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Charter schools need scrutiny

Some proponents of taxpayer-funded charter schools are outspoken critics of public education. But a few, in making excuses for their own failures to perform, sound very much like they are part of the problem, too.

State officials in Ohio have begun holding charter schools accountable both for how they handle finances and how well they educate students. After a few years in which they were not held to the same standards as public educators, the charters now are being called on the carpet.

Many of them have no problem with that. They really are trying to offer valuable alternatives to public schools.

Some are resisting state accountability requirements, however. One, the state’s largest online charter school, has gone to court to resist a state mandate it provide records on how often and for how long students are logged in to the school’s website.

That translates to the “seat time” many public schools are required to document, and it is important. Students who don’t, in effect, show up for class are not learning what they should.

But an Electronic Classroom official, Rick Teeters, does not see it that way. “Just manually counting hours a student attends school … I see no value in that,” he testified.

That alone ought to prompt state officials to look into the online school.

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