Shocked. Shocked, I Tell You. ECOT Owes Taxpayers MORE Money.

Put this in the Perfectly Predictable bin. Looks like the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) could only account for about 81 percent of the students it billed taxpayers for "educating" last school year. And this was in a year when ECOT should have been extra careful because the year before it could only account for 40 percent of the students it billed taxpayers.

So now the school, which produces more high school dropouts than any other school in the nation, owes another $15 million ON TOP of the $60 million it already owed taxpayers. All I can say is the school should be grateful the state isn't going back for the previous 15 years of enrollment figures because if they did, ECOT would likely be shown to have fleeced Ohio taxpayers to the tune of more than a half billion dollars.

All while top state officials spoke at their graduation ceremonies -- ceremonies that included not even four out of 10 kids who were eligible to walk across the stage.

This comes on top of the news that not a single of the $103 million that went to ECOT last year from Ohio's public school districts came from a district that the school outperformed  on the state report card. And nearly one in four dollars sent to ECOT came from a school district that outperformed ECOT in every available measure.

A few more nuggets:

• A spectacularly low 2.9 percent of ECOT's 2010 graduates had a college degree within 6 years of graduation. Only New Miami Local in Butler County had a lower rate among Ohio's 613 school districts.
• An even more spectacularly low 0.3 percent of ECOT students attained an industry recognized credential. Most of the 24 school districts with the same or lower rates are districts like Hudson and Dublin that are wealthy and whose students are geared toward college, as that group's 40 percent rate of attaining college degrees within 6 years indicates (as noted above, ECOT's rate as 2.9 percent)
• Their Performance Index score -- the accumulated index the state uses to determine  proficiency -- was lower than any district
• The school's student growth index was -39.5. A score between -1 and 1 is considered a year of growth
• ECOT -- a virtual school without walls, buses, lunch ladies, or janitors -- received $7,291 per pupil in state funding last school year -- an amount greater than 85 percent of school districts. And if they did not educate 19 percent of their students as the Ohio Department of Education now claims, their per pupil funding for the kids that they did "educate" jumps to $8,923 -- an amount greater than 96 percent of Ohio school districts

This school is an embarrassment to this state. And even to this nation. The Ohio General Assembly has allowed this hog to wallow far too long. It's time to shut down this school. I'm sorry. I'm sure some kids have been saved at ECOT. I'm sure some parents love it. It's these parents and kids who should be most upset with ECOT's continued bumbling and malfeasance, though, not we who report its existence. 

All I lost were my tax dollars. 

But every time ECOT does something like this, it harms these students' diplomas and what I'm sure was a lot of hard work. But remember this is not these kids' or parents' fault; it is the fault of Bill Lager -- the politically connected ECOT founder and for-profit operator who Ohio's taxpayers have made a millionaire many times over; it is the fault of the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West, who could instantly solve this issue by canceling its oversight of the school, but instead has pushed to give the school an easier report card; and it is the fault of compliant politicians who thought it was more important to keep a campaign finance gravy train going than it was to stand up for kids.

State Auditor David Yost, for example, has been coming down hard recently on ECOT. But here's what he said just two short years ago (remember, I and we at Innovation Ohio reported as far back as 2011 that ECOT and Ohio's other eSchools were a problem):

"It's not your failure that defines you. It's the success that flowed from your decision to enroll in ECOT ... You tell them I'm the employee you're looking for. I'm organized and I'm disciplined and I get the job done because that's the way we do it at ECOT."

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.

ECOT's Dropout School Application Looks Like My Son's T-ball Registration Form

Look, I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but would you look at the "application" the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow filled out to become a dropout recovery school so it could escape scrutiny and continue collecting hundreds of millions of our hard-earned tax dollars while continuing to be the nation's top producer of dropouts?

It looks like my son's T-ball registration form.

