John Merrow: THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL: "TO HELP GROW AMERICAN CITIZENS"

THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL: "TO HELP GROW AMERICAN CITIZENS"

THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL: "TO HELP GROW AMERICAN CITIZENS"

What exactly is the public purpose of school?  Why do communities invest in the education of all their young, instead of simply leaving the task of education to families?  We know that parents send children to school for a host of reasons, but the larger purpose--the communal goal--is worth considering.

Let me assert my hypothesis: the public education system has been highjacked by people obsessed with measurement,  so much so that children are reduced to their test scores.  For about 40 years most school reform efforts have been directed at symptoms, such as low graduation rates, low test scores, or “the achievement gap.” While these s0-called reforms sound great and may even produce temporary improvements, they inevitably fail because they are not addressing the root cause of our educational problems: an approach to schooling that is mired in the past and cannot fulfill the needs of the twenty-first century.

Both Bush and Obama administrations used scores on standardized tests as the most important measure of a teacher’s value. Their mantra was that teachers were the key to student learning. “Outstanding teachers give kids the skills and knowledge they need to escape poverty,” and so on. To my ears, the people who say this are setting up most teachers (and public schools) to fail, because, while that recipe works for a few kids, poverty is a separate problem that those “supporters” seem willing to ignore. And the problem may be worse than most people imagine, because schools rely on a crude CONTINUE READING: THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL: "TO HELP GROW AMERICAN CITIZENS"

Los Angeles: Board Member Shares Secret Information with Charter Lobbyists First | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Board Member Shares Secret Information with Charter Lobbyists First | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Board Member Shares Secret Information with Charter Lobbyists First

Jack Covey, a regular reader and contributor, posted the following comment about the latest revelation from blogger Michael Kohlhaas in Los Angeles. Kohlhaas (which may be a pseudonym) somehow gained access to a treasure trove of emails between the Green Dot charter chain and the California Charter Schools Association, as well as between these entities and public figures like school board members. He has published a small number of these emails, and he continues to drop them like bombs (think emails from Wikileaks). What we are learning from these data dumps (drip, drip, drip) is that certain school board members and public officials were more loyal to the charter industry than to the children and public schools of Los Angeles.

Covey writes:

Blogger and L.A. political gadfly Michael Kohlhaas shares confidential emails detailing how CCSA’s Cassy Horton was only one of two people who where provided with the text of (then-indicted-&-future-felon) LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez’s LAUSD board resolution pertaining to charter school oversight, with Horton being provided that by none other than Ref himself.

http://michaelkohlhaas.org/wp/2019/07/12/in-march-2018-then-lausd-board-member-ref-rodriguez-shared-a-top-secret-confidential-copy-of-a-board-resolution-with-cassy-horton-of-the-california-charter-school-association-before-anyone-oth/#more-27507

Mind you, as detailed in Horton’s email, only two people were provided Ref’s board resolution:

Dr. Richard Vladovic, LAUSD Board Member
AND
Cassie Horton of CCSA (California Charter Schools Association lobbyist)

Not the five other board members

Not the LAUSD Charter Schools Division (CSD)

Not UTLA (Perish the thought!)

At this point, more private emails show that CCSA’s  CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles: Board Member Shares Secret Information with Charter Lobbyists First | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teachers Union President: Illegal Immigrants Don't Cause Overcrowding

Teachers Union President: Illegal Immigrants Don't Cause Overcrowding

Teachers Union President: Illegal Immigration Doesn't Cause Overcrowding, It Makes Public Schools 'Stronger'

WASHINGTON -- Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers' labor union in the nation, said illegal immigration makes America's public school system "stronger" by bringing more diversity. She attributed overcrowding to charter schools, austerity, and privatization.

Some school districts are grappling with classroom overcrowding and English proficiency issues among their student populations. Undocumented immigrants are able to enroll their children in public schools regardless of their immigration status or the status of the children.

Weingarten appeared at a rally outside of the White House on Friday where protestors called for the closure of detention centers for undocumented immigrants caught attempting to cross into the U.S. without authorization. The protestors also called for the Trump administration not to separate children from parents who are apprehended at the border for illegal entry.

