A .0375 GPA, again......

Good article here.  Links to other reports, scandals and test results.


https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/10/18/virtual-charter-schools-foundations-performance


I have not posted much on this blog lately.  There has been lots of publicity on the virtual schools, none of it positive.  I am not sure there is a need.  They are no longer trendy and cool.  They are scams making some people very rich at the expense of the children.


ECOT is on its deathbed.  Trying to reorganize itself into some other structure to keep the school tax funds flowing.


Ohio Connections Academy, owned by Pearson Education, received its report card.  1 C, 2 D's, and 5 F's which I think works out to a .0375 GPA




"Some have blamed the fallout from ECOT for the disbanding of Ohio's largest charter school advocacy organization. In December 2016, the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools announced it would close at the end of 2016, after more than a decade in which it was an influential player in the state's charter school policy. Critics say poor performance by Ohio charter schools—80 percent of which received an "F" in the state's report card system—caused funder support for the alliance to dry up. In years past, the Ohio organization had counted the Gates Foundation, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation among its supporters, but by the end of 2016, none of those organizations were listed on the alliance website as current funders, according to the Columbus Dispatch."


Event the politicians are bailing. 


In the words or our President, sad, just sad, what a bunch of losers.  Too bad his education secretary does not see it as it is....

Ohio Connections Academy Report Card 2015-2016

Three F's, Two D's and a B
A 0.8333 GPA  Seriously?


Shameful. 


I note that there is no Principal listed.  The superintendent is nowhere on the report.


http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/Pages/School-Report.aspx?SchoolIRN=000236


Time for some accountability.  End this scam!

Another E-School Investigation

A great expose on K-12 in California.  From The Mercury News:
http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_29780959/k12-inc-california-virtual-academies-operator-exploits-charter


This the playbook for the Ohio E-Schools




Some key findings:

Teachers employed by K12 Inc.'s charter schools may be asked to inflate attendance and enrollment records used to determine taxpayer funding.

Ohio E-School Charters are fighting this accountability issue right now.

Fewer than half of the students who start the online high schools earn diplomas, and almost none of them are qualified to attend the state's public universities.

Check out the report cards for the Ohio E-Schools.  Dismal at best.

K12's heavily marketed online model has helped the company reap more than $310 million in state funding over the past 12 years.

Market! market! market! Where do they get the money for the radio and TV ads?  SOme interesting accounting.  Make sure the school never makes a profit and write off the loss.

Students who spend as little as one minute during a school day logged in to K12's school software may be counted as present in records used to calculate the amount of funding the schools get from the state.

About half of the schools' students are not proficient in reading, and only a third are proficient in math -- levels that fall far below statewide averages.

School districts that are supposed to oversee the company's schools have a strong financial incentive to turn a blind eye to problems: They get a cut of the academies' revenue, which largely comes from state coffers.

Also note the governance issue.  K-12 sets up and loads the boards.  Same as they do in Ohio


I like pictures

The worm is turning for the online school scam

As it should be:


Online schools are losing support, creating divisions in the national charter school movement.


They will gladly take the money and promise result sometime in the future.  What is the cost to the students and taxpayers?  Online schools have been very good for the owners.


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/11/online_schools_are_losing_supp.html


Poor test results at online schools are creating divisions in the charter school community in Ohio and nationally, leading some national leaders to question whether e-schools should even be part of the charter school movement anymore.
At the top of the list is Nina Rees, head of the nation's largest charter school organization, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, who is distancing herself from online schools and the damage they are causing to the public perception of charters overall.
After a visit to Ohio earlier this month, Rees said e-schools - schools where kids take all their classes by computer at home, instead of in classrooms - are dragging down the overall performance of charter schools in Ohio and other states.
"If you were to eliminate the (test scores of) online schools, the performance of the state would dramatically improve," Rees said.


Stanford study creating waves
The study in question, and one that has sparked a renewed debate over the entire online school model, came late last month from Stanford University's Center for Research of Educational Outcomes (CREDO). Researchers found that students in online schools – – learn far less than students in other schools.
Nationally, students learned the equivalent of 72 days of school less in reading and 180 days less in math, each school year, CREDO found.


CREDO found the scores of kids not only fell when they switched to online schools, but they rose when students went back to traditional schools.


Marie Hanna, executive director of Ohio Connections Academy, also had criticisms of the CREDO report, saying the virtual twin comparison "doesn't make sense."
That school is owned by Pearson, the international education giant that recently drew criticism in Ohio for its handling of the PARCC Common Core exams.
Hanna was far more reserved than the others and said that despite her reservations, CREDO's report is a call for more research.


