Plunderbund writes here about the largest charter school in Ohio. Its revenues are staggering, its test scores and graduation rates are low, its political contributions to its allies top $1 million.
“The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) is the largest charter school in the state of Ohio. The online school is easily the largest charter school in Ohio, is larger than the vast majority of Ohio’s traditional school districts, and received over $88 million in state funding last school year. This year that amount is expected to jump to over $92 million.
“On the latest report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education, ECOT continues to rank below all of the 8 large urban schools that are often-criticized by legislators and in the media for their “sub-par” performance.
“For graduation rate, a key indicator for the long-term success of a school/district, ECOT’s 4-year graduation rate is a paltry 35.3%, while their 5-year graduation rate of 37.8%, which is only slightly higher, was still over 25 points worse than the lowest urban school district, Cleveland, which checked in at 63.3%. While we now see the legislature writing laws to specifically regulate Cleveland and Columbus more tightly, the charter school laws that apply to ECOT continue to be more lax.
“And while the data on performance for this school of 13,836 students (11th largest “district” in the Ohio) is bad enough, the financial games played by the school’s owner/operator are even worse. We wrote a comprehensive piece about ECOT back in 2011, but since then the school has continued to grow and continued to siphon ever larger sums of money away from higher-performing schools.
“On December 8, our post, Ohio’s Largest Taxpayer-Funded Charter School, ECOT, Receives Bonus Check, described how the school was up for approval of an additional $2.9 million dollar bonus from Governor Kasich’s Straight A Fund.
“On December 10, we posted a follow-up, ECOT Founder Living VERY Well Off Ohio’s School Funding Dollars, where we went into greater detail about the financial games being played and won by ECOT’s Founder, William Lager.
“Today, we have another update to the political donations and financial windfall experienced by Lager.”
Keep reading.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“While we now see the legislature writing laws to specifically regulate Cleveland and Columbus more tightly, the charter school laws that apply to ECOT continue to be more lax.”
But, but, but, but, but, but!!!!!! We (ECOT) provide a unique service. Give us time to get all the “bugs” (read students) out.
As soon as a student quits the ECOT business (I hesitate to call them schools) the government monies should stop, hell it should never have started to begin with, let these entities survive in that vaunted free market on their own.
But, but, but, but, but, but!!! Sorry no ifs, ands or buts!
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“approval of an additional $2.9 million dollar bonus from Governor Kasich’s Straight A Fund.”
The Straight A fund is a disaster. It’s a grant process that is heavily tilted toward online classes.
It’s bad enough that we have a huge online school charter school district in Ohio that is a disaster, but now they’re pushing online courses and “individualized learning” gimmicks into PUBLIC schools to replace live courses.
This lines up perfectly with Kasich’s tax policy, which starves public schools because of course online courses are cheaper.
The long term threat to public schools of cybercharters isn’t cybercharters themselves, it’s that ed reformers will take the failed cybercharter model and place it in existing public schools under the re-branding of online classes as “blended learning” and “individualized learning”.
My objection to ed reform isn’t what they do with charters. My objection is that they’re harming existing public schools.
We were told a decade ago when this was sold to the public that charters would experiment with new approaches and then public schools would perhaps adopt those approaches, if they were good. That isn’t what has happened. The charter sector, the 5%, are driving public school policy because our reform governor has charter operators running the whole state education system.
We need someone in state government who is looking out for PUBLIC schools.
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So let me get this straight: private greed answers every public need.
Private is better, more efficient and economical, gets better results. Any aberrations and deviations from this ideal are almost always illusory and at worst fleeting.
Leaving RheeWorld for a moment and alighting for a brief stay on Planet Reality: when you incentivize failure but rake in lots of $tudent $ucce$$ at the expense of public schools, then collect a bonus—
That spells “education reform.”
And of course the next step is to “scale up” the quantity and quality of the, er, “education bidness model” that is currently all the rage with those fighting in the “new civil rights movement” of our era.
I suppose to some this makes lots of ₵ent¢.
Not so much to the rest of us.
😡
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I’m worried about it, enough that I volunteered to serve on a citizen’s advisory group for our local district.
