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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

Ohio: Another Virtual Charter School Bilked Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
9

The Virtual Community School in Ohio won’t open this year. It must First sort out how much it must pay the state for overstating its past enrollment. It owes millions. This is the kind of “school” that Betsy DeVos is promoting.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170814/online-charter-virtual-community-school-ordered-to-pay-back-millions

“Virtual Community School of Ohio has announced it won’t open as scheduled Tuesday for the upcoming school year. On the school’s Facebook page, parents were told they should consider enrolling in another school for the upcoming year.

“During an emergency meeting July 31, the VCS board agreed to a “temporary suspension by our sponsor while a financial investigation is conducted,” according to a notice on the school’s website. At that time, its sponsor was the Reynoldsburg School District, which created VCS in 2001 with the help of a former ECOT administrator.

“VCS had billed the state for an attendance of 835 students for the 2015-16 school year; a department audit of student attendance found that should be reduced to 280 students. Based on that, the school would have to repay about $4.2 million of the $6.33 million it was paid that year. The state found VCS, like ECOT, couldn’t document how much time students were participating in classwork.”

Categories Education Reform, Ohio, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools

Jan Resseger: Time to Shut Down Unqualified Charter Authorizers in Ohio!

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2017 //
7

Jan Resseger reports that Ohio charter law allows any non-profit to become a charter authorized, even if they have no education experience and even if they have no geographical proximity to the charters they allegedly oversee. The authorized collects 3% of the charters’ public funding, which can mean millions of dollars a year in found money. It certainly creates an incentive for authorizes to keep charters open and growing.

In the latest episode of a long-running drama called “How Charter Schools Fleece Taxpayers,” Resseger says that the Cleveland activists have called on the Ohio Department of Education to block the St. Aloysius Orphanage fromsponsoring charters in Cleveland. The Orphanage hired a for-profit corporation to manage the charters it sponsors from afar.

“In the news this week is charter school sponsor, St. Aloysius Orphanage—along with Charter School Specialists, the for-profit firm with which St. Aloysius Orphanage has contracted to provide all the services required of charter school sponsors by the Ohio Department of Education. St. Aloysius Orphanage was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1837. It has evolved from a 19th century orphanage into a 21st century mental health agency, which also provides a local Cincinnati charter school for children needing special education services. St. Aloysius Orphanage has also become one of Ohio’s statewide charter school sponsoring agencies….

“There are some other serious problems with the new school planned by St. Aloysius at Orchard Park. Patrick O’Donnell, of the Plain Dealer, has been reporting for several weeks about the for-profit company with which St. Aloysius has contracted to open and manage the school, Cambridge Education Group. Cambridge’s Florida counterpart, Newpoint Education Partners has been indicted in Florida, as has the founder of both companies, Marcus May. O’Donnell explains: “Cambridge Education Group, the operator of 19 Ohio charter schools and of a new school about to open in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, is distancing itself from recent fraud and racketeering charges in Florida against founder Marcus May. But details are trickling out about how much that alleged fraud may have spread from Florida to the 19 schools Cambridge operates here in Ohio.

“And Cambridge and its counterpart in Florida, Newpoint Education Partners—a company that is itself under indictment in that state—have had a tight relationship for several years, besides just being founded by May. The school logos in both Ohio and Florida for Cambridge and Newpoint have the same theme…. and the two companies have shared the same officers at times, including Cambridge owner and President John Stack. Stack has not been charged in the case. His name does not appear in court filings against May… Stack said that he was unaware of any of the schemes to defraud schools of money that May is accused of.”

“Charter School Specialists, the for-profit company with which St. Aloysius Orphanage contracts to fulfill its sponsorship responsibilities, is headed by Dave Cash, who is quoted in an additional article by Patrick O’Donnell about the problems at Cambridge-Newpoint, which St. Aloysius intends to hire to run its new Orchard Park charter school: “We have been aware of the legal concerns of Newpoint in Florida and have been in contact with the prosecutor in the case… The boards of each school that utilize Cambridge Education Group have also been monitoring the case and staying abreast of the issues.”

