Senator seeks return of ‘stolen’ ECOT funds

U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown is introducing a bill to require any “stolen” federal funds recovered from the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow to be handed over to traditional public school districts.

“We’re talking about a socalled school that had been falsifying attendance records to rake in more taxpayer dollars,” the Ohio Democrat said at a Statehouse press conference Monday.

“Ohio has been known as the wild, wild west forprofit charter schools … students have been betrayed by their state government and the corruption in state government, and taxpayers have been fleeced by that same corruption.”

The bill, the “Putting Students First Act,” would require any recovery of federal money to be given to schools that lost local money to ECOT, including Columbus schools, rather than being placed in the U.S. Treasury general fund, Brown said.

ECOT, which closed in January amid allegations of mismanagement and $62 million still owed to the state for inflating attendance, has received $130 million in federal funding since 2000, Brown said.

“ECOT stole taxpayers dollars and cheated Ohio students. That’s why I’m introducing legislation to return that money where it belongs — to Ohio Brown students,” he said.

Brown has asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the online charter school, which also received tax dollars deducted from the state aid of school districts in which ECOT students lived.

“Shady” for-profit charter schools “scam students out of their education and scam taxpayers out of their hardearned dollars,” Brown said. “Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for these fatal schools run by for-profit companies when the goal ... seems entirely to be profit motivated.”

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine last week filed a lawsuit against ECOT founder Bill Lager and other school officials seeking to recover the $62 million debt and the recovery of profits from the $200 million paid by ECOT to Lagercontrolled companies.

“Ohioans deserve answers,” wrote Brown when he requested a federal investigation of ECOT earlier this year. “We trust schools to educate and prepare students, but ECOT, (founder) William Lager, and his companies have abused that trust to rig the system to enrich themselves.”

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost has said ECOT officials may have committed crimes and referred the case to the office of Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien.

Brown is running for reelection on Nov. 6 against U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth.