Ecot is Dead

They are officially closed.  It was a profitable run for the owners.  A terrible waste for most of the students.


The Tenth Period Blog has crunched some numbers:

"Here's the amazing thing. Between 2012-2013 and 2015-2016 (the school's most recent audited school year), Lager's for-profit companies received $83.6 million in public funds. Meanwhile, ECOT only paid $82.9 million for its teachers "

http://10thperiod.blogspot.com/2018/01/ecot-in-receivership-ecot-paid-more-to.html

Others continue to survive despite their failing grades.

I heard an ad on NPR for OHDELA today another Ohio virtual school trying to profit on the demise of ECOT.

Time to start a dead pool.  Who is next?

ECOT Exposed

Very well done!

ECOT

ECOT's third grade students passing percentage for the third grade reading guarantee was 52.9%

ECOT over a decade has received $691 million in taxpayer money for a failing charter E-school empire, which is 10% of all the money the state of Ohio has ever spent on charters. $270 million of that has been received in the past three years.

Since Gov. Kasich took office in 2011, Lager, the founder of ECOT has returned the favor to his political benefactors by contributing $658,225 to pro-charter school office holders and candidates, and in true “pay-to-play” fashion, has seen a greater three-year funding increase than in any other three-year period since ECOT opened in 2000. Contributing $658,225 in return for access to $270 million in funding represents an extremely handsome return on Mr. Lager's investment, all coming at the expense of quality schools for Ohio children.

Despite ECOT’s continued support from Ohio officeholders after funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaign coffers, ECOT’s online charter schools rank among the worst schools in the state. Specifically:

• ECOT’s graduation rate on the latest report card was 35.3%. The average for traditional school districts is 91.4%. The lowest traditional district is 49.7%.
• ECOT’s Performance Index score of 68.1 was worse than even the lowest rated of Ohio’s 613 school districts.
• When looking at the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, a signature policy under John Kasich, charter schools, like those run by ECOT, greatly underperform traditional public districts, despite receiving 89% more per pupil than traditional public schools

ECOT's failure for the third grade reading results are not alone.  From the Columbus Dispatch.

Charter schools didn’t fare as well, in general. Nearly 29 percent of students in charters statewide that serve elementary kids and had enough scores to publicly report didn’t meet the minimum. Among central Ohio’s elementary charter schools, 33 percent fell short.

Results matter.

Some big bucks here

http://www.plunderbund.com/2013/12/10/ecot-founder-living-very-well-off-ohios-school-funding-dollars/


Sorry kids, but it is good to be king!  Meanwhile the teachers are being paid less than their counterparts.

This weekend we posted about Ohio’s largest charter school, ECOT, being recommended to receive a “bonus” check of $2.9 million that would be quickly rerouted into ECOT owner William Lager’s other private businesses. This is not the first raise that ECOT has received this year. Through the Kasich budget passed this summer, ECOT received the largest increase in state funding for any charter school in Ohio at $4.8 million. This far surpassed the second largest increase of $1.35 million given to Ohio Virtual Academy.
It’s good to buy friends in high places…
Since 2004, Lager, the ECOT CEO, has been donating to Ohio political campaigns with staggering regularity and in staggering numbers for someone whose main livelihood is providing a “public” education to Ohio children:

Lager began profiting off of Ohio taxpayers shortly after opening ECOT at the turn of the century. In 2000, he founded Altair Learning Management Company to “manage” ECOT’s operations. This company began receiving millions in funding that same year according to ECOT’s annual filings with the State Auditor’s office. In FY01, Altair began receiving 10% of ECOT’s funding as a management fee. As enrollment increased, the total amount of funding began to increase, but that wasn’t enough for Lager. In FY05, Lager to increase the management fee to 14%, realizing a raise of nearly $2,000,000.
Finally, in FY08, Lager figured out a way to pocket even more taxpayer dollars. He coordinated a decrease in the Altair’s management fee down to 4% while creating a new contract with Altair to provide curriculum to ECOT at an annual cost of over $8 million dollars.
The next year, FY09, Lager created IQ Innovations, a for-profit software company to develop and provide services to ECOT, while still using Altair as the school’s management company. That first year, FY09, IQ Innovations was paid over $5 million by ECOT and the figure has increased every year since.
The chart below shows the year-by-year breakdown of the payments from ECOT to William Lager’s for-profit companies.

Such grand figures help to explain how Lager can afford to make such astronomical political donations year after year and why, as we mentioned over the weekend, the last thing Lager and his companies need is for Ohio’s Controlling Board to approve another $2.7 million in state taxpayer dollars supposedly allocated for public school funding to be directly funneled into Lager’s pockets.

And deep pockets they are.

In 2002, Lager purchased a $300,000 condominium in downtown Columbus where he could be close to his pals in the legislature and oversee ECOT’s operations. While the small, 1,200 sq ft condo apparently served him well for many years, Lager recently found the need to upgrade. On November 1 of this year, Lager added to his personal real estate portfolio, purchasing a $995,000 mansion (4,600+ sq ft) in Upper Arlington.

What public school superintendent/CEO could donate over $1.3 million to political campaigns over the span of a decade and turn around and purchase a $300,000 condo and a million dollar home? Let alone do so while avoiding the ever-watching eye of the state’s media? Can you imagine how bat-shit crazy the Dispatch would go if this story was about the superintendent/CEO of the Columbus City Schools? What type of outcry would this generate about the misuse of precious taxpayer dollars that we should be spending on educating our children?

The bottom line? William Lager is grandly profiting off of taxpayer dollars that are supposed to be going to our schools.

What can we do?

Start by contacting the State Controlling Board members (see contact information at the end of the post) before they meet this week to Approve the Straight A Fund recipients and tell them to DENY the additional $2.9 million award to ECOT that will further line Lager’s pockets.

Then continue contacting your state Representatives and Senators and tell them to STOP this egregious misuse of OUR public school funding dollars!

And then make plans to vote out Lager’s close friend and ally, Governor John Kasich, in 2014.

State Controlling Board Members (click on a name to send an email)

Randy Cole, President
(614) 728-8778

Sen. Bill Coley (R)
(614) 466-8072
Sen. Chris Widener (R)
(614) 466-3780
Sen. Tom Sawyer (D)
(614) 466-7041
Rep. Jeff McClain (R)
(614) 466-6265
Rep. Ross McGregor (R)
(614) 466-2038
Rep. Chris Redfern (D)
(614) 644-6011