Resseger urges the state to tighten oversight of shoddy and shady charter sponsors.

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

Ohio: “It’s Not About the %&*%$% Kids, It’s About the Money”

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
2

Denis Smith once worked in the charter office of the Ohio State Department of Education. Now that he is retired, he writes often about the scams and frauds in Ohio’s charter sector.

In this article, he points out that political contributions by its founder William Lager have greased the way for ECOT to claim hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money for a very low-performing cyber-charter.

The good news that he brings is that the Columbus Dispatch, an influential newspaper in the state, is all over the charter scams and is acting as a guardian of the public interest. Some Republicans even felt impelled to return charter money because it has become “radioactive.”

Smith says he once took a series of proposals for charter reform to a key legislator and the legislator was not interested.

That one proposal he thought would never happen was an outright ban on political contributions by charter schools and their management companies to state political parties and candidates, as they use public funds to craft state law to their liking, including more than 150 exemptions from the educational requirements provided in Section 3314 of the Ohio Revised Code.

Unless we’re terribly naïve about the corrupt, indeed corrosive effects of money on the legislature, the great Swedish pop group Abba said it best: Money, money, money/Always sunny/In the rich man’s world.

But with ECOT in seeming eclipse, perhaps things right now aren’t sunny in that rich man’s charter world. Indeed, the upcoming solar eclipse might in some way serve as a metaphor for the twilight of ECOT, and, hopefully, the mysterious, gloomy, overcast charterworld, where for nearly 20 years, anything goes.

Could it be that the corruption in the charter industry in Ohio has reached a tipping point?

Has ECOT finally gone too far?

This is a very positive development, if true.

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

Denis Smith: How Charter Schools Expose Republican Hypocrisy

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
21

Denis Smith explains how the charter industry has exposed Republican hypocrisy in his state of Ohio. As readers will be quick to point out, charters have also exposed the hypocrisy of Democrats who have jumped on the money train and sold out minority children, public education and unions.

To track the rise of the charter industry, follow the money and campaign contributions. In Ohio, politicians sell themselves for far less than in New York.

Consider this:

“In a page one article detailing the history of the notorious online charter school ECOT, the Columbus Dispatch published a detailed review of this operation that has been efficiently sucking up the low hanging fruit otherwise known as public tax dollars since 2000. In the last four years alone, that low hanging fruit has generated more $100 million annually for ECOT founder Bill Lager’s charter school companies, allowing him to maintain a very comfortable lifetstyle in several luxury residences, including one in Key West, Florida. In return, Lager has donated more than $2 million to the Ohio GOP and its candidates.”

So Lager gives a total of $2 million and in return he collects $100 million annually. That’s quite a handsome return on his investment. No wonder so many entrepreneurs want into the action.

Categories Corruption, Deregulation, Education Reform, For-Profit, Ohio

Another Day, Another Charter Scandal: This One in Ohio

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2017 //
10

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has been tweeting daily with the subject line: Another Day, Another Charter Scandal.

Here is today’s scandal.

Patrick O’Donnell writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cambridge Education Group, the operator of 19 Ohio charter schools and of a new school about to open in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, is distancing itself from recent fraud and racketeering charges in Florida against founder Marcus May.

But details are trickling out about how much that alleged fraud may have spread from Florida to the 19 schools Cambridge operates here in Ohio.

And Cambridge and its counterpart in Florida, Newpoint Education Partners – a company that is itself under indictment in that state – have had a tight relationship for several years, beyond just being founded by May.

The school logos in both Ohio and Florida for Cambridge and Newpoint have the same theme, featuring a dark blue circle. Executives have talked openly about the connection. And the two companies have shared some of the same officers at times, including Cambridge owner and President John Stack.

Stack has not been charged in the case. His name does not appear in court filings against May. He was vice president of operations of Newpoint when prosecutors say some of the fraud occurred. And he was “executive director” of Cambridge while prosecutors say money was diverted from schools here in Ohio to businesses May had an interest in.

