White Hat received 95 percent of each school’s state funding to pay teacher salaries, building rentals, utilities and other expenses. Brennan and his family have given millions in campaign contributions to Republican state legislative and statewide candidates over the years, White Hat lobbyists have helped shape Ohio’s charter school policies over the years.
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At situation earlier than the courtroom have been arguments by a number of faculties previously run by White Hat that taxpayer dollars stay public when administration corporations use them for working publicly funded constitution faculties.
“It’s evident that the faculties have granted broad discretion to White Hat, putting particular confidence and belief within the administration corporations and putting them in positions of superiority and affect”, Justice Judith Lanzinger wrote for nearly all.
But while five justices agreed with the overall judgment, Lanzinger was the only justice to stand behind that opinion.
The funds were paid by the state to the seven Hope Academies and three Life Skills Centers in the Cleveland and Akron areas that hired White Hat in 2005 to handle operations.
“We hold that the term is enforceable and that this case must be returned to the trial court for an inventory of the property and its disposition according to the contracts”, the majority added.
Chad Aldis is with the Fordham Institute, a pro-charter school group that has endorsed measures to increase accountability and transparency.
Washington State’s Supreme Court recently handed a landmark victory to proponents of public education by finding charter schools unconstitutional.
He concluded that the contracts are not enforceable because they “permit an operator who is providing a substandard education to squander public money and then, upon termination for poor performance, reap a bonus, paid for by public money”. And she wrote that the General Assembly will have to determine whether those laws should be stiffened.
– Recent charter school developments have put additional pressure on Ohio lawmakers trying to tighten regulation of the schools via pending legislation. In a blistering dissent, Justice William N. O’Neill wrote that the majority’s opinion allowed a “fraudulent conversion of public funds into personal profit”.
The schools’ lawyer had argued the funds remained public despite their payment to White Hat and that classroom equipment belonged to the schools. And O’Neill also wrote that the ruling “rewards failure and encourages its repetition in the future in the name of profit”.
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Pfeifer called the contracts “unconscionable” and wrote that the opinion went, quoting here, “out of its way to support the insupportable”.
