For years, reformers celebrated the grand success of Ohio’s Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow. Politicians lauded it and poured money in. ECOT’s owner reciprocated by giving generously to politicians. Governor John Kasich gave the commencement address one year; Jeb Bush did another year.
But the state auditor (who was also a commencement speaker in 2015) checked the books and the whole ECOT edifice came crashing down. Ghost students, payments to companies owned by the founder, numerous ways to profit from the state’s generosity.
ECOT still owes Ohio more than $100 million.
Theodore Decker wrote in the Columbus Dispatch:
If there is such a thing as justice in this imperfect world, investigators in a federal building somewhere in Columbus are nudging ever close to it while digging into the billion-dollar boondoggle once known as the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.
ECOT, at one time the state’s largest online charter school, collapsed four years ago amid claims that it had taken millions in undeserved state aid.
Allegations of wrongdoing were traded by the school and state education department. Lawsuits were filed. And about 12,000 students were left in the lurch when the school imploded.
Then ECOT fell out of the public view, overtaken by a thick layer of general dirtiness at a time when political scandal was the norm from the White House to the Statehouse.
An audit just released this week, though, found that ECOT still owes the state more than $117 million.
Ohio Auditor Keith Faber on Tuesday said the shuttered school owes $106.6 million to the state Department of Education and another $10.6 million to the state Attorney General’s office.
As others have before them, Faber’s auditors found that ECOT wasn’t entitled to all the state money it received, including some in 2016 and 2017 and none in 2018.
ECOT as an entity may be gone, but for the sake of all taxpaying Ohioans, it had better not be forgotten.
Looking at the broad sweep of the ECOT swindle, it seems unfathomable that not a single indictment has been lodged against anyone in connection with its shady operations.
The main man behind ECOT was William Lager, a man with a host of Statehouse connections who founded the school in 2000. He also operated Altair Learning Management Inc and IQ Innovations LLC, which had lucrative contracts with ECOT to provide support services. After ECOT fell apart, Attorney General Dave Yost called Lager “the principal wrongdoer“ in the case.
The series of lethal blows to Lager’s empire began in 2016, when the Department of Education demanded repayment of $80 million.
But ECOT’s attendance numbers had been disputed by the state long before that, as far back as 2006. Going back even further, to 2001 and 2002, an audit determined that the state had been overpaying the school by millions.
That ECOT’s attendance numbers were disputed so early on in its existence – and how that problem regardless went unaddressed for so long by a string of governors, legislators and state officials – are looming questions that must be the stuff of any civic-minded federal prosecutor’s dreams.
And maybe, we can hope, they still are.
Yost, while still the state auditor, excoriated ECOT in 2018 and referred his findings to both county and federal prosecutors.
The feds are a secretive lot who have a habit of neither confirming nor denying the existence of any pending investigation, but there have been a few dropped clues through the years that a probe of ECOT is afoot.
One of the biggest came in 2019, when the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed nearly 20 years of ECOT’s campaign contribution records.
More than three years have passed since that development, but the feds also don’t have a habit of rushing their investigations.
Maybe they will wrap things up without uncovering a single instance of criminal behavior.
If you possess a lick of common sense, given what we know already, that outcome would boggle the mind.
But even if that is how an investigation concludes, prosecutors at the very least should know many more details about how ECOT and its principals were permitted to run amok for so long.
Considering Ohio’s taxpayers footed the bill, we have the right to know each and every one of them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A major reason this issue does not gain traction as a major political issue in Ohio, in my opinion, is because of cynical collusion of wealthier public school districts with the interests that seek to destroy them. In my small public district, the superintendent is an administrator so focused on implementing bad laws efficiently, that any public statements made are generally hidden in the recesses of stenography masquerading as reporting in a weekly community paper few read beyond the headlines. In another life, he would have been a model apparatchik in an anonymous Soviet-style bureaucracy. But the tragedy is compounded by a pliant, elected school board that also has no interest in engaging the public. Their election cycle is in off years and most can get elected by turning our their friends and their networks. So, ignorance of what is going on in public education in Ohio is very much reinforced by the local officials’ inaction. They gladly give lousy graduation speeches and student-of-the-month awards, but don’t expect them to engage in a serious discussion about education policy. (A longtime former member, a high school graduate with no higher education was reelected for years on the platform of “I have time to serve because I’m not distracted by work or other things”, single-handedly blocked the use of a novel a teacher had selected for her class.)