And look at the school's population estimates: 15,000 total students and 8,000 dropout program participants. Really? Perfectly round numbers? Don't the people of ECOT have actual enrollment figures, complete with the students' ages? It sure seems to me that they're kind of spitballing this.

Want more proof?

They actually scratched out their sponsor's identification number, wrote out the number above the scratched out number ... AND TURNED IT IN! 

What, there wasn't any Wite-Out available? Man, $100 million doesn't pay for what it used to, I guess.

Would you let your kids turn in this work to their teacher?

ECOT not only turned this in to ODE, but the school could receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as a result.

Incredible.

I don't know. I kind of expected more from ODE's application process. If you can apply to become a dropout recovery school and essentially escape all accountability and scrutiny, shouldn't it be a little more rigorous than something that looks like it was written on the back of a napkin? Or at least didn't have grammar school errors on it?

Am I just sensitive?

Or is this just par for the course for a school that owes Ohio taxpayers $60 million because it couldn't prove it educated 60 percent of the kids it claimed to educate in the 2015-2016 school year?

2013 Ohio State Study Shows ECOT Bad at Preventing or Recovering Dropouts. Now ECOT wants to Specialize in It.

Four years prior to the school's application to be considered a dropout recovery school this summer, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow -- the state's oldest and largest online school -- was found to be Ohio's leading producer of high school dropouts while only recovering 1.5 percent of those dropouts.

In a 2013 report completed by Ohio State University's Education Research Center, the authors concluded that between 2006-2010, ECOT produced 13,000 dropouts, or 21.5 percent of all dropouts in Ohio's charter schools. In 2010 alone, ECOT had 2,908 dropouts -- nearly double the number of the Cleveland Municipal School District's 1,600. At the time, Cleveland had nearly double the students enrolled as ECOT had, according to the report.

In the interest of fairness, the ECOT enrollment data included in the report differs greatly from reported enrollment data at the Ohio Department of Education. It is not clear from the report how the researchers reached their enrollment figures when they calculated the dropout rate, but it appears they only included students who were 16 years or older.

In addition, the researchers found that of those 2,908 students, only 75 returned to ECOT. Of the 13,000 lost during the previous 5 years, ECOT only recovered 194 -- a dreadful 1.5 percent recovery rate.

The researchers concluded that

"it is clear that the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow strongly influences the dropout numbers of this region (Ohio's urban districts). Reducing dropouts at this one school could improve the problem significantly."

What is critical to remember is that this study compared ECOT's impact on dropout prevention and recovery with urban districts in the state -- traditionally the top producers of high school dropouts among Ohio school districts. And among even those, ECOT was particularly awful.

If ECOT's 53 percent dropout rate reported by the Ohio State researchers held consistent for all its eligible students since the school opened in the 2000-2001 school year, ECOT could be said to have produced about 40,000 dropouts during its existence.

That's about how many people live in Lima.

Yet now ECOT, which the state has known for at least four years is the largest single contributor to Ohio's dropout problem while recovering barely any of those dropouts, wants to be called a dropout prevention and recovery school -- a special designation that brings with it plenty of protections from accountability and perpetual existence.

As the Plain Dealer reported today, ECOT's claims to have an impossibly difficult population of students to educate are clearly out of line with its actual population. If ECOT received the dropout designation, it would have among the least challenged populations in any dropout recovery school. Yet it would be paid far more than any other.

The Ohio Department of Education, which is reviewing ECOT's application, should heed the warnings it received four years ago and not allow ECOT to hide from scrutiny, insisting instead that ECOT improve its performance dramatically for its kids.

Perhaps the department should at least insist that ECOT stop producing the most dropouts of any school in the nation before it says ECOT should specialize in preventing and recovering dropouts.

That, I believe, would be a great place to begin.

ECOT's Latest Gambit May Already Be In Trouble.

I wondered when this was coming. But apparently, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow -- the most scandal-ridden charter school in the state that owes taxpayers $60 million in overpayments from just one year of instruction -- now wants to be classified as a dropout recovery school.

