One of the most remarkable turnarounds in the nation happened in Ohio. There have been so many charter scandals that the major newspapers have become skeptical, as well they should be. They have noticed the scams, frauds, phantom schools, phantom students. They’ve noticed how many charters get scores lower than the public schools they were supposed to compete with.
They are no longer entranced by the marketing of the charter school industry.
In Ohio, the biggest scandal is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, known as ECOT.
This editorial appeared in the Columbus Dispatch. The editorial board is no longer fooled by the charter industry.
It was founded in 2000. It developed some very bad habits that cheated the public of millions of dollars.
“Alas, the school’s owner, who had no background in education, began to realize that education is really hard. And keeping the attention of at-risk students is really, really hard. The owner began to realize that many students who signed up for his school almost never logged in. Didn’t show up. His virtual classroom was half-empty. But tracking down these students and hounding them to get online and learn something would be time-consuming, expensive and, in many cases, nearly impossible.
“The owner quickly realized something else. Keeping an honest account of how many students were logging in to meet state attendance requirements would reduce the amount he could charge the state — by millions of dollars. Every year. The owner made an unfortunate choice. He decided to charge the state for a full year of instruction for each student signed up, even if a student logged in for only a few minutes each month.
“This is the sad story of ECOT — the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, Ohio’s largest online charter school. Since its founding in 2000, the school consistently has billed the state for students whose participation it could not document.
“In November 2001, then-State Auditor Jim Petro determined ECOT received $1.7 million for students not enrolled. Despite these early warnings, ECOT continued to charge Ohio’s taxpayers for phantom students, in increasing numbers.
“State audits from 2000 to 2016 revealed how lucrative this pattern has been for ECOT owner Bill Lager. Although organized as a nonprofit, ECOT contracts with two Lager-owned, for-profit entities for management and software services. From 2000 to 2016, ECOT paid the two businesses a tidy $192.8 million.
“At long last, in 2016 the Department of Education had had enough. It began insisting on honest accounting. After reviewing log-in durations and offline documentation for the 2015-2016 school year, the department concluded ECOT had reported 15,322 full-time students, while only 6,313 could be verified. The State Board of Education required ECOT to repay about $60 million of the $108 million it had received.
“This upset the owner. So he sued the state and its taxpayers, claiming the education department has no right to look under the hood, no right to check whether students actually are logging in. Fortunately, this argument was rejected by both the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals. The case now is before the Ohio Supreme Court.”
ECOT has the lowest graduation rate in the nation.
How much longer will the taxpayers of Ohio allow this “school” to collect millions for students who never participated in class?
