Oklahoma has underfunded its public schools over the past decade. Many districts have switched to a four-day week to save money.
Some rural districts, facing insolvency, are turning their schools over to Epic, a for-profit online charter chain, which can balance the books by putting kids online and cutting teachers’ jobs.
Like all online charter schools, EPIC overstates its “gains” while its actual results are less than mediocre.
“To save his financially imperiled school district, Panola Superintendent Brad Corcoran in 2017 pitched a plan to convert the traditional public district into a charter school.
“In becoming a charter, Panola Public Schools would turn over its management to a company affiliated with Epic Charter Schools, the largest online school in the state. The school board agreed.
“The Epic-related firm contributed $100,000 toward Panola’s debt as part of the agreement. That company manages the small district for a more than 10 percent cut of its funding. Panola’s high school students now have the option to attend most classes online from home.
“The deal was unprecedented. Not only was it one of the first conversions-to-charter in the state, it allowed Epic’s company to operate a school and gain many benefits denied other charter schools: It could tap into and spend local property tax revenue to cover costs of student transportation, school buildings and sports facilities, like traditional school districts.
“And Epic didn’t stop at Panola….”
Epic has 23,000 in Oklahoma and it is growing in California as well.
”Trice Butler, superintendent of Wilburton Public Schools, which neighbors Panola, said she is concerned that Epic is looking to replicate what it’s done in Panola in other districts.
“Butler said her primary concern is her belief that students at Epic are receiving a subpar education. She cited Epic’s low high school graduation rates and high numbers of students leaving Epic and returning to traditional schools with academic credit insufficient for the time they were enrolled. (Epic maintains that some students come to them behind in credits and the school helps them catch up.)
“Epic’s presence in Panola has also raised concerns about aggressive attempts to attract students and teachers from surrounding school districts even in the middle of the academic year.
”Panola spent $650 for postcards, and at least some were sent to addresses in nearby Wilburton school district, promising a customized education for students and touting the school’s “double-digit academic growth.”
“Butler called this “predatory marketing” and said the statements made on the postcard are misleading.
“Panola elementary students did post positive academic growth on the latest school report cards, with 80 percent of students improving between 2016-17 and 2017-18. But only 27 percent of those students scored on grade level, compared with 57 percent in Wilburton and 51 percent statewide.”
Oklahoma has followed a policy of large tax cuts for corporations, especially those in the oil, gas, and fracking industry, and budget cuts for education and other public services. The state is abandoning its future.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“To save his financially imperiled school district, Panola Superintendent Brad Corcoran in 2017 pitched a plan to convert the traditional public district into a charter school.
“In becoming a charter, Panola Public Schools would turn over its management to a company affiliated with Epic Charter Schools, the largest online school in the state. The school board agreed. ”
What a shame. Replacing school with cheap, garbage ed tech. Does Oklahoma require a free public education? The students should sue for a public school with teachers. They’re being robbed.
Yes, Oklahoma does have a free public education in its Constitution. However, Epic IS a Public charter. Students do not have to pay to go there. The school receives their daily per pupil average from the state like brick and mortar schools do. This is a travesty and Epic is under investigation by the FBI and the OSBI for overstating their attendance records.
Charters are not”public.” They are under private management.
“That company manages the small district for a more than 10 percent cut of its funding. Panola’s high school students now have the option to attend most classes online from home.”
So deceptive. It’s a rural school. There won’t be a live class left in 5 years. They’ll all be hitting boxes all day on a laptop, alone, because parents have to work so these students are spending the entire day alone. That’s what finally occurred to the geniuses in Ohio- they realized no one was watching these kids at all. They forgot that parents have to work. Juvenile court judges had to tell them. None of the education experts put that together.
Good job, ed reform! Awesome innovation! You’re creating an entire generation of kids with no real school. Everyone take a bow and hold another awards ceremony.
At the rate ed reformers are selling these schools I think we could have our first charter school billionaire in a decade.
In what state will that occur? My bet is Florida, but Arizona is definitely in the running.
This poor district got robbed. They took 100,000 for an asset that will return 10%, guaranteed, for the owners and investors of this charter for the life of the contract. Their children are paying for it.
Vice News carried a story yesterday about Los Angeles’ top Latinx students that were invited to tour top east cost colleges including Wellesley. The trip was underwritten by a non-profit. One student complained that she could not take calculus because it had been cut from her school. Another thing these geniuses should consider is the loss of efficiency in all this privatization. These top students will be less prepared and able to compete in these schools if they cannot take advanced courses in their home schools due to charter drain. We don’t need a parallel system of weakened schools.