I don’t want to turn our underfunded, working class rural schools into Rocketship charters. I didn’t “choose” that and neither did anyone else who lives here. I can’t help but notice that the big push for “blended learning” is focused on urban and rural districts with a lower income student population.
There’s huge money behind this. Jeb Bush’s org is pushing it hard and Arne Duncan is also selling it.
I’m not a Luddite. I just believe, after watching “ed reform” for a decade in this state that ed reformers are reckless. The entire focus of the standardized tests is English and math. Can ed reformers assure me that teachers in other subject areas won’t be replaced by a cheap, rushed-out online “product”? The first thing they did in Chicago when they gutted public schools under “reform” was replace live classes with online classes. The same happened in Philadelphia.
Why don’t they put “blended learning” into wealthy suburban districts first and try it out there? Why are less wealthy kids in urban and rural areas always the test subjects for these “innovative” ideas?
I don’t want a Rocketship charter. I don’t think it’s “innovative” at all to replace teachers with employers who “monitor” online classes. I think it’s a way to cut costs on public ed.
The first place I saw online classes replace human beings was in a juvenile detention facility (I represent juveniles in the court system) and I didn’t agree with it THERE. I wasn’t alone either. Everyone in the juvenile justice system thought they were ripping those kids off, because they were. It’s cheaper to give them online classes than it is to send teachers in there. Why do I want this in my public school? I don’t even want it in a detention facility.
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Chiara Duggan: so right [about what you are commenting on] and [the things you are commenting on are] so wrong.
There is a disturbing parallel about how so much of “education reform” [itself beholden in great measure to “worst public school practices”] is based on notions of punish-and-reward/control systems that have been trial tested and used in mental institutions and prisons.
Any wonder, then, that the leading charterites/privatizers don’t subject THEIR OWN CHILDREN to the same regimen they increasingly mandate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN?
Keep posting. I’ll keep on reading.
😎
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New Year’s Resolutions For Public Education:
First of all, Kudo’s to Ohio’s Plunderbund investigative journalist, Greg Mild, public school teacher, for his multi-article series exposing the shell games of ECOT’s 100 million dollar salary earning CEO, who only graduates 35% of his students, William Lager. Greg is brilliant!
On to New Year’s Resolutions:
Wouldn’t it be great if tens of thousands of educators, parents and other concerned community members made it their New Year’s resolution to join or start their local, grassroots Public Education group?
That is what IS turning the tide, that is what will ultimately preserve and protect our children, their futures, public education and our teaching profession for this generation and generations to come.
Yes, it would be great to have advocates for public education in Ohio’s State House, as Chiara Duggan suggests in previous comment here.
But, it is tough to get in, because the big money, corporate, for-profit, shell game charter operators are the largest contributors to the GOP. The GOP controls our state legislatures by gerrymandering district lines drastically in favor of candidates for the legislature that will craft laws straight out of the ALEC playbook which funnel our tax dollars to crooked charter school operators like William Lager of ECOT.
As 1 of the 12 public school teachers who ran for the Ohio House of Representatives last cycle, I can personally vouch for the great lengths ECOT founder, William Lager, White Hat founder, David Brennan, Michelle Rhee and other for-profit charter CEOs went to keep teachers OUT of Ohio’s State House.
We ran for the Ohio House, some of us, taking personal leave and giving up a year’s salary, to become advocates and a collective voice, for our children, public education, and our teaching profession.
ECOT’s William Lager, White Hat’s David Brennan, StudentsFirst(Last) Michelle Rhee and the GOP spent 1.5 million dollars in the last 2 weeks of the race against just my campaign, I do not have the total $ spent against all 12 teachers, but rest assured, it is in the millions.
So, what to do? Is all lost?
Do we lose our resolve to restore resources, authenticity and integrity to our public schools, the bedrock of our communities and our democracy?
NO!
Here is what I am convinced will turn the tide… along with following the incredible work being done day in and day out by Diane, Anthony Cody, Greg Mild of Plunderbund, and other bloggers across the country who are giving us resources and ammunition as warriors and patriots for Public Education:
• Join your local grassroots organization for preserving and strengthening our Public Schools, if there isn’t an organization in your area, start one.
