The Ohio Department of Education under John Kasich has not been known for vigilance when it comes to the virtual charter school industry. However, increased media attention to Ohio’s pockmarked charter sector has caused the state to look into its underperforming and highly profitable virtual charters.
What they discovered was ugly. Inflated enrollments. Lack of evidence that students participate in instruction for the required 5 hours a day. An industry that profits while students fail.
The investigation focused on the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), owned by one of the state’s major contributors to Republican campaigns. William Lager has received nearly $1 billion in public funds since 2002. The money to pay for a failing online school was taken from Ohio’s public schools.
The New York Times wrote about ECOT a few days ago and pointed out that the online school has the largest proportion of students who fail to graduate of any high school in the nation. Only 20% finish on time.
Actually, it is worse than it appears. Stephen Dyer noted that ECOT accounts for 5% of the graduates in the state, but it accounts for more of the students who fail to graduate from high school than all the state’s districts combined!
This is a failing school! It should be closed.
The state may revise a regulation or two. Don’t expect anything dramatic, like shutting down the state’s lowest performing school, or basing pay on performance. That’s for public schools, not Ponzi schemes that contribute to Kasich and friends.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Local media have been good, though. They’re on to them 🙂
“The plan to enrich for-profit businesses — if not students — can be summed up in two words: dilute and delay. Mr. Lager and friends got a legislative delay until after the November election to twist arms and derail charter school quality efforts — again.”
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/MarilouJohanek/2016/05/28/Ohio-electronic-schools-get-a-pass-with-the-help-of-a-checkbook.html#YQ5oedLtfvV4liwd.99
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Don’t be fooled, They’ll do nothing. They held a press conference to announce these “findings” and cover their own behinds but they’re all accepting huge donations from charter lobbyists and they’ll delay and hope everyone forgets all about it.
They have announced they are “open to finding solutions” which means another year without regulation or oversight.
The online garbage charters actually benefit the whole ed reform club in Ohio. They take the lower scoring kids and shuttle them off to these profit mills which allows them to claim “scores are going up!” in all the other schools. It’s a freaking shell game.
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The Republican Party should change its name to Fraudsters United.
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There are 30,000 Ohio kids in online schools. It is worth asking why they are there and where they would go if the schools are shutdown. The only math teacher at my daughter’s school is a very poor teacher. The remaining teachers at the school are exceptional, but this one teacher should not be teaching and is negatively impacting kids. Our only choice was an online course where I tutored her. It worked.
I suspect many brick and mortar public schools use the online schools to offload difficult students. With Fordham the puppeteer of educational policy in Ohio and a sponsor of brick and mortar charters, much of the focus now towards online schools is more likely other charters trying to eliminate the competition.
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How small is your daughter’s school if there is only ONE math teacher?
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She is in a school within a school. A specialized public school run by teachers AND students with a separate curriculum. It is a very successful model, but certainly not for everyone. I need to correct myself – two math teachers. But one is very good the other a problem. Trouble is, there is no course overlap so students have no choice. Many unnecessarily fail and when I observed the curriculum, methods, and lack of classroom management of the poor teacher, I was disappointed to say the least. We did not see any other options other than an online course. The issue of online schools is complicated.
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And I’ll add, too, this is where I step back and take a look. With 30,000 Ohio kids in online schools, there is certainly an attraction and reasons. If they shut down the online schools, we have to ask where those kids will go. I hate to see them abandoned. Can Ohio’s 600+ school districts each implement an online school? Or are there economies of scale to consider? My son also takes online/blended courses at a community college. So I have seen these online schools work for students. From reading the Dispatch, the main argument seems to be what is “learning opportunities”. In my own kids’ case, they would spend a couple of hours online, then double (or for Calculus, triple!) that time offline doing work. Probably more productive than me constantly waking up students in my classroom or telling them to put away cell phones. Perhaps a first step would be to poll teachers and students of online schools and ask what they want. Maybe the model can be revised to partner more with public schools. I have less faith in Ohio’s lawmakers..
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*are (edit button)
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Ohio’s future might have been bright. But, too many education tax dollars enriched schemers and fraudsters, at the expense of community public schools. Taxes were spent on highly questionable activities, lobbying and advertising to get pretend enrollment at sham schools. In the coming decade and beyond, if nothing changes, Ohio will have a less educated workforce. If all of the data comparing Ohio to other states reflects education’s absence, among the on-line and transitory charter schools, we can thank Gov. Kasich, Supt. Ross and State Board Chair Gunlock. Ohio can say goodbye to industry, that is attracted to an educated workforce.
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