Stephen Dyer spent some time as a legislator in Ohio. He met then-House Speaker Jon Husted when he first arrived in Columbus, and he thinks Husted is probably sweating these days as the GOP makes fraud a big election theme.
Fast forward a couple years. Now Democrats hold the gavel in the House. Husted is in the Senate. And he became the point man to undermine Gov. Ted Strickland’s Evidence Based Model of school funding. I was the point man who fixed it in the House.
During the course of the development of that model, Husted would frequently take potshots at the plan. Finally, one day, I popped off and said something to the effect of (couldn’t find the actual story, but I know it’s out there somewhere) “I think it’s rich that Sen. Husted, who spent the last decade perpetuating an unconstitutional school funding system would try to block the only serious effort to address the Ohio Supreme Court’s rulings.”
I remember colleagues who told me that language was too strong. Times have changed haven’t they?
Anyway, what I didn’t know then, but I do know now is that the reason Jon Husted was so opposed to the Evidence Based Model had nothing to do with the model itself. It was all about Charter Schools. And the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) — who spent 18 years collecting more than a billion dollars to “educate” children it could never prove it was actually educating.
State Auditor Keith Faber eventually hit ECOT with a claim that it illegally took $117 million in taxpayer money to “educate” kids it never had — just for 3 of its 18 school years. Make no mistake; ECOT did this every year it was in existence. In fact, the state caught them doing it in its first year of existence. Then-Auditor Jim Petro hit them with about a $2 million fine, along with this little chestnut:
““ECOT’s significant operating loss of $3,280,160 and net loss of $3,806,248 cause substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. ECOT has an accumulated deficit of $3,806,248 and a net working capital deficit of $4,217,999. Note 17 describes management’s plans regarding these losses.”
Why did they continue to exist, then?
Jon Husted.
See, Jon Husted is the one person most responsbile for the exponential growth of Ohio Charter Schools — a group that even national charter school advocates call the Wild, Wild West — and ECOT’s survival. Don’t get me wrong. He had lots of help from his Republican colleagues over the last 3 decades.
But Husted is Patient Zero.
He remains the only person to have received an honorary ECOT diploma .
He is one of two Ohio politicians (all ECOT graduation speakers were Republicans — the last was Tucker Carlson, of all people) to speak at 2 ECOT graduations. And he was the person ECOT founder Bill Lager credited during these ceremonies for saving ECOT. In addition, he did the following:
- Husted introduced the bill allowing for-profit charters in Ohio, exempting them from Public Records Law: http://lsc.state.oh.us/analyses/anh124.nsf/All%20House%20Bills%20and%20Resolutions/AE715CF0B91BA7F385256ACB00480285
- The final version of bill turned into the Wild, Wild West bill opening the doors to all kinds of new charters and sponsors: http://lsc.state.oh.us/analyses/fnla124.nsf/All%20Bills%20and%20Resolutions/1FA59868B44C0C0385256CEC00555822
- Husted was the chief sponsor of the original legislation vastly expanding Ohio’s Charter Schools.
- Husted also only limited charter school growth for charters sponsored by Public School Districts, allowing privately run charters to grow unabated.
- When I was in the House working on the Evidence Based Model during the Great Recession, I suggested we cut online school funding, like ECOT, by 70 percent because they don’t have buildings, buses, etc. that regular schools had. Husted insisted that we keep paying ECOT as much as paid brick and mortar schools.
Why did he do all this? Because his two biggest political patrons at the time were 1) David Brennan, who ran White Hat Management and was the state’s Charter School and Voucher Godfather as well as its biggest Republican political donor at the time and 2) Bill Lager, who ran ECOT.
Read the full post here.