The New York Times wrote a front-page expose of ECOT only weeks ago. The online charter school has an on-time graduation rate of 20%. Students get credit for “participation” if they log in for only one minute. It is very profitable for its owner, William Lager. Despite its dismal results, the Republican speaker of the House was its graduation spoke at its graduation ceremonies. William Lager is the state’s biggest donor to Republican politicians. They have been good to him in return. He has been awarded nearly $900 million in public funds for his low-performing e-school since 2002. Pending in the legislature is a bill to regulate ECOT and similar institutions just a little bit. The chances of its passage are slim to none. Lager is a very generous man.
From 2000-2013, Lager has donated $1.4 million to Republican politicians in Ohio. Of course, he has given more since then.
This is what ECOT–the state’s lowest performing school–has received from the legislature (data supplied by Bill Phillis, former deputy state commissioner of education and now retired and relentless watchdog of education spending):
2004
$28,768,914.97
2005
$38,139,918.73
2006
$39,762,863.11
2007
$44,540,366.08
2008
$50,475,630.27
2009
$57,233,338.72
2010
$59,990,773.55
2011
$67,510,732.17
2012
$78,850,259.14
2013
$88,358,002.78
2014
$99,180,328.91
2015
$104,380,709.86
2016
$107,517,808.16
total
$864,709,646.45
How cool is that? He gives $1.4 million to politicians, and he gets $864 million to run a school with a graduation rate of 20%, with no accountability or transparency. Now that is what you call a terrific “return on investment”!
Here is the latest from Bill Phillis of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition:
A post on the Facebook page of the chairman of the House Education Committee, Andrew Brenner
“I attended the ECOT graduation today. Cliff Rosenberger was the keynote speaker. It was impressive.”
Bill Lager, the ECOT man, certainly knows how to gain the favor of state officials. The June 5 ECOT graduation speaker was Cliff Rosenberger, the Speaker of the House. Senator Coley introduced the speaker. Senator Coley is on the Senate Finance Committee where SB 298 was blocked from passage this spring. This bill requires online charters to verify they are serving the students for which they receive funding.
The ECOT graduation ceremony VIP lineup probably sealed the doom of SB 298 [the bill to require charter school transparency].
Former governors, even Jeb Bush, state superintendents and other state officials have graced the stage of previous ECOT graduation ceremonies.
The Plunderbund article of June 6 provides some startling insights into the ECOT industry. This article should create a sense of urgency in the public education community.
Is there no no in the Ohio legislature who can stop this waste of taxpayer dollars?
Does anyone care?
William Phillis
Diane Ravitch's blog 
ECOT is also subsidized by the Federal Government. Lager doesn’t have to pay “lobbying fees” for that money. He just has to navigate the maze of Federal regulations; when he gets through once, it is easy for him to go back year after year.
The people of Ohio can wake up and hold their elected officials accountable. The USDOE is only accountable to the President, and we all know how that has worked out.
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It is time for taxpayers to hold our leaders accountable. Our tax dollars are paying for millions in graft, kickbacks, waste and fraud in charters. Maybe if more members of the media would shine a light on this problem, citizens would start to understand some of the corruption connected to handling out money without oversight.
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Some elected officials in Ohio care but it seems they are in a minority. There is the sponsor of the bill Senator Joe Schiavoni and his 9 co-sponsors. I’m looking at the history of Senate Bill 298 on Ohio and it doesn’t look like it even got out of the committee for a vote.
https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA131-SB-298
The page that shows the bills history says it was referred to committee on 4-12-16 and that’s the last we’ve herd of it. It seems the committee is amending several sections. You know what that means. Amendments usually mean stripping out anything honest, rational and fair.
https://legiscan.com/OH/research/SB298/2015
In April, The Columbus Dispatch ran an Op-Ed and reported, “As it stands, it appears that Faber’s Senate is playing games with Senate Bill 298, a measure to ensure that charter schools are actually educating students. This crucial reform legislation was oddly assigned to the Senate Finance Committee rather than being sent to the Education Committee, where Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, had made it clear that she’d fast-track the bill.”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2016/04/19/1-charter-school-bill-deserves-action.html
The GOP controls Ohio down to its weeds. In the Senate. How long can the billionaire oligarchs that support the GOP with their wealth and power fool that many predigested voters in Ohio?
