Three years after Ohio's former charter schools chief omitted data of poor-performing schools in evaluations of their sponsors, a state audit says it remains unclear what his intent was and how much the then-superintendent knew about the plan.
The audit does say the Ohio Department of Education was poorly run with a lack of control. Ohio Public Radio's Andy Chow reports.
Auditor Dave Yost looked into what happened three years ago, when Ohio Deartment of Education's charter school chief David Hansen intentionally left “F” grades off performance evaluations of online charter schools. This resulted in better evaluations and a more appealing outlook for the e-schools on a multi-million dollar grant application to the U.S. Department of Education.
There was concern that then-state superintendent Dick Ross or anyone in Governor John Kasich’s staff might also have been involved.
Yost has long been a supporter of charter schools. In his newly and quietly released audit, Yost found that there were emails with omitted information, such as who sent them or who received them.
But Yost’s audit could not determine if the scrubbing was a result of malicious intent or lack of oversight.
