Denis Smith worked in the Ohio charter school office, and he saw the combustible mix of deregulation, money, and politics. This is a combination sure to produce scandal. And it has.
Smith reports here on the biggest scandal: the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT). It has the lowest graduation rate in the nation, according to the New York Times. It is a for-profit virtual charter. Its owner William Lager is one of the state’s major donors to the Republican Party. His patrons protect him from scrutiny or accountability.
One of the supporters of ECOT is Andrew Brenner, chairman of the Ohio House Education Committee. He despises public schools.
Brenner has said previously that “public education is socialism.” But if we follow the Chairman’s logic (hmm, I thought only well-known socialists and collectivists like Mao Zedong and Leonid Brezhnev were referred to as Chairman), we find illogic, viz., the Chairman of the Education Committee seems very much opposed to public education.
But the illogic gets worse.
Profits generated from the public funds received by charter school operators like Lager and White Hat Management’s David Brennan flow to their favorite Republican politicians in the form of contributions. These profits, snared by privately operated management companies with hand-picked, unelected boards not subject to full public transparency and exempt from 150 sections of state law, ultimately wind their way to committee chairs in the legislature as well as more senior leadership in the House and Senate.
To Chairman Brenner, this is capitalism at work. And capitalism is the very opposite of socialism, right? Yes socialism, as evidenced by the operation of public school districts who raise their revenue from the taxation of local property and who are subject to full legal transparency and accountability, governed by a group of citizens elected by qualified voters in the community where they operate. These are community schools, the real public schools. Contrast that with charter schools, where, unlike public schools, there is no requirement for board members to be qualified voters, viz. citizens.
I wonder why Republicans aren’t in favor of requiring proof of citizenship for charter school board members, as they are for some voters. Hmmm.
Public money for private purposes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a great timely article, as I will be meeting with a politician running for a major office in concerning Ohio in a couple hours, along with a few others in my profession. Nice summary, and thank you!
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Cindy,
Be sure to read the next one too.
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Sweet. The new form of money laundering and bribery.
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It actually can’t be a “for profit” charter in Ohio. That’s *technically* barred by state law.
Charter schools can be either nonprofits or not-for-profits. That’s the law.
They just get around it by forming a shell entity and funneling all the operating funds thru the nonprofit TO the for-profit. It’s easy! No normally functioning adult could possibly be fooled by this transfer- it’s not rocket science- but apparently all Ohio lawmakers and ed reformers ARE fooled by it.
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Campbell Brown and Governor Scott Walker are coming to Ohio to tell us how bad public schools are and how wonderful charter schools are.
I wonder of they’re mention this fabulous ECOT experiment. Nah. Inconvenient facts are barred from all echo chamber events.
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Great article Denis. At the federal level, millions of tax payer money have been spent on charter schools and the US Department of Education has not the slightest what they have gotten in return, let alone the public.
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