The problem is, they can't do it unless they once again manipulate student counts. They either have to suddenly drop about 1,200 students off their rolls, or find thousands more students. While that can certainly happen, my guess is they will have to perform all kinds of enrollment gymnastics to do it. Of course, they've been pretty good at that in the past.

Why would they have to do this contortion? Because as a charter school, they have to accept everyone who comes through their virtual door, just like a local public school. They can't just drop a bunch of kids so they can get a new state designation that can save their financial bacon.

Why would they want to do this? Changing to a dropout recovery school means that the state can never really close ECOT, and their grades won't hurt their sponsor -- the Education Service Center of Lake Erie West. Oh, and they can just keep expanding and expanding without fear of recourse.

Dropout recovery schools have been a major embarrassment to Ohio for years. And they are the recipients of one of the last bastions of legislative loopholes for politically connected charter school operators. In order to avoid being shut down, they can improve their graduation and test passage rates by 10 percent a year in two consecutive years. However, this benefits the worst performing schools because improving from a 1.7 percent graduation rate to a 2.1 percent graduation rate over two years is much easier (it can mean simply getting 1 or 2 more kids to graduate) than going from 40 percent to 48 percent.

So, ECOT can't graduate 4 out of 10 kids, which is a failing grade as a start-up charter school as they are currently classified. But their putrid graduation rate would "exceed expectations" as a dropout recovery school.

Kind of tells you just how bad our dropout recovery regulations are, doesn't it?

Of course ECOT wouldn't answer questions about the switch, like why it took them 20 years to suddenly realize they would better serve kids as a dropout recovery school. But here's the other thing: to be classified as a dropout recovery school, the ECOT contract with their sponsor now says that "50 percent of students must be 16 or older, and behind by at least one grade level, or have experienced a crisis that interferes with them attending a traditional school."

State regulations say that dropout recovery schools -- in order to have the designation -- need to have the following requirements:

Any community school in which the majority of students are enrolled in a dropout prevention and recovery program operated by the school that meets the following criteria:
a) The program serves only students not younger than sixteen years of age and not older than twenty-one years of age;
b) The program enrolls students who, at the time of their initial enrollment, either, or both, are at least one grade level behind their cohort age groups or experience crises that significantly interfere with their academic progress such that they are prevented from continuing their traditional programs;
c) The program requires students to attain at least the applicable score designated for each of the assessments prescribed under division (B)(1) of section 3301.0710 of the Revised Code or, to the extent prescribed by rule of the state board of education under division (D)(6) of section 3301.0712 of the Revised Code, division (B)(2) of that section;
d) The program develops an individual career plan for the student that specifies the student's matriculating to a two-year degree program, acquiring a business and industry credential, or entering an apprenticeship;
e) The program provides counseling and support for the student related to the plan developed under division (A)(4) of that section during the remainder of the student's high school experience; and
f) The program's instructional plan demonstrates how the academic content standards adopted by the state board of education under section 3301.079 of the Revised Code will be taught and assessed;

I don't think ECOT -- as currently constituted -- can meet this definition, unless they un-enroll a bunch of kids.

According to ECOT's student enrollment count from October 2016 -- the latest count data available -- ECOT had 13,895 kids enrolled. Of that, 8,167 kids were in grades K-10. That means nearly 6 in 10 kids were likely under 16 years of age, let alone behind by a grade level or going through a crisis.

Now, those other non-age requirements are pretty simple to achieve, but in order for ECOT -- as currently constituted -- to meet those definitions, they have to drop at least 1,200 students and argue that every single 11th and 12th grader in their school is behind by a grade level or in a crisis.

So they will probably need to un-enroll more kids.

Of course, they could also target their ads toward recruiting more 16+ dropout students. But in either case, they will have to once again manipulate their enrollment figures to figure out a way to continue plundering taxpayer money.

Shameful.

