(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today joined Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and 16 other governors in sending a letter that calls on the Biden Administration to remove a proposed rule that would make it unnecessarily difficult to apply for federal funding that could limit new charter school creation.
The Biden Administration’s rule would require new charter schools to demonstrate that there would be a sufficient demand for the proposed school, in other words, that the relevant school district would be “over-enrolled.”
By focusing on the number of seats, rather than the number of high-quality seats, the new standard fails to consider that a driving force in parents’ decisions is the desire for their child to attend a school that meets their child’s unique needs.
The governors asked that the Biden Administration remove this requirement, extend the comment period for the proposed rule, and delay any changes to the charter school program to the next fiscal year.