept his failing Charter Schools open. Here's an extended snippet from the story:

At one time, White Hat Management operated a Life Skills Center for high school dropouts on the northeast side of downtown Canton and a Hope Academy for grades K-8 on the southwest side.

The Hope Academy failed academically and had to close in the spring of 2010.

What transpired over the next few years was reconstructed by the Beacon Journal by tracking school incorporation papers, funding, street addresses and “IRNs,” which are the unique identification numbers the state applies to each school so that it can track enrollment, academic performance and funding.

When Hope Academy on Garfield Avenue Southwest closed in the spring of 2010, department records show that its name and IRN were wiped from the books.

But the building didn’t miss a beat. A new elementary school, Brighten Heights, opened months later. The legal paperwork creating Brighten was handled by lawyers at Brennan’s law firm, Brennan, Manna & Diamond LLC of Akron.

However, while the school name was new, the IRN wasn’t: It was the same number — 142901 — used to identify Life Skills of Canton the previous year.

But the Life Skills Center on Cleveland Avenue Northeast hadn’t closed, either. Signs suggest it had been renamed Brighten Heights high school.

After the disappearance of Hope, state records show that enrollment at IRN 142901 — the old Life Skills school — surged and funding doubled from $1.5 million to $3 million in 2010-11.

What changed? For this year, IRN 142901 included elementary school children.

The next year, it changed again. IRN 142901 returned to Life Skills of Canton, and a new school called Garfield Academy with its own IRN opened in the old Hope Academy building.

After one year, Brighten Heights ceased operations.

Through three school years, the elementary building on Garfield Avenue Southwest had three different IRNs, was a failed Hope Academy, the elementary campus of Brighten Heights K-12, and then Garfield Academy.

And through it all, White Hat managed all schools, retaining more than two-thirds of the staff. Lawyers associated with Brennan created each new school and managed each name change. School board members for Hope, Life Skills, Brighten and Garfield appear to have never changed.

Even more disturbing is White Hat's utter contempt for accountability.

Charter schools are nonprofit organizations that receive public money, are audited by the state and are expected to comply with state public records and open meetings laws.

However, the Beacon Journal was unsuccessful in gaining meaningful information from any of the Canton charter schools or White Hat.

For example, in an attempt to understand whether the board members exercised any power in the closing and opening of schools, the Beacon Journal asked a Garfield employee for board-member contact information. The employee said board information could not be given out. “You’d have to call our corporate office [White Hat] for that information,” she said.

Attempts to interview a White Hat representative for this story began on Aug. 13 and have been unsuccessful. The company would accept only written questions. A request for the names and contact information of board members was answered on Aug. 23 with a list of lawyers instead.

A search of federal tax reports and Web sites for the schools suggested five names as board members. Messages seeking comment from persons believed to be those board members have not been returned. 

Imagine if any of this had happened at a traditional public school? If you couldn't reach the school board members, or the superintendent, treasurer, business manager, or anyone else? Imagine that outrage.

Imagine if any traditional public school was graduating barely 6% of its children in four years, the way White Hat's Life Skills Centers do on average. Then imagine if all we expected for that traditional school to remain open was less than a percentage point improvement, as Life Skills Centers will be allowed to do under the state's new dropout recovery school "standards."

Again, all we heard at the beginning of the Charter School movement in Ohio was how traditional schools only gave us excuses for failure, not successfully educated children. Now, Charter School operators like White Hat won't even give excuses; they just take our hard earned tax dollars with impunity.

They don't have any time to answer questions. Because under the current system in Ohio, they don't have to.

They know they can get away with anything. Because the state lets them.

This needs to be stopped. Because it is shameful.

White Hat Associate Now Ohio House Ed Policy Aide

Last week, when I attended a House hearing on education funding, I picked up information that Colleen Grady, who was a State Rep for about 2 months in 2008, was now the Education Policy Aide for House Republicans who was setting up all these hearings.

