What would you say about a school that had the lowest graduation rate in the nation? What would you say about a school whose owner made millions of dollars from taxpayers while making regular contributions to state legislators and other elected officials? What should happen if that same school was audited by the state and found to have inflated the number of students? What should happen if the auditor determined that the school overcharged the state by $60 million and refuses to repay it? What if the school goes to court to fight the repayment and loses, using taxpayer dollars to advertise its cause?
The Columbus Dispatch reported here on the origins of this lucrative scam.
What should be the consequences for this massive ripoff of students and the public?
The state is allowing it to remain open, continue recruiting students, and pay off its debt a little at a time.
Why is this school still allowed to operate?
If it were a public school, it would have been closed long ago for its poor performance and its defrauding of the taxpayers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“What would you say about a school that had the lowest graduation rate in the nation?”
Well, I’d say someone has to. I’d be curious about the demographic make up and funding of this particular school.
Okay, I get the point of this post and the other points are all very important and damning. But please let’s be careful about calling for closing schools because of “poor performance”, even charter schools (and, for the record, I’d like to see all charter schools closed or fully reabsorbed into the public system or liberated to function entirely as the private schools they really are). “Performance” always means either standardized test scores or some other easily fudge-able metric graduation rates which creates its own kind of Campbell’s Law (e.g., if graduation rates become the miracle metric, schools will just start graduating everyone, even those who have hardly set foot in the building or put pen to paper – voila, instant graduation rate improvement!).
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So, instead of “performance,” let’s shut this school down for fraud.
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Absolutely. And since charter schools by definition are fraud, let’s shut them all down.
I just think we need to be careful about justifying the “logic” that gets used so often against public schools. The “worst” schools are usually full of the poorest kids and often the lowest funded, so let’s just shut them down instead of figuring out what to do to help them.
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Agreed. We need a moratorium and financial regulations with teeth. As far as the quality of a school is concerned, it’s usually not a problem unless there is a profit involved. Where there are profits, open or hidden, there are Trump Universities.
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This is what passes for freedom and free market in Kasich’s Ohio.
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But I just heard on NPR yesterday that Kasich is a “reasonable” politician.
Ha, ha, jokes on everyone!
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Kasich is BAD.
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Kasich is a case study in how a politician can thrive on public apathy, ignorance, political amnesia, and hyper partisanship. I know public school teachers who complain about all the things we discuss on this blog who support him unconditionally. I have the “advantage” (if that is the proper word) of having followed him closely during his House career, paying attention when he got his cushy Lehman gig to fleece the state prior to the financial collapse, and watching him exploit the gift of an incredibly weak and inept state Democratic Party. The only thing most people know about him is that he is the son of mailman. He fleeces the state for personal gain, political cronyism, and smiles all the way to the bank and halls of power. He is the Teflon pol. Other than that, he’s fine.
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For some reason, this site doesn’t allow me to post stories by plunderbund, which has been covering the Ohio education debacle better than any newspaper in the state. Worth checking out today’s post if anyone is interested.
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Here’s the US Department of Education on their policy of cutting funds to public schools to open more charter schools:
Liz Hill, the Department of Education press secretary, sharply criticized Duncan’s suggestion to charter leaders.
“Make no mistake: following this approach would hurt students. It’s an insult to the millions of students and parents benefiting from charter schools, and the millions more on waiting lists trying to get into a school that better meets their needs,” she said in a statement. “It’s especially sad to see such a misguided effort advanced by a former Secretary of Education.”
The kids in public schools are not even part of the discussion in DC. The assumption is public schools will take the hit in pursuit of ed reform’s preferred sector.
These folks are public employees. You’re all paying them for this. They are now on Month Seven of an agenda that completely excludes kids and parents in public schools- the funniest part of that? That’s NINETY percent of US students. Just omit 90% of the people they’re supposed to be serving and this not only flies in ed reform, it’s ENCOURAGED.
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It is truly amazing how long people have been allowed to get away with making their fortunes off tax dollars intended to provide high qualify education for children, millions of which are diverted to money grubbing adults. Most of them are not educators and they provide low quality education, in virtual and brick and mortar schools, which most politicians would never send their own kids to…
So when did stealing candy from a baby become normalized?
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But, but…it’s for the children!
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I’m pleased Ohio media are finally critically examining ed reform, but the Columbus Dispatch owes the people of this state an apology.
There was no bigger mindless cheerleader for ed reform than that newspaper. They cheered each and every ed reform scheme, gimmick, and scam for 15 years. If it had the ed reform label they were happy to rubber stamp.
They’ll have to do quite a few of these investigative reports before they even up the damage they’ve done.
Take a look at the prestigious national ed reformers who have promoted these schools over the years. It’s a fancy list. Everyone from Jeb Bush to John Kasich were out there misleading the public on these schools.
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AGREE, Chiara. What a travesty and for what? PROFITS at the cost of our young. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE.
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Make no mistake- the leading lights of ed reform promoted this school:
“Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a national leader in education reform, will be commencement speaker as he helps to recognize ECOT’s Class of 2010, the largest in the school’s history with nearly 2000 eligible students. Mr. Bush is founder and president of the Foundation for Excellence in Education and served as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007.
“As ECOT celebrates its first 10 years as the leader in online learning, I am extremely proud of our students for their unprecedented academic progress and their personal achievements, often in the face of great adversity,” said ECOT Founder William Lager of Columbus.
Mr. Lager founded ECOT in the fall of 2000 with the dream that technology could bring education to children who were not succeeding in traditional “brick and mortar” public schools. Today, ECOT has the largest fulltime e-school enrollment in the nation with more than 10,000 fulltime students. More than 600 teachers and staff work with their students online with a secure intranet connection from their homes throughout Ohio.”
The worst part? They’re not happy with just ECOT. Their goal is to turn every low income Ohio public school into a low quality online “academy”.
They push this stuff DAILY on public schools. They’re basically a sales force for edtech product. They use the same dishonest sales tactics they use for all things reform- they accuse anyone who resists of “protecting the status quo”.
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After receiving complaints, state Auditor Jim Petro investigated ECOT’s enrollment, starting with a special audit in 2001 that found the school in its first year had no policies for processing student enrollment or withdrawals, and the state paid $1.9 million over two months for students with no documented hours of instruction.
Petro also found 99 students who were enrolled despite being younger than 5.
An it is now August 2017. Talk about slow-walking on fraud, allowing it to flourish. Payola worked in Ohio. Taxpayers are still being ripped off.
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Ohio taxpayers funding the T.V. advertisements of the virtual contractor schools…
I’m just curious if the Dispatch’s position would change if they received revenue for advertising from ECOT and K-12, Inc. Money spent on promotion that doesn’t match their demographic market, would be a hard choice for the contractor schools…
a shout out to Gates, Walton heirs, Fordham,… for enabling the fleecing of Ohioans.
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YES, indeed, Linda.
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Ohio Democratic candidates in the governor primary have a combined $1.75 mil., compared to the Republicans’ $13.8 mil.
The funders of the Center for American Progress (and Fordham), including heirs like those of the Sam Walton, attack the 99% by dictating the platform of the left, undermining America’s most important common goods. Gates and the hedge funds of DFER pile on. Other oligarchs fund Republicans, dictating the shared platform of plunder.
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