"Classrooms, not cages," speakers shouted at the protest, which consisted of many AFT TEACH conference attendees.

Weingarten was asked how the public school system would be able to handle the added influx of undocumented migrants if detention centers were to close. She attributed classroom overcrowding to school choice voucher programs.

"Actually, what hurts the public school system is when charter schools take money out of public schools and that's what creates overcrowding. What hurts the public school system is when state after state after state doesn't pay its fair share and has actually spent less money on public schools -- 21 states that is -- than it did 10  CONTINUE READING: Teachers Union President: Illegal Immigrants Don't Cause Overcrowding

Congratulations to Breanna Hall, Schott's Proud #PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship Winner | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Congratulations to Breanna Hall, Schott's Proud #PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship Winner | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Congratulations to Breanna Hall, Schott's Proud #PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship Winner

Local public schools and their educators have produced America’s most brilliant artists, scientists, doctors, musicians, lawyers, presidents, and more — people from all walks of life, contributing to society in countless ways.

To celebrate public high school graduates and the educators who helped them along their path, Schott held our first Proud #PublicSchoolGrad scholarship contest. Out of hundreds of entrants, we're proud to announce that Breanna Hall is the winner!

Breanna is a 2019 graduate of Ramsay High School, in Birmingham, Alabama and has been accepted to Alcorn State University. Throughout her high school career Breanna has shown commitment to community service and helping others through Future Teachers of Alabama. Breanna says she was inspired by one teacher in particular, Dr. Tineka B. Peoples, to become an educator herself after college:

"Dr. Peoples is an exemplary person and an ideal teacher. I have been greatly influenced by her honesty, talent, and selflessness. She saw my potential and I am so grateful to have her in my life. The way that she cares for her students and her teaching style inspired me so much that I have decided to become a teacher."

We were impressed by all the students who entered and wish them the best in their college careers — and we look forward to Breanna educating the next generation of proud public school grads!

Help us congratulate Breanna on social media:

   

Learn more about our #PublicSchoolGrad campaign &

Make a donation to Schott to help continue programs like this 

#PUBLICSCHOOLGRAD

Congratulations to Breanna Hall, Schott's Proud #PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship Winner | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Charter School Case Exposes Big Loopholes in How the State Funds Schools - Voice of San Diego

Charter School Case Exposes Big Loopholes in How the State Funds Schools - Voice of San Diego

Charter School Case Exposes Big Loopholes in How the State Funds Schools
Here are three vulnerabilities the alleged A3 charter school scam revealed in how California tracks attendance and allocates funding that could be exploited by bad actors.

Last month, an explosive indictment filed in San Diego alleged a charter school scam that was both lucrative and audacious: Two men, along with a handful of close employees, managed to siphon $80 million of public education funds into “consulting” companies they controlled.

The grift was multi-faceted. In the most extreme cases, students from summer football programs were enrolled in classes, but did no schoolwork, prosecutors say. But prosecutors also allege that the schools were able to manipulate the state funding system by using irregular enrollment practices on real students. And it is unclear whether state officials have a plan to deal with all of the vulnerabilities and loopholes exposed by those lesser-known aspects of the scandal.

A3 operated at least 19 online charter schools, which were licensed to pull students from 34 counties around the state, including San Diego, according to prosecutors and independent investigators for a statewide charter schools’ association.  Dehesa Elementary School District, a tiny district in East County, authorized three of the schools. One of those is scheduled to close. The future of the other two is uncertain.

Hundreds of charter schools – which are independently controlled, but publicly funded – around the state are, like the A3 schools, “non-classroom based.” In A3’s case, the schools were virtual and operated almost completely online. In other cases, non-classroom-based schools employ an “independent study” method. Students at independent study schools might show up once a week to meet with a teacher and get new assignments.

Here are three vulnerabilities the alleged A3 scam exposed in how California tracks attendance CONTINUE READING: Charter School Case Exposes Big Loopholes in How the State Funds Schools - Voice of San Diego

MetWest High School Story (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

MetWest High School Story (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

MetWest High School Story (Part 2)

Part 2 deals with MetWest High School principals, the design of the school, and the Big Picture Learning network of schools to which MetWest belongs.

