Indiana is one of the state’s that has been all in for choice. One of the choices pushed by former governors Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence is Virtual Charter Schools. These are online schools that allegedly enroll home-schoolers or students who prefer not to attend a Brick-and-mortar school.
Study after study has found that these online schools have high attrition, low test scores, and low graduation rates. However they are very profitable since their operators are paid far more than their actual costs.
The name of their game is enrollment, since their costs decline as enrollment grows, and they must constantly replace those who drop out.
Unfortunately, the incidence of fraud is high since the online schools are seldom auidited.
Indiana is currently trying to recover $40 million from two online charter corporations and their authorizer, which was stolen by inflating enrollments.
Indiana will try to claw back around $40 million from two virtual charter schools and the public school district charged with overseeing them after an investigation found the charters inflated student enrollment counts and defrauded the state for the last three years.
Daleville Community Schools is the charter authorizer, charged with oversight, for Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy. A state audit found that the schools inflated their enrollment counts, which are used to determine how much money the schools receive from the state.
A report, provided by Daleville, showed that hundreds of students counted in the online schools rolls were never assigned a single class. In the 2016-17 school year, 740 students took no classes in the first semester and 1,048 took no classes in the second semester.
Many students were re-enrolled by the school, even after they had left. In at least one case, the school re-enrolled a deceased student, said State Examiner Paul Joyce.
Joyce told the State Board of Education at its meeting Wednesday that the schools’ action could be considered criminal.
Is it a novel idea to treat the theft of millions of dollars as “criminal?” That certainly did not happen in Ohio, where the operator of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) closed his doors rather than repay the state some $60 million in inflated charges. Over the years, ECOT collected nearly $1 billion, and there were no audits or efforts to recapture public funds until the past year. No criminal charges either.
You know the old saying: If you steal a fortune, you are treated as a gentleman, if you steal a loaf of bread, you go to jail.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Love your last line, Diane: “You know the old saying: If you steal a fortune, you are treated as a gentleman, if you steal a loaf of bread, you go to jail.”
So TRUE.
and if you steal a fortune, you get to hang out exclusively with other people who have stolen their fortunes: protections at the highest level
I sent this article in the IndyStar to Senator Niemeyer [R-IN], Representative Chyung [D-IN] and Governor Holcomb [R-IN].
Of course, I added my comments which were not a bit flattering. This absolute waste of precious taxpayer money should NEVER HAVE HAPPENED! There is way too much in this state that is either falling apart, unfunded or polluted.
This season, Ohio’s attorney general is focused on warning the public about fly-by-night home repair scammers. Small grifters don’t fund the state Republican Party. Charter operators do so, they avoid punishment. Meanwhile, Ohio taxpayer dollars are going to the TV stations to promote the virtual charter schools who lie, calling themselves “public”.
The Nostalgic Conman Remembers Indiana
O! the grift is good today along the Wabash
From the statehouse comes the call to pay to play.
Ghosts will take the classes that you’re streaming
On the Indiana virtual pathway.
If you steal a loaf of bread, you’ll go to prison,
But take millions, and they’ll say that A-OK.
You can laugh as you go bank your new-found fortune
In the banks of the Caymans faraway.
The operative word is “restitution” and not “claw back”, which is typically used to to describe a compensation arrangement whereby payments are made in advance and then “clawed back” if the conditions for them being paid are not met. It is a legitimate financial arrangement. Restitution is typically done by a court ordering a criminal to pay back what was stolen from the victim.
Thanks, Patrick, for the lesson on this terminology.
I was very interested in (& very happy–the Wall Street Journal) to read this weekend’s (July 13-14) WSJ 2-page article about the deceit & greed of the Sacklers, (“Schism in the House of Sackler,: a Tarnished Reputation & a Host of Lawsuits Have Further Split the Family That Owns the Maker of OxyContin; ‘How is My Son Supposed to Apply to High School?’,” by Jared S. Hopkins) family tree & their roll in the opiod crisis. One “poor” (as in “woe-is-me”) Sackler mom (as opposed to a soccer mom) moaned & whined in the article that “children’s lives are being ruined” (referring to her own) & stating, “…it dooms my children. How is my son supposed to apply to high school in September?” –“Jacqueline Sackler was fed up. HBO’s John Oliver had just used his TV show to pillory her family, the clan that owns Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin.”
“In one 2001 email, Richard Sackler (sent as president), ‘ I’ll tell you something that will totally revise your belief that addicts don’t want to be addicted. It is factually untrue. They get themselves addicted over & over again.'”
At the end of the article, Jacqueline Sackler, again: “She expressed concern about how the criticism of the Sacklers was affecting her family. ‘Lives of children are being destroyed,’ she wrote.” She is, of course, talking about her children.
Read this article…then read the book Dopesick.
Actually, all of us really just have to watch John Oliver, that scallywag who exposes people…like the Sacklers…
Thanks for alerting us to that in the WSJ.
The Sacklers are collectively worth $14 billion.
Over 200,000 have died due to opioid abuse.
retiredbutmissthekids: “In one 2001 email, Richard Sackler (sent as president), ‘ I’ll tell you something that will totally revise your belief that addicts don’t want to be addicted. It is factually untrue. They get themselves addicted over & over again.’”
Once again, it is proven that wealth doesn’t bring intelligence nor compassion. NOBODY wants to become addicted over and over again. Some people commit suicide because they can’t take it anymore.
Richard Sackler is one more wealthy idiot brain working to tell everyone that he and his rotten family are suffering needlessly.
Just read the article, via some fluke that skipped the paywall. You did a good summary.
Sackler moms. That’s a funny one!
“How is my son…?”
The Sacklers’ self pity is like that of the deformers who are funded by the wealthy. As an author described it, “Self pity makes tyrants. It is the defining characteristic of brutal regimes.”
RE; Sackler mom’s concern about her son applying for high school – there are great high schools that don’t require applications…but i guess she hasn’t heard of them.
Are you suggesting that she send her child to one of the schools that Prole children attend?!?! Please report to Rm. 101 immediately. –The Thought Police, USMiniLuv