John Thompson writes here about yet another virtual charter scam, this one in Oklahoma.
He writes:
After years of failing to regulate charters, especially online and for-profit charters, Oklahoma is just one state that illustrates how hard it is to catch up and hold virtual schools accountable for either education outcomes or financial transactions.
In July 2019, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation search warrant, “[Epic’s co-founders] enticed ghost students to enroll in Epic by offering each student an annual learning fund ranging from $800 to $1,000.” This was despite the fact that Epic knew that the parents of many homeschool students “enrolled their children . . . to receive the $800 learning fund without any intent to receive instruction.”
Epic’s recruitment of “ghost students,” who were technically enrolled but received minimal instruction from teachers, allowed the company to legally divert state funds for their own personal use, while simultaneously hiding low graduation rates to attract more support.
This year, Epic has received over $100 million in taxpayer money. And the company, in an exposé by the Tulsa World, admitted that over the years its “Learning Fund”—which is shielded from public scrutiny—received $50.6 million from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Tulsa World estimates the Learning Fund could cost the state about $28 million for 2019-2020. Moreover, the private management company Epic Youth Services receives a “10 percent cut” of the charter’s student funding. Also, state appropriations pay for the millions that Epic spends on advertising and generous contributions to elected officials.
If nothing else, Epic is helping to nail down the case that charters are a tool for privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t know if it’s a class thing or a rural v urban thing, but I’m reading all these op eds about the crisis causing us to move away from “place-based learning” and what people here seem to miss is THE PLACE. They want their children IN school and they want to go to school events. Physically. To GO.
I wonder if one can really just talk people out of wanting that. I don’t think so. They’re getting something out of these “places”.
DeVos talks sneeringly about “buildings” but people in this town seem to be attached to “buildings”.
Why is there an assumption they’re wrong? Maybe there’s something to showing up at school that we don’t recognize as important but is important. Maybe they’re right.
Based on how ugly Devos’ monstrosity lake house in Michigan looks, it would explain her objection to buildings.
tech gurus seem to miss the reality that humans have a very, very, VERY long history of being social animals: human mental and physical health are deeply intertwined with (and thus deeply dependent upon) a need to socialize
And if “buildings” don’t matter and gathering in groups doesn’t matter and everything is better conducted online alone from your kitchen table then why are people upset they can’t go to church?
It’s just a “building”. Why doesn’t DeVos sneer at those “buildings”? Why isn’t she scolding them about their attachment to being “place based” and urging them to “innovate” in ways they apparently find alienating and a poor substitute for an in-person experience?
We can thank Dewine stooge, Dr. Amy Acton, for her complicity in robbing Ohioans of their right to vote. She cancelled primary voting and, media told Ohioans they would get post cards about absentee voting. It’s April 8 with a deadline for ballots of April 28. The Ohioans
I know haven’t received the post cards from the Republican Sec. of State. Absentee voting is a 3 step process- the request for a ballot, the mailing of a ballot to voters and the return of the ballot to the elections office. No doubt the postcard delay is a voter suppression scheme and it doesn’t matter if Dewine loyalists like Acton knew or didn’t know about it in advance.
BTW, Ohio’s theocracy (Acton has 6 kids) excluded church gatherings from the edict but not the March polling places which were closed overnight.
Dr. Acton is Jewish, and she seems to belong to a reform synagogue in Columbus, (Reform Judaism is the most liberal Judaism). Just because someone has many kids does not make that person a right wing religious advocate.
You are correct that there has been a delay in sending absentee ballots but it isn’t a theocracy plot by Dr. Acton.
The primary voting in Wisconsin was unconscionable. Ohio was right to delay and unlike Donald Trump who believes only he should be allowed to vote via an absentee ballot, there is an intent to get those ballots out. The number of requests has been enormous and there have been problems, but that is somewhat understandable given the circumstances. If most Ohioans don’t receive their absentee ballots in time for the primary, it will effect both Republicans and Democrats.
Which other state had a governor-appointed health director who cancelled primary voting after the governor’s same edict was deemed illegal by a court? btw- the edict was issued the night before the primary.
If the health authority deems it unsafe to gather to vote, why is it safe for religious groups to meet? They were exempted.
Schemes are furthered by the witting and the unwitting. Did Dr. Acton weigh the consequences in terms of when voters would be able to cast votes? Was the public assuaged by the idea that Dewine’s administration, of which she is part, would make voting by mail easy?
