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ProPublica: The Fraud of For-Profit Charter Schools in Ohio That Run Dropout Recovery Centers

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2017 //
10

ProPublica and USA Today teamed up to conduct an investigation of charter fraud in Ohio (although there is so much charter fraud in Ohio that this piece investigates only one aspect of it).

This story is about dropout recovery centers that collect large sums of money even if the students don’t show up.

It focuses on a “school” run by EdisonLearning, the latest version of the Edison Schools that were launched in the early 1990s with the goal of creating a network of 200 privately run schools.

It begins like this:

Last school year, Ohio’s cash-strapped education department paid Capital High $1.4 million in taxpayer dollars to teach students on the verge of dropping out. But on a Thursday in May, students’ workstations in the storefront charter school run by for-profit EdisonLearning resembled place settings for a dinner party where most guests never arrived.

In one room, empty chairs faced 25 blank computer monitors. Just three students sat in a science lab down the hall, and nine more in an unlit classroom, including one youth who sprawled out, head down, sleeping.

Only three of the more than 170 students on Capital’s rolls attended class the required five hours that day, records obtained by ProPublica show. Almost two-thirds of the school’s students never showed up; others left early. Nearly a third of the roster failed to attend class all week.

Some stay away even longer. ProPublica reviewed 38 days of Capital High’s records from late March to late May and found six students skipped 22 or more days straight with no excused absences. Two were gone the entire 38-day period. Under state rules, Capital should have unenrolled them after 21 consecutive unexcused absences.

Though the school is largely funded on a per-student basis, the no-shows didn’t hurt the school’s revenue stream. Capital billed and received payment from the state for teaching the equivalent of 171 students full time in May.

It is yet another charter fraud.

Another reform scam. It is not about “the kids.” It is about the money.

Do legislators care?

Question: How many charter scandals and frauds does it take to get the attention of the Ohio legislature?

Speaking of scandals, ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) has threatened to close its virtual doors if the state doesn’t leave them alone and stop pestering them to provide a real education to real students. No doubt the owner William Lager is bluffing. But if he does close down ECOT, he will do everyone a favor by shutting down the nation’s biggest dropout factory. He has collected more than a billion dollars since he opened ECOT and given only a few millions to Republican (and a few Democratic) politicians (in Ohio, they sell their votes cheaply). How likely is he to walk away from his fabulous money stream?

I dare you! I double-dare you! Close your doors, ECOT! You won’t be missed.

Although the legislators and other elected officials will miss your campaign contributions.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio: Massive Theft of Public Funds! Legislators Shrug.

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2017 //
9

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition of Equity and Adequacy reports that the Electronoc Classroom of Tomorrow has received $121 million from the Columbus School District, while providing an online program of low quality.

He writes:

“ECOT has drained $121,655,364.35 from one Ohio school district-for what?

“The ECOT business plan puts a heap of money into the private companies involved in this operation. Over the years, considerable wealth has been accumulated by the ECOT Man. Remember that over several years, ECOT has collected a billion dollars on the basis of enrollment and NOT student participation in the “program.”

“According to Ohio Department of Education’s records, one Ohio district -Columbus-has lost $121,655,364.35 since fiscal year 2002. Below is the amount for each year:

2018
$ 10,953,860.82
2017
$ 10,957,796.70
2016
$ 11,744,302.64
2015
$ 11,502,686.27
2014
$ 10,517,410.00
2013
$ 9,326,527.50
2012
$ 8,434,344.51
2011
$ 7,500,623.28
2010
$ 6,582,299.08
2009
$ 6,483,223.11
2008
$ 6,123,801.08
2007
$ 5,864,911.49
2006
$ 5,279,561.93
2005
$ 5,129,842.49
2004
$ 3,671,320.74
2003
n/a
2002
$1,582,852.71

GRAND total:

$ 121,655,364.35

“The state deducts this money from payments to the district. The Board of Education has no control over what happens to the revenue lost or the education of the students involved. Over half of the lost revenue comes from local property tax levied for the operation of the Columbus City School District.

