Bill Phillis, former deputy state commissioner of education in Ohio, is a relentless defender of the state constitution and public schools. In this post, he warns that the state has already lost hundreds of millions on a virtual charter school (ECOT), which went bankrupt. Having demonstrated its ability to supervise one highly visible school, how will it monitor a voucher program?
He writes:
10,000 ECOT’s Coming to Ohio
William Lager, the ECOT Man, purchased for himself the best state officials he could, and that was a lot. Controlling state officials allowed him to steal hundreds of millions from Ohio taxpayers. Did they learn a lesson?
State officials seemingly missed the lesson they should have learned from the ECOT Man: regulate the charters and private schools that are funded by taxpayers.
Since the ECOT travesty, state funds for privatization of education ventures have increased substantially and many regulations have been cancelled. Ohio is on the education privatization trajectory that will result in 10,000 ECOT’s. Since Ohio government was unable to monitor ECOT, how will it monitor vouchers for a couple million students?
HB290, the Universal Voucher Bill, may not be on a fast track, but it will be slipped into the next budget bill, unless the public education community en masse wakes up to the threat.
Charter schools and private schools that are awarded public money will never be appropriately regulated unless the mind-set of controlling state officials changes. That will not happen; hence the EdChoice voucher litigation is essential.
Learn more about the EdChoice voucher litigation
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VOUCHERS HURT OHIO
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 |ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://ohiocoalition.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a pattern here:
The GOP, taliban as we learned, and Russia have one thing in common – they will wait decades to reap the benefit of their slow but sure actions.
“HB290, the Universal Voucher Bill, may not be on a fast track, but it WILL BE SLIPPED INTO the next budget bill, unless the public education community EN MASSE WAKES UP to the threat.”
We (an assumption here) lost the Supreme Court, and guns, and civil rights 20 years ago. That’s when today’s Congresswhitemen, pre-Tea Party tax and regulation hater voters, and corporations more powerful than voters began.
Go back and read the stories about GOP summer programs to groom young campus republicans.
Look at how the NRA evolved from being for hunters and gun safety to the violence behemoth it is today.
Even how isolated book burning and the occasional local issue turned into the best move in the national gop playbook to because it is front page in the suburbs and rural world.
And…. how bona-fide Shanker charter schools evolved into money grab factories they are today
Today’s small town and state office votes affect the 2040 Supreme Court!
No oversite means a perfect environment for frauds and criminals
No oversite is a Koch/ALEC libertarian dream and a dystopian nightmare for the rest of us.
“8 Lies About Private School Vouchers” made me want to scream in solidarity with the truth of refutation. Twenty-odd years I’ve been fed those lies. Tired of them.
As unfortunate as the ecot situation is, it is not an overall reflection of the educational alternatives offered in Ohio.
Public school districts should not have a monopoly on funding. Complaints against vouchers are NEVER about STUDENTS, they’re ALWAYS based on THE DOLLARS they perceive themselves to be LOSING to vouchers.
Honestly, district funding per pupil shouldv exclusively follow THE STUDENT.
We tax payers and parents need to form our OWN UNION because we are EXCLUDED from these formal discussions and negotiations.
Honestly, districts that provide stellar education wouldn’t lose pupils if subsidized private educatoin increased by 10,000%.
I think everybody cares about education. There needs to be a realignment back to the basics of education in many districts.
H1-
You aid theocrats pretending at ideology as a ploy to concentrate money and power and, other thieves.
You have no shame about selling out your neighbors and American principles. With justice, your future resume will identify what you’re doing, and you will be untouchable by any decent employer.
If you are a religious zealot like the SCOTUS majority and want money for your church’s schools, NO. I don’t want to pay for your single sex schools where girls are taught that Jesus prefers men in leadership, where kids are taught the self-debasement that, “we are all sinners”, so that theocracy has better control, and where the U.S. pledge of allegiance is altered to include church doctrine. I don’t want to pay for exclusionary schools that racially segregate.
Secondly, communities lose their lifeline to survival without the economic multiplier effect. Local money leaving the neighborhoods via the pockets of grifters, including the religious, impoverishes towns and cities.
Thirdly, with vouchers, your neighbors lose their right to local democratic authority which they express in their votes for school board.
You have falsely positioned yourself as caring about education, the same propaganda as Gates and Koch. Gates and Zuck are invested in the for-profit schools- in- a- box whose business model cites a 20% ROI. Libertarians want the public to stop funding education because they know that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Because they are predators, harkening back to colonialism, they don’t want civilized society because it acts to deter them from exploiting others. Public schools are the glue that unifies the nation. Koch wants it all to burn just like with his climate denial.
Your garbage about being excluded from the source of decisions is utterly disingenuous. Your side includes the plutocratic-funded, like the Fordham Institute. Read Richard Phelps’ takedown of Fordham at his Non-Partisan Education site. Your side funds the corporate shill, ALEC and, the Ohio Republican Party which gerrymanders votes away from me and others who believe in democracy
You are on the side of evil. Your side bogusly sets itself up as the arbiter of “basics” because they want to perpetuate a system of White over Black, men over women, Christian over non-Christian, straight over gay and, control by the richest 0.1%.
Assuming you have no conscience, you will advance in your chosen
effort and with the same justice that denies you future employment among the decent, I’ll hope the town folk run you out of town on a rail.