"CREDO brings up some concerns," Hanna said. "No doubt about it. It brings up the need for more research in the e-school environment to really understand what's working and what isn't.''


Online schools receive about $6,800 per student a year in state tax dollars to run their schools, regardless of how much students learn.

Schools as a business

Another excellent article from Denis Smith.  He hits the inherent conflict of interest between operating a business and doing what is right for the students.


http://www.plunderbund.com/2015/10/27/are-public-charter-schools-also-considered-businesses-mind-the-quotation-marks/


These charter schools are operated as personal fiefdoms.  This is another great example


"If people consider a school to be a business enterprise, inevitably the profit motive gets confused with the educational mission, which is what schools are supposed to be all about. The proliferation of for-profit national charter school chains has been a chief contributor toward the blurring of pedagogy and profit. And entities like Imagine and K12, a publicly traded company that is a big player in the virtual school field, only add to the growing perception that charter schools are first and foremost businesses and thus are all about money and privatization."


"Likewise, the nation is indebted to the Washington Supreme Court for its ability to teach us a civics lesson and, in the process, highlight a problem of democracy. When a board that is hand-picked by a private corporation and spends public funds to run what is called a “public” charter school that is a problem of democracy due to the absence of voter input – a violation of the democratic process.
We also should extend our thanks to the League of Women Voters for helping the Washington Supreme Court to understand that a school is not a business, but it nevertheless must be our business to ensure that schools are learning communities, not profit-centered enterprises, governed by citizens chosen in elections by qualified voters, not by corporations."

Dealing with e-schools: Kids in first year in online schools learn little, never catch up

Drilling down into the data.  The results for e-schools is not pretty.  The kids fall behind and never catch up.


Meanwhile the taxpayers pay millions and some corporations and sponsors make a lot of money.  $6000 per kid.


"Test scores plummet the year a student transitions to an e-school," that study found. "E-school students' scores see incremental increases in the subsequent years. However, it is important to note, that despite subsequent increases their scores remain below the scores they received prior to entering an e-school."


 Ohio Education Resource Center


An ugly graph.


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/09/dealing_with_e-schools_kids_in.html

Good summary of the Ohio Scam

Pretty good summary of the scam going on in Ohio.  This article focuses on the enormous rent.  There is even a more profitable business model.  Open a virtual school and pay no rent except to house some teachers.  You can further reduce this expense by having them work from home and hiring part-time teachers who only work from home.  Ohio Connections Academy, K-12, ECOT, OHVA have taken this to the next level.

I have previously posted about these hand picked boards with little school or business experience.  They will gladly sign off on a bad deal because they do not know better.  If they resist, find an even more clueless board.

Here is the article:

When Leon Sinoff was asked to sign off on a building lease for Imagine Columbus Primary Academy in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 2013, he had little reason to be skeptical. Before Imagine Schools, one of the nation's largest for-profit charter management companies, asked him to join the new charter school's board, Sinoff, a public defender, had no education background or experience. "I relied on their expertise and thought to myself, 'Well, who am I to say no to this proposal?'" Sinoff says.

But by the start of the second school year, he was having doubts. The school received an F grade for achievement on the 2013-14 state report card. Only three teachers had returned after the first summer break; within two years, two principals and one vice principal stepped down. The school—which serves a high-poverty, low-income community—lacked arts, music, and foreign language classes, and whenever the board inquired about adding them, Imagine said there wasn't enough money. Then Sinoff discovered that the $58,000-a-month lease—consuming nearly half the school's operating budget, compared with the national standard of 8 to 15 percent—was for a building owned by a subsidiary of Imagine, Schoolhouse Finance LLC.

"It clicked for me. Aha! This is self-dealing. That's why we are massively overpaying for the lease," says Sinoff, who resigned with the other board members this summer. He adds, "Imagine is perfectly happy cranking out low-quality schools and profiting off them. They don't care particularly about the quality of the kids' education."

Before Imagine Columbus Primary Academy opened, a different Imagine school operated in the building for eight years. Its story was nearly identical: The struggling school was paying enormous sums to Schoolhouse Finance while languishing on the state's "academic emergency" list—a designation reserved for F-rated schools—before its board voted to shut it down. One member of that board was David Hansen, who shortly after the school's closing was appointed by Gov. John Kasich to a newly created position: executive director of Ohio's Office of Quality School Choice and Funding. Kasich tasked Hansen with overseeing the expansion of the state's charter schools and virtual schools, which are online charter schools typically used by homeschoolers.