Ohio's Dropout Recovery Schools Embarrassingly Poor Performing

The data on Ohio's dropout recovery charter schools is so bad I'm wondering if anything can ever really be done to repair this portion of the charter sector. Dropout recovery students are inherently more difficult to reach. Look, I get it. But the performance metrics released last week by the Ohio Department of Education are just alarming, especially considering these schools are "educating" our most vulnerable students in desperate need of high-quality educational opportunities to catch them up to speed.

How alarming is this performance?

Try these data points:

• There are only two Dropout Recovery Schools (out of 93) that have any kids reportedly accomplishing industry credentials, and only two schools have any kids achieving dual enrollment credit in an institution of higher education. And the percentage of kids that have achieved this are 1.3% or less of the Class of 2014 that graduated from each of the schools.
• The State of Ohio says a Dropout Recovery School meets its "standard" if 28 out of 210 eligible students graduate ... IN 8 YEARS!
• The State of Ohio says a Dropout Recovery School meets its "standard" if 8.4% of the school's students graduate in 4 years.
• The Greater Ohio Virtual School graduated a stunning 3 out of 149 students ... IN 8 YEARS!
• Out of the 1,100 students eligible to graduate in four years from the state's 13 Life Skills Centers (run by major political donor David Brennan's White Hat Management), only 57 graduated -- 18 of whom came from one school. That's a stunningly low 5.2% four-year graduation rate overall. Eliminating the one Life Skills Center with the 18 graduates drops the average in the remaining 12 schools to an incredible 4.4% -- only about 1/2 of the state's minimum graduation rate.

• Overall, there were 7,324 students eligible to graduate from Dropout Recovery schools in four years. Only 1,590 did. That rate of 22% is actually 3 percentage points higher than the eight-year graduation rate, which was an amazing 19% (1,527 out of 8,015).
• Schools "exceed" state standards on four-year graduation rates if they have rates higher than 37%. Only 23 schools met that criterion.

I could go on. But suffice it to say, Ohio's Dropout Recovery Schools, on the whole, are utterly failing at their primary purpose -- rescuing dropouts and graduating them. 

And to add insult to injury, they have very little fear from the state. Why's that? Because a loophole in Ohio law allows even a substandard Dropout Recovery school to continue operations as long as it improves its four-year graduation rate by 10% a year for two straight years.

How that would apply to Life Skills of North Akron, which graduated 0 of its 61 eligible kids, is unclear (because 10% of 0 is 0). However, for Life Skills of Toledo, which graduated 1 out of 48 kids (for a 2.1% graduation rate), as long as the school graduates 1.2 kids in two years, it can remain open.

Only in Ohio.

Dropout Recovery Schools and eSchools are two of the biggest problems in the charter school sector here. It is no coincidence that the state's two biggest political players make their money operating Dropout Recovery Schools and eSchools. 

Let's hope our state's leaders finally take a serious look at both sectors and save the kids who are being utterly failed by these dismally performing schools. 

We have to stop helping the politically active adults who run these things and rescue our state's most vulnerable kids from their thieving clutches.

Ohio: Charters' 7.2% Grad Rate "Meets Standards". Really????

In the lame duck 2005-2006 legislative session, Ohio's legislature and historically unpopular Gov. Bob Taft exempted Ohio's Dropout Recovery Charter Schools from having to adhere to any new closure standards. In exchange, the State Board of Education had to develop operating standards for these schools by December 2007.

However, those standards were never adopted. Instead, Dropout Recovery Charter Schools operated without fear of closure, which made their operators -- including notorious political donor David Brennan's Life Skills Centers -- lots of money.

The state finally adopted Dropout Recovery standards a couple years ago. In exchange, these Charter Schools (now 90 strong) receive their own, much more lenient report card. This year was the first for Dropout Recovery Schools to have measurable data. And wow do these data raise serious questions about whether the state has any meaningful operating standards for these schools.

