Yesterday Ohio’s elected, Republican-dominated supreme court ruled that a privately held, for-profit charter management company, White Hat Management, owns the equipment and assets of several White Hat Hope Academies and Life Skills Academies that had sought to sever ties with White Hat and hire a new management company to run the schools. White Hat is owned by Akron entrepreneur and Republican mega-donor David Brennan.  The boards of ten Hope and Life Skills Academies had filed a lawsuit to recover assets purchased with public dollars that White Hat said its contract awarded to the management company.

The Columbus Dispatch describes Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger’s decision for the majority: “that charter school operators perform a governmental function and establish a fiduciary relationship with the schools they manage in purchasing school equipment, contrary to the position taken by White Hat.”  The Dispatch continues: “Current law largely does not address the duties of school…