"Imagine is perfectly happy cranking out low-quality schools and profiting off of them."

In July, Hansen resigned after admitting he had rigged evaluations of the state's charter school sponsors—the nonprofits that authorize and oversee the schools in exchange for a fee—by not including the failing grades of certain F-rated schools in his assessment. Specifically, he omitted failing virtual schools operated by for-profit management companies that are owned by major Republican donors in the state.

The two central figures in Ohio's corporate charter movement, David Brennan and Bill Lager, have donated a combined $6.4 million to state legislators and committees, more than 90 percent of which went to Republicans, who have dominated the state House and Senate. Their donations have paid off. Since 1998, the state has given $1.76 billion to schools run by Brennan's White Hat Management and Lager's Electronic Classrooms of Tomorrow, accounting for one-quarter of all state charter funds.

"Why do we accept this for our kids? It's not good enough for kids in Missouri, but it's okay for kids in Ohio?"

 

The charter solution to the problem:  Get a new board who is even more clueless.

 

"I'm sure [Imagine's new board] is even more oblivious than we were, given that we caused a lot of trouble in the end," says Sinoff, who resigned after Imagine refused to re-negotiate the high-priced lease. "I think that they are not entirely happy that we squeaked through the filter to make life difficult. I'm sure they haven't made that mistake again, and they have folks even more oblivious than we were."

 

The complete article is here:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/ohio-charter-schools-john-kasich-imagine

 

Top ten List by Denis Smith

A nice list from Denis Smith. 

In the hope (snicker) of getting some action from our legislators in September, our citizen panel decided to channel the spirit of David Letterman and compile a list of the Top 10 Needed Charter School Reforms. Here are the results of our deliberative body.

#10: Cut legal exemptions
Charter schools are exempt from 150 sections of the Ohio Revised Code.
The legislature needs to eliminate at least half of these exemptions by the end of the current session. After all, if proponents like to call them “publiccharter schools,” they should be more aligned to our system of public education and therefore not need so many exemptions from laws which public schools must comply with due to their public nature. If the charter industry objects, we should not let them have it both ways. Charter proponents should stop using the term public charter schools due to their resistance to increased regulation and fewer legal exemptions. In turn, the public should start using the term corporate charter schools to better define their nature.

Agree, it is taxpayer money.  We should be able to see where it goes.

#9: Management companies subject to full review by state auditor
Here’s another classic example of the charter industry having it both ways. If you receive public funds, the public has a right to see how their money is spent or misspent. Add to that the requirement that any furniture, equipment, and real estate purchased with public funds is public property, subject to liquidation at auction upon closure of the school, with the proceeds returned to the state treasury. Recall that White Hat Management took the position that such assets were corporate and not public property. JobsOhio is another example of the principle of having it both ways. Public money and the assets purchased with such funds should not be convertible to private assets through a management arrangement.

Agree, the system is set up to guarantee that the school will not show a profit.  It is pretty easy for the management company to suck out the taxpayer money and spend it however they want including high salaries for the management companies.

#8: Eliminate Non-Profit Sponsors
The charter industry is replete with example after example of someone or some entity having it both ways. Non-Profit charter school sponsors follow that tradition. They accept public funds for serving as charter school sponsors or authorizers but tell individuals and organizations seeking information that as non-profits, they are exempt from public records requests. As with Nos. 10 and 9, if a non-profit organization accepts public funds, it should be responsive to such requests and the same scrutiny that other types of sponsors (school district, educational service center, vocational school district, university) accept as a player in the charter industry. The public is tired of the charter world having it both ways.

3% is a pretty nice cut from these multimillion dollar budgets the taxpayers are funding.  More than a potential conflict of interest in this arrangement.  Taxpayers would not accept a 3% fee to their local school boards.

#7: Celebrity endorsements and cap on advertising
This charter school reform measure is tied in with Nos. 9 and 8. Public funds should not be used to pay for endorsements to promote charter schools. Worse yet, we’ll probably never find out how much ECOT endorser Jack Hanna or anyone else might have been paid because the management companies maintain they are private entities and resist audits and requests for financial information from state regulators.

Agree and you will never see the state report cards mentioned in that advertising.

