Two years ago, the New York Times published a front-page story about the scandal of Ohio’s Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), which boasted “the largest graduation class in the nation” but also had the lowest graduation rate in the nation and referred to it as a “dropout factory.”

The article said ECOT was enriching its owner, not its students.

But while some students may not have found success at the school, the Electronic Classroom has richly rewarded private companies affiliated with its founder, William Lager, a software executive.

When students enroll in the Electronic Classroom or in other online charters, a proportion of the state money allotted for each pupil is redirected from traditional school districts to the cyberschools. At the Electronic Classroom, which Mr. Lager founded in 2000, the money has been used to help enrich for-profit companies that he leads. Those companies provide school services, including instructional materials and public relations.

For example, in the 2014 fiscal year, the last year for which federal tax filings were available, the school paid the companies associated with Mr. Lager nearly $23 million, or about one-fifth of the nearly $115 million in government funds it took in.

Dave Yost, the auditor for the state of Ohio, is running for State Attorney General. Recently, he has made much of his audits of the failed ECOT, which collected about $1 billion from taxpayers over its 18-year history but recently shut down when state audits revealed its inflated enrollments, and the state demanded repayment of $80 million.

The Democratic party of Ohio is calling out Yost for ignoring the ECOT scandals until this past year. Yost posted a “timeline” to show that he had been on top of the ECOT problem, but Democrats pointed out more than 20 omissions from Yost’s timeline.

Highlights from more than 20 omissions we identified:

*Yost’s timeline draws reporters’ attention to his 2015 and 2016 charter attendance audits. What it doesn’t say is Yost exempted ECOT and other e-schools from both efforts.
*Yost’s timeline does not include the three awards for bookkeeping the auditor gave the school.
*Yost’s timeline does not include the nearly $30,000 in campaign contributions he took from ECOT.

Innovation Ohio tweeted:

@innovationohio

As Dave Yost tries to mop up his disastrous handling of the ECOT scandal with his 7 years too late audit findings, see what he had to say just a couple years ago when he gave ECOT an ACCOUNTING AWARD for having “best practices in place” and having “no problems with the audit”

Betsy DeVos wants more ECOTs, more K12 Inc. online virtual charters. Study after study has shown that they are ineffective educationally but highly profitable. DeVos was an investor in K12 Inc., and probably divested when she became Secretary but whether or not she is an investor, she supports the online charter sector.