ECOT recruiting Ohio Graduation Test Takers by offering CASH to students

By On February 16, 2013 · 13 Comments

ECOT, the Ohio online charter school, is recruiting students to enroll in the school in time to take the Ohio Graduation Tests with the opportunity to get paid up to $100 (maximum $20 per test).  How is this “public” charter school using taxpayer dollars as an incentive to students through a check “made out in the student’s name”?

Furthermore, the stated requirement that a student must complete the test and answer all questions appropriately implies that someone at ECOT will be looking at student test booklets and answers — isn’t that a clear violation of test administration rules from the Ohio Department of Education?

What will it take for an investigation of ECOT’s practices to be investigated by the State?

Spring 2013 OGT Incentive

*Image recreated based on original ECOT document.

Evangelize!
  • Print
  • email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
 
  • http://www.facebook.com/john.curry.5074 John Curry

    Can’t you imagine a public school doing this with the same taxpayer dollars? Oh, silly me! Also, unlike charters, the public schools didn’t donate campaign $$ to Kasich’s campaign because they were forbidden by law to do so! Somehow the playing field just doesn’t seem to be level, does it?

  • http://www.facebook.com/jim.miller.121398 Jim Miller

    I hope the Ohio AG will get on this…there has to be several potential illegal issues here…maybe even bribery?

  • http://twitter.com/Think270 Think.

    This $100 bribe is definitely much more scandalous than Sunday’s Dispatch story reporting the “pizza parties, pajama day, and the like” that school districts offer to make sure kids come to school. Where are the hard-hitting investigative stories from the Dispatch about ECOT’s illegal payoff to test-takers?

  • dmoore2222

    Might this not be a good example of “the money following the student”? Ha!

  • anastasiap

    More like “money following the Republican who does the bidding of ECOT.”

  • John W.

    This is absolutely disgusting. I cannot believe that a school would actually pay students to take a test and then check the answers.

  • John W.

    You are absolutely right. That these newspapers jump on everything a normal school does and then excuse these cases of obvious misuse of taxpayer money is terrible.

  • dmoore2222

    Well when you have a State Board of Education that knowingly hired an interim superintendent who clearly committed eithics violations (Heffner) and the current one who was reprimanded by his school district for playing fast and loose with the district credit card, and a Board president who thinks it’s appropriate to compare the POTUS with Hitler, then its no wonder charter schools think this is OK. The State Board is charged with policing school districsts’ and their employees’ behavior, but they long ago lost any credibility.

  • Clecinosu

    The AG is Mike DeWine. I seriously doubt anything will be done.

  • buttrfli60

    The State Board of Education is an example of how important it is for people who actually care about quality public education to be involved in our political/democratic process.

  • dmoore2222

    I’m not sure what you’re getting at. The State BOE is to be involved in the implementation of education policy as determined by the legislature, using The Ohio Department of Education to achieve this. It’s presumed that Board members care about the quality of public education. Why else would you even consider serving? To suggest that the State BOE should be politically active is just plain wrong. The Board serves the interests of ALL Ohioans regardless of anyone’s political afiliation. This Board president obviously did not have sufficient respect for the position (of which there are only about 50 in the entire country) to refrain from making a derogatory post about the President of the United States. This is the kind of political activism that MUST be avoided by any Board member.

  • greg soper

    This is clearly a bribe which should attract a federal investigation for corruption. Jimmy Dimora took money in exchange for county projects. ECOT is paying money to get students to take a state mandated test. They are unable to fulfill their obligations to the taxpayers for educating children, so they are paying the kids to help them?

    Maybe these kids could should just fail the test and become professional test takers.

  • Dustin

    I am a current Ecot student and I see this as a way to get students to take the required Ogt’s seeing as how alot of Ecots students are troubled teens, It’d probably be harder to get them to take the ” Required tests” if they weren’t getting rewarded for it. I honestly think that it is a GREAT idea. As you people sit here and complain about our great school system that is keeping kids out of trouble and helping them through High School, I’ll be $100 Richer (;

Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:


Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Visit our friends!

A few highly recommended friends...

Archives

All entries, chronologically...