Maybe Ohio’s air, water and food are so polluted that it has affects the thinking of the voters making them easier to fool.
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They slow-walked it hoping the attention would die down.
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As Chiara says, they slow-walked it. But they also keep the chaos and public confusion going by endlessly changing names, personnel, titles, programs, consultants….etc. etc.
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Off topic but noteworthy:
http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2016/06/state-waives-consequences-for-5th-and-8th-graders-who-fail-staar-tests.html/?_ga=1.160169652.843584851.1463256084
Comments following the article are good.
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This is like totally awesome! OMG! There using technology! That is always good.
I use spellcheck good two, right? Awesome!!!
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You can’t tell the corporate whores from the corporate pimps without a Schedule 990.
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Good ONE.
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Ohioans ARE outraged, but ALEC politicians continue to methodically dismantle public education in the Buckeye state. The media needs to regularly expose the corruption tied to ECOT and call out each legislator whose “policy-making” is dictated by William Lager. https://ecotexposed.org/
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The bigger concern for me is ed reformers in government/private sector are pushing online learning into low and middle income public schools.
If every public school becomes an ECOT, we’re screwed. ECOT doesn’t just sell charters. They sell online learning systems.
This is a piece from a Chicago public school parent on how hard they’re selling it in Chicago. A person from Baltimore County weighs in and warns parents that ed reformers are grossly inflating the worth of this stuff in order to sell more of it:
http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-public-fools/2016/06/cps-newly-posted-job-executive-director-of-personalized-learning-comes-with-a-dire-warning/
You’ll all recall Jeb Bush’s lobbying outfit promoted cheap computerized instruction in Maine until a local reporter exposed that Bush was behind it.
They’ve been pushing online learning a long time.
I hope public school leaders will resist the marketing by government and private sector ed reformers and make good decisions.
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I would add that my eldest son works in this field and he doesn’t believe there’s any advantage to “online learning” based on the sort of crazy idea that it will make students “21st century learners”.
The fact is the people who are doing this work now were “20th century learners”
Examine some of these claims. Does it make any sense to say someone is a “21st century learner” because they’re sitting in front of a screen all day long? Of course not. That’s just nonsense. Learning is learning. He used the same set of skills to learn coding or programming or design of systems that he used for everything else he’s ever learned.
He just happens to like that work so he pursued it. There’s nothing magical about this.
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It’s like groundhog day in Ravitchland yet again. It’s amazing how many times the same blog post can be regurgitated. Relentless anti-public-school-choice blather… But nonetheless ECOT is 16 years strong… you could almost count ECOT’s graduating class of 2001 on your hands. But this year 2300+ graduate… over 300 early graduates yet over 500 with disabilities. One of the largest and most diverse graduating classes you could possibly imagine. While many graduates didn’t graduate “on time” they still achieved their diploma. In terms of a headline worthy stat for NYT, Plunderbund or Ravitch… These kids don’t count I guess. The anti-choicers like Diane will share a half graduation rate to push an agenda but will conveniently (intentionally) fail to share this one important fact.—> 65% of ECOT High Schoolers ENROLL AT ECOT ALREADY A YEAR BEHIND. While the schools that rid themselves of these students receive a improvement in their graduation rate… ECOT is there to provide a recovery, a path and a choice…. unfortunately at a penalty to their on time grad rate. But that sums up my experience with ECOT to a T. The teachers and staff are so amazingly student-focused that the agenda-media headlines do little to slow their roll. It is important to note that I have kids enrolled in a wonderful traditional brick and mortar public school and I have a child enrolled at ECOT. It’s great that we have public choices available to best meet the needs of individual students in Ohio.
I was at graduation speaking with the families, friends and teachers of this year’s class and humbled by their stories. You see… many of these kids were left behind, cast out or simply didn’t fit in at other schools… Mostly traditional brick and mortar but some from private and other charter schools as well.