School Leadership

The founding teachers left in 2005 and since then there have been four principals who have accepted and adapted the Big Picture Learning design to the contours of OUSD and Oakland students. Eve Gordon an Advisor/Teacher at the school became principal in 2005 and stayed until 2010 when she took a post in the OUSD district office. Thus far no principal has served five or more years.

Sean McClung succeeded Gordon in 2011. Coming from an assistant principal post in another OUSD small high school, the former Teach for America instructor left after two years for a principalship at Impact Academy of Arts and Technology in Hayward, 20 miles south of Oakland. Charlie Plant from the Big Picture Learning network arrived in 2014 and served four years after leading other BPL schools on both East and West coasts. A former house painter and business owner, Plant turned to teaching and administration becoming an advocate for youth who wanted to work in the trades. He returned to BPL in 2017 to coordinate the Harbor Freight Fellows program that have high school students working in manufacturing and craft trades. [i]

Michelle Deiro is the fifth principal of the school since the founders exited MetWest. A former English teacher and department head in an East Bay district, Deiro came to MetWest in 2004. As a Advisor/Teacher, she spent nine years before getting her administrative credential and leaving MetWest for a string of posts in another district, with a charter school in the area, and a hospital. She CONTINUE READING: MetWest High School Story (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Casey, Aspen, United Way & The Two-Generation Con – Wrench in the Gears

Casey, Aspen, United Way & The Two-Generation Con – Wrench in the Gears

Casey, Aspen, United Way & The Two-Generation Con

In a previous post, When We’re The Packages, I discussed the role the Annie E. Casey Foundation (UPS $) played in developing the field of human capital impact investing. One infrastructure element developed and promoted by the foundation is data collection across multiple-generations. Their two-generation approach expands opportunities to profit from impoverished families, because the impact of “evidence-based solutions” can be calculated for both parent AND child.

With Pay For Success: More Data = More “Impact” = More ROI (Return On Investment)

The Aspen Institute’s Ascend 2Gen Initiative ran with the Casey Foundation’s “two generation” concept, turning it into a tool kit that has since been taken up by the National Conference of State Legislators. Ascend is one of many initiatives operating under the umbrella of the Aspen Institute, which is pursuing efforts in the areas of social impact “philanthropy,” community “solutions,” up-skilling and the “future of work,” social emotional learning in children, and a NextGen Network program exploring “ethical” artificial intelligence, underwritten by none other than Microsoft. Take a minute to scroll through the network members; there are SO many.

Interactive version of map above here.

Few realize there is currently a push to use machine learning on data collected through social welfare systems, though they’ve been discussing it for at least a decade. In 2010, Harvard hosted a symposium, co-sponsored with Accenture (co-creator with Microsoft the ID2020 digital identity system), on what the next generation of human services would look like – essentially, what the “business model” was going to be. The conditions laid out presumed continued austerity, increased demand and severity of need, and rising costs. There was considerable discussion about the use of technology and how to apply it to the human services’ “value curve.” CONTINUE READING: Casey, Aspen, United Way & The Two-Generation Con – Wrench in the Gears

FCC changes its rules, puts educational broadband service on free market

FCC changes its rules, puts educational broadband service on free market

FCC changes its rules, puts educational spectrum up for open auction
Rural school districts had hoped to close “homework gaps” via access to wireless spectrum set aside for educational use 50 years ago

 A lot has been written about the “homework gap” in recent years, meaning the disadvantage placed on students in low-income and rural areas where they can’t get speedy internet service to keep up with the expectations schools increasingly have for student online access. Some rural districts have started building their own broadband networks, and many others had hoped to follow their lead using a chunk of bandwidth long ago set aside by the federal government for educational purposes.

Those hopes were dashed last week, when the FCC revised its rules and decided to sell licenses to that bandwidth at open auction. At issue is a small slice of electromagnetic spectrum—the frequencies that carry wireless signals for everything from remote controls to radio—that the government carved out more than 50 years ago for instructional television, and later designated Educational Broadband Service, or EBS, for the internet age. Now, on the cusp of issuing a bunch of new EBS licenses that will cover huge swaths of rural America, the FCC decided to turn EBS over to the free market.