#6: Accuracy in advertising
If a rose is a rose, a charter school should be called just that. Ohio is the only one of forty states authorizing charter schools that uses the term community school rather than charter. That term by itself – used in the original legislation – is purposefully misleading. My recent article on charter names pointed out that only a handful have the word charter or community school in their official title. The same is true for television ads, where the name charter isn’t used. As the school year begins and you see and hear ads for charters, listen carefully for what you might not hear in the commercial.
The local public school is a community school and a charter is a charter.

And you will never hear about their test results.  Only some private polls where nine out of ten parents are satisfied.

#5: School treasurers. There is a continuing concern about the ability of charter school treasurers to adequately perform their duties when many serve multiple schools. One former charter treasurer , sentenced to two years in prison, was said to have served as the chief financial officer of at least nine charter schools at the same time, though other treasurers have served more than that number in the past. New legislation is needed to cap the total number of schools a treasurer can serve simultaneously.

Agree, see what happened to the treasurer of Ohio Connections Academy and Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy,  How many other schools did Stephanie Millard serve?

#4: Governance reform. With more than a billion dollars in state education funds being diverted to charter schools, it’s time to require greater transparency and accountability for the use of scarce public dollars, and governance reform is one place to start. In a previous article, I wrote this statement: “The public school district that has the largest number of its resident students enrolled should be entitled to a seat on the board. Since state funds are deducted from the foundation payments for the district’s resident students and sent to the charter school where the student is enrolled, the district is entitled to monitor the performance and operation of the school, particularly when many of these students return to the district at some point.” In addition, lawmakers should require authorizer and parent representatives to be members of the board, with the parent seat filled by an individual selected at an annual meeting of the school parents. An additional part of governance reform would be to require all board members to be registered with the Office of Secretary of State, as is the case with other public school board members.

Agree, the appointment of rubber stamps. friends and collegues to the board is not in the best interests of the students. This is set up to benefit the management companies and not the students.
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) once had this to say about boards. “I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?” “ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”
#3: Administrative qualifications. Incredibly, there are no minimum educational or professional licensure requirements for charter school administrators. This situation needs to be addressed immediately if all charter reform efforts are to be viewed as substantive. After all, school is about education.

Agree, and I would add that promotion and leadership should not be tied with who you are sleeping with.

#2: Citizenship requirement. In traditional school districts, board members have to be qualified voters – citizens – in order to serve as overseers of public funds. News reports in the last year have focused on one charter school chain where some of the board members and administrators may not be American citizens. If charter proponents want to emphasize the word public in the term public charter school, they should also agree that requiring American citizenship for board members is a no-brainer for the charter industry.

Agree

And the Number One Needed Charter School Reform –
Get the money out!
The influence of charter moguls David Brennan an William Lager on the Ohio Republican party are well-known. Money talks, and in charter world, money speaks loudly. Public funds – the profits gained from running privately operated schools with public money – should not be allowed to unduly influence legislators. The fact that HB 2 stalled at the very time that another $91,726 arrived to replenish state Republican campaign coffers is no coincidence.
If Mark Twain was correct when he observed that “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session,” the absence of lawmakers at Broad and High compounds the inaction on charter reform. But if at least two of these Top 10 Needed Charter School Reforms wound up being included in this year’s reform package, that would be a small victory for the life, liberty and property of Ohioans.

Follow the money, ignore the results

David Hansen Resigns

From the Washington Post.  There is also a lot of coverage from the Cleveland and Columbus press.  I do not see much from the Cincinnati press.

The "mask" is off.  Money talks.  He got caught scrubbing data.

Results matter.  Good and bad.  No excuses.

"In the latest mark against Ohio’s troubled charter school sector, David Hansen, the Ohio Education Department official responsible for school choice and charter schools, just resigned after admitting that he gave help to charter schools to make them look better in state evaluations.

Hansen, who resigned Saturday, recently acknowledged that he omitted from evaluations “F” grades received by online and dropout recovery schools. The evaluations were not for the schools themselves but for their sponsoring (or authorizing) organizations. His actions, according to the Associated Press, “boosted the ratings of two sponsors” so that it was possible that they could be eligible for more help from the state.

Hansen was required to include all school scores in the evaluations, which have since been retracted by the department. According to the Plain Dealer, the “F” grades the schools received were given “for failing to teach kids enough material over the school year.”

Hansen’s wife is Beth Hansen, chief of staff to Kasich. Kasich is expected to jump into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and Beth Hansen is planning to work for the campaign.

The AP quoted David Hansen, the executive director of Ohio’s Office of Quality School Choice and the Office of Community Schools, as saying that he omitted the failing grades because he thought they would “mask” other successes by the schools.

