It has not, to put it mildly, been a good couple of months for David Chaney and Ben Harris, co-founders of Epic Charter Schools, Oklahoma’s largest virtual charter school.

Launched in 2011, Epic has enjoyed explosive growth. It enrolled over 21,000 students in 2018-19, making it larger than the state’s fifth-largest school district. It operates online programs statewide and three centers that blend virtual and in-person learning in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Epic’s growth, which has been fueled by aggressive marketing campaigns and bonuses and gifts to help recruit students and teachers, has now attracted intense scrutiny of its business model and operations.

In June, Oklahoma Watch reported on a lawsuit filed by several Epic teachers alleging that the school has, for years, encouraged teachers to push for the withdrawal of low-performing students to help improve its performance measures.

A week later, an Oklahoman article revealed that over one-quarter of Epic’s students were automatically disenrolled for missing 10 consecutive school days, more than double the statewide average, a pattern that also artificially aids the school’s assessment on annual A-F report cards. Even so, Epic high school received an F in overall performance on its 2018-18 school report card, while the middle school earned a C and elementary school earned a D.

Finally, in July, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation filed an affidavit against Chaney and Harris, alleging them of embezzling more than $10 million over five years. The main accusations involve enrolling ghost students, some of whom are also home-schooled or attending private schools. Epic is also being investigated by the FBI and federal Department of Education.

So far no criminal charges have been filed and Epic has strenuously denied all accusations of wrongdoing.

Until recently, the Legislature and State Department of Education have been slow to enact appropriate oversight and accountability over Epic and other virtual charter schools. This year did see passage of legislation to hold virtual charter schools to the same financial reporting requirements as brick-and-mortar schools, and more legislation is likely next year.

High demand for virtual and blended education suggests they fill a need to serve students who don’t respond well in traditional classroom settings. But the lesson of Epic suggests that when schools are operated as profit-making ventures, the interest of students won’t come first.

David Blatt is executive director of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, http://okpolicy.org.