“Now that ECOT is on the ropes, it appears that the Ohio Department of Education will bail it out by granting dropout

recovery status. Thus far, state officials have not developed a plan to correct this travesty.”

How about ECOT refund the money?

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Jeff Bryant: DeVos Dispenses $253 Million to Fund Failures and Frauds in Charter Industry and Undercut Needy Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2017 //
13

Jeff Bryant, writing for the Education Opportunity Network, analyzes the U.S. Department of Education’s recent award of $253 Million to the Failing Charter Industry. He is especially appalled by the funding of charters in New Mexico, whose state auditor has identified numerous frauds in the charter sector, and whose public schools are shamefully underfunded.

He writes:

“Previous targets for federal charter grants have resembled a “black hole” for taxpayer money with little tracking and accountability for how funds have been spent spent. In the past 26 years, the federal government has sent over $4 billion to charters, with the money often going to “ghost schools” that never opened or quickly failed.

“In 2015, charter skeptics denounced the stunning selection of Ohio for a $71 million federal chart grant, despite the state’s charter school program being one of the most reviled and ridiculed in the nation.

“This year’s list of state recipients raises eyebrows as well.

“One of the larger grants is going to Indiana, whose charter schools generally underperform the public schools in the state. Nearly half of the Hoosier state’s charters receive poor or failing grades, and the state recently closed one of its online charter schools after six straight years of failure.

“Another state recipient, Mississippi, won a federal grant that was curiously timed to coincide with the state’s decision, pending the governor’s approval, to take over the Jackson school district and likely hand control of the schools to a charter management group.”

(Coincidentally, Stephen Dyer just posted about Ohio’s scandal-plagued charter sector. He wrote that nearly one-third of the charters that received federal funding never opened or closed right after they got the money, I.e., they were “ghost schools.”)

Worst of all, writes Bryant, is the $22.5 Million that will be sent to New Mexico, which has high child poverty and perennially underfunded public schools, as well as a low-performing charter sector.

What possible reason is there to fund a parallel school system when the state refuses to fund its public schools?

“According to a state-based child advocacy group, per-pupil spending in the state is 7 percent lower in 2017 than it was in 2008. New Mexico is also “one of 19 states” that cut general aid for schools in 2017, with spending falling 1.7 percent. “Only seven states made deeper cuts than New Mexico.”

“New Mexico’s school funding situation has grown so dire, bond rating agency Moody’s Investors Service recently reduced the credit outlook for two-thirds of the school districts in the state, and parent and advocacy groups have sued the state for failing to meet constitutional obligations to provide education opportunities to all students.

“To fill a deficit gap in the state’s most recent budget, Republican Governor Susana Martinez tapped $46 million in local school district reserves while rejecting any proposed tax increases.

“Given the state’s grim education funding situation, it would seem foolhardy to ramp up a parallel system of charter schools that further stretches education dollars, but New Mexico has doubled-down on the charter money drain by tilting spending advantages to the sector.”

To make matters worse, charter schools are funded at a higher level than public schools, and the state’s three online charters operate for profit. Despite their funding advantage, the charters do not perform as well as public schools. There is seldom any penalty for failure.

The state auditor in New Mexico has called attention to frauds and scams that result from lack of oversight in the charter industry.

So the U.S. Department of Education under Betsy DeVos is now in the business of funding failure. Quality doesn’t matter. Ethics don’t matter. Undermining the educational opportunity of the majority of children doesn’t matter. For sure, money matters, but only when it is spent for privatization.

A few pundits predicted that DeVos would be unable to inflict harm on the nation’s public schools. They were wrong.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Privatization, School Choice

Ohio: Low-Performing ECOT Overbilled State by at Least $20 Million Last Year

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2017 //
11

Ohio legislators and the State Department of Education continue to fund the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, despite scandal after scandal.

Phantom students. The lowest graduation rate of any school in the nation.

And now auditors discover that ECOT overbilled the state by another $20 million last year, by inflating the number of students it claimed to enroll.

Read the article to see what an awful “school” this is. Only 2.9% of its graduates earn a college degree within six years.

