This huge charter school can’t prove its students are doing anything

Like most other publicly funded schools, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, or ECOT for short, gets paid based on the number of students it enrolls. But without any buildings or even classrooms, tracking students can be a challenge.

Everything ECOT does happens online. Its students get a computer, a Wi-Fi connection, and access to classes they can take on their own time, and its teachers hold optional “live” class sessions and communicate by phone and email.

But when ECOT, located in Ohio, finally shared records showing how much time students spent online, the data didn’t look so good. A 13-month fight has followed between the school and the state.

VICE News talked to a former ECOT teacher ethically opposed to what was happening in her classroom.

This segment originally aired August 9, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.