U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown blasted Ohio’s charter school system for having rampant waste and fraud Thursday as he spelled out the main goals of a national charter school accountability bill he proposed this week.

“We want to make sure these charter schools effectively educate children,” Brown said. “Right now they’re not.”

Among his major proposals: Making charter school management and finances more open to the public, tracking how charter schools fit into each area’s education plans and making sure that making profits isn’t more important than educating kids.

Brown, an Ohio Democrat, pointed at his home state’s for-profit charter school operators – private companies that often receive 90 percent or more of a school’s tax dollars – as damaging kids’ educations. And he blamed the Ohio – and other – legislatures for bowing to the for-profit “political operators” and their campaign donations instead of making sure they perform better.

“There’s no sector that misspends tax dollars more than these for-profit charter schools,” Brown said.