An open letter from a teacher to Speaker Budish
I was perusing http://followthemoney.org and was looking for William Lager, the CEO of Altair Learning Management, the for-profit company that provides services with Ohio’s largest charter school, Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT).
I was dismayed when I found out that Speaker Budish had accepted $10,000 from ECOT’s founder and CEO.
Actually, I was disgusted.
Why?
Well, for starters, ECOT is run by a for-profit Educational Management Organization (EMO). In layman’s terms, an EMO is kind of like the “company store” in Tennessee “Ernie” Ford’s song “Sixteen Tons”. Long story short, you end up selling your soul to the company store. Another day older and deeper in debt. EMOs provide management, curriculum and other services for a fee—some EMOs are non-profit, others are for-profit. Altair Learning Management is for-profit.
I know, I know, people wonder why education can’t be privatized, incorporating best practices from businesses and applying them to kids’ education. It’s quite simple, kids aren’t widgets. They aren’t a bottom line, and they certainly aren’t a deadline. I firmly believe that business commonsense is nonsense when applied to education.
However, using their business sense, Altair has had a HUGE take from the state. You see, when students enroll in a charter school, the money from the state still goes to their “original” school district and then passes through to their new school of residence, the charter school. That, my friends is called pass-through funding. The school district doesn’t get to touch one cent of it. They just send it on.
The per-student money gathered through property taxes does stay with the district. You frequently hear Bill Sims, a charter school advocate and president and ceo of something or other related to charter schools (yes, intentionally left lower case) argue about how charter schools have to do more with less when compared with traditional school districts. And he’s right.
Surprisingly, ECOT manages to do less with less and give more to Altair. To wit:
Per their management agreement, Altair gets 4% of all revenues received, except federal funding. They also get .5% interest on all outstanding balances. According to the most recent state audit of ECOT, that meant that more than $2.3 million in state money (and it’s all state money folks) went into Altair’s coffers. That money didn’t lower class sizes, it didn’t buy books, and it most certainly didn’t pay teachers.
But wait, there’s more….
ECOT contracts with IQ Innovation to provide curriculum services to the school. I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I am that (gasp) Altair and IQ Innovations have the same principal owner. More than $5 million of taxpayer money (from ECOT) was spent during the 2009 fiscal year for curriculum and sent to IQ Innovation.
I was completely surprised to see ECOT sign on for Race to the Top (RttT). While they don’t take a portion of federal funds, I honestly wonder if that applies when the federal funds are distributed by the state government?
ECOT will receive more than $2.7 million over the next four years. If Altair is entitled to their take on those funds (since they will be distributed by the state) they would receive close to $150,000 over the life of the grant.
And just so you know, those of you who will pick an argument, saying “Teachers’ unions use dues money to fatten the pockets of politicians and that should have gone to kids” are wrong.
My local affiliate cannot use my dues dollars for political action. They use the money I willingly give them. Money I am paid. Money that does not bypass my students. Can you say that for William Lager and Altair Learning Management?
Speaker Budish has done great things for Ohio. I support him. I think he should return this money. It’s dirty. It’s tainted. It’s money that should have gone to educate children, but now goes into Altair’s coffers. That $10,000 could be better spend raising their graduation rate to something higher than 35 percent—which is what it currently stands at.
Speaker Budish, show leadership and return the money. Make a commitment and a pledge that neither you nor your House members will take one red cent from a for-profit EMO. They’re profiting off of my students and laughing all the way to the bank.
