The CEO of Epic One Virtual Charter Schools recently sent an e-mail to his teachers claiming school superintendents lied to the Senate Education Committee (concerning how virtual charter schools spend your tax dollars) :
Dear Faculty,
Recently, the state Senate Education Committee held an interim study on EPIC and virtual charter schools. EPIC was not allowed to present or provide response to that study. In fact, the executive director of the Oklahoma Virtual Charter Schools Board was given the wrong time and location for the study, so was prevented herself from presenting... Presentations were made by various brick and mortar superintendents selected by the Cooperative Council of School Administrators (CCOSA), as well as a presentation by a CCOSA representative himself, all who made blatantly false and insulting allegations about our faculty and school... (For context and for the purposes of you knowing the facts, EPIC's per pupil funding is nearly dead last among all public school systems in Oklahoma and about a third of what Oklahoma City and Tulsa Public Schools receive.)
The only sentence in this e-mail which is factual and not misleading is "Recently...". All other statements to his faculty are half-truths, propaganda, or outright false. For instance, EPIC may provide a response to the facts presented at any time, and send it to the members of the Senate Education Committee. The CEO is unlikely to respond to this invitation, however, because facts are difficult to refute.
Secondly, the executive director of the Oklahoma Virtual Charter Schools Board was invited to speak, but did not show up on time. She was provided the time and place of the study, but it is unknown why she was late. The chair of the Senate Education Committee, who controls the order of speakers, could have recognized her and allowed her to speak, but the OVCSB executive director stayed in the back of the room, and chose not to be identified.
Some of the "blatantly false and insulting allegations" are provided in the table below. For the 2016-2017 school year - the Total Students (TS), Total Expenditures (TE), General Administration and Central Services (GA), and percent of administration costs to total costs are provided for selected traditional public schools and virtual charter schools...
School # Students Total Expend. Admin. Expend. %
Mustang 11,031 $67,530,069 $3,857,143 5.7%
Owasso 9,737 $60,259,476 $2,544,322 4.2%
Yukon 8,479 $53,783,578 $2,568,266 4.8%
Enid 8,028 $56,248,103 $2,370,051 4.2%
Blanchard 2,016 $13,661,915 $530,687 3.9%
Lindsay 1,245 $8,433,625 $411,761 4.9%
EPIC 9,077 $38,701,823 $2,610,868 6.7%
Connections 1,118 $6,498,538 $1,120,867 17.2%
The EPIC CEO is correct in saying that EPIC's per pupil funding is lower than almost all traditional public schools (Epic's per pupil funding is $4,264, while Mustang's is $6,122). However, this is not the complete story and a "half-lie" when administrative costs for EPIC (6.7%) is compared to Mustang's administrative costs (5.7%). As a matter of fact, when a mid-sized traditional public school, Blanchard administrative costs (3.9%)... is compared to a mid-sized corporate virtual school, Connections administrative costs (17.2%) - the difference is even more pronounced.
A more detailed examination of the expenditure data for traditional public schools as compared to corporate virtual charter schools may help to answer the question: "How and why do virtual charters spend more tax dollars for administration than traditional public schools?" One answer may be in the OCAS expenditure Function 2500 and Object 300 series. A comparison for these expenditure codes is provided in the table below:
School Function 2500 Object 300 Expenditures % of Total Exp.
Yukon $34,371 .06%
Blanchard $0 0%
EPIC $876,011 2.3%
Connections $672,314 10.3%
The facts of the matter - EPIC spent 38 times more for administrative functions than Yukon schools did, and Connections spent more than 171 times more than Yukon. The questions now become: "To what entities did this money flow?" and "What results were produced as $millions were directed to the top of the corporate pyramid?" Partial performance results can be ascertained from the student graduation rates of traditional public schools and virtual charter public schools in the table below.
School Cohort Graduation Rate (%)
Yukon 92%
Mustang 94%
Blanchard 82%
Lindsay 79%
EPIC 36%
Connections 44%
Insight 30%
OK Virtual 43%
If a school's graduation rate is any indicator of "quality product", then the state is wasting tax dollars on "for-profit" virtual charter schools. Three of the total four virtual charter schools identified in the table are "for-profit" - EPIC, Connections, and Insight. Many people believe that funneling tax dollars to the administrative costs of virtual charters is a waste.
At least some of the waste has gone to state elected officials...
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