What an amazing trick can be accomplished with campaign contributions! Ohio officials should be ashamed.

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Jan Resseger: Will the Ohio Legislature Have the Courage to Reign in Politically Powerful ECOT?

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2017 //
2

Jan Resseger writes here about the fate of legislation that would establish accountability for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), which is the worst performing school in the state and is owned by one of the biggest donors to Republican politicians.

ECOT has a bad habit of claiming tuition for students who are theoretically enrolled but never turn on their computer. There apparently are thousands of phantom students. The state has attempted to claw back millions of dollars from ECOT but ECOT has fought them in court.

Can William Lager, owner of ECOT, ever be held accountable for his collection of hundreds of millions of dollars from Ohio taxpayers? It will be settled in court. Unfortunately, Lager has contributed to the campaigns of several judges on Ohio’s Supreme Court.

The law needs fixing, to protect students and taxpayers:

Ohio State Senator Joe Schiavoni ought to be a hero to public school teachers and parents—and to citizens who support responsible stewardship of tax dollars. Except that thanks to the power of the Republican leadership in the Ohio legislature, few people are really aware of Schiavoni’s heroic effort to put a stop to Bill Lager’s massive scam—the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

Schiavoni is a Democrat and his bill to regulate online charter schools has been pushed aside for over a year now. As Schiavoni explained in testimony last February, “Senate Bill 39 is the updated version of Senate Bill 298 from the last General Assembly.” In March of 2016, Schiavoni first introduced a version of this bill—designed to reign in Bill Lager’s giant scam. ECOT was (and still is) charging the state, which pays charter schools on a per pupil basis, for students who have enrolled at ECOT but are not regularly logging onto their computers to participate in the educational program.

Here is how Schiavoni described the bill (then Senate Bill 298) at that time: “We need to make sure that online schools are accurately reporting attendance and not collecting tax dollars for students who never log in to take classes. Online schools must be held accountable for lax attendance policies. Without strong oversight, these schools could be collecting millions of dollars while failing to educate Ohio’s school children.” Schiavoni’s bill required e-schools to keep accurate records of the number of hours student spend doing coursework. It required online schools to notify the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) if a student failed to log-in for ten consecutive days. It required that a qualified teacher check in with each student once a month to monitor active participation. In the last legislative session, the bill was never fully debated and never brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

Schiavoni re-introduced the bill in February, and this afternoon at 3:15, Peggy Lehner, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, is finally holding a hearing on Schiavoni’s bill. When he testified in February about the bill he was introducing, Schiavoni explained why it is needed: “Other than the requirement that e-schools provide no less than 920 hours per year of learning opportunities, there are no specific statewide standards related to the number of hours per day or week that e-school students must be engaged in learning. In an environment where a teacher is not physically able to see students in a classroom, this lack of accountability is very concerning.”

Schiavoni believes Senate Bill 39 will address the outrageous problems at Ohio’s on-line charter schools: “Senate Bill 39 requires each e-school to keep an accurate record of how long each individual student is actively participating in learning in every 24-hour period. This information must be reported to ODE on a monthly basis, and ODE would be required to make this report available on their website. Senate Bill 39 would also require a teacher who is licensed by the Ohio Department of Education to certify the accuracy of student participation logs… on a monthly basis.”

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Stephen Dyer: Comparing Charter Schools to Public Schools in Ohio

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2017 //
10

Stephen Dyer, former legislator and current Fellow at Innovation Ohio, writes:

As you know, I’ve contended for years that if charters receive money and kids from all over the state, their overall performance should be compared with the overall performance of all Ohio school districts.

However, as an exercise, I decided to look at Ohio’s urban building performance versus that of charters. And despite the fact that Ohio’s urban buildings typically have 24% higher rates of disabled students and nearly 25% higher rates of minority students, Ohio urban buildings perform about the same as charters. And this is despite the fact that the 90 lowest performing charters aren’t included because they’ve been carved out of these comparisons by the Ohio General Assembly. http://bit.ly/2hw3fhB

In the report that is linked, he expands:

Ohio’s urban buildings perform just about the same as Ohio’s charter schools.

