The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says that the EPIC virtual charter school has stolen millions of dollars.
Investigators say the co-founders of the school embezzled $10 million, based on “ghost students” who never enrolled.
Just days ago, a state legislator asked where the money was going but was rebuffed by the state Department of Education.
Oklahoma’s largest charter school is a “blended learning school” that has received so much money that a legislator asked where the money was going. The state Department of Education said it wouldn’t tell him unless he paid a fee of $850 to find out. The school claims a 99% attendance rate, which in itself is bizarre.
Oklahoma state Sen. Ron Sharp is questioning funding the state’s largest charter school has received in the past two years.
This comes after Sharp said Epic Blended Charter School received a total of $63 million in its first two years of operation.
FOX 25 sat down with Sharp Thursday who said the school was provided allocation money through the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) for grade levels the school doesn’t provide.
“The first year they were in existence we gave them $23 million. For the second year now, we gave them $40 million. That is an excessive amount of money particularly for kids that’s aren’t being accommodated in the school. That is a problem,” Sharp said….
Sharp said he submitted an Open Records Request to the Oklahoma State Department of Education in March.
“In June, I received an email that they would not provide that information to me because of the extensive hours involved without an $850 fee. Which again, as a state senator, I found that to be a little bit unusual. Now I have been requesting quite a bit of documentation here from the OSDE,” Sharp said….
Sharp also questioned how many students actually show up to Epic Charter School on-site locations.
“Are there enough individuals? If 7,000 are showing up to two sites at any one period of time that, you have to make sure you have proper facilities for them. Individuals of which are able to monitor them and again, how many kids are coming in before school and after school?” Sharp said. “They even say at all these sites they have a 99% attendance rate. Which is absolutely amazing as a 38-year teacher — you cannot get 99% of your kids there at a school each day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This should be no surprise to anyone that pays even a small amount of attention to virtual schools. It is happening all across America. Wake up America!!!
The Oklahoma Education Department is afraid they are going to be caught not providing proper oversight for that virtual school. Then there will be a legislative investigation into all the virtual schools.
It’s up at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Oklahoma-Investigators-Ac-in-General_News-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Virtual-Reality-190718-146.html#comment739585
With this comment which has embedded links a the above address, back to this site.
So while the rant-in chief- distracts the nation, the grand theft of taxpayer money in 15,880 school systems in 50 states is no where to be found in the MSM. This piece was one of many about Pennsylvania’s Expensive, Ineffective Cyber Charters
Luckily, here at OEN, you learn about other states and the charter school scams — how the new tech’ virtual charter schools are funneling money out of public schools to enrich themselves. Indiana:
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 audited.
Lets look at:
Indiana which is currently trying to recover $40 million from two online charter corporations and their authorizer, which was stolen by inflating enrollments.
Texas Public Radio reported on the devastating effect that charter expansion is having on the public schools of San Antonio.
Washington State: “Bold Experiment” with Charters Is Flunking
Ohio’s: For-Profit Charters Get Rich Running Non-Profit Charters, Taxpayers and Students Get Stiffed
Finding information on Nevada’s charters is like finding a needle in a haystack. You can find it if you have 100 years. Or have time to puzzle it together. It took M Sullivan hundreds of hours to develop just a list of Nevada charter campuses a few years ago.
Angie Sullivan: The Great Charter Scam in Nevada
California’s public schools in the small West Contra School School Districtlose $27.9 million each year due to charter schools, a loss of nearly $1,000 for each student in the public schools. According to a study by the watchdog group In the Public Interest,The majority of students suffer budget cuts so a small proportion can attend charter schools that may be no better and may close mid-year.
Louisiana: JefBryant reports here on the waste of millions of federal dollars poured into charter schools
and this is the tipoffs the iceberg of grand theft.
So, what did Trump say today?