Did media convey that messaging to the public via a promise of postcards from the Sec. of State? Did the Secretary of State, himself, commit to the effort? Or, did media make it up? If LaRose committed to it, were there no people available to hire to work on the low-level task of mailing out form-letter information about the process to get an absentee ballot, wording that could be taken directly from the elections site?
Before I wrote my comment at this blog, I called my county elections board and the office of the Secretary of State. Neither gave an excuse for the delay in sending post cards. However, both took it upon themselves to censor my complaint, refusing to communicate, up the chain, my politely stated concern.
Yes, there are women in the Bible Belt, currently of child-bearing age, who have 6 or more kids and aren’t religious. I’ve never met them nor heard of them. In my experience, that category maxes out at 5 kids.
However, I acknowledge that a Catholic governor with 8 kids who took his oath of office on 9 Bibles may have found a medical professional who is an outlier.
When voting is more difficult (like a promised postcard as a reminder that doesn’t arrive until too late), it has greater adverse impact on Democratic politicians. Michael Moore is just one of many who publicly addressed the research confirming the point. Democrats are referred to as fair-weather voters.
“Suppress” (the Republican tactic of choice) defined- “to keep from being known, to hold back”
Covid 19 didn’t rob Sanders’ Ohio supporters of their right to vote for him. Dewine loyalist, Dr. Acton did.
I don’t know what party Acton belongs to but, with certainty, I know I will not live long enough to see a progressive on the ticket for Pres/Vice President of either party.
Thompson can look at the political activities of the Oklahoma Catholic Conference and draw his own conclusion about whether the Catholic bishops are an enemy of public education.
Who cares? OK is 5% Catholic. There are about 175 private schools total enrolling 5% of school-aged children, the vast majority of which are not Catholic.
Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, “Raise the Cap on Tax Credit Scholarships!”
Their stated goal (for now) is to raise the tax credit to $30 mil. A tax credit means “philanthropists” will be able to shelter from taxation $30,000,000, diverting it to private hands.
Some Catholic Conferences/dioceses work in concert with organizations for choice in organizing school choice rallies in state capitols. The rallies give the appearance of widespread support and visually help the lobbyists who are paid by the backers of
privatization.
Privatizers, as strategy, build their campaigns state by state. EdChoice lists its efforts and successes, by state i.e. EdChoice Oklahoma.
The Catholic Conference of a different middle country state, Kentucky, was represented at the Gov. Bevin/ DeVos meeting last year. There is reason to assume the Conference is on the side of the Koch’s Bluegrass Institute, in terms of privatization of public schools. Both Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul rely on the tribalism of religion to be elected. Off topic- Oklahoma has the most ALEC members of any state.
Neither Ohio nor Indiana residents anticipated they would be forced to give more than $6,000 per student to religious schools and for-profit, unaccountable, national school chains with no bricks and mortar locations in the state. Yet, there they are, even though the residents of neither state want it.
The list of religions that signed an amicus brief in Espinosa v. Montana (another mid-country state) indicates the folly of public school defenders ignoring a single state.
You and other commenters at the blog have convinced me of an error in my assumptions. I thought that since Catholics have a reputation for greater intelligence and independent thinking, a separation of the conjoined efforts of the state Catholic Conferences, evangelicals and school privatizers was possible.
Never the less, I will persist because using the vernacular,I have hope in better angels.
Churches aren’t democracies. They are executive, not representative bodies. Some folks of faith activate to reform their orgs but that’s a long slow process that does not address the issue: how to stop big-money/ special-interests from undermining our democratic govt. Manipulators– religious, fascist, nationalist, corporate, whatever– seize openings by whatever means are available to them, cloaking naked power-grabs as “philanthropy,” “religious freedom,” “school choice,” “free market,” etc. This is nothing new under the sun, it’s a direct consequence of 40 yrs of deregulation. Appeals to the faithful to straighten out and fly right are as useless as begging philanthrovultures to get a conscience. The situation can only be corrected politically – with legislation . There’s no shortcut.
As Michael Moore said, “I can’t live without hope.”
If the members of a political party can’t change the party, if members of a church can’t change the church, if members of veterans groups can’t change their organizations, if parents can’t change the PTA, if members of any organization can’t prevent their leaders from backing
fascists then, “thoughts and prayers” are America’s obvious solution.
When Bellwether advised ed reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their goals, they subscribed to your viewpoint.
