One of my favorite charter school stories is the one about the Lion of Judah charter in Ohio. When it was learned that more than a million dollars had been transferred from the charter school, the lawyer for the church asked the judge to forgive his client because it wasn’t his fault: he saw the easy money and greed got the best of him, what an original defense!
Here is the latest from Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy:
“Finally, the Ohio Attorney General files a lawsuit in charterland
Extremely late, but it may be a good sign. The Ohio Attorney General is going after individuals and entities who received $2 million from a now-closed charter school-Lion of Judah. Financial fraud has been a continuing thread in some sectors of the charter industry since the beginning.
Why didn’t Ohio’s Attorney General sue White Hat Management several years ago when Scripps Howard News Service documented that the company was receiving funding for students enrolled but not attending? The Scripps report-GHOST SCHOOLS-documented a vast difference between enrollment and attendance. In one case, a White Hat charter school had a 64% absentee rate for the 2004-2005 school year. The Scripps Howard report quoted a former principal of the Life Skills Center of Cincinnati, “It’s a cash cow! We all used to sit around and joke about it.” Further he said, “I spent less than $1 million on a $3 million operation. What the *%@& are they (executives at his former company) doing with the other $2 million?”
A recent report by the State Auditor showed a great disparity between attendance and enrollment in several charter schools. In March 4 testimony before the House Education Committee, State Auditor David Yost admonished the committee to craft legislation to correct this type of abuse and enforce it via criminal penalties.
The Attorney General should be aggressively protecting taxpayers and students from blatant charter fraud. The lawsuit against those associated with the Lion of Judah charter is a good start.
William Phillis.
Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If we lived in a sane country, no such allegedly “public” school would ever be allowed to open with the name “Lion of Judah”.
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Sounds like a Cecil B. DeMille film.
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I thought it was the name of a reggae band.
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based on its track record, they should have called it the “Lyin’ of Judas”
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“Why didn’t Ohio’s Attorney General sue White Hat Management several years ago when Scripps Howard News Service documented that the company was receiving funding for students enrolled but not attending? ”
Gosh, I don’t know: tons of donations to Ohio Republicans?
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GHOST SCHOOLS?
See the posting.
GHOST CARS?
See the LATIMES—
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-lapd-ghost-cars-20141011-story.html
Ah, but the money and reputations involved in gaming the numbers was real.
And all done, rheeally and truly, in the most Johnsonally of ways…
😎
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If I were inclined to pray, I’d be asking that they go after the bastards at White Hat Management with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers. For starters.
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