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.

Cashing in on kids

http://cashinginonkids.com/

Another website following who is cashing in on the charter schools and how creative but unethical companies operate on this billion dollar business.

Ohio Public Schools vs. Charter Schools, results

Results Matter!

All Ohio educators knew this test was coming and presumably were working hard to prepare.  Hopefully not at the expense of the other students.

1/3 Failure rate for Charters is terrible.  Profiting from this failure is shameful. 
14% of public schools is nothing to be proud of either.

 

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.

1 Billion Dollar Diversion

From Stephen Dyer's Blog: 10th Period

Ohio's School Choice Funding Scheme Costs Public School Kids

Now that Ohio's sending more than $1 billion this year to privately run Charter Schools and Private Schools through Vouchers, it is important to examine the impact of those decisions made in Columbus have on the 92% of Ohio's kids that do not attend Charters or Vouchers.

The impact is profound. Like asteroid or comet profound.

Looking at the January #1 payment (school districts get paid twice a month by the state), Ohio's new funding formula had allotted $6,666,455,622 to educate 1,713,587 children. However, when the $887,880,706 sent to Charter Schools is subtracted, along with the $143,494,178 in the state's Voucher programs, it leaves $5,635,080,738 to educate Ohio's children who remain in traditional public schools. Subtracting the 123,497 children in Charter Schools and 19,577 taking vouchers from the 1,713,587 listed earlier leaves 1,570,513 children to share in the $5,635,080,738.

Prior to the Charter and Voucher deductions, Ohio provided $3,890, on average, to the state's 1,713,587 children. However, after Charters and Vouchers remove their money and students from the formula, Ohio's kids are left with $3,588, on average. That is a difference of $302 per pupil, or 7.8%.

What does that mean? It means that because of the decisions made in Columbus, the 1,570,513 Ohio schoolchildren in traditional public schools get 7.8% less state money, on average, than the state formula says they need. Four years ago, that number was 5.9%. So Ohio's kids have lost, on average, 2% (a 33% increase) of their state revenue the last four years just because the state has decided to put more money into mostly underperforming Charter Schools and Voucher schools that also do not, on the whole, outperform the public schools.

And don't forget that's on top of the overall $515 million cut traditional districts have seen through the state formula and reimbursements over the last four years, leading to a record number (and cost) of local school tax levies to seek new revenue cover these state funding losses.

My question is this: at what point do Ohio's parents say, "Enough!"?

I get and am sympathetic to the argument that kids need opportunities to escape struggling schools. And I have little problem with the few really excellent school choice options that are out there that genuinely do give kids opportunities to achieve their potential.

But when the vast majority of those opportunities aren't any better (and are usually much worse) than the struggling school, and paying for these mostly worse options means the kids who remain in the struggling public school have far fewer resources with which to achieve, or the school to improve?

Well, I'm sorry. I just don't get that.

ECOT free lunch

No mention of their failing report card.

Some good questions.

"Why charter schools are good for students families & Ohio"
How do you spin seven F's and a D?  I suspect we gloss over that part.

"Online schools-and how its changing public education"
We suck 220 million from the taxpayers and school systems of Ohio

Choice is good but results are important and should be included!

Somewhere somehow the taxpayers are footing this bill.  I hope it is an excellent meal.

One Year With a Bad Teacher Costs Each Student $50,000 in Lifetime Earnings

One year impact

What is the cost of an inferior education for multiple years?  Who will reimburse the students?



http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-12/one-year-with-a-bad-teacher-costs-each-student-50-000-in-lifetime-earnings


http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-06-12/one-year-with-a-bad-teacher-costs-each-student-50-000-in-lifetime-earnings