According to the Dropout Recovery report card, a 7.2% four-year graduation rate is designated "meets standards" (in which case, the Charter wouldn't close) while a 30% rate exceeds them. Wow. Really? 7.2%? 30%?

Sheesh but that's awful. Now, I understand that dropout recovery schools have a very challenging population of kids. I get it. But are we really going to say that spending $117.3 million on these 90 schools is a good use of taxpayer money? Dropout recovery is among the most important functions of our educational institutions. These are our most at-risk kids.

Yet the state says that if only 8 out of 111 eligible graduates graduate -- as is the case at Life Skills Center of Columbus North -- then the school has met the state's "rigorous" standards? Wow. Just. Wow.

The average graduation rate (dropout recovery schools are tracked for 4, 5, 6, and 7 years) is about 20-25% (take Life Skills out of the equation, and the rate jumps almost 5%). Shouldn't that be meeting standards? The highest 4-year graduation rate is 88.9% at Franklin Local Community School. I would think any rate over 50% would exceed standards, right? Wrong. It's 30%.

Life Skills Centers -- the largest single group of Dropout Recovery Charters -- are especially horrendous at graduating children, which I thought was the whole point of dropout recovery. They single handedly drag down the overall Dropout Recovery graduation rate by about 5% and represent 6 of the 11 Dropout Recovery schools that "Does Not Meet Standards" for four-year graduation rates in Ohio's eyes. But given that their operator, White Hat Management, is run by David Brennan, who has given $4 million to Ohio politicians, does it surprise you that these standards are so low?

And to add insult to injury, even the Life Skills Centers (whose diplomas at one time weren't accepted by the military) that graduate 2 out of 155 kids (yes, Life Skills of Northeast Ohio owns this shameful graduation rate) and fail to meet even these ridiculously low standards can stay open in perpetuity. How? By simply improving their graduation rate (and test scores) 10% a year for two consecutive years, thanks to Mr. Brennan's friends in the legislature and Governor's mansion.

So, let's do some math. The 2 out of 155 kids that graduate from Life Skills of Northeast Ohio is a 1.3% graduation rate. Improving by 10% a year for two years would put that rate at 1.573%. How many more kids is that? .43. That's right. If Life Skills of Northeast Ohio graduates the equivalent of .43 of a student more over the next not one, but two years, the school gets to stay open. That's right. He doesn't have to graduate even 1 more kid. They don't even have to improve to 7.2% and graduate 9 more kids to "Meet Standards." They just have to graduate a fraction of one more.

I wish I was joking.

Now, that, is a loophole. And that, my friends is what $4 million will buy you -- the right to run horrible schools and collect billions. Brennan has collected more than $1 billion in state revenue since Charters started in 1999 without ever testifying before the Ohio General Assembly. In fact, about 15 cents of every dollar spent on Ohio charters since 1999 ($7.4 billion total) has gone to Mr. Brennan. Let's see: turning $4 million into $1 billion.

Anyone want that return on investment? Tough to beat 25,000%.

Perhaps that's how Mr. Brennan can afford a $10 million Naples, Fla. home and guest home (the most expensive multi-million dollar property on Naples' ritzy Nelsons Walk, according to the Collier County Auditor's property appraisal office).

David Brennan's $10 million Naples property
Source: Collier County, Fla. Auditor

Don't forget that Gov. John Kasich's most recent budget gave the biggest per pupil increases to (wait for it) Life Skills Centers. Funny how that works, isn't it?

For our state's most at-risk kids, that's not funny. It's awful.

Dropout Recovery Charter Schools in Ohio are a mess. We know how to best prevent dropouts. Among those strategies -- early childhood education, family engagement teams (which Ohio paid for in the Evidence Based Model, but not anymore), and tutoring (also paid for in the Evidence-Based Model, but not anymore). Let's do what we know works.

