Ten years after Ohio had to return $63 million of a $71 million federal charter school grant to the first Trump Administration, Ohio gets another $105 million from the second Trump Administration.

People have no memory. Yesterday convinced me of that.

Why do I say that?

Because U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon (Yeah … I know) came to town to tout a $105 million federal Charter School grant coming to Ohio.

Why am I going crazy about this? Because 10 years ago, Ohio’ got the nation’s largest Charter School grant of $71 million to also grow high-performing Charter Schools, but only spent $8 million of it because so few Ohio Charter Schools are any good.

I wrote about this in 2022 as a warning to the Biden Administration. Here are some highlights:

“Only 5 of the approximately 330 Charter Schools that were in operation during any one of those grant years, received federal money to expand because of their quality. Only 26 would even qualify for the money (in 2022). Out of 331 Ohio Charter Schools.

Ohio’s had 638 Charter Schools that have operated at any time in this state. And only 5 of those got any of the $71 million in federal money designated in 2015 to expand the state’s “high-quality” Charter Schools.

…

One of those 5 schools — Citizens Academy Southeast — is no longer on the state’s high-performing charter school list — despite the school receiving CSP grants for two years to expand.

…

Curious about what percentage of Ohio’s local public schools would qualify as “High Quality” under the state’s Charter School definition?

Me too.

It’s about 3 out of every 5 Ohio public school buildings. Ohio’s major urban districts? Try more than 1 in 5 of those buildings. In Akron, it’s nearly 1 in 3 buildings.

Again, by comparison, only 1 in 13 Ohio Charter Schools qualify.”

Not only that, but 10 years ago, I looked at the federal Charter School program and its overall failure here in Ohio. Here’s what I found below:

So, yeah.

Not an awesome history of Ohio federal Charter School grant success in Ohio.

Nor is the present any better.

• Ohio Charter Schools spend more than twice as much on non-classroom, administrative costs as Ohio’s public school districts.

• In 4 years they’ve only had 2 students enlist in the military.

• They graduate students at a rate that’s lower than all but 1 Ohio school district, costing Charter School children millions of dollars in lost potential income.

• Their average Performance Index Score (a cumulative measure of test score performance) is lower than 97% of Ohio’s public school districts, even though all but a handful of districts lose money and students to Ohio’s $1.4 billion Charter School program. Don’t forget that 1 in 3 Ohio public school districts have a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged students than the average Ohio Charter School.

• More than 1/2 of all Ohio Charter Schools have fewer than 3 of 5 stars on their overall rating, including 20 out of 257 rated getting less than 2 stars.

• No Ohio school district received lower than 2 stars and 91% of Ohio public school districts received 3 or more stars. As you can see, Ohio’s public school districts are far more effective than Ohio’s Charter Schools. It’s not really close, nor has it ever been:

But, hey! At least they’re doing all this for a cool $1.4 billion in taxpayer money while spending about $1,000 more per pupil than the average Ohio school district, even though Charter Schools don’t get local property or income tax revenue, right. I mean, at least the failure is inefficient, I guess.

Yet the current U.S. Secretary of Education came to Ohio to announce a new, $105 million investment in the failing $1.4 billion Charter School system Ohio’s been operating, not the historically underfunded Public School system that’s actually succeeding despite consistent efforts to undermine it from Republican politicians since the late 1990s.

Yes, dear reader.

We are all taking Crazy Pills. I hope for our kids’ sake that we can ride this out.