Within months of ECOT's opening, Petro, at the time the state auditor, launched a special audit that concluded that ECOT couldn't verify the existence of all its students.
The school later repaid $1.6 million in tax dollars.
After a six-year hiatus, and shortly after ECOT began receiving state funding in July 2000, Lager started contributing money -- almost exclusively to Republican candidates.
In the past five years [since February of 2006], Lager has given $153,150 to state and federal candidates.
Another $134,750 can be credited to four Altair employees or consultants and their spouses: right-hand man James ``Skip'' Thomas and his wife; Treasurer Michael Bradley and his wife; Lager's executive assistant, Kathleen Martensen, and her husband; and Altair lawyer John Demer and his wife.
Lager's daughter Jessica, a college student identified in campaign reports as a homemaker and self-employed lobbyist, has given $2,950 since 2000.
Campaign gifts by those tied to online charger jump
Follow the money. There's lots of it.
February 12, 2006
By Dennis J. Willard and Doug Oplinger
COLUMBUS - Many of the people who run the state's largest charter school, Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, weren't big donors to state and federal political campaigns before the school was created in 2000 -- if they donated at all.
But from the time the controversial online school received its first monthly payment from the Ohio Department of Education -- $736,198 in taxpayer dollars in August 2000 -- that has changed.
Individuals and their spouses associated with the school and its management company, Altair Learning Management, have given more than $330,000 since then -- half of that delivered last year -- according to a Beacon Journal analysis of state and federal data.
Most has gone to Ohio House Republicans, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Petro and U.S. Rep. Patrick Tiberi, a Columbus Republican who sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and has been a longtime advocate of school choice.
From the day it was proposed, ECOT has stirred controversy.
The school had to find another agency to be its sponsor after the Ohio Department of Education refused to grant a charter, saying there was no way to adequately track participation of students who study on a computer at home.
Within months of ECOT's opening, Petro, at the time the state auditor, launched a special audit that concluded that ECOT couldn't verify the existence of all its students.
The school later repaid $1.6 million in tax dollars.
In ECOT's three annual state audits, it was cited for various problems, from the disappearance of computers bought with state money to questionable use of federal grants.
Every year, the auditor questioned ECOT's payments to Altair for management services, saying Altair should provide detailed billing for services rather than receive a flat 10 percent of revenue.
Nonetheless, the school has grown into the nation's largest statewide online charter school, according to its founder.
This year, ECOT enrolls about 6,460 students and will receive about $39 million in state aid, transferred from more than 500 of Ohio's 612 school districts as children opt to study at home.
No other Ohio charter school comes close in size or state aid.
Founder's contributions
ECOT and Altair were both founded by William Lager, a former office-supply company executive and business consultant who defines himself as a longtime political activist.
``I believe everyone in this country or culture we live in has a right to access government and has a right to influence government if they choose, to write letters, to work on campaigns and also to contribute funds,'' Lager said last week. ``I've encouraged people all my life to participate, and I don't believe that enough people do participate.''
Originally, he worked for Democrats. After graduation from a Columbus parochial school, he said, he worked on the successful 1970 campaign of Attorney General William J. Brown and has remained close to politics since then.
According to state records, he contributed about $1,700 to Democratic statewide candidates from 1990 to 1994.
After a six-year hiatus, and shortly after ECOT began receiving state funding in July 2000, Lager started contributing money -- almost exclusively to Republican candidates.
In the past five years, Lager has given $153,150 to state and federal candidates.
Another $134,750 can be credited to four Altair employees or consultants and their spouses: right-hand man James ``Skip'' Thomas and his wife; Treasurer Michael Bradley and his wife; Lager's executive assistant, Kathleen Martensen, and her husband; and Altair lawyer John Demer and his wife.
Lager's daughter Jessica, a college student identified in campaign reports as a homemaker and self-employed lobbyist, has given $2,950 since 2000.
2005 state budget
Last year's contributions occurred mostly in four batches.
In the month after the two-year state budget was completed, Lager and four others associated with Altair gave $10,000 each to the Ohio House Republican Campaign Committee run by House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, a proponent of charter schools.
Last year had been shaping up to be the roughest for charter schools since they were created in 1997. State legislators, facing weak tax revenue and rapidly growing expenditures on Medicaid and charter schools, sought spending cuts.
Husted and House members proposed a small funding cut to online charter schools. The Senate was much more aggressive, proposing a long list of new and costly requirements, and a 20 percent funding cut.
