December 1, Columbus Dispatch Capitol Insider: Remember ECOT?
As the article indicates, most people have forgotten the ECOT debacle. The ECOT Man, William Lager, siphoned one billion dollars from school district budgets for a business plan that was designed to collect funds for tens of thousands of students that were not being served and tens of thousands of students that were underserved. Lager’s campaign funds-driven relationship with hundreds of state and federal officials over a couple decades allowed him to steal public money in public view. When citizens began asking questions about the thievery, some public officials scrambled to give the appearance of holding Lager accountable.
School districts will never receive back the millions and millions Lager illegally took from them.
Remember ECOT?
Most Ohioans have probably forgotten that the state is still trying to pry money from leaders of the now-defunct ECOT, the online charter school that shut down almost three years ago.
Even though the state started pursuing the money in 2018, a trial might not happen until 2021 under a recent timetable developed by lawyers for the state and those associated with the former Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.
The attorney general is seeking to recover millions from ECOT founder William Lager; his companies, Altair Management and IQ Innovations; and several former ECOT officials. The lawsuit says Lager had a fiduciary duty to ECOT that was violated by the contracts signed to funnel money to his companies.
The delay is needed because Lager and his companies dumped 50,000 pages of new documents on the state in mid-October, on top of 50,000 already provided, a joint court filing from both sides said.
“The state needs time to review this latest, massive document production,” the filing in Franklin County Common Pleas Court said.
The modified schedule calls for a status conference
Sept. 15, 2020, with a trial to be scheduled afterward.
Bill Phillis, longtime head of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, remarked, “Although Lager amassed a lot of wealth on the backs of schoolchildren, it is doubtful that much, if any, will be recovered.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reform leaders all promoted the school and urged expansion, although they had no earthly idea what was going on with the school:
“In June 2010, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to give the commencement speech for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, the state’s largest virtual charter school. ECOT, which provides K-12 online education for kids who never set foot inside a classroom, was celebrating its 10th anniversary and its largest graduating class—nearly 2,000 kids. Naturally, the event, held on the campus of Ohio State University, was webcast for those who couldn’t make it.
Bush served up the usual graduation platitudes about the future. Then he hit on the reason he was saluting this particular school: digital learning. It was, he said, nothing short of a revolutionary approach, a way to meet “the unique needs of each student so that their God-given abilities are maximized, so they can pursue their dreams armed with the power of knowledge.”
It wasn’t the first time Bush had praised the wonders of online education. Over the past year, he’s emerged as one of the nation’s most prominent boosters of virtual schools, touring the country to promote technology as an instrument of creative destruction against the public school system. ”
Are they ever going to have to explain why they all promoted and sold this garbage? Why weren’t there more questions and analysis before they pushed it all over the country?
Should we take their advice now, given that they gave us such bad advice on this?
Ed reformers polled on “education”, but they excluded public schools:
https://www.the74million.org/article/2020-school-choice-poll-democrats-federal-funding-charters/
So typical of this “movement”. No regard for or interest in public school students at all.
Their definition of a candidate’s “education” plan is limited to whether the candidate cheerleads sufficiently loudly for charter schools and vouchers. Public school students aren’t even part of the analysis.
It explains a lot. It explains how we have ended up with three consecutive US Presidents who refuse to lift a finger on behalf of any public school student, anywhere, and how we ended up with an entire federal “education” agency that is irrelevant to 90% of the students in the country.
Rhetorically, do the state Catholic Conferences post the 74 Million stuff along with the American Federation of Children propaganda?
George Bernard Shaw- Among the religious, “…In my experience, the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christian.”
and it is a statement which could be expanded to: “…the men who want to KEEP the system offering them something for nothing …”
yes. colonialists.
“COLUMBUS, OH (WCMH) – The enrollment window on vast expansion of Ohio’s school voucher program begins February 1.
Hundreds of public schools could lose millions in state funding as the number of schools to be considered voucher eligible will triple.”
No concern or discussion of this at all among ed reformers. Huge cuts to Ohio public schools, tens of new schools and students designated and labeled “failing” and not a word out of our passionate “education” advocates in ed reform.
Compare to the reaction when a single charter school program or funding stream is cut.
They simply don’t work on behalf students in public schools. Our kids are the dead last priority. Public school students weren’t considered when they jammed thru this scheme to expand vouchers, and they’re still not being considered.
Why are we paying these people? They return absolutely no value to 90% of students in this state and more often than not they actively harm our students. We have hundreds of them on the public payroll in Ohio. Why?
Fordham’s staff and villainthropists and ALEC’s politicians should be held accountable for ECOT.
The word, “lost”, as descriptor is easily understood in Ohio, a colony governed by the richest 1%.
If ALEC politicians force taxpayers to give money to individuals who fund the state GOP and citizens are led to believe that their dollars will purchase something of value then, when it’s found there isn’t value, the situation takes the Capitol unawares- a surprising “loss”.
The colony’s GOP “justice” system is expected to then, follow-up with alchemy, making tangible, “lost” money, evaporate.
amnesia + widespread ignorance = authoritarianism