Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Marc Dann’s in a tough spot on charter suit
Marc Dann
In today’s paper, I wrote about how a lawsuit against the state could bring Dayton as much as $16 million in much needed cash. Cincinnati sued the state and has won twice on behalf of urban schools, who believe they were cheated out of a combined $50 million by the Ohio Department of Education’s decision to change it charter school enrollment count for funding purposes.
The state potentially has one last chance — an appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court. That’s what the Ohio Board of Education unanimously wants to do — appeal it one more time. That would delay a decision and any possible payments to the school districts for at least another year.
Here’s where things get interesting, though.
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann serves as the state board’s lawyer. But unlike every other client-attorney relationship, state law gives the lawyer the final call on whether to appeal cases like this to the Supreme Court.
But the politics here are real tricky.
Dann is viewed as anti-charter school because of lawsuits he filed to try to force low perfoming charters to close. He has lots of support from labor unions and has worked closely with teachers unions in the past. Plus, he is allied with Gov. Ted Strickland, a fellow pro-labor Democrat who is not a fan of charter schools.
The big teachers unions will back the urban districts on this. They want those public school systems to get the millions they believe belongs to them. So they may be asking Dann not to move the case forward for another appeal.
But it’s not that easy.
If Dann does not appeal, he’ll have to explain why he is overriding the will of a unanimous state board of education, whom he theoretically works for. His office already is under pressure from an internal sexual harassment scandal. So he probably doesn’t need any other political headaches.
And there is the practical problem for the education department. State board member Carl Wick from Centerville is right that the department does not have $50 million laying around. To pay out now would required deep cuts after the department just cut $100 million from its budget at Strickland’s request.
Dann’s got until May 12 to decide. This should be interesting.
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