Epic Pyramid Exposed

   We first recognized the "Epic pyramid duck" in a column on July 7, 2018, and may be read here. Illegal pyramid schemes offer no products for sale, but rely on recruiting more and more investors to keep the pyramid going. The investors are Oklahoma tax payers, and the recruiters are teachers and enrolled students who are paid "bonuses" for recruiting more students. Each student enrolled is worth about $5,000 to Epic Virtual and Blended Charter Schools. If Epic enrolls about 22,000 students, it receives about $110 million in state aid, or profits. The pyramid scheme is simple, but ingenious - the base of the pyramid are the recruiters, teachers and students who receive bonuses for each new student recruited. Enrolled students receive $200 for each "referral" and teachers receive $400 for each student referral. When a new student enrolls in Epic, one question on the enrollment form is "Who referred you to Epic?". The new student simply names the teacher or student who referred him or her. A student gets $200 added to his or her "education fund", which is nothing more than a checking account, and a teacher gets a $400 bonus for each student.
   The next level up on the pyramid would be the mid-level administrators, which include team leaders and principals. Advancing upward one more level include the upper level administrators, superintendent, assistant superintendents, lobbyists, and attorneys. Finally, at the peak of the pyramid sits the owners, Ben Harris and David Chaney. Also included, outside the pyramid, but very important to its structure are the enablers, elected officials - State Reps, Senators, State Superintendent of Schools, Governor, etc., who receive a "cut" for enabling legislation or willful blindness. A column describing "willful blindness" can be read here.
   This last week, in addition to visiting with parents of Epic students, I discussed the "Epic Pyramid Duck" with a former Epic teacher. The teacher told me that he or she was just fired from Epic even before the first year of employment was complete. The teacher had received another job in a traditional public school, so felt free to speak. Teacher told me that he (or she) was on the "do not re-hire" list because of unspecified reasons. It's a fact that first year teachers are not afforded the same "due process" rights as veteran teachers, so no reason for being fired must be given. The belief is that he or she was fired because a large amount of bonus money was owed (80 students at $400 per student = $32,000), and Epic would not be forced pay it if the teacher was fired before the end of the year. The 80 students the teacher was responsible for recruiting and teaching, were simply reassigned to other teachers (who would not receive the bonus). The teacher should have received approximately $38,000 regular salary + $32,000 bonus = $70,000. The "bonus money" was simply bumped up the pyramid, probably to Harris and Chaney, after the teacher was fired. The teacher (bottom level of the pyramid) probably would have earned more than several mid-level administrators (next level up), and the pyramid tends to fall apart when that happens, hence the firing.
   A typical $5,000 student is distributed on the pyramid with the teacher (first level) receiving about $800, the student (first level) receiving about $900 - $1,000, second level administrators receive about $1,000, third pyramid level administrators - $1,700, and the two peak owners receive about $500 per student, or $11 million total!
   By firing the aforementioned teacher, the Epic owners payed themselves about $32,000 more... Think about that - if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck, or pyramid scheme in this case. Follow the money...