Here’s the issue though:

Ohio’s urban buildings typically (my short hand for median) have a 26 percent higher rate of disabled children and a 23 percent higher rate of minority children than charter schools.

A remarkable 94 percent of all major urban buildings have more than 95 percent of their students classified as economically disadvantaged. Meanwhile, 65 percent of charters fit that bill.

Yet despite these greater challenges, Ohio’s major urban buildings typically have nearly identical attendance rates, slightly less chronic absenteeism and just about equal report card performance, looking at percentages of A, B, C, D, and F grades. Charters have slightly higher percentages of As, Bs and Cs, and lower percentages of Ds and Fs, but the difference is statistically insignificant.

So despite the fact charters have fewer demographic barriers to success on our test-based report card and about half of their kids don’t even come from the urban districts, charters are still unable to perform significantly better than their major urban counterparts — the most challenged group of schools in the traditional public school system.

Only about 260 of Ohio’s 370 charters are included in this comparison. It’s clear that the other 90 — mostly dropout recovery schools located in urban districts — are among the worst-performing schools in the entire country. So the percentage of poor charter grades is likely far higher than the comparison I’m currently making.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization

Ohio: Legislators Consider Revising School Report Cards Because Most Schools Are Failing, Even Charters

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2017 //
24

Ohio legislators decided that it was a nifty idea to give grades to schools, based mainly on their test scores. This was an idea first developed by Jeb Bush, who saw it as a way to identify “failing” public schools and set them up for privatization and handover to his friends in the charter industry.

Most people understood that the test scores would reflect the affluence or poverty of the district, not the efficacy of the school, but legislators ignored what was otherwise common knowledge.

Many Ohio legislators are now unhappy with their school grades, because schools in their own districts are getting low grades.

Most districts…got Cs. And just under 4% of traditional public school districts got As for how their students scored on 26 state tests. More than 80% got Fs in that category.

State school superintendent Paolo DeMaria says report cards show important data, but that the letter grades aren’t the only factor that determines good schools.

“There are lots of things that aren’t measured on the report card – things like art programs, music programs, the school climate, cohesiveness among staff,” said DeMaria.

But the report cards were disappointing to many districts, including where Republican Rep. Mike Duffey lives in Worthington. That district got some of its lowest grades since 2012.

That’s when state lawmakers, including Duffey, voted to replace labels such as “continuous improvement” and “academic watch” with letter grades. On Facebook Duffey called the report cards “utter trash” and “fake news” – because he says they seem to show only that more diverse districts are scoring lower grades.

“Frankly, in my opinion, it’s disrespectful to minorities and it’s borderline racist in the way that it goes about it because it is going to reflect the nature of the district, the socio-economic diversity. It’s not going to show your potential to learn.”

Duffey says he’ll draft legislation to scrap the A-F grading system he once supported, saying it doesn’t result in fair comparisons among districts. He says the cards would still show data on subgroups and student growth, but not an overall letter grade.

House Education Committee chair Andrew Brenner of Powell says the report cards are important, but he’s open to moving away from overall letter grades too.

“The school district is different than a student getting a letter grade on a test or something. If a school district is getting Fs on everything, you know, they need to see something where they’re showing progress and whether they’re improving and they need to focus on the positives and look to see where the negatives are to try to improve those negatives. And if they’re stuck on the report card letter grade they may not be doing any of the underlying corrections.”

Brenner is a non-voting member of the state board of education along with Senate Education Committee chair Peggy Lehner of Kettering. Lehner says she feels improvements could be made, but she says the letter grades aren’t the real problem with the report cards.

“If you look deep down at them, you’re going to find that there’s an increase in poverty in those school districts. And it’s being reflected in some of those scores.”

The Ohio Education Policy Institute’s Howard Fleeter analyzes report card data for Ohio’s traditional public school districts. Fleeter says the highest performing schools have double the median income of the lowest performing districts. And those that got Fs have, on average, nearly 7 times as many economically disadvantaged students as the districts that got As do. Fleeter says for the past two decades, report cards have shown that districts with higher scores have fewer low-income kids, who have a set of needs their higher-income peers don’t face.

