Stephen Dyer writes that enrollments in the online for-profit Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow have dropped.
The enrollments in Ohio’s charter sector have fallen for the fourth year in a row.
Maybe the public is catching on, as a result of scandal after scandal. The major newspapers in the state have vigorously pursued the problems of the charter sector. The public is beginning to understand that squandering their tax money on private, unaccountable schools hurts their public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There were tons of school levies on ballots because the ed reform bloc in the Ohio legislature has been busily cutting public school funding for the last 7 years. Most of the levies passed so we once again supported public education without the participation of “ed reformers”.
If it’s not charter or voucher funding our elected representatives simply can’t be bothered. They have somehow managed to make themselves irrelevant to 90% of families with school age kids. I have no earthly idea what they do all day down there in Columbus, because it ain’t “work on public education”. We send the same amount of state tax money in, we just get much less of it back.
90% of them could stop coming to work and no one in Ohio would notice. It was probably a mistake to check out for 7 years and focus exclusively on vouchers and charters. Now we know we don’t need them at all.
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Ed reformers do contribute one thing in Ohio. They fight labor unions. They’re an anti-labor movement that occasionally mentions education, but only in so far as mentioning education furthers the anti-labor goals.
They’ve just completely lost the plot. As it turns out, it may not matter. The public seem to be willing to support public schools without their expert assistance.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
At some point, the rich money people will realize that they have been riding a dead horse.
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And then there’s Silicon Valley …
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/silicon-valley-baltimore-schools.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&referer
Hope people don’t buy into Silicon Valley’s raid on schools FOR PROFIT.
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Yvonne, I posted this story as “Disgrace in Baltimore County”
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It’s really amazing. You can’t find a mention of a public school in “ed reform” politician speeches:
“When South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster stepped onto the stage at Charter Schools USA’s annual summit in August, it was to thunderous applause. Alternately smoothing his tie and shielding his eyes from the floodlights, he told a couple of folksy jokes before pivoting to the message he’d come to deliver.
The Rust Belt’s economic losses are the South’s gains, McMaster said, noting how saddened he was by the boarded-up buildings he saw on his trip to Cleveland the year before to nominate Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention. He was sorry about the city’s decline, he said, but South Carolina is booming.
The state needed more charter schools, McMaster told the cheering audience, and he planned to push for laws to make it easier for them to open.”
Nothing for public schools. Nada. They don’t even bother to address public school families or public school supporters. They don’t consider us constituents.
https://www.the74million.org/article/inside-the-1-million-fight-to-hold-south-carolinas-for-profit-virtual-charter-schools-accountable/
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As an Ohioan, I am very pleased to hear that enrollment has decreased in charters in Ohio! They are starving our public schools, and thanks to the newspapers and other media for bringing their graft to the citizens. Starve the beast!
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Parents, and students, are realizing the “education” at ECOT is severely lacking. Shouldn’t that free market economics have shut it down by now?
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