The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from Ohio taxpayers to pay for online schooling st home. The owner of ECOT makes large campaign gifts to legislators. The “school” delivers low-level instruction and gets terrible results. High attrition, low test scores, and (according to the New York Times) the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.
Incredibly, the Ohio Department of Education audited ECOT and found that its enrollment numbers are vastly inflated. The state ordered ECOT to refund $60 million.
ECOT went to court to challenge the state’s right to demand accountability. ECOT lost. ECOT announced layoffs.
Now ECOT is blitzing the state with TV ads to protest the state’s efforts to recover the$60 million in overcharges.
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170624/ecot-continues-tax-funded-ad-blitz-despite-layoff-announcement
This is the definition of chutzpah.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Or capitalism doing its own thing.
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That’s not capitalism. It’s public/private partnerships.
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Public/private partnerships these days are a strong step towards privatization, with the public paying and the private sector profiting.
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The taxpayers should be asking Ohio why they are not better stewards of public funds. They should demand accountability from the state to ensure that they will develop a better system that manages funds to private entities as there needs to be an annual independent audit.
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With DeVos as Sec. of Education, most likely nothing will happen. Teachers are not paying attention!
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B DeVos has no authority to reach into Ohio & force them to properly administer a charter agreement, even if she were so inclined.
The teacher comment is interesting: if I’m not mistaken, the online teachers at virtual schools are indeed responsible for verifying a student’s virtual presence through online contacts/ interactions. I wonder whether accurate monitoring is made impractical by overloading them w/more students than they can keep track of. Or, does the company get correct input but brazenly double-bill? (Or both).
Regardless, the onus is on the state DOEd to close a bottom-performing school like this one– and to audit it before it gets a chance to ring up $60million in fraudulent charges. Taxpayers are being ripped off bigly.
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The recent Ravitch post about the “Florida to Ohio” contractor school fraud charges has a link to a Beacon Journal article, which identifies and explains why, in that case, Ohio Republican elected officials preferred to sit on their hands.
Egregious abuse of Ohioans was impossible until the richest 0.1%, like Gates and Walton heirs turned their exploitation from business to community schools.
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Cami Anderson, real life then appointed Superintendent of the entire Newark School District reported 100% attendance in each and every brick and mortar school. Meanwhile, one of the high school females was missing for weeks, and found dead not far from school. Now THAT is an abuse of her position. She was also photographed during the school day in a Newark bar drinking. She is no longer the Supt., but she had a soft landing from her “fall.”
There was also a scandal when a young student came down with meningitis and they were scrambling to find out which schoolmates had come into contact with her – and there was that 100% attendance fiasco.
If the Newark School District, under direction from Cali Anderson, could boast 100% attendance, imagine what the cyber charters, and “teachers” in charge get away with.
Cami was never charged with negligence, or paid a fine for false reporting, or anything. She sleeps at night with a clear conscience, though I don’t know how she does it.
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Does Betsy DeVoid know about ECOT? Would someone tell her please?
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Not that she’ll care. Remember, it’s all about “parents having choice” now, NOT better education.
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DeVos loves “blended learning”. She pushes ed tech product on public schools in every speech.
The US Department of Education promotes specific ed tech products on their website. There is nothing they like better than some garbage “online learning” program in low income schools.
They push garbage online learning courses into lower income rural schools. My son’s school has one “world languages”- it’s a cheap replacement for a language course. That way they can check the box that says they still offer a foreign language.
It’s a blatant rip off for students. A shoddy imitation of a real course.
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Betsy wants more ECOTS.
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It’s absolutely amazing. The state of Ohio is apparently completely incapable of regulating the charter schools THEY SET UP and fund.
Charters in Ohio are literally state schools. They originate at the state level. They’re essentially the school district that the state runs. Yet no one in state government can get them to follow any rules.
No one! Not the attorney general, not courts, not the governor.
If you or I owed 60 million dollars to the state of Ohio THEY WOULD COLLECT IT. They would put a lien on your home or business and garnish your paycheck. If that didn’t work they would seize everything you own and auction it. It happens to regular people every day.
ECOT owes them 60 million dollars and not only are they not collecting it- they’re paying for ECOT to attack them with these ads!
What is the leverage charter school operators have over our lawmakers? Are they holding them hostage or something? Can someone go down to Columbus and rescue them?
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If a public school district owed the state of Ohio 60 million dollars in overpayments you can be damn sure that the state of Ohio would collect it.
Yet ECOT rolls along, and lawmakers seem helpless to stop them. The STATE government is supposed to regulate charter schools. That was the deal when the state set them up- Columbus would regulate the schools Columbus invented.
If they won’t do it then why don’t they turn these schools back over to a school district and county government? They’re obviously completely incompetent at managing their own state schools. Turn them over to a school district to manage.
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ECOT is so low in quality that it should be closed down.
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O-SIGH-O does it again! Glad I don’t live and work in O-SIGH-O anymore.
Thank you, Reagan, Bush senior, Bill and Hillary Clinton, GW, Obama, and now the worst, Dump. And no thank you to dark money. When will this madness stop?
And for goodness sakes, where are our professional organizations? Asleep? Some groups of educators are actually talking about grammar and love, rather than questioning standards and testing, blended learning (another word for worksheets on computer), Rahm-bo’s plan for high school diploma, mayoral control of schools, following the dark money, standing up for public school teachers, and scamming tax payers. Can’t make this stuff up.
Question: How LOW will the presidency get? Remember Nixon? At least he resigned and didn’t mess with education. He looks good by comparison, and that’s not saying much.
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Has DeVos met with advocates for public schools yet? She met with charter advocates- they had a special Q and A. She met with voucher advocates.
When do the advocates for the 90% of kids who attend public schools get a special meeting?
Pretty ridiculous that no one at the US Department of Education can find time for the schools 90% of kids attend.
Are public school parents, teachers and kids not welcome at the US Department of Education? Do they think this is okay in DC circles? That 90% of kids and parents are excluded from any consideration by their own federal government?
It’s been 6 months. Apparently public school kids and parents are a VERY low priority in ed reform circles. They can’t even gain entry to the building.
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ECOT really isn’t the worse thing ed reform has done to students in Ohio, because people choose ECOT.
The worst thing ed reform has done in Ohio is sell garbage online programs to public schools, which makes every public school more like ECOT.
This stuff is everywhere in lower income schools, particularly rural schools. They’re using it as a cheap replacement for live courses.
They cut field trips years ago in my son’s public school. Now they offer “virtual” field trips.
It’s a rip off. Kids used to get the real thing. The saddest part to me is younger kids won’t even know they they’ve been robbed by these hucksters and salespeople. They don’t know what past groups got.
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Ohio officials are actually demanding accountability from an educational institution other than the public schools?
That’s progress.
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And this is exactly what DeVos supports..and wants to do everywhere around the country…more privatization without any accountability. It’s a crying shame.
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“Electronic Classrooms of Tomorrow”? Seriously? Who’s the headmaster, Buzz Lightyear? Is the institution’s motto–rendered in Latin, of course–“To Infinity and Beyond!”?
Come on. Can we at least pretend to act like adults?
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The title says it all:
“…of Tomorrow”.
As long as the title sticks, then “Tomorrow” will never come.
Sent from my iPhone
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How about Star Wars Academy? Oh, there is Rocketship.
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I forgot about Rocketship? What about the George and Jane Jetson Academy?
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