“I don’t want people to draw the conclusion that says, low-income kids can’t learn. Districts or schools that have low-income kids are bad schools – they’re not doing their job.’ It’s more challenging. It’s more difficult. I think we need to know this information.”

Fleeter and other advocates for schools have said investing state dollars in preschool and intervention specialists can help lower-income kids catch up to their more economically advantaged peers.

By the way, most of the state’s 276 charter schools got either Ds or Fs in their performance index scores. A spokesman for the pro-charter study group the Fordham Institute says most charters are in urban areas, and have the same challenges the traditional schools in those areas do.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Ohio, Poverty, Testing

Ohio: The School That Produces the Most Dropouts Wants to Become a Dropout Recovery Center

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2017 //
9

I know this sounds ridiculous, but remember this is Ohio. In Ohio, the charter industry can get away with almost anything!

Stephen Dyer discovered a study completed in 2013 by researchers at Ohio State University finding that ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) produces more dropouts than any other charter school in the state.

So, naturally, it makes sense (or no sense at all) for ECOT to apply to become a dropout recovery center.

Four years prior to the school’s application to be considered a dropout recovery school this summer, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow — the state’s oldest and largest online school — was found to be Ohio’s leading producer of high school dropouts while only recovering 1.5 percent of those dropouts.

In a 2013 report completed by Ohio State University’s Education Research Center, the authors concluded that between 2006-2010, ECOT produced 13,000 dropouts, or 21.5 percent of all dropouts in Ohio’s charter schools. In 2010 alone, ECOT had 2,908 dropouts — nearly double the number of the Cleveland Municipal School District’s 1,600. At the time, Cleveland had nearly double the students enrolled as ECOT had, according to the report.

Of its nearly 3,000 dropouts, only 75 returned. Quite a record.

And now the state is considering ECOT’s request to become a dropout recovery and prevention center.

What a farce!

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Bill Phillis: Ohio Allows ECOT to Spend $33 Million on Ads, Lobbying, Lawsuits, and Profits

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2017 //
11

Bill Phillis, watchdog extraordinaire for Ohio, reports that the state of Ohio has allowed the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) to use public money in its public relations blitz to avoid accountability for inflation of enrollment and the state’s efforts to claw back more than $60 million. ECOT is notable for having the lowest graduation rate of any high school in the nation, as well as dubious quality standards. Its founder is a major contributor to elected officials. In return, he has collected many millions of dollars of profit.

Bill Phillis writes:

“ECOT has spent $33 million on ads, lobbyists, profits and lawsuits
since January 2016

“According to a September 3 Columbus Dispatch article, ECOT has spent $33 million on TV ads, lobbyists, lawsuits and William Lager’s for-profit companies since January 2016, all in pursuit of gaining state approval to continue to count students that are not participating.

“Over 400 school buses could have been purchased with the $33 million ECOT has spent recklessly. While Ohio students ride on worn-out buses, the ECOT Man spent money extracted from school districts to rev-up his tax-consuming machine.

“It is amazing that public officials have tolerated payments to ECOT’s for students not participating during a span of 15 years. Now that ECOT has finally been audited and exposed, this business is in the process of submitting a plan to transition to the totally unregulated dropout recovery charter scheme.

“Will state officials allow this duplicity to proceed? This will be an ethical and moral test for state officials and the Ohio Department of Education.”

You can contact Bill Phillis or join his organization at:

William L. Phillis
Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding
614.228.6540
ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ohiocoalition.org

Categories Failure, For-Profit, Ohio, Online Education, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio: ECOT Finds Another Profitable Gig

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2017 //
7

Peter Greene reports that ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) has found a way to escape its current woes and keep on collecting state money.

Having attracted the ire of the state for inflating enrollment, having lost its court battle to hang on to its profits for producing low-quality education, having been labeled the school with the lowest graduation rate in the nation, what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Go into the business of dropout recovery!

What a clever idea: First you create the dropouts, then you remediate them. Or claim to.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools
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