“We are heartbroken.”

Tom Rolfes, education IT manager for the Nebraska Information Technology Commission

The minimal educational-use requirements for EBS spectrum are no more. Even more disappointing to rural education advocates was the FCC’s decision to axe a proposal that schools and education nonprofits get first dibs on new spectrum licenses before a competitive bidding process opens (a pre-auction window for Native American tribes was kept).

“We are heartbroken,” said Tom Rolfes, education IT manager for the Nebraska Information Technology Commission. Rolfes’s group is part of a Nebraska initiative to wirelessly extend school broadband into rural communities where more than a third of the students have no broadband access at home, according to a state study. The Nebraskans already have the wired backbone of their network in place, connecting all their schools. They also have towers ready to blast high-speed internet into surrounding communities. What they  CONTINUE READING: FCC changes its rules, puts educational broadband service on free market

Law enforcement seizes records of closed L.A. charter school - Los Angeles Times

Law enforcement seizes records of closed L.A. charter school - Los Angeles Times

Law enforcement seizes records of closed L.A. charter school 

Federal law enforcement agents have seized records from the home of the former director of Community Preparatory Academy, a Los Angeles charter school that recently closed amid allegations of fiscal mismanagement.

The raid was carried out Tuesday morning by several agencies working in conjunction, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Secret Service with assistance from the FBI.
Also taking part was the Los Angeles Unified School District through its inspector general.

The search warrant is under seal and the target of the probe has not been named, but CPA, as the school was known to many, had a lengthy list of problems. The L.A. Board of Education voted in April to close it at the end of the academic year over the objections of its operators.

Supporters of CPA argued, unsuccessfully, that the school was doing well academically and had turned around its management issues. The school district’s charter-school office took issue with this characterization. Academically, the school had a mixed record compared with
nearby traditional public schools, with its students performing a little better in some areas and worse in others. And the district was not persuaded that new management had turned the corner.

“Throughout the term of the charter, CPA has demonstrated a lack of organizational management,” wrote the district’s charter division in a report to the Board of Education.

The district repeatedly sent warning notices over issues such as minimally qualified teachers, inadequate teacher training, misassignment of teachers outside their subject area and a high ratio of substitutes, the report stated.

Some of the financial difficulties stemmed from a slow start. In the first year of its five-year run, school leaders recruited fewer than 80 students, throwing CPA into CONTINUE READING:  Law enforcement seizes records of closed L.A. charter school - Los Angeles Times

Reforming California’s Dysfunctional Charter School Law | tultican

Reforming California’s Dysfunctional Charter School Law | tultican

Reforming California’s Dysfunctional Charter School Law

By T. Ultican 7/17/2019

Members of the California legislature have engaged in an internecine battle over charter schools. Even the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) has expressed concern over lawless cyber charters and filed the first known complaint with the California Department of Education over A3 Education and Valiant Prep which were recently charged with stealing a stunning $50 million. California State Sen. John Moorlach (R) is warning that 85% of school districts in California are running deficits. Governor Gavin Newsom has stated “rising charter school enrollments in some urban districts are having real impacts on those districts’ ability to provide essential support and services for their students.”

The drive to privatize schools in Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles has been fueled by enormous sums of money spent on elections. Billionaires led by Eli Broad and Richard Riordan have successfully installed a former investment banker – a proponent of school privatization with no education experience – as Superintendent of Schools for Los Angeles. In Oakland, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated to pro-privatization independent expenditure committees and a similar amount has been donated directly to charter friendly candidates running for that city’s school board. Very few of the donations come from Oakland. The story is similar in San Diego.

With so many extremely wealthy individuals like Michael Bloomberg from New York City, Stacy Schusterman from Tulsa, Oklahoma and Alice Walton from Bentonville, Arkansas continually making six and seven figure donations to CONTINUE READING: Reforming California’s Dysfunctional Charter School Law | tultican

A Storm is Coming! (…again) | lacetothetop

A Storm is Coming! (…again) | lacetothetop

A Storm is Coming! (…again)

A new Commissioner will have as much impact on our state ed system as a new meteorologist will have on the weather. We will be told a storm is coming, to buy milk, and stay tuned after to see how badly some were hit in the most underserved areas. Then the new Commissioner will unveil a “new” plan (that will sound identical to the old plan to those paying attention) that will prepare everyone for the next storm.

