News-herald:
...State Sen. Jon Husted wants the Legislature to lift a 2007 ban on opening more charter schools so the state can compete for money from President Barack Obama's Race to the Top grants. The grants, totaling $4.35 billion, are considered the largest amount of discretionary funding for K-12 education in the nation's history....
I think this is a completely worthless proposal. Instead of using the money to fund charter schools, many of which are below standards, this money should be used to help public school children with reading and math tutors, more classroom teachers to reduce class size, adding more computers to prepare youngsters for the future, and purchasing books. Every dollar that goes to a charter school robs public schools of needed funds.
Husted has received thousands and thousands of dollars from David Brennan and his family. Brennan is the person who runs the largest charter school group in the state and supports the Republican Party. Is Husted just trying to pay back charter school contributors by putting forth this idea to rob public school children of education funding? Here is an excerpt from the Dispatch about David Brennan:
...A Dispatch analysis of recent state audits for 17 of Brennan's 34 schools shows White Hat made $15.4 million in combined profits and management fees last year.
That means that nearly a third of the state funding received by each school was pocketed by Brennan's operation. The rest was spent on teacher salaries, books and other expenses.....
....Under management agreements, each school gives White Hat 97 percent of its state aid. Last year, White Hat received $109 million in tax dollars....
A search of political contributions by Brennan and his family at the Ohio Secretary of State's web page, shows that Husted has received mega bucks from the the Charter School owner.Now Husted is running for Ohio Secretary of State. I don't think we should go down that road!