More virtual school potential fraud

Ohio lawmakers forward e-school attendance allegations

ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS — State lawmakers in Ohio have referred allegations to authorities that an online charter school failed to dis-enroll hundreds of chronically truant students in order to pad its rolls.
Ohio Virtual Academy, which serves about 13,000 students statewide, says it follows all state reporting laws and enrollment guidelines.
Reps. Bill Hayes (R., Harrison Township) and Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), the House Education Committee’s top Republican and Democrat, told the Associated Press on Monday they have forwarded an anonymous whistleblower’s email to state Auditor Dave Yost, whose office has made school attendance fraud a priority.
Hayes also involved the Ohio Department of Education and alerted the school, whose authorizer said it is conducting its own review.
The whistleblower provided a lengthy list of specific students listed as truant, in some cases for most of the school year.

I wonder how much this cost the Ohio taxpayers?  How many youths are going to be unprepared to be productive citizens because of a lack of education because the E-school is more concerned about collecting money than insuring the students receive an adequate education.  A shameful scam.

I think K-12 is in trouble and would not be buying their stock.

The worm is turning

The Columbus Dispatch is finally getting on board.

Seems pretty reasonable.  It is the taxpayer’s money.  Campaign donors do not speak for the majority of taxpayers.  Despite the massive marketing please let the results (including the finances) speak for themselves.  Billions have been spent.  How much is enough?

“Ohio’s charter-school system has attracted national ridicule for its giant-sized accountability loopholes…

A significant gap, flagged by Yost, is that the bill fails to require school-operating companies to disclose how they spend the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of tax dollars they are paid to run the schools. Their status as private companies doesn’t change the fact that they are using public money to provide public education. Under current law, some operators refuse to show their books to the governing boards that hired them, let alone to the public.

This lack of accountability is unacceptable, and lawmakers should fix that before they sign off on H.B. 2.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/03/22/1-a-big-step-forward.html

Another example of profits over students, what a profitable scam

Note the incestuous management team.  My prediction, another failed school but profits for the Charter company.  Not if, but when the failure will occur.  Do they really expect more students based on their track record?  Do they care? Self preservation is a powerful motivator.

 

New school board seeking lower lease payments, more money for kids

COLUMBUS — A scrappy new school board overseeing the Imagine Columbus Primary Academy wants to re-negotiate the school’s lease.
And what a lease it is: The Imagine academy pays an Imagine subsidiary $700,000 per year to rent a school with just 155 students. The rent consumes more than half of the struggling school’s annual budget, leaving little for classroom instruction.
And when a plumbing problem sent sewage flowing though classrooms on the first day of school, the tenant—not the landlord—was responsible for the repair.
Board Chair Melonia Bennett said she knows the five-year lease is valid. “But I’m kind of hoping that if we point out some of the issues – like the school might not be viable in five years because of how high our costs are – that at least the parties would be willing to discuss the issue.’’
Bennett made her comments at last week’s school board meeting where she convinced her fellow board members to form a subcommittee charged with trying to lower the rental payments and free up more money for teachers and kids.

• Hidden Video Available Online Here
• Copy of the Imagination Budget Online Here

As expected, Imagine representatives who attended the meeting appeared hostile to the idea, repeatedly advising the school to bring in more money by enrolling more students.
ProgressOhio Executive Director Brian Rothenberg, whose organization secretly videotaped the meeting, showed part of the tape at a Columbus news conference Tuesday and said he hopes it inspires other charter school boards to fight back, too.
“It’s clear that Gov. Kasich and the lawmakers won’t fix the system so I am calling on charter school board members to fight from within,” he said. “Shine a spot light on these abusive financial arrangements. Work to get money in the classrooms where it matters the most.”
Board members made the same point, arguing that the school’s low test scores could be raised with more interventions and more experienced teachers but low salaries lead to high teacher turnover. The school received an F on the latest state report card.
The Imagine academy is a charter school paid for with public money and operated by Imagine Schools Inc., a Virginia-based company.
In a 2010 report on Imagine Schools, the think tank, Policy Matters Ohio, found it has a poor record of performance in Ohio and a business model that includes elaborate real estate transactions, high management fees, overlapping business relationships, low spending on classroom instruction, and tight control of school finances and board relationships.
Four years later, the same troubling pattern is evident at the Columbus academy, Rothenberg said.
Until last year, the school’s building off of Morse Road housed another Imagine school but it was forced to close after a nine-year run of poor academic results. So Imagine opened a new elementary school with a new principal in the same building under a new name.
The school can hold 500 students but competition from other schools and low test scores has today’s enrollment about 155.
In addition to paying $700,000 to lease the building, the school pays Imagine about $10,000 per month in “indirect costs” it pays to Imagine for sponsor services, according to its balance statement. The money is to pay for lawyers and salaries for corporate and regional staff such as Jennifer Keller, director of Imagine’s Ohio regional team.
Keller is the sister of Amy Butte, Imagine Executive Vice President for Ohio and Indiana. Amy’s husband, Chris, is business manager of the Ohio Regional Team.
Keller attended the board meeting and defended the $700,000 per year lease.
“Until we start to get our enrollment up the lease is going to be a substantial cost. So we have to figure out, 1: How do we increase enrollment.” The more students the school has the more state money it collects – and the more it must pay in those “indirect’’ fees to Imagine.
Despite high turnover from teachers and staff and a principal who joined the school last February, there has been some consistency: Keller and Amy Butte served as the regional leaders for several leaders, including years when Imagine operated the school that eventually was forced to close.
Also attending the board meeting, and defending the lease, was Imagine attorney Amy Borman.

