Auditor Yost calls on Ohio Legislature to reform virtual school funding

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost today called on the General Assembly to review how community schools using electronic learning are funded, suggesting reforms based on how much a child learns should play a key role in determining how a virtual school is paid.

"It’s time to resolve the weaknesses, by first working out what it means to achieve that result of an educated citizen,” the Auditor said. “I’m calling on the General Assembly to take this matter up when they return this fall, and to take action. They made many of the necessary reforms in House Bill 2, and I stand ready to help finish the job."

Yost worked with legislative leaders in 2015 to pass charter school reforms, but said then that higher standards for electronic schools are necessary because it is difficult to measure whether students are adequately participating in instruction.

He noted in both of his landmark charter school attendance audits that measuring engagement with students who are in a blended school environment or in virtual schools is extremely difficult given state law and policies at the Ohio Department of Education.

"Learning-based funding – course completion – would mean schools get paid when they deliver a piece of education. The unit could be as large as a year's work or as little as an approved unit."

As part of his call for reform, the auditor listed several guiding principles for performance based funding:

• First, each student’s path to that goal — becoming a literate, thinking citizen — may vary in speed and navigation. Our funding solution needs to take into account the differences among children and their backgrounds.

• Forget grading periods. “Assessment in the virtual environment can and should happen every day. Computers make it possible to monitor students’ progress in real time, and help them when they need it – a model that is in place in Cincinnati’s Carpe Diem school.”

• Weighting of academic value by an external, objective third party.