Jan Resseger writes in The Progressive about the biggest charter scam in Ohio.

When a charter operator gets a lot of money from the state, and selfsame charter operator gives generously to legislators, how can said charter operator ever be held accountable?

In Ohio, the press got fed up with ECOT and started paying attention to charter frauds. Politicians cannot tolerate constant negative press. So, lo and behold, the state conducted an audit of ECOT.

Resseger writes:

“With Betsy DeVos, a long-committed charter school proponent, in charge of the U.S. Department of Education, the country should look to recent goings-on in Ohio as a warning sign of what can happen when public institutions are privatized and an example of why a moratorium on more of these schools is necessary.

“In 2000, Bill Lager founded the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow and the two privately held, for-profit companies that operate the school—IQ Innovations, which provides ECOT’s curriculum, and Altair Learning Management, which manages the school’s operations. According to an old 2003, Ohio Department of Education policy, online charter schools were paid a per-pupil amount from the state for every student enrolled. Until 2015, there was not a requirement that virtual academies demonstrated actual daily participation. Once the Legislature began demanding proof that students were regularly logging on to their computers, Lager and his attorneys have blamed the state for suddenly and unfairly changing the rules. In the 2015-2016 school year, ECOT was paid $106 million in public tax dollars for the more than 15,000 students it said were enrolled, but the state was able to verify the active participation of only 6,300 students.

“The state has demanded that ECOT pay back $60 million the school was over-paid for the 2015-2016 school year, but Lager has used his connections to the state’s biggest lobbyists and key Republican friends in the legislature to pressure lawmakers, even creating attack ads on TV aimed at the Department of Education.

“Thanks to relentless exposure of the scandal by the state’s major newspapers, it appears, finally, that Ohio may claw back some of the tax dollars Lager has stolen. But the state and a lot of local school districts are still owed $60 million for the 2015-2016 school year. And the Columbus Dispatch reports that the Ohio Department of Education has not released results of a new attendance audit for the 2016-2017 school year.

“Lager has been in court all year to block the state from making ECOT repay the money. In mid-June, the Ohio State Board of Education voted almost unanimously to accept the ruling of a hearing officer from the Ohio Department of Education, who is reported by the Columbus Dispatch to have declared that no school’s intent is to “teach to what could be the equivalent of an empty classroom.”

Keep your eyes on ECOT and whether it will be held accountable. Like other states, Ohio desperately needs charter legislation that is not written by lawyers for the charter industry. Ohio courts have ruled that anything purchased by a charter operator with PUBLIC funds belongs to the charter, even if it goes out of business. The law was written that way, by charter lobbyists.