Ohio, a Pearson State

Not a good month for Pearson

 

The Pearson Corporation is a multi-billion dollar United Kingdom enterprise which has grown from a construction company to include newspapers, entertainment enterprises such as amusement parks, and book publishers among its holdings. In 2000 Pearson spent $2.5 billion to acquire an American testing company in an effort to increase its profits through securing contracts to produce standardized tests and test preparation materials

 

(http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/pearson-education-115026.html). It has been given enormous control over K-12 public schools in Ohio by the Ohio legislature and governor.

 

Pearson effectively controls what is taught, who graduates, and even who gets a second chance at a high school diploma through the General Education Diploma (GED) examination. Recently Comcast was prevented from acquiring Time Warner because the federal government determined that Comcast's control of 60% of the market was too great. But that market share pales compared to the 100% Pearson has been granted by the State of Ohio.

 

Since 2013, Pearson tests even license teachers in Ohio. Because the tests are designed and graded by Pearson, the company and its employees determine what teachers need to know in all particular teaching fields-English, science, history. Colleges must address what Pearson puts on the tests so that their students will be licensed to teach in Ohio initially and, later, when a teacher seeks professional advancement.

 

By 2018, Pearson end of course exams in designated subjects in grades 9 -12--PARCC Tests--will determine if a student receives an Ohio high school diploma. PARCC tests-Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and careers-are to be based on Common Core State Standards (CCSS), developed with primary input from Pearson.

 

In January of 2014 Pearson produced a revised GED exam---a new version of the GED that is to be taken entirely on-line. The pass rate fell 90 percent because the test now measures college readiness rather than what was actually learned in high school.

 

Pearson controls the curriculum by defining the knowledge and skills a student must master. Pearson assures us the CCSS will be rigorous; i.e. that at least thirty percent or more of students taking the tests will fail. An educator such as Dr. Louisa Moats, who was a contributing writer of CCSS, is just one of many of those critical of the jump to test and fail (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-development-central/201401/when-will-we-ever-learn). These standards for which Pearson oversaw the development, helped by tax free money such as an $88 million dollar grant from the Gates Foundation, in turn require the development and selling of both on-line materials and textbooks to prepare the teacher to teach to the test. Pearson produces the materials from which the teachers teach and the tests that tell us if they have performed satisfactorily. In Ohio they have no competitors. If your school "fails" then send your child to a Connections Academy, a Pearson for-profit Charter advertised on their GED webpage.

 

Teachers, parents, and concerned citizens have criticized the tests on a number of grounds-the number of tests, the time the tests take, the appropriateness of the questions, the secrecy about the test questions, the spying on students' social media, the use of the tests for punishment, teaching to the test, the ignoring of the arts, the expense and failure of the technology for administering the tests, and the tremendous cost to taxpayers. The mania for testing and collecting volumes of data are destroying our education system and creating a world of big profits for the Pearson corporation and Big Brother-ism--all approved by our Ohio Legislature and Governor and supported by Federal legislation-No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

 

 

 

William Phillis

John Oliver on testing and Pearson


<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J6lyURyVz7k?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Postscript: Treasurer Cincinnati College Prepatory Academy

A follow up on the aftermath of  of the scandal at Cincinnati College Prepatory Academy.  Stephanie Millard, the treasurer of that school and of Ohio Connections Academy has plead guilty to two counts of unauthorized use of property.  Two years probation.  Not sure what other schools she served as treasurer, but I suspect that many charter schools were looking for a part-time accountant to bless their dealings.  I do know that this indictment and conviction did generate a taxpayer paid audit of Cincinnati College Prepatory Academy and Ohio Connections Academy and perhaps others.  Both audits found issues.

This is why reform is needed as to the finances of charter schools and their for profit management companies.  The loosie goosie fiefdoms paid by the taxpayers, with unelected weak school boards, are a tempting target for abuse.

From the court records:

SENTENCED COUNT 4: UNAUTHORIZED USE OF PROPERTY CONFINEMENT: 180 DAYS, SUSPENDED 180 DAYS HAMILTON COUNTY JUSTICE CENTER PROBATION: 2 YRS

SENTENCED COUNT 16: UNAUTHORIZED USE OF PROPERTY CONFINEMENT: 180 DAYS, SUSPENDED 180 DAYS HAMILTON COUNTY JUSTICE CENTER PROBATION: 2 YRS

E-Shools in Ohio $224 million

Some things I learned while living with a charter school administrator, Part 1

My grandfather had a favorite saying.  You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.

