Ball State University announced that it was not renewing seven charters.
Among the seven were three Imagine charters, one in Indianapolis and two in Fort Wayne.
Imagine is one of the nation’s biggest for-profit charter operators.
Last year, Imagine lost all its charter schools in Missouri and the remainder of its schools in Georgia.
This year, Imagine was closed in St. Petersburg, Florida, and one of its schools in D.C. is in trouble.
These closures raise an interesting question about the risk involved for corporations that invest in charter schools. Imagine is backed by a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) called Entertainment Properties, which also invests in multiplexes, real estate, and shopping malls. Entertainment Properties owns MASTer Academy in Ft. Wayne and the shuttered Imagine Indiana Life Sciences Academy-East in Indianapolis.
Another Imagine school in Indianapolis (also owned by EPR) apparently was not up for renewal this cycle.
The CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust was boasting just last year that charter schools were a stable business opportunity, “very recession-resistant,” and he added: “there’s not a lost of risk, there’s probably risk to everything but the fact is, this has bipartisan support. It’s part of the Republican platform and Arne Duncan, secretary of education in the Obama administration, has been very high on it throughout their work in public education. So we have both political parties very solidly behind it, you have high demand, high growth, you have good performance across the board.”
Well, there is actually quite a lot of risk when the authorizers start cracking down on low performers.
The sad part is that the opening and closing of schools disrupts the lives of children and destroys communities. If it is just another investment, well, so be it. If it is the life of your child or your community, it matters quite a lot.
Need we say it again and again: Schools are not shoe stores or barber shops. They should not open and close at will. Public schools should be a permanent fixture in every community, as assured as roads and police stations. If they need help, they should get it. If they need a new principal, they should get it. That’s the job of public officials, not entrepreneurs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Imagine that. Imagines schools closing down. Any more good news?
Amen! While it’s true that the gated rich communities can out-source for private additional public safety and educational systems – the rest of the nation can’t. When the business mindset accpts that there will be high attrition for statrt-up companies – why is that mindset acceptable for public schooling?
The good news: with every closure the credibility of for-profit charters diminishes and will HOPEFULLY make it more difficult for them to open another school… It wasn’t that long ago that Phoenix University was a hot investment— proof that a bad product can’t sell for long… maybe the venture capitalists will look someplace else to invest— like alternative energy
Diane you are correct. We may have issues in the public sector, but this “let’s try this, a pinch of that…” thinking is unheard of in a community. It is the communities that need to take back their schools from this rudderless boat we have ALL created.
We as leaders and our leaders, AND our parental communities, are so at odds about what the solutions are, that we are losing sight of the fact that:
There are children that still need to be educated every day
Children need consistency and some amount of regimen
Children need to know that they are the force we are guiding and that we can take them to their most potential level
Children do NOT need to know every second of every day what their DATA stats are.
Thank you again for posting this.
Miss Stern
The video showing Imagine’s CEO boasting about the profitability of charter schools is still one of my all time favorite sources to show that reformers don’t care about kids, period.
It is simple to see in that video.
Can you post a link? If I had the time I’d do a spreadsheet w/ dropout rates and test scores. I wonder what that would look like?
Looks like Cuomo’s running with Randi Weingarten’s bar exam idea. That should turn everything around for public education.
They are all in cahoots.
When or if the economy improves and there are job choices, teaching will NOT be one of them. I do not advise anyone pursue k-12 education when I am asked. Who wants to be abused daily?
But *Finland* does it! How can we even consider *not* doing something that Finland does? If you pass a bar exam, you will be finally be viewed as a “professional.” You will be as respected as lawyers, who everyone knows are universally respected.
Teachers already take tests and pass through a series of hoops. I assume you are being facetious.
I am going to mess it up, but someone here had a great lawyer joke.
Why does New Jersey have more (than New York) toxic sites than lawyers? They had first choice.
It was worded better than that, but you get it. However, I don’t think poorly of most lawyers.
Yes, I was joking. I’m a lawyer, which I suppose is one answer to the question “Who wants to be abused daily?”
Well there’s the beginning of a joke….a teacher and a lawyer walk into a bar…….
Linda: I will finish your joke. Riffing off what a lawyer once told me.
A teacher and a lawyer walk into a bar. And the lawyer says to the teacher, “What do you call 1,000 lawyers in chains at the bottom of the sea?” In response to the teacher’s puzzled look he replies, “A good beginning.”
🙂
The only good lawyer is . . . . . .
Randi’s Brilliant idea. Maybe they can also charge Bar Exam fees like NY $ 250 or PA starting at $ 750. Would paying that allow me to teach or wave into all 50 U.S. states and territories?
Or you can now “cyber teach” internationally…..you will be a hot commodity!
Can’t pass a fingerprint check to be in a building (Mike Milken, felon) start a cyber charter? Especially after you “found God” in jail.
. . . the one on your side!!!
“Sometimes educational quality is very difficult to change in one, two, or three years. It’s a long-term proposition” -David Brain
So one could make the argument: evaluating a teacher or measuring improvement is very difficult over one, two, or three years. Those are long-term propositions as well.
Ms. Ravitch wrote…
“Schools are not shoe stores or barber shops. They should not open and close at will”
Why don’t you believe that children are not resilient enough to handle switching schools. Families move all the time with no adverse affect to their childrens’ learning. And thank goodness that these underperforming schools are closed. We cannot say the same about underperforming district schools.
And where is the outrage that Ball State would authorize such a lousy charter operator?
Perhaps Ms. Ravitch should have simply left out two words. “They should not open at will.” Perhaps charters should have to prove they are up to the task before we give them blanket license to experiment on our children?
