Ohio's David Brennan is the driving force behind White Hat Management, a for-profit education management organization that operates charter schools in six states and in Ohio. A helpful history of charter schools that includes perspective on WHM's involvement can be found here.  

Brennan has had the ear and political support of Ohio Republican leaders like House Speaker Jon Husted and Senate President Bill Harris, among others, who during Republican rule of the state gave is at the center of the storm over newly revealed information that shows the Akron industrialist has contributed beaucoup bucks to a Virginia political action committee that then turned around and transferred $870,000 to an Ohio affiliate set up to elect Republicans.

Ohio Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, despite having been presented with the cold hard facts months ago by ProfressOhio, has only recently taken seriously the allegations that show such practices appear to be in violation of state campaign finance laws. Brunner's agency oversees compliance with campaign finance law. ProgressOhio argues that such giant transfers, if not disclosed and checked quickly, can allow political players like Brennan to evade contribution limits and put public policy in Ohio up for sale. But for Statehouse insiders, this would not be the first time private interest was camouflaging with public policy.  

ASU REPORT UNFLATTERING TO CHARTER SCHOOLS

If charter schools are so secure in their product being the perfect market alternative to public education, then why are they so recalcitrant in offering up information about their schools and finances to groups like Arizona State University's Education Policy Studies Laboratory that gathers data on commercialism in education and then reports on its findings?

Ohio-based White Hat Management, for example, was so reluctant to provide information that an employee answering the phone at their corporate headquarters refused to provide even her name before hanging up on an ASU researcher.

The most recent report and its findings can be found  here.

Report Findings:

1. A significant number of students attending charter schools (about 25 percent) are enrolled in schools run by EMOs;
2. Large-size EMOs dominate the for-profit education management industry;
3. EMOs focus on charter primary schools;
4. A significant percentage (about 89 percent) of students enrolled in EMO-run charter primary schools will be in a school larger than the national average.

STRICKLAND TO THE RESCUE

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, keeping his political power dry on what his policy would be on charter schools until his State of the State Speech in February, said he would shut down new charter schools and euthanizing Ohio's school voucher program, two streams of mother's milk to Brennan's grab for the gold of public education dollars.

And according to some, Ohio's charter school scandal "has the potential to make the `Coingate' deal there seem like...small change." This informative posting from Schools Matter gives a nice, concise review of Brennan's bilking of public school funding for charter schools, which have not shown themselves to the healthy alternative to a clearly troubled system of public education, despite Brennan's business babble to the contrary. In 2006, approximately $450 million in state tax dollars went to fund charter schools.

Schools Matters: According to an analysis by the Columbus Dispatch of audits conducted under a new law, White Hat makes about $1 million a year for each of the 34 charter schools it operates in Ohio. Altogether, the firm got $109 million in tax dollars, including 97 percent of the schools' state aid last year.

In the most recent state "report cards," issued last fall, 60 percent of 264 charter schools then in operation were ranked in "academic emergency," the lowest academic rating, compared to just 8 percent of public schools.

For another look at charter schools done in 2005, this report, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gives some history and a series of recommendations for improving charter schools.