When researching why the system did not sign on to a coalition of more than 100 Ohio public school districts to support a suit against the state of Ohio filed by school districts that included a neighboring district, I think I found out why. The coalition was formed “to challenge the constitutionality of the harmful school voucher program that is siphoning funds from our public schools at alarming rates.” The board has had a policy of not going on the record on any of the hundreds of issues affecting the survival of public education in Ohio. Similar things are going on with at least 60 “high income” public school districts; they believe they can survive as independent public school districts that can survive privatization, coexist with charter and ECOT schemes, and, most importantly, cast of their affiliations with urban and poor districts. It is a dangerous game that ensures power for predators and they will find out these beasts are insatiable.
The superintendent is on the steering committee, and the board pays $3,500 annual dues, of something called the Alliance for High Quality Education. It’s website description (https://ahqe.org/about-us/):
“The Alliance is a Council of Governments made up of approximately sixty Ohio school districts –– mostly high-performing, high tax effort, above average wealth districts –– dedicated to the concept that school funding should be the State’s number one priority, that education is the single, most important factor for ensuring sustained economic growth in the state, and that objectively determined, stable, adequate funding levels are the only way to guarantee appropriate educational opportunities for all of Ohio’s youth and satisfy the state constitution’s “thorough and efficient” clause…”
A perusal of its sponsors, connections, published meeting minutes, and another passage on same web page as that quoted above perhaps begins to explain why.
“…the Alliance has also actively participated with the other education management organizations in the frequent debates about education policy issues not related to funding, such as choice, district and school grade cards, collective bargaining, personnel evaluations, etc.”
Is it not odd to claim that “issues…such as choice, district and school grade cards, collective bargaining, personal evaluations, etc.” are “not related to funding”? Disingenuous is the best term the thesaurus in my head can conjure. Does not this choice of priorities in addition to claiming they are “not related to funding” say a great deal about what the real mission of the Alliance is? And a reading of their web pages and organizational meeting minutes points out other disturbing facts that baffle this unconditional supporter of the health of the American public education systems.
The first item on the Member Benefits page reads (https://ahqe.org/member-benefits-2/):
The opportunity to interact with and develop legislative strategies and tactics with, and work in concert with, approximately 60 other similarly situated, high-performing districts around the state;
A consistent presence at the Statehouse;
There are 611 public school districts in Ohio. What makes these 60 different? How are their needs different from the 551 districts who are not members? Can this become a wedge issue between the 60 and the 551? Or is it already?
Going further down the “Benefits of Membership” offers more disturbing clues:
Participation in ongoing, coordinated initiatives, in conjunction with the other education management organizations, to educate legislators and state administration officials about desired policy and funding changes, while always representing the unique circumstances and concerns of high performing, higher wealth districts; and
Affiliated with the organization that has led and/or heavily contributed to:
• The fight to develop objectively-based school funding concepts;
• Opposition to the ‘Robin Hood’ concept;…
• …The ongoing effort to raise the minimum per pupil state aid amount to no less than that received by chartered non-public schools for auxiliary services and administrative reimbursement;…
• …Efforts to repeal or modify H. B. 920 or develop other options that would permit growth in property tax levies; and…
Let’s first look at the framing of the issue in the second bullet of number six. The way the term “‘Robin Hood’ concept” is used indicates an ideological viewpoint, one that is not informed by pragmatism or empiricism. It creates and frames an issue in a way that many would argue is false. The idea that urban, poorer districts somehow rob from the “mostly high-performing, high tax effort, above average wealth districts” is one that is debatable.
What it really implies is more sinister. A logical examination of the goals of the Alliance would lead to the conclusion that less “mostly high-performing, high tax effort, above average wealth districts” are getting public funds and resources at the expense of the “wealthier” schools. But not the funds that have been plundered through electronic and charter school politics? Please remember that more than $1 billion has been taken out of the public school system in the past years. Additionally, federal and state mandates have favored teach-to-the-test curricula, often imposed by Common Core, that are geared toward large corporate profits and not small school sizes and teacher autonomy.