Sad that- no willingness to even raise issues with the church hierarchy that the members fund. It’s interesting logic that leads a person to single out evangelicals for rebuke.
U.S. laws were enacted to prevent the religious from endorsing candidates and they found a way around them.”In every country, in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own.”- Jefferson
The faithful who fund and attend churches, remain silent, and pray that religious leaders don’t corrupt the political process in 2020, similar to 1 million Irish who prayed they wouldn’t starve to death, while the churches maintained civil order for Koch-like economic policies.
Bethree- you’re right, it has been a long process and the founders of the United States wrote a Constitution to prevent the faithful from beginning the process all over again.
“When Bellwether advised ed reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their goals, they subscribed to your viewpoint.” No. They’re saying: seek reinforcement from those with money to gain from the same business goal. High-level church admin predictably throws in w/ political moves that support pocketbook while shoring up/ expanding their schools. Eventually, reaction will trickle up from thinking parish priests/ brotherhoods/ theologians on separation of church & state (possibly spurred by congregant activism). The concerns will continue to percolate; a position will get formalized someday. No way will that be soon enough to halt the publicly-paid privatization train. Changing churches from within is a long slow process designed to deal with theological questions, not equipped to respond in real time to political maneuvers.
I’ve approached a couple of Directors of Catholic Conferences by e-mail. (The conferences are the local- level political arm of the USCCB and city dioceses.) I concluded the directors were genuinely surprised that there was disagreement about the propaganda at their sites and that significant fault lines existed outside of their echo chamber.
You’d think different-thinking citizens in a democracy would at least let the men (directors are overwhelmingly male) know about an opposite view since the directors are marshaling support for what end up being Republican platform planks.
Funny note- I wrote to one about the demographic monolith of the directors and he thought I was referring to Latinx representation. Women weren’t even on his radar. btw- One praised the Manhattan Declaration.
Kudos to you for practicing what you preach!
The Manhattan Declaration, don’t even get me started. Echo chamber is right. The signers seem to be oblivious that their churches would be shacks in the woods subsisting on the pennies of congregants were it not for the principle of church-state separation– which keeps them from being taxed. Crossing that line– as these right-wing Christians do in the Manhattan Declaration, and as 80-90% of voucher-school proponents do– is playing with fire. Pew’s 2019 report showed self-identified Christians as having dropped by 2/3 in a decade; religious ‘nones’ have grown across multiple demographic groups, & fewer than half of millennials self-identify as Christians.
Glad to hear about the millennials. I hope there will be enough democracy left for them to germinate after the political plunder of Evangelicals and Catholics Together
On-line education services are offering all kinds of incentives to get students and teachers “hooked” of their products. Steven Singer compares naive adoption of technology may lead to supplanting traditional instruction. Like a drug dealer that offers free product to a new customer, on-line providers are poised to expand their territory during this time of crisis. As Singer point out, these platforms are already gearing up for rapid expansion. They are hoping eager teachers will jump on bandwagon. Looking to cut costs, some districts may replace traditional instruction with on-line learning.https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/
Good link. About halfway down– at “And these are many of the same applications being used today…”– Singer links to an NPR 3/26 article with this disturbing detail. A teacher in Jacksonville FL is worried about students “whose parents must go out to work, and who are sending their kids to home-based daycares that remain open .” DeSantis didn’t issue stay-at-home orders until 4/1. My state (NJ) did that 3/21, and wasn’t among the first… & of course FL is one of 7 states exempting churches from restricting #s gathering at churches– not even encouraging against it as Pence has done. DeSantis policy hard to understand in a state that’s a major destination for retirees.
More from Gadfly’s linked article, re: concerns over inequitable availability of tech: some schsys are encouraging enrichment only – “no new curriculum.” This is an interesting and dicy issue. To me it really reflects the absurdities of the stds-aligned assessments accountability culture. The desperate tone of OMG they might get “behind” etc, such a wrong-headed concept of ed, preventing teachers doing what they know makes sense.
Given their own lead, teachers would no doubt give assnts that creatively reinforce “the 3 R’s” & give them regular practice. Loads of math/ ELA/ soc stud- history/ sci possibilities related to pandemic for midsch& hisch studs. Reading/ writing/ simple sci & measurement projects for elemsch… No? Kids are going to gain or not from such work in an inequitable fashion anyway: they are not equal widgets individually nor socially.
Great post