Denis Smith writes here about four elected officials, now standing for re-election, who stood by and watched (or helped) the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) as it drained money from the state’s public schools and its taxpayers. $1 billion since 2000!
If you vote in Ohio, watch out for these four:
As damaging as the charter school’s implosion was on the viability of Republican pols, the corresponding explosion ECOT’s demise is causing in state political circles continues to reverberate, particularly for four GOP ECOT stalwarts named Dave Yost, Mike DeWine, Keith Faber and Andrew Brenner.
They are not your friends. They are not friends of public education. They are not stewards of the public trust and treasury.
Rep. Keith Faber is the first case in point. [When the subject is term-limits and running yet again for some other office, you might want to get a scorecard to follow the runs, hits, and mostly errors of this Republican team.] The former Senate president and now House member is currently running for Auditor, seeking to replace current Auditor Dave Yost, who is, you guessed it, term-limited and running for Attorney General.
Faber’s way to brush off the radioactive fallout is to distribute more than $36,000 collected from ECOT to “high quality” charter schools.
Based upon past history, that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?
Then comes Mike DeWine, a candidate for governor:
Then there’s the curious case of Mike DeWine. The term-limited Attorney General, who is now running for Governor, has decided to go after ECOT founder William Lager, his companies, and several others in high ECOT circles, including its former superintendent, treasurer, and accounting administrator.
Voodoo economics begets voodoo public policy begets voodoo charter schools begets voodoo accounting.
In DeWine’s case, his lawsuit seeks to recover from the ECOT hierarchy a portion of the $62 million ECOT is accused of over-billing the state in voodoo student attendance data.
Worst of all is Andrew Brenner, who called public schools “socialism.”
The third usual GOP suspect is House Education Committee Chair Andrew Brenner who is, you guessed it, term-limited and running for the Senate. Brenner has apparently learned the use of pejoratives from his idol, Donald Trump, the undisputed king for crafting pejoratives as a tactic to demean opponents.
Louise Valentine, Brenner’s Democratic challenger for the Senate seat asked in May if Brenner was considering returning the ECOT donations he’s received over the years. In his usual attack mode characterized by splitting hairs and deflecting the subject, Brenner said he never received any money directly from the school.
No, of course, Brenner didn’t get any money from ECOT. He got money from ECOT’s owner, William Lager!
His opponent calls him #ECOTAndy.
Last is the Auditor who claims to have brought ECOT to justice!
The final figure of the fast and furious foursome is Auditor Dave Yost who, like his colleagues memorialized here, served ECOT well as a commencement speaker, endorser, and proponent of the corrupt online charter school. In addition to scooping up more than $29,000 in campaign cash from ECOT, Yost is remembered for bestowing not just one but three awards for the school’s financial reporting.
According to a 2016 press release on the Auditor’s website, “The school’s excellent record keeping has qualified it for the Auditor of State Award with Distinction.”
There is something Orwellian in the fact that a public official offers praise for an entity which does not operate in the public interest, convenience, and necessity. Such an award demonstrates once again that voodoo economics begets voodoo public policy begets voodoo charter schools which begets voodoo accounting. Which begets an Auditor’s Award for Voodoo Accounting. With Distinction, no less.
Wow. You can’t make that one up.
Vote. Sweep out the scoundrels who stood by and applauded the raid on the state’s treasury.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Mike DeWine is just comical. He did absolutely nothing about ECOT as attorney general. The MOMENT it became a campaign issue he suddenly became concerned about fraud in the charter industry.
Just remember- TONS of high profile ed reformers cheered ECOT on, FOR YEARS.
They had no earthly idea how the school was doing or what the school was doing with the tens of millions in taxpayer funding, but that didn’t matter- the echo chamber all cheered.
The result? Ohio citizens got fleeced. ECOT robbed millions. It’s the biggest scandal in Ohio history, measured in dollars stolen.
Every single kid in every single public school district in the state paid for this ed reform experiment. Jeb Bush didn’t pay. Public school students paid.
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ECOT did one thing that will benefit public schools in Ohio. They broke the spell that had every politician in the state completely captured by ed reform lobbyists.
We are finally, finally getting real analysis of privatization here- after 2 decades of cheerleading and happy talk and marketing.
So I’m grateful to them for that. If it hadn’t have been for ECOT the entire lemming-like political establishment in this state would still be trashing public schools and mindlessly promoting charters.
The magic fairy dust has started to dissipate. We’re finally getting real information.
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Ohio as a ways to go, though. Now that ed reform is (finally) getting real critical scrutiny and debate, maybe some of the state-level public employees in this state could start contributing something worthwhile on behalf of the 90% of families who attend the unfashionable public school sector.
It’s great if they won’t be mindlessly cheering on their preferred schools. Now how about they take the next step and actually do some work on behalf of families who use public schools.
We can demand more from these folks than “please don’t hurt our schools”. They are actually paid to IMPROVE public schools. Insist they do their jobs.
Let’s raise standards. Allowing public schools to exist isn’t enough. Insist ed reformers who are on the public payroll add some value to PUBLIC schools. LeBron James shouldn’t be the only person in the state to actually add some value to an Ohio public school. We are paying thousands of state employees to do that.
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there’s an essential concept: public payroll used ONLY for adding value to public schools
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Keith Faber…The former Senate president and now House member is currently running for Auditor”
If he were running for state frauditor and I lived in Ohio, he would get my vote for sure.
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Ed issues will be discussed in Cleveland Heights on Aug 29. Wish I didn’t have a planned business trip then.
https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/08/what_do_ohios_report_cards_tel.html
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Diane – There is HOPE in Ohio. The Democratic candidate for Governor, Rich Cordray, actively sought out the endorsement of OH BATS. Not only that, he met with a group of us and allowed us to tape him replying to some of our questions. He emphatically supported an END to high stakes testing in Ohio – he said he supports reducing testing to the federal minimums which in Ohio means ending High School Exit testing and the “Third Grade Reading Guarantee” (guaranteed only to give your young child anxiety about reading and testing). OH BATS was leery about endorsing ANY candidate regardless of party because both parties have been complicit in “Reform” around the nation. However, Rich Cordray has actively sought to allay our fears – I believe he is sincere and genuine in wanting to turn things around in Ohio. He is well aware of the ECOT scandal and holds great disdain for charters (He accepted a $600 Lager contribution many years ago before the corruption was apparent – when he discovered this, he immediately donated that money to his local public school! This is way different from the tens of thousands Faber, Brenner, Husted, DeWine, and Yost took from Lager). He is THE person we need in Ohio to turn things around. I hope ALL educators rally around not only OEA and OFT’s endorsed candidate, but OH BATS endorsed candidate, Rich Cordray. Any help you can give us in spreading the word that Rich is PRO PUBLIC ED would be greatly appreciated!! I have been an avid reader and admirer of yours for several years – your pro public ed heroism is unmatched! With our current slate of candidates running for the legislature and Rich Cordray leading the ticket, I am hopeful for the first time in many, many years.
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