Commissioners, like meteorologists, predict the future and review the past, while manufacturing chaos in the present. Neither a Commisioner nor a meteorologist can provide relief from heat or shelter from wind.  They do not rescue people from floods or those buried in blizzards. They do not remove fallen trees or restore downed electric poles. That happens locally.

New York’s Ed Commissioner has neither closed gaps nor fixed savage inequalities. Some could argue that the districts that needed the most “saving” are now in worse shape.

Meaning for students happens in the classroom because that is where their relationships exist. The work happens in the schoolhouse dealing in real time with real kids with real issues. The push for more data under the guise of CONTINUE READING: A Storm is Coming! (…again) | lacetothetop

Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom

Dear Governor Newsom:

It is with profound disappointment that I heard that your office was responsible for essentially gutting the main features of these charter reform bills. While I can only speculate on the reasoning for essentially caving to the charter industry (besides Ann O’Leary and the task force espousing all kinds of charter-friendly platitudes), I can say that as a California native, public school graduate (1983), advocate, and 16-year parent/volunteer (two sons in Oakland Unified), and now employee of Oakland Unified, I am well familiar with the education landscape in this state,  particularly the damage being done to schools in Oakland. I’m also familiar with what happens when districts don’t have local control over the schools for which they are responsible. You and I have something in common-we both attended well-resourced public high schools. You went to Redwood High School in Marin, and I attended Miramonte High School in Orinda, located in what is now one of the wealthiest suburbs in the East Bay. Lucky us. 

The irony regarding your potential alliance with privatization groups like CCSA is that, because of your severe dyslexia, you would have been rejected by the same schools that are now being touted as “high quality seats”, aggressively marketed as superior to real public schools because of test scores. According to the bio I read, you were rejected from a private prep school and enrolled in your local public high school instead. So you have first-hand experience with the idea that real public schools enroll CONTINUE READING: Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYSAPE Calls for a Commissioner Who Puts the Needs of Students First | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYSAPE Calls for a Commissioner Who Puts the Needs of Students First | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYSAPE Calls for a Commissioner Who Puts the Needs of Students First

NYSAPE-New York State Allies for Public Education-is the leading voice for parents and educators who want a forward-looking education agenda, not one that slavishly promotes No Child Left Behind-style policies of test-and-punish. It has led the state’s successful opt-out movement. NYSAPE consists of 70 groups of parents and educators from every part of the state.

NYSAPE was delighted to learn that Commissioner MaryEllen Elia was resigning.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 16, 2019
More information contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education – NYSAPE

As New York Closes the Door on Commissioner Elia’s Corporate Reform Agenda, NYSAPE Urges the Board of Regents to Include All Stakeholders When Choosing Our Next Commissioner

MaryEllen Elia was the wrong choice for NY in 2015 when she was appointed as Commissioner by the Board of Regents and former Regent Chancellor Merryl Tisch. The Commissioner continued to demonstrate throughout her tenure an unwillingness to move beyond her corporate reform agenda, resulting in NYSAPE’s repeated call for her resignation. The children of NY deserve a state education leader who will put their well-being at the forefront of all education policies.

“In 2015, NYSAPE sounded the alarms when Commissioner Elia was recruited by national and local CONTINUE READING: NYSAPE Calls for a Commissioner Who Puts the Needs of Students First | Diane Ravitch's blog

Trump Picked the Perfect Education Secretary in Betsy DeVos - Bloomberg

Trump Picked the Perfect Education Secretary in Betsy DeVos - Bloomberg

Trump Picked His Perfect Education Secretary in Betsy DeVos

For all the years since Jimmy Carter picked Shirley Hufstedler in 1979 to be the first holder of the title, it’s been a tradition for the U.S. education secretary to address the annual gathering of the hundreds of journalists covering their department. Two years ago, Betsy DeVos, who’d recently been confirmed as President Donald Trump’s education secretary, turned down an invitation from the Education Writers Association. The next year she did so again, raising the possibility that she might be the first person with the job to snub the organization altogether in almost 40 years.

So the association’s members were excited when DeVos agreed to appear this year. What would their reluctant keynote speaker say? The tables in the ballroom on Baltimore’s inner harbor quickly filled with journalists eager to find out. The slim 61-year-old walked onstage wearing a light blue pantsuit, sparkling gold heels, and a forced smile. “The simple truth is,” DeVos said, sighing, “I never imagined I’d be a focus of your coverage. I don’t enjoy the publicity that comes with my position. I don’t love being up on stage or any kind of platform.” She gave her audience a plaintive look. “I am an introvert,” she said, placing her hand on her heart. Then she became defiant: “And as much as many in the media use my name as clickbait or try to make it all about me, it’s not.”

Once she was finished, DeVos took a seat onstage, leaning back in her chair as if she wished she could disappear rather than take questions from Erica Green, an education reporter for the New York Times. However, Green was gracious, as were most of the audience members who asked questions. Contrary to her reputation as someone who can be befuddled in public, DeVos fielded them all. An underperforming voucher program in Louisiana? She didn’t think much of it either. A proposal in a Tennessee education bill targeting undocumented students? She was pretty sure it didn’t wind up in the final version, so what was there to say?

There’s something mildly disingenuous about DeVos’s contention that she’s been the subject of undue scrutiny. She came to Washington in 2017 to serve Trump, who had agreed to pay $25 million the previous winter to settle claims that his namesake for-profit university bilked students. For decades, DeVos has promoted what she refers to as “school choice,” arguing that parents should be able to decide which school CONTINUE READING: Trump Picked the Perfect Education Secretary in Betsy DeVos - Bloomberg

Moneyball For Government: Poverty Mining in Philadelphia – Wrench in the Gears

Moneyball For Government: Poverty Mining in Philadelphia – Wrench in the Gears

Moneyball For Government: Poverty Mining in Philadelphia

We finally got a new computer with enough memory for me to be able to edit the talk I gave at Wooden Shoe Books on May 9, 2019. It’s two hours long and covers quite a bit of ground. We had a couple dozen folks attend in person and many wanted to stay after and continue talking; so I count that a win.

Below is the talk. Click here for the slide share if you want to look at it separately.

For context, the week before this event hundreds of impact investors arrived in Philadelphia to discuss how to best capitalize on (read profit from) our city’s deep poverty. A couple of us affiliated with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) staged an informational picket outside the Duane Morris Building where the “Total Impact 2019 Conference” was held. We leafleted, let passersby know what was happening inside, and even engaged a number of speakers. They are not willing to see horrific techno-dystopic machine they are building for what it truly is. Below is a video from that action.

A sidewalk display featuring many of the speakers was made with help from comrades with #OccupyPHA (PHA = Philadelphia Housing Authority). PHA is one of the leading gentrifiers in the city, particularly North Philadelphia, where they’ve built a new $45 million headquarters. The week after the CONTINUE READING: Moneyball For Government: Poverty Mining in Philadelphia – Wrench in the Gears

OSBI warrant: 'Ghost students' at Epic

OSBI warrant: 'Ghost students' at Epic

OSBI warrant: 'Ghost students' at Epic

A state investigation alleges Epic Charter Schools, the state’s largest virtual charter school system, embezzled millions in state funds by illegally inflating enrollment counts with “ghost students.”

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation alleged Epic co-founders David Chaney and Ben Harris “devised a scheme to use their positions as public officers to unlawfully derive profits from state appropriated funds.”

An OSBI agent made the allegations in a search warrant that sought evidence of embezzlement, obtaining money by false pretenses and racketeering.

Investigators reported Chaney and Harris “created a system of financial gain at Epic” when they founded the virtual charter school in 2010. The two co-founders have managed the virtual charter school through a for-profit company, Epic Youth Services, which receives a portion of Epic’s state funds.

Epic, which enrolled just under 20,000 students last year, is a public charter school that receives state education funding for each student enrolled. There is no cost to students to attend.

In a statement emailed to The Oklahoman, Epic referred to the allegations as a "coordinated CONTINUE READING:OSBI warrant: 'Ghost students' at Epic