Ohio charter-school snafu: Workers - not John Kasich - aware of issues
COLUMBUS – As a high-ranking education official played with charter-school rankings, seeking to rate the schools in a way that would protect them, low-level employees in the Ohio Department of Education did little to stop him, newly released state education records show.
The official -- David Hansen, the husband of Gov. John Kasich's campaign manager and former chief of staff -- resigned July 18, three days before Kasich launched his presidential campaign. Hansen admitted he intentionally scrubbed data when he was completing evaluations of the groups that sponsor charter schools. Skirting guidelines outlined in state law, he omitted failing grades for online and dropout-recovery schools in an effort to make the charter-school sponsors look better overall.
State leaders, including Kasich, said they thought Hansen worked alone. But a preliminary review of tens of thousands of pages of emails, text messages and calendars shows at least a half dozen low-level education employees discussed or were copied on emails related to Hansen's charter school ranking methods.
Hansen may have made the decisions by himself, but no one stopped him.
The records suggest Hansen's zeal for charter schools motivated his misconduct. As a conservative leader, Hansen had for years advocated for the expansion of state support for charter schools. Republicans like Hansen argue the schools promote teacher accountability and creativity to reach students in struggling school systems.
Democrats counter the schools take money from students in public schools, privatize education and often perform more poorly than public schools. Meanwhile, charter school leaders are among the biggest donors to Ohio Republicans, especially in the Legislature.
'Shocked' employee: Are you 'joking'?
Late Thursday, more than six weeks after newspapers requested them, the Department of Education released the materials related to Hansen's work on charter schools.
The records don't implicate State Superintendent Richard Ross, Kasich, or Hansen's wife, Beth Hansen. But they raise questions about a culture in the Department of Education that discouraged intervention into Hansen's questionable behavior.
As early as 2014, Hansen's emails show his casual approach to flexing accounting and standards to benefit charter schools.
In a July 18, 2014, email exchange about a group of sponsors the state was using to test the upcoming rankings, Hansen said:
"So there isn't really a diagnostic that might guide us? Then we will put them all down as getting 92 overall and being exemplary in agency commitment and go from there."
Karlyn Geis, a data manager, responded: "Can we assume you are joking about putting them down as a 92?" Then, she wrote, using parentheses: "(Looks of shock from others in the room)"
That exchange appears to have ended.
But into 2015, the emails continued, as Hansen asked lower-level employees to give him data that would help him manipulate rankings for the charter-school sponsors.
"I also don't believe I'm allowed to just hand off the data," wrote Kelsey Stephens, a data administration manager, to Hansen in June 2015.
Days before Hansen resigned, high-level education officials finally intervened, seeking to see just how much Hansen had misused the charter-school data.
Department employees spoke about avoiding the creation of new public records.
"Someone needs to calculate the overall authorizer scores (for sponsors of charter schools) and walk them up to Melissa (Huffman, chief operating officer) today," Geis, the data manager, wrote in a text message to Hansen two days before he resigned. "They have to be walked up, not emailed, not printed. Just handwritten on paper. Thanks."
Culture change?
In the end, only Hansen resigned.
Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said she wasn't sure how much department leaders discussed the charter-school snafu with other employees. But, she said, Superintendent Ross has acted swiftly to prevent the situation from happening again.
The department has a new governance committee to oversee the handling of data, she said.
"As soon as this was found, he has acted quickly to put into place stronger internal controls," she said. "If you have no internal controls, there's no check and balances in processes to prevent everything from mistakes to bad judgment. ...
"When there's a process for collection of data in a certain way, those processes should be followed."
Despite the changes in the department, the emails between education staffers suggest Ross "has completely failed to do his job," said David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "What exactly was he doing all day while Hansen cooked the books? It's completely ludicrous to suggest Ross never had a single conversation with Hansen, even as department staffers were aghast at Hansen's plans."
Seven of the state school board's 18 members have written to Ross, requesting an independent investigation. The board members told Ross he was "a prime suspect," and the investigation needed to be taken out-of-house.
It's a matter of regaining public trust, said state school board member Pat Bruns, of Cincinnati, one of the seven who signed the letter. Something went wrong, Bruns told The Enquirer prior to the records' release, and it doesn't make sense to have the same department that committed the foul be the one that investigates it.
"This isn't going away, and we still have a lot of questions to ask," she said. "I'm not indicting the superintendent, but with all due respect, he can't just do a one-liner on this and say, 'Everything's fine.' "
Kasich on Thursday affirmed his confidence in Ross. The governor appoints eight of the 19 state school board members, who hire and supervise Ross.
Speaking to reporters hours before the records' release, Kasich said he agreed with the assessment Hansen had acted alone.
"That's my feeling. I have no reason to think anything else," he said.
A separate set of records The Enquirer requested from the governor's office were not ready as of Thursday night, a spokesman said.