As public schools continue to struggle to reopen during the pandemic, many parents are refusing to send their students into school buildings. And, given the risk of in-person learning, it’s understandable that some families would turn to online charter schools, whose enrollments have soared in recent weeks.
But the controversy surrounding a popular online charter school in Oklahoma provides a cautionary tale of how this trend can put public education dollars in jeopardy, rather than alleviate students’ lost educational opportunities.
On October 12, Oklahoma’s Board of Education demanded that Epic Charter Schools, a statewide online charter, refund $11 million to the state. The decision came after the first part of a state audit showed that Epic charged the school district for $8.4 million in improperly classified administrative costs between 2015 and 2019, as well as millions of dollars for violations that the state previously failed to address.
The second part of the audit will investigate the $79 million in public money that was directed to a “learning fund,” an $800 to $1,000 stipend for students enrolled in Epic’s “One-on-One” individual learning program. While the funds were intended to cover educational expenses, a search warrant issued by the Oklahoma State Board of Investigation found that they may have been used to entice “ghost students,” or students that were technically enrolled—and therefore counted in Epic’s per-pupil funding requests to the state—but received minimal instruction from teachers.
Despite the controversy surrounding Epic, the school has received a total of $458 million in state funds since 2015, according to the audit report. More than $125 million of this money went to Epic Youth Services, a for-profit management company owned by the school’s co-founders, David Chaney and Ben Harris.
Following the audit’s release, the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School board CONTINUE READING: Instead of Funding Public Education, Oklahoma Bankrolled a For-Profit Virtual Charter School - Progressive.org