My Ex-wife was an administrator for an E-school.  The marriage ended on bad terms. 

Some things I learned while living with a charter school administrator.

That charter schools are called community schools in Ohio.  Many are not located in the community and actually suck significant amount of money from a local community or district with no charter schools.  Community schools has a folksy sounding name, better for marketing.

That ethics are optional.

That there are many ways to game the system to benefit your own interests. 

There is little oversight.

Self-preservation is a powerful force.  Being an administrator is a pretty good gig.

There is an inherent conflict between producing results and producing revenue by increasing  the headcount.  This conflict causes some stress at first but you get over it.  More students mean more dollars.

That E-schools are not for everyone, and probably not for the majority of the students enrolled.

That E-schools are a profitable business.  The schools themselves are “non-profit”.  How it works is that you send most of the money to the management company who set up the school.  That school money gets siphoned to the management company, usually to a local entrepreneur who established the management company or to a large or giant corporation like K-12 Inc. and Pearson Education.  They need to take enough so that the school never will show a profit.  Non-profit status does not apply to the management company.

That you can pay students and parent to take tests by offering them gift cards.  That the schools really would prefer that some students not take the tests.

That despite millions of dollars coming in the door, that you can have a part-time treasurer.  That treasurer can serve many charter schools.  The treasurer does not audit the management company.

If your treasurer gets indicted for malfeasance at another school, you should hire a new one.

The majority of the Ohio E-schools have the same sponsor.

The sponsor takes their fee based on total revenue.  It is very profitable to be a sponsor.   I don’t see much in the way of staff or overhead for these sponsors.

That the management company can make millions for it’s founders.

That the salary information listed on web sites is out of date and inaccurate, too low for administrators.

That you can invest the money earned from one state to expand in another and internationally.  More students mean more dollars.

A .375 GPA

Some insights from a recent auditor’s report.  I think  I am reading this correctly. 

Imagine Schools Inc. has been justifiably  criticized for paying a subsidiary more money in rent than it does for its teaching staff and producing poor results.  The national benchmark for rent is 15% according to an article in the Columbus Dispatch. 

A recent audit of Ohio Connections Academy shows that teaching and administration total $5,268,575.  Overhead totals $6,003,793.   113% more than the money for teaching salary and benefits.  Overhead is undefined.  This money flows out of the state to a Maryland management company, Connections Learning,  who does with it as they wish.  There is little in bricks and mortar expense.  Compare that to 15% rent benchmark.

The management company can recycle the same software year after year.  They can sell essentially the same software to multiple states.  The transfer and accounting of the overhead expense insures that the non-profit altruistic E-school never will show a profit.  Useful to show why they cannot pay teachers more or to elicit sympathy from parents or politicians.  They are the underdog. 

Yet it is a very profitable business for the management company. Connections Learning, K-12 and others are aggressively expanding in every state possible.  Underdog status also justifies the need for more money and more students.  See page 20 on the attached link. 

What are the latest state report card results for this E-school?  1 C, 2 D’s and 5 F’s.  A .375 GPA.  It would be nice if they could move the decimal point.

To help manage the multimillion dollar budget they hired a part-time treasurer  who is under indictment for her role as treasurer with Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy.  I guess there is no need for an on-site full time treasurer. 

The audit also shows unresolved title money issues totaling $668,642 (see page 46).  When will this be resolved?  To paraphrase a politician, pretty soon we are talking real money.  At best it shows that they are sloppy with their record keeping.  At worst is suggests that they are playing with the allocations to put more of scarce title money in their pockets at the expense of taxpayers. 

https://ohioauditor.gov/auditsearch/Reports/2013/Ohio_Connections_Academy_11-Hamilton.pdf

There is an obvious problem.  Look at the proliferation of E-schools in Ohio.  Who benefits?

What is needed?  Transparency, strong boards (which are not lead around by the nose by the management company), and oversight.  These characteristics exist in the vast majority of our public school districts.  Oh by the way, results  would be good too.

Another Charter Administrator Convicted. A personal Fiefdom

A personal fiefdom.  It is good to be queen until it isn't.

Where was the oversight, a weak handpicked board and part time treasurer to rubber stamp.

I suspect that getting involved in these charter schools was a very bad career move.  Leaves  Stephanie Millard in a pretty bad position.  Not sure how many other charters she was acting treasurer for but I suspect any and know for sure that one of them was Ohio Connections Academy.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/17/former-charter-school-leader-gets-plea-deal/17438269/

A former superintendent accused of using her charter school as her "personal feifdom" is now a convicted felon, marking the latest blemish for charter schools in this region and statewide.

Lisa Hamm, who ran the Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, the region's largest charter school, cut a deal with prosecutors last week. She pleaded guilty Oct. 8 to three of 26 felony counts against her. The remaining charges, including multiple counts of theft in office and tampering with evidence, were dismissed.

Hamm, who court documents claim ran the school as her "personal fiefdom," could get up to 18 months in prison on the charges of unauthorized use of property. Probation is also an option. She agreed to repay $75,000 to the school. She's scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 24 by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge John West.

Hamm of Fairfield, and former treasurer Stephanie Millard, of Walnut Hills, were accused of stealing or misusing $148,000 in taxpayer money that should have gone to educating the 950 students at Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy. The court documents allege Hamm instead used the money to pay for extravagant trips, plays, concerts, luggage, spa visits, jewelry veterinary care and other personal uses.

The charges in the Oct. 8 plea agreement involved a trip to San Diego that ended up costing more than $20,000, and trips to Orlando and to see Oprah Winfrey. Hamm had said the trips were school-related.

Charter schools are public schools that are independently run. There are about three dozen in Southwest Ohio. Some are high-performing and well-run. But as a group they're often criticized for lax accountability and mediocre academics. Several local charter schools have closed over the years due to financial problems and academic issues. Some cases resulted in criminal charges.

The state has been cracking down on charter schools via stringent audits and increased scrutiny of their sponsoring organizations. Charter school accountability has become a political issue, as Democrats accuse Republican leadership of not doing enough to improve it.

In the most recent example the Concept chain of charter schools, which includes the Horizon Science Academy in Bond Hill, came under investigation by the FBI and the Ohio Department of Education after a string of allegations including improper use of technology money and testing irregularities.

95% Fees, how to cash in on kids

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/09/the_95_fees_that_charter_schools_pay_white_hat_go_before_the_ohio_supreme_court_today.html

Interesting article on how to convert public funds to private property and profit.  It also makes it very difficult for a school board to act independently from the entity that created it. 

This case is currently in the Ohio Supreme Court.

OHDELA paid 75 percent of its $14 million budget to White Hat as a management fee.

Outside of White Hat, audits for online charter school Ohio Virtual Academy showed a similar pattern. About two-thirds of the $68 million the school spent in 2010-11-- $43 million -- went toward purchasing services from K12 Inc., the company that runs it.

The profit margins are a closely guarded secret.  My understanding, is that the profit margin for Ohio Connections Academy (owned by Pearson) is 30%.  Yet that school hired a part time treasurer.  No need for detailed disclosure.  No need for an elected board.

The money make millionaires out of some.  The money provides many separate districts which then create  high paying principals, superintendants, treasurers and managers. The sponsors take their piece of the action.  Unfortunately the students and teachers are not beneficiaries of this system. 

Better education results are a worthy goal.  Unfortunately, this is a failed billion dollar experiment.  The results speak for themselves.  Check the report cards.  A few individuals profit greatly, obtain fancy titles, money and perks and promise that someday they will produce results.  What a scam.

More Marketing with your Ohio Tax dollars

Too bad the results are not as good as the marketing!

I guess that is why I keep gitting these pop up advertising for E-Schools.

I defy you to find any of the report cards in the marketing materials.  Pick an Ohio E- school any of them.

For example Connections Academy Ohio reports 90% parental satisfaction.  No where does it mention the F's on the Ohio report card.

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/charter-school-operators-use-key-words-to-entice-families-away-from-public-schools-1.491420

With profits on the line, private charter school companies are advertising on television, radio, billboards, handbills and even automated telephone messages to entice students away from public schools.
And with words such as free, flexible, one-on-one and find your future — and taking opportunities to play on fear — the privately run, publicly funded schools are being quite successful.
Enrollment in Ohio charter schools now stands at more than 120,000 in nearly 400 schools, with seven more schools expected to open next year. These quasi-public schools enroll less than 7 percent of Ohio’s students and receive $912 million in state tax dollars, about 11 percent of all state funds set aside for primary and secondary education.

State audits suggest that some Ohio charter schools spend more than $400 in public money per student to attract them away from public schools, and now public school districts are retaliating by spending their own money in an effort to keep the kids.

A great way to spend Ohio tax dollars.  Marketing wars for failing E-schools.