The way we’ve always done it doesn’t meet the needs of ALL students any longer. It may be time for many you to get over it because the parents and students are speaking in the choices we’re making.
Also, It’s time to define the debate lines that Diane and others in the anti-choice media would rather keep blurred.
90% of the content of Diane’s anti-public-school-choice posts are about lobbying and campaign finance… not education. Lobbying and campaign finance is such a wide topic that if debated neutrally would include ALL lobbying…. from both sides of our 2 party system… and we’d be discussing impacts across all areas not just public education…but something tells me she doesn’t want to open up that can of worms..
Instead, she’d rather try and use just one biased side of that discussion to her agenda’s benefit while dismissing the voices of actual students, families and teachers in the process. Sad.
The remaining 10% of her post’s content is spent on weak-armed and truly uneducated jabs towards the students, teachers, families and our school on the topic of necessity and effectiveness of public live-online school. Based on what she’s written, she has literally 0 experience with what an ECOT education is like from a teaching or learning perspective. And based upon some the blog comments from her readers, neither do they. I thought the title of this blog was “A place to discuss a better education for all”
I began studying distance learning about a decade ago and am very close to the tech. ECOT is a modern ed-tech marvel. Teachers leverage the ECOT platform as an educational tool to engage and educate students in a different way and environment than traditional schools can provide. While this format does not work out for every student, it does work better than other options for many… including my daughter. The myths about students “sitting in front of a computer all day” or “clicking their way to a diploma” are total garbage. The truth is that there are real live classes with real live teachers and students interacting live with each other every day…. There are amazing opportunities with this format for students to get the one-on-one help they need… there are friendships, socialization, clubs, field trips and so much more. All similar as elsewhere just delivered in a more modern way…
It’s expected that people fear and lash out against things they don’t understand… like technology but for the sake of our kids and public education systems… I think 2016 should be the year we put that fear to rest and focus on our kids.
http://www.ecotpals.org/blog/3-reasons-why-ecot-puts-other-schools-to-the-test
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“ECOT is a modern ed-tech marvel.” No, no, and more no. What do you do for ECOT? Write their terrible software? Or just sell it?Sure, online works for some kids, but at what cost? Anyone calling online learning packages a “modern ed tech marvel” is trying to sell something.
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Bill Adamsky -I’ll wait right here for you to back up your comment with first hand experience in ECOT’s classrooms – To have a platform that connects teachers with 17,000+ students on a daily basis in some of the most internet starved rural or metro areas via live video audio and chat is a marvel in and of itself but even beyond just the tech is the way in which the teachers use the platform for what it is… A tool – the curriculum is full of offline and online components… The teachers use the tech to extend their reach and increase individualized educational opportunities for the students as well as improve parent engagement at the same time – it is the future and it’s hybrid or what I call “live online” – I’ve been personally responsible for researching, testing and implementing large format learning management systems (LMS) and associated programs. I speak from this experience plus my experience as an ECOT parent.
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Jeremy,
Why do only 20% of the students graduate from ECOT?
Why does Mr. Lager give so much money to Ohio Republicans?
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Diane,
Really? We’ve had this conversation plenty of times before. The grad rate calculations are meaningless because they’re not applicable to today’s wildly diverse school environments and populations. The only thing lazier than the media/blogger reporting on this fake-rate are our leaders of public education how they still choose to use simple-minded and old school math to assess and compare school districts.
Here’s a start but this article doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
http://edexcellence.net/articles/the-problem-with-graduation-rate-statistics
Just because the NYT shouts it and anti-choice agenda media houses like Plunderbund shout it more… then you shout it again…. does not mean that the statistic is factually accurate and that it has any real value towards public school progress.
Regarding your political donation question, I’ll defer to a question back. Why do unions or any individual interested and invested in certain areas donate to the Republican or Democrat political campaigns that align with their interests?
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Jeremy Aker,
Why is William Lager the biggest contributor to GOP politicians in the state of Ohio?? Is he buying preferential treatment? Does that have anything to do with the nearly $1 billion that the Ohio legislature has given him?