Follow the money... Weak boards result in $420,000 loss and indictments

Cui Bono (who profits)

I wonder who set up this board?  I wonder who was the treasurer?

By Laura A. Bischoff and Mark Gokavi  Dayton Daily News

Columbus bureau

Columbus —

A federal grand jury indicted four people connected to Arise! Academy, a Dayton area charter school, alleging that they were involved in a bribery and kickback scheme.
Indicted were:
Shane K. Floyd, 42, of Strongsville, who served as Arise! superintendent;
Carl L. Robinson, 47, of Durham, N.C., who operated Global Educational Consultants;
Christopher D. Martin, 44, of Springfield, who served as an Arise! board member; and
Kristal N. Screven, 38, of Dayton, who was also a board member.
Federal authorities charge that Floyd, Martin and Screven solicited and accepted bribes from Robinson in exchange for a lucrative, unbid contract for Global Educational Consultants.
Arise! paid Global $420,919 over 12 months, starting in October 2008 at a time when the charter school had trouble paying its bills and staff, according to federal investigators. In exchange, Robinson paid $5,000 in cash to Floyd and gave cash and a trip to Las Vegas to Martin and he bribed Screven with cash and payments to a security services company that Screven owned with her husband, authorities allege.
All four are charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting federal program bribery. Floyd, Screven and Martin also are charged with making false statements. And Screven is charged with witness tampering for allegedly telling a witness to lie to the grand jury.
If convicted, they could face years in prison and may have to pay back $420,919.
Floyd, Martin and Robinson will be summoned to federal court but Screven was arrested by FBI and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification agents on Tuesday.
A grand jury indictment is an allegation that crimes were committed. The government still has to prove its case against the defendants, who are considered innocent until proven guilty.

Being a sponser is a pretty profitable gig

As I see it the virtual E-Schools take in $218 million a year.  Using the 3% formula that works out to over $6.5 million per year.

That would be enough to pay 55 people $100,000 per year and still have a million left over for overhead and expense.  With that kind of money you would expect some great oversight and great results.

So what results are we buying Ohio?

"Charter schools are opened by nonprofit organizations called “sponsors” or “authorizers.” Several schools, sponsors and management companies have gotten into trouble – sometimes criminally – for financial problems. Sponsors get 3 percent of the state money that goes to each charter school they open.
The Ohio Department of Education reviewed the new-school approval process for six sponsors. It found:
• The Sharonville-based Education Resource Consultants of Ohio “sought to recycle a school that closed for failing to meet academic requirements.” It said ERCO tried to open the school in the exact location, using the same superintendent and governing authority.
ERCO spokeswoman Jodi Billerman said the state mischaracterized the school. “ERCO would never open a ‘recycled school,’ ” she said. “It’s extremely disappointing that rather than seeking clarification, ODE chose to issue a press release almost immediately after sending the letter to us.”
• The Lebanon-based Warren County Educational Services Center sought to open three charter schools for 175 students each “without performing any basic market research to justify funding.” The state noted the schools’ financials were identical to the Olympus schools that collapsed in the fall. Warren County ESC operates four charter schools, including Greater Ohio Virtual School, a statewide online school.
Isaacs said they provided all the documentation the state asked for, plus some. “They’re in urban areas that have thousands of dropouts. I’m not sure how much more market research they need,” he said.
The schools would have been managed by a company called Cambridge, which operates five dropout schools in Ohio. These would have been run under the same model.
“We’re extremely surprised because (the state) previously approved this model five times by the operator,” Isaacs said.
• Kids Count of Dayton planned a charter school whose developer owes the state $65,000 for another school that closed last year shortly after opening. “The sponsor does not appear to have performed even a basic Internet search to learn about the school developer’s past,” ODE stated.
Kids Count sponsors eight schools, including Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy in the West End, Dohn Community High School in Walnut Hills and Summit Academy of Cincinnati in Spring Grove Village.
Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Richard Ross noted several charter schools statewide had either taken state money but failed to open, or had closed before the end of the school year. ■"

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/04/25/charter-school-sponsors-fire/8173173/