• In Ohio, there are 3 active non-partisan groups of engaged community members, planning community wide forums and other action steps to educate the public and expose the for-profit (or non-profit, managed by for-profit) charter scam as well as the dangers of high stakes testing, A – F ranking of schools, evaluating teachers by test scores, etc. There are hundreds of other such groups across the country, you can find them on Diane and Anthony Cody’s Network for Public Education website: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/
• Here are the Face Book links to Ohio groups:
Central Ohio Friends of Public Education: https://www.facebook.com/COFPE
Northwest Ohio Friends of Public Education: https://www.facebook.com/NWOFPE
• Join the Diane and Anthony’s Network For Public Education, make a weekly donation of $5 to support candidates for school boards across the country who will fight for public education: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/
Wouldn’t it be great if tens of thousands of educators, parents and other concerned community members made it their New Year’s resolution to join or start their local, grassroots Public Education group?
That is what IS turning the tide, that is what will ultimately preserve and protect our children, their futures, public education and our teaching profession for this generation and generations to come.
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I have another question, from Ohio. Where are the ed reformers on these garbage “cybercharters” in this state? I hear PLENTY about “failed and failing” public schools in Ohio from the giant ed reform lobby.
Both Jeb Bush and John Kasich have attended ECOT “graduations”. Bush and Kasich are huge in ed reform circles. They both trash public schools as part of their campaign strategie(s). Yet they’re both out endorsing this cybercharter business model.
Where’s Michelle Rhee, Campbell Brown and all the rest of the loudmouths who took it upon themselves to “improve” public schools?
Why don’t they ever go after this “sector”? Is it because there’s huge money behind it and powerful people?
I’m told again and again how brave they are to “stand up” to teachers unions. They’re not so brave against the money and power behind THIS rip-off, now are they?
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It’s the best con in the state of Ohio. Can you imagine any person really backing this type of “education”? It is just another way to exploit the poor and put money in the pockets of donors. Unreal.
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Next thing you know, you’ll hear Obama making a speech doing a “shout out” to ECOT.
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Good comment. It’s about $$$$$.
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They have actually paid Jack Hannah, Columbus Zoo curator emeritus, to pitch commercials for ECOT, saying it would have bee better for him as a oybsince he struggles with dyslexia.
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Why am I NOT surprised! TY, Diane.
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Here: http://www.plunderbund.com/2014/01/02/state-audits-show-ecot-founder-william-lager-was-paid-millions-for-undocumented-work/ is another example of how Lager is stealing taxpayer money in Ohio.
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Thanks for posting about this story. Sadly, Greg Mild, via Plunderbund, must be the only one interested in this story. My attempt to get the Cincinnati Enquirer to look into this was met with this response:
Enquirer – Cincinnati and Kentucky Hi Katie. Thanks for the link. This charter school is located in Columbus, which is out of our typical coverage area. We do plan to examine statewide charter school operations and oversight later this year.
January 2 at 10:47am
Guess they don’t even realize that as an ELECTRONIC school, they siphon off students and funds from schools throughout Ohio. I reminded them of this but did not get a reply.
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It is all a money game. In the area I live in, our school district has been trying to pass levies for years. All I know is that the 2000+ kids that DO graduate from ECOT, probably would NOT have been able to graduate from a regular public school. Some of them are teen mothers and a lot of them have had to take jobs to help support their families. Both of my sons graduated from ECOT. I have friends who put all three of the children in ECOT this year. They say it is the best decision they have ever made. We fell safe knowing where our children are and who they are interacting with. Yes, both of my boys have went onto college. They both have high IQ/s. Both of my boys stated that the work had to be done or the teachers were right on them. I know that I had an easier time interacting with the teachers from ECOT that the ones from their previous school. Some of these kids start to attend because they think it is going to be an easy ride and it isn’t. It takes dedication not only on the students part, but the parents also need to take responsibility and make sure their child is signing on and doing their work. And they do get head sets and interact with the teacher and other students. Just like a classroom setting. They can ask questions and talk to the other students. Maybe there are problems, as with the public school system in general, but it works for those who want it.
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Teresa, glad to hear your sons did well at an online school. The owner is making millions from taxpayers while taking money away from public schools that serve 90% of the kids. Do you think that is a just use of public funds, to enrich one man?
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