Let's stop giving David Brennan $17.5 million, or more than $8,400 per pupil (a greater per pupil sum than the state gives to all but 3 public school districts, and more than double what the state spends -- $3,920 -- on average in all districts) to graduate 113 of the 1,496 kids in his care last year at all Life Skills Centers. Two of his schools aren't rated yet by the state, so the graduation rate is probably even worse than that.

By the way, that's a mighty lofty 7.6% graduation rate for Life Skills. That would "meet standards" in Ohio's eyes. I know. Horrific, right?

You, dear reader, know that I'm not one for eliminating Charters. I want great educational experiences for all kids, regardless of school type. But these Dropout Recovery "standards" are an embarrassment. All they do is hurt our most vulnerable children and let profiteers live lavishly.

What a travesty.

Ohio Gov Makes 1/50th the Commitment to Community Engagement as Predecessor. Gets Ovation.

I haven't spoken much on this blog about the Evidence-Based Model of school funding. When elections are lost, the victors have the right to change that which they see fit to change. And when Gov. John Kasich and his legislative allies took power in 2011, the first thing they changed was the Evidence-Based Model -- perhaps the signature accomplishment of his predecessor, Ted Strickland.

I have to admit it kind of hurt. After all, I missed the last two months of my wife's last pregnancy and the first month of my new son's life to improve the EBM to the point that it received the Frank Newman Award from the Education Commission of the States, which is given every year to the state who produces the most bold, innovative and non-partisan education reform of the year.

For those of you who don't care about funding formulas, essentially the EBM stood for the premise that the state should figure out what kids need to succeed, then commit to funding it. It was based on a peer-reviewed formula published in an MIT journal. It also had evidence for each of the elements it sought to fund. It didn't help that the thing was passed at the height of the Great Recession, but it did. So we had to fund it over 10 years. It was far from perfect, but it was a vast improvement over the previous system, which had been ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court on four separate occasions.

But Kasich and his allies made destroying the EBM one of their top priorities, killing it within weeks of taking power. After two years of study, Kasich proposed his own school funding plan, which was so rife with issues (see this space from last spring) that the legislature run by his own party essentially killed that model too, proving just how hard it is to properly fund schools.

Which brings me to last night's State of the State address. In it, Kasich announced a new, $10 million commitment to engage the community and families in education across this state for what he called a dropout initiative. When he asked for support from everyone in the room, the room stood up and applauded. Jim Siegel -- the standout Columbus Dispatch reporter -- called it a "bipartisan standing ovation" in his live blog of the event:

I'm not begrudging the Governor for taking on dropouts by trying to engage communities in education. That makes perfect sense and is in line with the evidence. But here is something everyone in Ohio should remember: The EBM provided not $10 million for community engagement, but $508 million for community engagement -- enough for one family and community liaison for every 75 children living in poverty in a district. In fact, that's how these folks were funded.

Here's the exact funding line from the state's finance report from FY11:

Resources for Additional Student Services:                                                                                  
   Family and Community Liaisons        508,286,437.45           292,744,169.45

During the EBM debate in 2009, I distinctly remember my friends on the other side of the aisle pooh-poohing this family and community liaison provision as being unnecessary (or worse). They didn't buy the strong evidence showing that better connections between schools, families and communities has a profound impact on student success. But that idea is kind of a given in education policy land.

Now, many of those same people are giving a standing ovation for a program that commits more than 50 times less. By way of scale, Kasich's commitment equates to just over $5 a child statewide. EBM's worked out to about $250 per child.

Even though the EBM was being phased in due to the horrible economy (the only reason it never was phased in is because the EBM was eliminated in 2011) , the state still provided $292.7 million for family and community liaisons in the 2010-2011 school year, which districts were not mandated to provide yet because the element hadn't been fully funded. That's still nearly 30 times more than Kasich's modest attempt to address this profound problem in our state's schools.

Sorry to drift into EBM land for a bit, but I thought a history check was necessary for everyone as we move forward with this proposal in the coming weeks and months.