E-Schools, Charter Schools and Governance

The E-schools themselves are set up as nonprofits.  The nonprofits are run by an unelected board.  The K-12’s and Connection Academy’s of the world set up the board. The board agrees to contracts with K-12,  OHDELA or Connections Academy without competitive bidding.

The structure encourages malfeasance and the siphoning of profits to the parent companies.  For all intents and purposes the E-Schools run the boards.  The boards depend on the E-schools for the information to manage the school.  The board members are not paid.

An excellent article by Denis Smith here :

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/26/ohio-denis-smith-on-charter-school-governance-part-2-who-owns-charter-schools/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=28843&relatedposts_position=2

“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.

The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.

In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”

Denis Smith was a consultant with the Ohio Department of Education and reviewed Ohio Charter schools.  His commentary is available through Diane Ravitch's Blog.  http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/25/denis-smith-of-ohio-who-governs-charter-schools/

Raymond Lambert of Connections Academy once had this to say about boards.  I understand that he has set up many boards in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”

 

 “ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”

 

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/news/ray_lambert_school_leader.aspx

I know that the superintendent of Ohio Connections Academy, Marie C. Hanna, recruited her close friend and former neighbor, Pamela S. Bowers, to sit on her board.  Independent?  Objective?

 

Combine a couple of hand-picked board members and combine that with a couple of well-meaning but unqualified parent board members and you have a serious but profitable governance situation.  Again, where is the independence?

Keep in mind that a billion dollars has been transferred out of the public schools to charter schools in Ohio.

 

 

Ohio Connections Academy School report card $19 million per year buys you this

Ohio Connections Academy, Inc 3740 Euclid Ave Ste 101 Cleveland, OH 44115-2229
Principal:				Sara Deaterla
Phone:				(216) 361-9460
Enrollment:				3,123
Achievement Standards met (62.5%) D Performance index (92.0) C Districts are measured against students' passing rate on 24 state tests given in several subjects and at several different grade levels. To meet the state standards, 75 percent of students must pass each exam. The number of standards met is used to calculate a letter grade. A second letter grade is tied to the district's "performance index" which gives credit for how well all students score on tests, giving more weight to students who perform above passing.
Progress (Value-added) All students F Gifted students NR Lowest 20% in achievement D Students with disabilities F In recent years, districts have been judged by "value-added" scores, or how much progress students made in a year's time. Now, districts will receive four progress-related letter grades: one for students overall and one each for gifted students, students who are considered low-performing because they score among the bottom 20 percent of their peers and students with disabilities.
Gap closing Gap closing (annual measurable objectives) F For the first time, the state is scrutinizing how well districts are serving all students, regardless of income, race, ethnicity or whether they're native English speakers. Only math, reading and graduation rates are considered in measuring how well districts serve students. Only districts that serve all 10 possible demographic groups adequately can earn an A grade. On the report card, the state calls this "annual measurable objectives."
Graduation 4-year graduation rate F 5-year graduation rate F

E schools in Ohio $218 million dollar experiment (per year)

In theory, a virtual school could be a good program for learning if it targeted students who would likely benefit from its schools.  These would include those highly organized and motivated students and parents.  A personalized instruction by sitting in front of a computer for hours per day.

In reality the schools accept and even target all students, including at-risk students.   It is also an easy fix to stay out of truancy court.  The results speak for themselves.  Is this the best service for Ohio Students? It is an expensive experiment.

A study in 2011 of Ohio's seven statewide online schools found that:

•"Of Ohio's 7 state-wide E-schools (which account for 90% of all E-school enrollment), six are not even rated "effective" by the Ohio Dept. of Education.

•5 of the 7 have graduation rates worse than Cleveland Municipal Schools, which has the lowest graduation rate of all traditional school districts.

•Far from saving money, E-Schools actually cost the state twice as much per pupil as traditional public schools."

 

Source: Ohio E-Schools: Funding Failure; Coddling Contributors, Innovation Ohio, 5/12/11; Cyber schools flunk, but tax money keeps flowing, Politico, 9/25/13.

 

So how does one get these students?  Market ,market, and market.  As the schools cannot discriminate, put together some slick marketing materials, employ a good sales force and sit back and collect the profits.

The USA TODAY analysis finds that 10 of the largest for-profit operators have spent an estimated $94.4 million on ads since 2007. The largest, Virginia-based K12 Inc., has spent about $21.5 million in just the first eight months of 2012.

 

So what is the motivation?  Profits or students?  Well since the e-schools do not have the quality, they will make it up in volume!

 

Again, look at the latest results in Ohio.