All of the other items in listed in numbers five and six above relate to funding mechanisms completes the argument. By advocating for more and stable funding streams for education they have carefully left out the “public” in education. Therefore, since no distinction is made, any school whether it be a so-called public charter school (no such thing exists) or any voucher program, since under current laws, public monies follow the student and do not go directly to the public school systems.
Yet as disturbing as all this is, it pales when one compares it to the published minutes of their executive board meetings—one of the few publicly transparent activities with which the Alliance seems to be engaged. Number five on the list above seems benign and obvious in theory, but the realities of Ohio education politics immediately make its murkiness clear.
Rather than acting an organization trying to influence legislation in the interests of public education, the Alliance instead works to temper the agenda of State Senator and Chair of the Committee on Primary and Secondary education, Andrew Brenner. Brenner, as readers here know, was formerly the chair of the corresponding House committee. In that capacity he as sponsored legislation that provided the legal framework for public school privatization. It is through his legislation and committee chairmanship that he has shaped Ohio’s public education agenda and demise over the past decade-plus.
Hidden in the minutes of the January 2021 meeting, under A. Report Card Reform, is this: “In addition Tony and Jessica have continued to meet with representatives from Ohio Excels, the Ohio 8, Fordham…” and later in the memo the are referred to as “key stakeholders”.
The connection to the Fordham Institute is particularly troubling and telling. As we know, Fordham is one of the key—if not THE key—“think tank” promoting public school privatization, standardized testing, and turning teaching from a profession into a quasi-assembly line worker. Their list of sponsors are a Who’s Who of billionaire-funded schemes to impose Common Core, charter schools, electronic learning, and watered-down teachers’ standards including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Additionally, two of the organizations listed as funders are “astroturf” organizations that are funded generously by these same privatizers, the American Federation for Children and the Collaborative for Student Success. The former’s primary agenda is to promote “school choice” vouchers plans throughout the nation. Their efforts are focused on extract billions from public schools and eventually putting them out of business. The latter is focused on creating generic national curricula tied to Common Core standards and has the same funders as the Alliance plus the Walton Family Foundation, another public school privatizing benefactor. Any school administrator who blindly follows these ideologies is not an educator, they are factory floor foremen.
Education policy is a Christmas tree of goodies for those who would exploit it, but there are no presents under the tree for communities, families, teacher, and most importantly, students. Public school administrators and boards like the one I live in bear much of the responsibility.
As further evidence note this tidbit hidden near the end of a “story” with the headline “Board discusses new middle school schedule” (talk about burying the lede!):
“He added the teaching staff has been instructed to teach only those topics and concepts found in the Ohio State Content Standard for Ohio public schools and that Critical Race Theory is not addressed in either the social studies or English programs.”
Paul Tsongas had his pander bear, here we have a bs brontosaurus.
“is an administrator so focused on implementing bad laws efficiently”
Sounds like every adminimal I’ve ever known or read about. Can you say GAGA Good German Adminimal?
“but don’t expect them to engage in a serious discussion about education policy.”
Sounds like every adminimal I’ve ever known or read about. Can you say GAGA Good German Adminimal?
GregB,
You are so onto something here that I’ve been saying for years. Complicity, acquiescence, and follow-the-money swirling around politics and think tanks (Fordham!) who, combined with billionaire privateers and ALEC legislation, have commandeered Ohio education for nearly all of my 29 years in the classroom. This antagonist has all the characteristics of a Hollywood bad guy that [most] everyone could easily see and agree needs defeating, if only they would get off their social media and Netflix and actually do something about it.
Coincidentally, the AHQE website is down and listed as “Temporarily Closed”. One can only dream.
Figures we had an issue down here in Florida with adoption agencies and foster foster contract agencies.
In Nevada Rainbow Dreams Academy took out a loan from the state and then refused to pay it back. Congressman Steven Horsford stepped in and paid it for them. That charter is notorious for making cash disappear. Everyone ignores their financial issues because of the lack of diversity in Nevada Charter Businesses and this charter serves African American Students.