I didn't think much of this, until I re-read the story the Columbus Dispatch wrote last year detailing how cozy House Republicans are with David Brennan, the notorious owner of White Hat Management and the single largest donor to Ohio Republicans over the last decade. The head of White Hat is Thomas Needles, who was Gov. George Voinovich's Education Czar who turned his work creating Charter Schools under Voinovich into a lucrative career serving as Mr. Brennan's right hand man within days of leaving Voinovich's administration in 1998.

House staff members ran a number of charter-school-related amendments by Brennan's lobbyists. On April 19, nine days before the initial House budget changes were unveiled, lobbyist (and Needles associate) Colleen Grady sent Lisa Valentine, the top education policy adviser for the House Republicans, her opinion of 11 different amendments. Among the responses:

"Definitely no. Operators would object vigorously. Looks like more breakthrough schools stuff," she wrote, referring to a group of Cleveland-area charter schools. (Note: The Breakthrough Schools are among the finest Charter Schools the state has, by the way.)

"This one is good."

"Thank you. This is great."

"Might be nice to delete the Senate amendment starting at line 307. We could fix what they messed up."

So Brennan has been able to put one of his own as a top policy person in the Ohio House, less than one year after his cozy relationship with the Ohio House caused such a furor that even Charter School advocates blushed. Here's what Terry Ryan of the Fordham Institute said of Brennan's changes to Charter School oversight in last year's budget:

"What (the House) is proposing isn't a charter school. It's a corporate, private school, and the state simply funds it," Ryan said.

Then, I looked at Grady's LinkedIn profile and discovered she has been on staff with the Ohio Republican House Caucus since April, confirming the information I was told last week.

Grady has done work around Columbus since her 2008 defeat by Matt Patten for various education policy shops, including Fordham and even on her own, penning a report with the Ohio Association for Gifted Children (a group that gave me their service award in 2009) last year. That report basically said that excellence was too easy for schools to achieve in Ohio because how could a school be excellent if it wasn't serving every child?

I think that's a good question, actually.

However, the report did not mention that despite this supposedly "easy" school rating system, nearly half of all Charter Schools rate D or F on the report card. The Grady-OAGC report, I think, gave the Ohio Department of Education and others who have been complaining about how well public schools rate the ammunition to develop House Bill 555, whose most recent simulation indicates that as many as 85% of school districts were overrated by the prior system.

After the Grady Report, no one would bat an eyelash at that result, depsite its highly dubious outcome. However, if more schools are poorly rated, more districts would be opened up for Charters and Vouchers, further draining money from local school districts, who then must pass more levies to make up the difference.

Remember that every child in Ohio who does not attend a Charter School receives 6.5% less state revenue because of how Charter Schools are funded in this state.

The development is troubling because Grady, judging from the earlier Dispatch story, is hostile toward Breakthrough Schools, but is supportive of David Brennan's schools. Again, the Breakthrough Schools are among the finest Charters (or any schools, for that matter) in the state. Their excellent track record is, in many ways, what gave comfort to some people about allowing local revenue to go to the Cleveland Charters because Breakthrough would be getting the money, not the shadier Charter outfits. If Brennan's schools are able to get local revenue in next year's budget (which I'm sure will be attempted), he can actually thank Breakthrough for setting the precedent.

Ohio's trouble is not Breakthrough; it's that not enough Charters here resemble Breakthrough. Too many resemble Brennan's Life Skills centers -- a dropout recovery school operation which graduates 11% of its kids on average. The average of the state's other Charter dropout recovery schools is more than four times that.The dropout recovery standards currently in House Bill 555 (about 7 years after they were first ordered by the General Assembly) would allow dropout recovery schools to remain open as long as they improve by 10% per year (for at least 2 consecutive years) their graduation rates and percentage of kids who pass all high school testing before they are 22 years old. In Life Skills' case, that would entail about a 1% increase in graduation rates. So Life Skills would have about 20 years or so to catch up to the average Charter School dropout recovery program, assuming the law remains in place that long.

If the House's top education policy person is as hostile to some of the best Charter Schools in this state as her previous work indicates, it throws a wet blanket on the positive statements made last week by Students First about how Charters and Traditional Public Schools should be held to the same standards.