Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Community Schools Are Stealing Your Taxes
Community Schools Are Stealing Your Taxes
Community Schools Are Stealing Your Taxes
ALL statistics used in this note have been pulled directly from the Ohio Department of Education
website unless otherwise noted.
First, let's talk about the community schools that exist in Ohio. Some schools are sponsored by
local districts allowing the district to fund unique initiatives with some more "flexibility" in state
oversight. The large majority of community schools are sponsored by non-profit entities and
managed by for-profit companies.
To recap, we have for-profit community schools in only 23 out of 88 counties in Ohio and 78% of
those schools are concentrated in only eight of those counties. Would you be surprised to find
those counties surrounding our major cities? Here's a map: http://www.digital-topo-
maps.com/county-map/ohio.shtml
• "Kids Count of Dayton is a non-profit organization and therefore does not profit from its
business."
• "The office was staffed with an executive director, administrative assistant, and three
consultants in the areas of curriculum, finance, and governance."
• "Personnel Costs: $460,586; Benefits $92,117"
And finally, why does Kids Count of Dayton have half of its schools in Cincinnati and Columbus?
Follow the money . . .
I repeat, the Lucas County ESC sponsors community schools in 16 different counties. Only 10
of the schools are actually located in Lucas County.
There isn't much to add about this one except to once again point out the obvious that they do
not operate these buildings. Their staff of 12 consultants simply take their cut as they get
permission from the state and then turn over the reigns of the school to any number of different
companies (at least 16 by my count). The most common company is Summit Academy Schools
(http://www.summitacademies.com/) who incidentally also have three schools sponsored by the
aforementioned Kids Count of Dayton. The Lucas County ESC website is devoid of meaningful
information (http://www.lucas.k12.oh.us/index.php?section=30).
"St. Aloysius shares your desire to create a better life for children and families in our community
through education. We can help you start a school without having to balance the needs of
traditional school systems and teachers unions.
We contract with Charter School Specialists to provide you with a high quality team to
address and meet the needs of existing and new community schools. For more information
about our charter school sponsorship program please contact us at 513-242-7600."
(http://www.staloysiuscincinnati.org/charter_school.htm)
For the record, Dave L. Cash does not hold any educator certificate or license in the state of
Ohio. This is easily verified through the Ohio Department of Education website.
Secondly, while the other sponsors I've mentioned sponsor a company that runs the school, St.
Aloysius actually seems to sponsor a sponsor, who then sponsors a company to run the school.
St. Aloysius is a registered 501(c)3 (non-profit organization), but Charter School Specialists is a
Limited Liability Company (LLC). With the exception of ERCO which doesn't claim to be a
company, but a group of consultants, all of the others I've mentioned are considered non-profits.
In this last case, however, we have a for-profit company sponsoring for-profit companies.
Follow the money . . .
THE MONEY
It is widely known that Ohio's school funding model has been ruled unconstitutional. It is
probably less widely understood that Ohio distributes tax dollars inequitably across school
districts. There is a state average, but the amount that is used to provide state funding has
complex factors which include the ability of a local district to raise revenue and a mix of special
education factors. In FY09, for instance, the Olentangy Local School District received per pupil
state revenue of $1,573.00, while the East Cleveland City School District received per pupil
state revenue of $10,044. I certainly think the case can be made on either side of that gap to
question the fairness, but neither district represents the lowest or highest percentage of per
pupil revenue in the state. Likewise, it can get murky when trying to compare two districts that
my be very different in terms of local economics.
Instead, let's look at the distribution of state tax dollars to community schools and their
surrounding school districts. Dollar amounts are from Ohio Department of Education FY09.
Franklin County includes 16 local school districts with an average per pupil state revenue of
$3,957.94. New Albany-Plain Local SD is the lowest at $1,673.00 and Whitehall City SD is the
highest at $6,254.00.
Community schools in Franklin County received an average per pupil state revenue of
$9,416.81. Life Skills Center of Columbus North is the lowest at $6,011.67 and Noble
Academy-Columbus at $65,376.66. That is not a misprint. The Ohio Department of Education
reports the as the per pupil revenue number for Noble Academy. I'm willing to consider that
number as being a data quirk, but what about the next five highest amounts?
Could these all be quirks? In fact, 49 Franklin County community schools are reported to have
received state revenue in excess of Whitehall City SD's amount. To clarify, on average, a
Franklin County community school is paid $5458.87 more per pupil, over twice the amount that
local school districts receive. Where does that money come from? It is deducted from the
amounts the school districts receive. The state sets the per pupil "foundation" funding amount
and then reduces the amount paid to districts by imposing a charge off (accounts for growth
in property value) that results in the district receiving approximately 40% of the foundation
amount. Community schools are funded in a slightly different way.
"Community school students are counted as part of the funded enrollment base for
school districts and payments to community schools are deducted from the foundation
payment of the school district where the community school student resides."
(http://education.ohio.gov/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?
page=3&TopicRelationID=998&ContentID=79172&Content=100496)
What this means is that the community school is paid the full foundation amount for each
student. Have you heard the argument that community schools don't receive local taxes?
Technically that's true, but local districts are equally penalized by the state for receiving those
taxes, so it's essentially equalized through the state funding process.
Another very important piece of information that I don't want to lose is the flow of money.
Community school students are calculated into the full funding amount (enrollment base)
allocated to a district. Once that full amount is calculated, then the payments are made to the
community schools and districts. The state counts the funding against the local district. While
the community schools received 100% of the per pupil amount, districts only receive their
funding after the charge off, approximately 42% of the per pupil amount. These are state
taxpayer dollars. Follow the money . . .
As I mentioned above, East Cleveland City SD received the highest per pupil revenue amount in
Ohio. By comparison, 45 community schools across the state received per pupil revenue in
excess of $11,000.
Which sponsors are receiving the bulk of our taxes? Average per pupil amounts are listed
below.
For comparison, the average for school districts in Ohio's major counties where these
community schools operate.
These numbers represent YOUR state tax dollars at work. Follow the money . . .
And finally, when someone challenges you by saying that community schools don't receive any
federal funding, mention that the Ohio Department of Education distributed: