![]() ![]() The defendants who pleaded guilty are: (1) Thomas Michael Sisk, 55, of Toney, Alabama and formerly the superintendent of LCS (2) Gregory Earl Corkren, 56, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and (3) David Webb Tutt, 61, of Uniontown, Alabama. “So this committee was going to be able to make the changes necessary when new inventions came along and new products hit the market, or if there was a shift to something crazy like giving away 97 percent of the money.Montgomery, Alabama – On Thursday, April 8, 2021, three defendants pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Alabama State Department of Education (ASDE) by falsely inflating the number of students enrolled in public virtual schools, announced the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama. “We knew that we didn’t know enough in 2015 to just leave the bill there and hope it worked out,” Brewbaker said. A source called the entire setup a “ticking timebomb” and another said it was akin to leaving a pile of cash sitting on a street corner.īut what’s possibly worse is that even if there is no fraud, under the current setup, at least one school district in this cash-strapped state just handed over $16 million and the ability to hire dozens of teachers and oversee the learning of 2,600-plus students to a private company.Īccording to the bill passed in 2015, the Alabama Legislature was supposed to set up a permanent committee to oversee the implementation of virtual schools and make changes when necessary to guide the schools through a changing landscape. That investigation comes after months of numerous people around the state, including at ALSDE in Montgomery, sounding the alarm on the lax oversight around virtual schools. (Pearson released a statement late last week saying it was not the focus of the investigation, and a source familiar with the investigation confirmed that fact to APR.) Department of Education are conducting a joint investigation into potential fraud within several Alabama virtual schools, including the Limestone system, Athens, Eufaula and Mobile. And the Alabama State Department of Education is dealing with one now.ĪPR reported last week that the FBI and U.S. However, when used improperly, there can be quite a mess. ![]() ![]() It could be a lifeline for many of our districts, if used properly.” “As we’re now seeing, virtual schooling is the future - for many reasons. “We wrote this bill to help public education, not to help private businesses get more public education money,” Brewbaker said. And then there are the districts like Limestone - and it is not alone in its method - which has farmed out the entire operation. While there are districts that have utilized the virtual model as intended and are reaping great benefits, most are offering an anemic version that does little for anyone. Brewbaker and his co-sponsors saw it as a method to lower student-teacher ratios in troubled districts and inject a lot of cash into public schools overall. For free, those kids could now enroll in the system’s virtual school, receiving lessons and assistance from certified teachers.Īt the same time, the system hosting the virtual school would receive the full per-pupil funding for those students, despite the fact it was incurring a fraction of the cost to actually teach them. If used properly, the virtual schools model could have been quite a money-maker for cash-strapped districts where parents were opting for private schools or homeschooling. ![]()
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