BTW, have you done any research on the effects – adverse or otherwise – on children switching schools? How do you know that moving has no adverse effect?
Also, BTW, “underperforming” district schools close all the time. What rock have you been living under?
We disagree. A public school is public property, not a shoestore. Children are not pieces on a checkerboard. Do it to your own children, not to other people’s children.
you argued for years and years that “underperforming” public schools should be closed. were the kids attending those schools pieces on a checkerboard? were they your children?
way too little, way too late.
It seems to me that “do it to your own children, not other people’s children” might be something that an advocate of choice in schools might say. Don’t force my child to go to a school in the hope of improving the education of other children. That makes them a pawn in your game.
You’re taking that sentiment a bit too seriously. Anyone who opposes school choice obviously doesn’t mind running the lives of other people’s children — that is, mandating millions of them to attend a given public school when they’d desperately prefer to go elsewhere.
You’re taking that sentiment too seriously. Anyone who opposes school choice obviously doesn’t mind running the lives of other people’s children — that is, mandating millions of them to attend a given public school when they’d desperately prefer to go elsewhere.
JSB,
Then take your kids out of the public schools and pay for their private education. Quite simple!
Imagine charters are Disney products. Disney is just introducing MAGIC BRACELETS. RFID chips will allow wearer full access to parks, rides, motel room ,credit cards… Fully tracked . One has to wonder what application could be used in a school.
I am older than dirt. I must have attended school during the golden age. We lived in Pennsylvania. I started Kindergarten in 1956 and attended elementary school through sixth grade. We had the same principal, Mr. Thompson, for those seven years and more, both before and after. They were very predictable years with teachers who taught forever! I remember ducking and covering under my table in Mrs. May’s kindergarten when the air raid drills sounded. We felt that our school was a part of our lives, not a brand new, shiney, bright penny of a school, but a permanent institution. Our school was strong, it kept us safe, our teachers were dedicated, hard working , and for all intents and purposes forever (unless of course they got pregnant, but that is another story!)
Family lives were more stable too . That has changed dramatically and there is no going back to some things but having a stable community public school would go a long way towards softening the edges of life’s harsher situations for our children. So yes, I agree with the statement, “Schools are not shoe stores or barber shops. They should not open and close at will”
You went to school in an era when women had very very few career choices, they could probably not even aspire to be a principle in the school. I think public schools have still not figured out how to deal with a world where capable women can do more than be a librarian, teacher, or nurse.
teachingeconomist.
While I remember the constraints on female career paths I can also tell you that my senior year in high school found me with a female principal, Dr. Bish (You can use your imagination to extrapolate any modifications made on that name, but not by me).
As for librarians, well I came to my passion a decade ago and feel that there is no higher calling for me and that I am blessed to have the joy of introducing young people to the world around them through books and other media. It is absolutely the best job in the world. If you are doing what you love, then it just doesn’t get any better than that. I expect a great many of the teachers and other educators on this blog feel the same way about their jobs when they are allowed to do them. There is no “more” for me, this is my calling.
I have great respect for librarians as all three of my inlaws have MLA’s and one run several major municipal public libraries (given the era, it had to be a male). My point is simply that public schools could afford to pay low wages for high quality teachers because society allowed women to be employed in very few occupations.
Not the Modern Language Association, I meant a masters in library science.
Public schools are a cornerstone of a community. They are not commodities or businesses. I am sick of this “everything for sale” mantra. It’s nothing but a disaster in the making.
All of the charter schools beg many questions as they apply to students with IEPs. I have expanded my complaint with the MDE, against the Mosaica Education/Muskegon Heights Public School Academy. I dig more digging on their website and have attempted to reach the special education director who will not return a call. The website has no information on how a child suspected of a disability can be referred for an evaluation. It has no information or resources on special education laws, rules (state or federal) and policies. It has no information on how to contact the MIchigan Alliance for Families. This is our Parent Training Information that is funded through federal special education dollars. There is no information on the criteria adopted to determine if a student has a Specific Learning Disability (required as of September 2010). And the kicker, “every student who resides in Muskegon Heights School District must fill out an enrollment packet and then wait to hear about admission. I asked an MDE compliance monitor if this would then require a “move-in IEP” or new IEP and she had no idea. How insane is that? The MDE is well aware that the charters are not following IDEA 2004 or the Michigan Administrative Rules for Special Education and so do the ISDs. I am next going to file complaints against the DPS, Hamtramck, River Rouge, Inkster, Flat Rock, Southfield and Oak Park and allege what I refer to as “low hanging fruit” violations. The MDE has already requested an extension on my complaint against Mosaica/Muskegon. Good Ole Gov. Snyder will have to hire more compliance monitors through Executive Orders for the number of complaints that will be on the MDE’s desk over the next two weeks. Had I the time I could do nothing but file special education complaints. If only….Although I am also going to file a complaint against the MDE and the Muskegon ISD for not monitoring Muskegon’s compliance and I will send a copy to OSEP.
Fight the good fight Marcie. Litigate like heck!
A public school system would be soooo screwed if this type of thing were occurring. If these schools take tax dollars – from my old and impoverished, gnarled hands then they should be required to take the students, do the work, and provide the the programs. Perhaps then these for – profit entities would become not – for – profit, going – out – of – the – buying – education business and we could get back to honest, and hopefully open ways of educating our children, all of them.
Schools should absolutely never be for-profit. Never. Absolutely not.
Disagree, if a school is for profit that is up to the founder.
But no public funds should be sent to schools that aren’t public.
I was on the faculty at Teachers College at Ball State and left before the charter nonsense. It’s surreal to read about it now.