Keep reading….You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Stephen Dyer: Weep Not for ECOT! Its Profits Are Secure

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2017 //
5

Stephen Dyer writes from Ohio about the unfolding saga of ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

http://10thperiod.blogspot.com/2017/07/even-with-layoffs-ecot-will-make-killing.html?m=1

It was recently ordered by a state court to return $60 million that it had charged for educating students who never logged on. ECOT complained bitterly, but the state audit showed that its enrollment figures were inflated.

ECOT is owned by William Lager, who has donated millions of dollars to elected officials over the years and received special treatment. He has collected hundreds of millions of dollars to run a virtual K-12 school with the lowest graduation rate in the nation. He thought that his generosity to politicians would protect him from accountability from abysmal results, but it hasn’t.

Lager took out ads (at taxpayer expense) to warn that he might have to lay off 350 employees if the state forced him to return a portion of his revenues. It would “hurt the children.”

The state is willing to allow him to pay his debt at $2.5 million a month for two years.

Boo hoo!

Dyer says she’d no tears for Lager. He will still clear at least 30% on his investment, probably more. He will still make a killing.

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

Jan Resseger: The Sordid Story of ECOT and Its Ripoff of Taxpayers in Ohio

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2017 //
10

Jan Resseger writes in The Progressive about the biggest charter scam in Ohio.

When a charter operator gets a lot of money from the state, and selfsame charter operator gives generously to legislators, how can said charter operator ever be held accountable?

In Ohio, the press got fed up with ECOT and started paying attention to charter frauds. Politicians cannot tolerate constant negative press. So, lo and behold, the state conducted an audit of ECOT.

Resseger writes:

“With Betsy DeVos, a long-committed charter school proponent, in charge of the U.S. Department of Education, the country should look to recent goings-on in Ohio as a warning sign of what can happen when public institutions are privatized and an example of why a moratorium on more of these schools is necessary.

“In 2000, Bill Lager founded the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow and the two privately held, for-profit companies that operate the school—IQ Innovations, which provides ECOT’s curriculum, and Altair Learning Management, which manages the school’s operations. According to an old 2003, Ohio Department of Education policy, online charter schools were paid a per-pupil amount from the state for every student enrolled. Until 2015, there was not a requirement that virtual academies demonstrated actual daily participation. Once the Legislature began demanding proof that students were regularly logging on to their computers, Lager and his attorneys have blamed the state for suddenly and unfairly changing the rules. In the 2015-2016 school year, ECOT was paid $106 million in public tax dollars for the more than 15,000 students it said were enrolled, but the state was able to verify the active participation of only 6,300 students.

“The state has demanded that ECOT pay back $60 million the school was over-paid for the 2015-2016 school year, but Lager has used his connections to the state’s biggest lobbyists and key Republican friends in the legislature to pressure lawmakers, even creating attack ads on TV aimed at the Department of Education.

“Thanks to relentless exposure of the scandal by the state’s major newspapers, it appears, finally, that Ohio may claw back some of the tax dollars Lager has stolen. But the state and a lot of local school districts are still owed $60 million for the 2015-2016 school year. And the Columbus Dispatch reports that the Ohio Department of Education has not released results of a new attendance audit for the 2016-2017 school year.

“Lager has been in court all year to block the state from making ECOT repay the money. In mid-June, the Ohio State Board of Education voted almost unanimously to accept the ruling of a hearing officer from the Ohio Department of Education, who is reported by the Columbus Dispatch to have declared that no school’s intent is to “teach to what could be the equivalent of an empty classroom.”

Keep your eyes on ECOT and whether it will be held accountable. Like other states, Ohio desperately needs charter legislation that is not written by lawyers for the charter industry. Ohio courts have ruled that anything purchased by a charter operator with PUBLIC funds belongs to the charter, even if it goes out of business. The law was written that way, by charter lobbyists.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Funding, Ohio, Privatization
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