In the end, the House mainly prevailed, and online schools lost two forms of aid that reduced income about 1 percent, or about $5 million statewide.
Legislators also barred new entrants into the business, effectively guaranteeing that existing online schools would have no new competitors.
Husted's spokeswoman, Karen Tabor, confirmed that he met with Lager in March and August.
``In an effort to be fair and balanced, the speaker also meets with Tom Mooney (president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers union) and Gary Allen (president of the Ohio Education Association union) on a number of issues,'' Tabor said.
Lager and the Altair associates also showed their support for Petro, who had begun a heated race with Auditor Betty Montgomery and Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell for this year's GOP gubernatorial nomination.
Lager contributed $10,000 in a four-day period in July in which four married couples -- the Thomases, Martensens, Demers, and Bradleys -- gave $10,000 each, or $5,000 per person.
Batchelder, Tiberi
In December, Lager andAltair-related contributors turned their attention to newly announced legislative candidate William Batchelder of Medina.
Of the $45,154.87 raised by Batchelder in 2005, donations from five Altair-related contributors accounted for $12,500.
Batchelder, who is attempting to return to the state House after an eight-year absence, was an early and leading advocate of school choice.
U.S. Rep. Tiberi also has benefited from Lager's political interests. Tiberi, like Batchelder, was an advocate of school choice while a state legislator.
He and Lager said they have known each other for many years. Lager said he met Tiberi when Tiberi was working in the office of then-U.S. Rep. John Kasich, R-Westerville, and Tiberi recalled Lager's interest in school choice while the issue was discussed in the legislature.
On March 7 last year, Lager hosted a Tiberi fundraiser in his Waterford Tower condo several blocks from the state Capitol in which the congressman received 14 contributions totaling $17,000 from Altair-related individuals.
Tiberi also received $1,950 from Jessica Lager in August 2004.
William Lager said that his daughter, an Altair consultant while at college, is a Tiberi fan. ``She has given to Pat Tiberi for a simple reason: She has met him. He treats her like she's the greatest thing in the world,'' Lager said. ``She said, `Dad, I'm going to give some money,' and I said, `That's your decision.' ''
Lager also helped Republicans fend off four proposed amendments to the Ohio Constitution last year.
Democrats and labor unions were trying to bypass the GOP-dominated legislature by asking voters to make absentee voting easier, remove politics from drawing legislative boundaries, reduce the maximum allowable campaign contribution, and overhaul election oversight.
Republicans responded by forming the Ohio First Voter Education Fund, a political action committee that raised money to attack the reforms. Altair kicked in $25,000.
2005 is year of giving
Lager said no one is reimbursed for giving to political campaigns, and ``it's made clear that all giving is voluntary.''
The Beacon Journal attempted to contact the largest contributors from Altair to discuss their giving. Only Lager returned phone calls.
The databases of contributions to state and federal candidates show that until last year, most never gave money in the decade the databases existed.
Kathy Martensen, an Altair employee, and her husband, Bradley, now an Altair consultant, own the Village Coney, a restaurant in German Village on Columbus' south side. They don't show up in the state and federal databases until 2005, when, combined, they gave $24,500.
Myra Bradley, Michael Bradley's wife, also is not in the state and federal databases before 2005. She contributed $5,000 to Petro in July.
``It is not Democrat or Republican,'' Lager said of who receives donations. What is important is to give to those who support school choice, he said.
Lager said he believes that since 1997, when charter schools were created as an experiment exempt from many regulations, the legislature has lost sight of that goal. ``I believe there are now more regulations on online schools than traditional public schools,'' he said.
Those who hear the stories of children not served by traditional schools become believers in ECOT, he said.
``If they come to work with Bill Lager, if they don't become `evangelical,' they don't get it. The ones who stay are willing to support.''
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com. Doug Oplinger can be reached at 330-996-3750, or doplinger@thebeaconjournal.com.
— Dennis J. Willard & Doug Oplinger
Akron Beacon Journal
2006-02-12
Note from John...I took the time to go to the Ohio Dept. of Education to check on their latest posted graduation rate...you will be sickened....here it is...35%!
Just think...all of this for your tax dollars! What an education....just give a kid a computer and collect the state moneys...what a deal! No busses to buy, classrooms to maintain, heat and light bills...no muss, no fuss.
P.S. Did you notice how the names Tiberi and Batchelder seemed to be popping up in the 2006 article above? Gee....what a coincidence, huh?
