In The News 3 August 2015

UPDATED: State school board members seek top-down investigation

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The Akron Beacon Journal reports today week that a majority of elected members of the Ohio state school board has signed a letter asking the state superintendent to hire an outside investigator to see if he is complicit in hiding bad charter school grades.

Beacon Journal education writer Doug Livingston reports at http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-state-school-board-wants-investigation-of-superintendent-richard-ross-and-education-department-1.613061: “David Hansen, husband to Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign manager (Beth Hansen) and the former director of the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Quality School Choice, resigned in July after media reports and a group of lawmakers and state school board members said he had broken state law by unilaterally deciding to not include the low scores recorded at online and dropout recovery charter schools when rating sponsors.”

Dr. Richard A. Ross was named the new state superintendent of Public Instruction in March 2013. The State Board of Education selected Ross to be Ohio’s top education official and the executive in charge of the Ohio Department of Education during the March 2013 meeting.

Ross had been leading Gov. John Kasich’s Office of 21st Century Education.

Previously, Ross was superintendent at Bryan City Schools and Ottawa-Glandorf Local Schools, was an instructor at Bowling Green State University and served as high school principal at Jonathan Alder Local School District. He also served as chairman of the Youngstown Academic Distress Commission and was an instructor for the Ohio University Educational Leadership Program.

According to the Beacon Journal, on “Monday afternoon, seven of the state school board’s 10 elected positions signed a blistering letter addressed to State Superintendent Richard Ross.

“We are taking a beating in the media, and we deserve it,” the letter begins.

“Mr. Hansen may have taken the fall, but you were his boss,” the board members wrote to Ross. “Whether by mismanagement, or deliberate instruction to Mr. Hansen, you are culpable as well.”

For more information, go to http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-state-school-board-wants-investigation-of-superintendent-richard-ross-and-education-department-1.613061.

To read the board members' letter go to http://files.ctctcdn.com/26d1b400301/c2c2eb4d-aa9a-422d-ba88-2a00a49efd26.pdf

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