This school district has 101 students in PK – 8 and 51 students in the high school. Online classes are likely the only hope for students to have access to a rich curriculum.
If it’s online for-profit, it’s garbage and should be prohibited. The research is overwhelming that cybercharters and online instruction is ineffective in early grades. Only in college are students mature enough to choose online courses and stay motivated. Even then, motivation flags. That’s why MOOCS failed, even as pundits predicted they would make brick and mortar colleges obsolescent. They didn’t.
“RIch curriculum?????” I just got a girl in my public school geography class. She can’t find the U.S. on the world map (she put “North America” instead). It happens all the time when kids come back to public school from online “school.” They haven’t learned anything and are so far behind that it takes months or years to catch them up, even if they were only in online “school” for a few months.
TOW,
What do you think the local school board should do?
To give you some more background here is a part of the article not reproduced in the post:
“The Panola district had been struggling with its finances since at least 2013-14. According to court documents, 25 teachers and staff sued the district in 2015, alleging they were owed a total of more than $91,000 in back pay. A creditor took the the district to court over about $2,500 in unpaid credit card bills.”
I suppose that it might be better to simply close the district, but Latimer County only has 9 schools to serve the 722 square mile county, so closing the 2 in Panola that might mean some very long daily bus trips.
Teaching Economist,
We can always count on you to add a sneering comment.
What’s so bad about handing public schools over to online charlatans?
If you don’t know now, you will never know.
I deduce that you are a man without a soul.
How about we actually fund education? Why is it ok for a school district to have to choose a crappy education for their students or go bankrupt?
I have a great deal of sympathy for the locally elected school board in Panola.
I think it would be very helpful if those that criticized their decision to propose a feasible alternative decision that they could have made.
Do you have sympathy for the people who are gullible and tricked by charlatans?
Apparently yes.
You sympathize with the charlatans, who of course have a right to trick people into helping them make a profit from public schools.
And you feel that those who were tricked were doing it willingly.
Once again, it would be very helpful if those who criticize the decision of this publicly elected school board to propose a feasible alternative to the decision they made. That would be a good way to move the discussion forward.
It would help the school district if the state met its obligation to fund the school district.
You think it is swell for the board, in desperation, to sell control to a for-profit corporation.
I don’t agree.
Certainly if the district had more financial resources, there would be a higher number of feasible choices. The problem is that the district only has the financial resources that it actually has.
You have called the school board “gullible” and say they were tricked into making the choice they made. Once again I ask what would a “wise” school board of Panola have chosen to do in the same circumstances?
Would you sell your children to a pimp if you needed the money?
I am sorry to have to repeat this again, but you have called the elected school board in Panola “gullible” and said they were tricked into making this decision. What feasible alternative should they have chosen for their school district?
If you don’t have enough money to feed your child, would you sell it?
Have the privatizers now come up with a business plan that exploits the rural poor?
JA has come up with a fabulous plan:
Tomorrow’s workers need K-12 career training, JA panelists agree
To find their place in the workforce, kids need a greater exposure to hobbies at an early age. What’s more, their parents and teachers should start homing in on their unique skills sets — and potential careers — when they’re 4 or 5.
https://newsok.com/article/5630193/tomorrows-workers-need-k-12-career-training-ja-panelists-agree
Poste at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Oklahoma-For-Profit-Onlin-in-General_News-Charter-Schools_Diane-Ravitch_Education-Costs_Education-Funding-190503-389.html#comment732768
with this comment”
This comprehensive overview — A Layman’s Guide to the movement to destroy public education (DPE) https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Layman-s-Guide-to-the-De-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Democracy_Education_Education-Curriculum_Education-Funding-180909-50.html#comment710970 describes the methods & names the leaders–a small group of billionaires undercutting democracy and privatizing public schools. It is financed by several large non-profit, tax-exempt organizations. Without this spending, there would be no wide-spread public school privatization. The game plan, aims for the same result: The dismantling of democratic control of public schools. “Almost all of the education reform initiatives coming from the DPE forces are bunkum, but their hostility to democracy convinces me they prefer a plutocracy or an oligarchy to democracy. The idea that America’s education system was ever a failure is an illusion. It is by far the best education system in the world plus it is the foundation of American democracy. If you believe in American ideals, protect our public schools.