Ohio is paying charter schools for kids that aren’t in class, Auditor Yost finds

Cleveland Plain Dealer | Patrick O’Donnell

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The state continues paying charter schools, particularly dropout recovery schools, to educate students who don’t show up to class, state Auditor David Yost said Monday.

A series of unannounced visits to charter and traditional district schools in November by Yost’s staff found that on average, only one of every three students in dropout prevention charter schools attended school that day.

That’s a concern for Yost, who tracks attendance issues because the state pays schools about $6,000 per student each year.

“Ohio’s school funding is largely based on enrollment as supported, in part, by student counts and attendance, as opposed to estimates of the amount of learning that takes place,” Yost said in the report he and staff released Tuesday.

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