ECOT Tries to Hold On to Over $60 Million in Tax Dollars It Collected for Phantom Students
The Ohio legislature is in the midst of its lame duck session—the opportunity for lawmakers to do something about the outrageous scam at the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT). And today, according to Plunderbund, Senate Bill 3, an omnibus education law with 29 amendments is to be introduced in the House Education Committee.
A big question is whether the legislature will do anything at all about regulating the out-of-control online charter sector. Here are some of the issues, according to Plain Dealer education reporter, Patrick O’Donnell, who explained last week that, “ECOT, Ohio’s largest online school, has lost a court appeal that would have blocked the state from trying to ‘claw back’ as much as $65 million the school received last year…” ECOT—which hasn’t been keeping accurate log-in attendance records, and which has claimed that the state requires it merely to provide 920 hours of instruction for the 15,000 students the school claims it educates but not to require its students to actively use the materials for at least 20 hours per week—took the state to court earlier this year to try to block the state’s crackdown on its massive reimbursement for phantom students. ECOT has lost in court at every turn as it has appealed its case, but the school’s leaders are shameless in demanding that the state continue paying the school for the students it claims, without proper records, are enrolled. Its total tax-dollar reimbursement is currently over $100 million, but the state wants ECOT to return over $60 million.
O’Donnell reports that now in the legislature’s lame duck session, “The schools are asking state legislators to add a ‘hold harmless’ provision to another bill in the next few weeks to stop the state from using attendance reviews of the schools to take millions of dollars of state funding away from them.” O’Donnell describes the pressure being brought on ECOT’s behalf by Neil Clark, Ohio’s most powerful Republican lobbyist, who represents ECOT and who alleges that “the Ohio Department of Education ‘created new rules for e-schools and then applied the new rules retroactively.'”
Last March, Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni of Youngstown introduced a bill to try to establish oversight of charter school enrollment. In a press release he declared: “We need to make sure that online schools are accurately reporting attendance and not collecting tax ECOT Tries to Hold On to Over $60 Million in Tax Dollars It Collected for Phantom Students | janresseger:
