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State School Board Votes to Force E-Charter to Reimburse
State for $60M for Ghost Students
Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow Has Fought Tooth and Nail
to Avoid Accountability
Special to The Truth
The State Board of Education this week voted overwhelmingly
to force the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) -- a
for-profit e-charter school
that
the New York Times
highlighted as having the worst graduation rate in the
country -- to repay $60
million that the for-profit e-charter school overbilled Ohio
taxpayers during the last school year.
“The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow isn’t a school – it’s
a scam, enabled for years by failed Republican leadership,”
said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper. “They have
finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into repaying
Ohio taxpayers for the millions they bilked from the state
for ‘ghost students.’ The state school board -- Democrats
and Republicans, elected and appointed members -- voted
today to force ECOT to give back the money they wrongfully
took for students that never actually attended their school.
This is just the first step. Now we need the state to audit
ECOT for previous years, so we know the full extent of
fraudulent payments made to the e-charter school. Finally,
ECOT should stop with the lawsuits and stop wasting Ohio tax
dollars.”
“The overpayment of $60 million to ECOT is an egregious
abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said State Board of Education
Member Stephanie Dodd. “Even worse, it was done at the
expense of our children.”
Since last summer, ECOT has fought tooth and nail to avoid
any accountability.
First,
it filed suit to avoid an
attempt to audit their students’ attendance.
After an enrollment audit revealed ECOT
overbilled Ohio taxpayers by
padding its enrollment numbers with 9,000 “ghost” students,
they sued to avoid repaying the millions they owe the state.
Today’s decision follows years of inaction by state
officials. In 2016 the Columbus Dispatch revealed that
Auditor Dave Yost’s office failed to crack down on ECOT when
a whistleblower “made
allegations that ECOT was cooking its attendance books.”
Instead of conducting an audit of ECOT, Yost’s office
negotiated an agreement with the charter school that
effectively tied the auditor’s hands from fully examining
the allegations.
In January 2016, Yost awarded ECOT his ?Auditor of State
Award with Distinction,? and Yost spoke at ECOT?s graduation
in 2014 and 2015.
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