Fedor: Too little, too late on ECOT recovery from DeWine

Education advocate and state Rep. Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo) today issued the following statement on Attorney General Mike DeWine’s announcement he is asking the courts to pursue recovery of some $60 million in stolen taxpayer funds from now defunct online charter school ECOT:

“Taxpayers are right to be concerned that they may never receive a return on their eighty-million dollar investment into an online charter school that was more concerned about padding the pockets of politicians like Mike DeWine instead of providing education opportunities to our children.

“Because public pressure and bad headlines have backed Mike DeWine into the smallest political corner, he has only now felt it important to recover millions of stolen taxpayer dollars. When Ohio officials were fraudulently changing letter grades to get ECOT more taxpayer dollars for kids who never attended school, Mike DeWine did nothing and let the trail go cold.

“But now, the books have already been cooked, the fraudsters have skipped town, and there’s likely next-to-nothing of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to claw back from the defunct and shuttered online charter.  This should be a wake up call to all elected officials to put people first over powerful political donors from the moment they put their hand on the bible and swear to uphold the constitution.”