Have you read the CREDO study of virtual charters? Have you read the National Education Policy Center study of virtual charters such as ECOT?
Aren’t you embarrassed to work for an organization where students lose 180 days of instruction in math for every 180 days they are enrolled in ECOT?
Will you change your name to get another job?
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Jeremy, please remember that in this life your reputation is what you always carry with you. Get out of ECOT before it is too late.
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Jeremy,
Unions represent teachers who work in schools. Who does William Lager represent other than his pocket?
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Nobody fears the tired tech of Ohio’s on-line schools, which were originally foisted on the public (years ago), by convicted financier Michael Milkin, after he was barred from the securities market. Ohioans loathe the hijacking of their democracy for the monetary gain of a few individuals, at the expense of the state’s future economic growth, which is dependent on an educated workforce. And, Ohioans hate to be fleeced of the dollars they intended for community public schools.
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Linda, if so many Ohioans hate what the GOP is doing to their state, why do they keep voting them in to run the state?
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Lloyd, that is the million dollar question. I would like to say that gerrymandering has created a situation in Ohio where Republicans will never lose control of the House or Senate. I would also like to say that Kasich’s budget has forced local districts to rely more than ever on local school levies. That has a way of turning people against their schools rather than the governor who created the situation. Unfortunately, I think much of the blame lies in the fact that folks like teachers they know… but hate teachers in groups. The libertarian/privatizer streak has certainly taken hold here in Ohio, with Kasich and guys like Brenner leading the way.
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With great irritation, I listen to Ohioans, who are federal, state and local public employees (including current and retired teachers), identify themselves as Republican. They are willfully ignorant about the personal threat of GOP policies, to their well-being. Mark Twain said, “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always twenty years behind the times.” I’ve concluded that a lot of Ohio Republicans cling to the party for the following reasons: (1) It reinforces their prejudices. (2) The fears of disrupted equilibrium, that can come from new insights, can be avoided with GOP allegiance. (3) It fosters the certain and, irrational view, that they are superior to other people and, (4) It enables their compelling drive to avoid all conflict. If they had to say one politically correct thing, it would be, “Republicans oppose smut and, Democrats lack traditional values (evidence to the contrary is irrelevant).
In the last election, the Democratic opposition to Kasich, had bizarre baggage that became public. IMO, the Democratic State chair lost his job b/c of that candidate choice. Fitzgerald took, to defeat, all of the down ballot candidates. Ohio would have a different political landscape, in the executive branch, if Connie Pillich, David Pepper or
Richard Cordray had run for governor,
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Lets not forget that these are also Kasich’s people, the ones he would have had to try to sweep under the rug to have a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected president.
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The Washington State Supreme Court has made a ruling that makes sense regarding charter schools: The Court ruled that charter schools aren’t really public schools and are only masquerading as public schools because they aren’t subject to public accountability and public control because they aren’t governed by school boards that are elected by the public, nor do they file the same public-domain financial reports that public schools file. Bottom line: Charter schools should be governed only by school boards elected by the voters, should file the same detailed public-record financial reports that genuine public schools file, and anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property. That’s not an “unreasonable restriction” on charter schools. Today, charter schools can divert public tax money into the pockets of their boards by deceptive tactics such as paying exorbitant rents for buildings that are owned by their board members or by their proxies. Charter schools can use public tax money to buy expensive items like computers and those items become the private property of the charter school which can sell those items, pocket the profit, and then use public tax money to purchase more and repeat the profitable process. There should be lawsuits in every state challenging the constitutionality of the practice of a state giving state and federal public school tax money to private entities.
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I am ashamed to say that Andy Brenner is my rep here in Ohio. It would be difficult to hate public education more than Brenner does. And, yes, he is the Chair of the Education Committee. Just shaking my head.
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It’s awe-inspiring just how little it costs to buy a politician in Ohio. I think it costs more to buy a McDonald’s franchise than it does an Ohio legislator.
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A little cash and a great disdain for public ed goes a long way here in the Buckeye state.
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Cliff Rosenberger, Speaker of the Ohio House (who, IMO, is not his own man), contributes to the lack of good government in Ohio.
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