ECOT gets easier report card. Old one shows 1 in 4 ECOT dollars come from districts that outperform them in EVERY measure.

Now that it appears the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow -- the state's largest online school and the nation's largest producer of high school dropouts -- will be classified as a dropout recovery and prevention school (without a hint of irony) by the Ohio Department of Education, it is useful to look at just how dreadful ECOT's performance has been.

In the 2016-2017 school year, ECOT received $103 million in state money meant for kids in Ohio school districts, but which went instead to ECOT. Not a single penny came from a district that performed worse in more report card categories than ECOT. Only $2,204 of the $103 million came from a district whose performance was the same.

But here's the amazing stat: More than $25 million of that $103 million came from districts that outperformed ECOT in EVERY SINGLE COMPARABLE REPORT CARD CATEGORY!

That's right. One out of every 4 dollars going to ECOT comes from a district that in every way outperforms ECOT -- the largest single chunk of state funding transfers to the school.

Yet with this dropout designation, they will be allowed to remain open and unaccountable for many more years. And in an absolute indictment of Ohio's horrific dropout recovery laws, ECOT will now become one the state's highest performing dropout recovery schools.

This is just embarrassing. I hope the legislature takes note and addresses this shameful performance, not just by ECOT, but also the state's regulatory scheme that has allowed this school to thrive when all manner of data tells us to shut it down.