Dive Brief:

• Ohio's "struggling" charter schools will be closed, Superintendent Rick Ross announced, and all charter oversight agencies will now be ranked and graded in a fashion similar to traditional district rankings and report cards. 
• The new systems turn around the state education department's previous decision to exempt low-graded online schools from the ratings. "reverse his [Ross'] department's earlier decision to leave the low grades for online schools out of the ratings, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
• This year's ongoing state test scores will be used to determine the new ratings.

Dive Insight:

This new proposal was originally crafted by an “outside” panel comprised of a lawyer, superintendent, and accountant. Now that the state's charters will be evaluated with the same annual state report card system as traditional public schools, a much-needed boost for accountability will inevitably occur. The system will also help establish whether or not the schools are adequately serving students. 

Previously, in December, 40 charters in the state were found to have “misspent” $6 million dollars worth of taxpayer money over the course of six years.