Stephen Dyer: Did anyone notice that more than 1/3 of Ohio Charter Schools are on the state’s lowest performing schools list????

Journalist and former legislator Stephen Dyer has noticed that Ohio’s charter schools have a problem.

I get that media obsesses over traditional public schools that continuously struggle.

I do.

But I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with the Columbus Dispatch story the other day about a proposal to allow the state to convert struggling traditional public schools with Charter Schools.

See, the story links to Ohio’s official list of Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CIS) Schools, which does indeed reveal that 117 of Ohio’s 2,978 traditional public school buildings qualify as needing these interventions. And yes, 34 of those 2,978 traditional public schools have been on the list since 2018.

But the list also includes Ohio Charter Schools. And wow. Does it include Ohio Charter Schools.

In the 2024-2025 school year, there were 340 Ohio charter schools in operation. And 114 of them ended up on the CSI list. Nearly 6 in 10 were on that list since 2018. For those who are visual learners, here’s what the percentage of CSI traditional and Charter buildings look like compared with their overall number.