A reader in California writes:
Charter Schools in California tend to cream out poor performing students with learning disabilities. As a rule, Charter schools are unprepared or trained for special needs students. In fact, they will collect money to educate special needs children and put the funds in their regular payroll.
There is no oversight with Charter Schools, a good example is this audit of the Magnolia Science Academies that had blatantly not documented teacher or student health care, or kept a reserve fund.
Charter Schools such as Magnolia have no oversight on advertising or false claims of “award winning” Just because a school says they win awards look a little deeper, as those awards might be sponsored by the NGOs that feed into and from the schools as the Gulen Movement does. In California the schools were originally started by the Dialogue Foundation, (this is the name on the original application in San Diego) it has since been changed to Pacifica Institute, Willow Educaton, Magnolia Education Foundation and now the new Gulen operated schools in California are being opened as Pacific Technology Schools. Some of their contests are: Turkish Olympiad, Science Olympiad, CONSEF, Math Matters, Math Counts, I-Sweep and more.
Having no oversight on government funds gives special foreign interest groups like the Gulen Movement a license to steal.
I have had some of their ex students in my class room, and they are trained parrots who mimic sentences or formulas but in theory have no comprehensive idea what they are talking about. Mimic teachers who don’t have a good command of the English language is plain unacceptable. Learning to dance and speak Turkish are hardly anything worth mentioning on a college admission test.
http://www.magnoliascienceacademy.blogspot.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is not true that there is no oversight of charter schools in California. Charter school authorizers (school districts, county boards of education, and the State Board of Education) are required by law to exercise oversight over the schools they authorize. The fact that there was an audit is, itself, the result of oversight. The problem, however, is that charter school authorizers have few tools with which to enforce compliance when an audit uncovers violations of the law. In addition, many charter school authorizers report having difficulties exercising their oversight responsibilities, because charter school operators do not comply with information requests or otherwise hamper the authorizer’s ability to perform its oversight responsibilities.
It is true. The state superintendent of California told me that the state does not have the staff to monitor more than 1,000 deregulated, unsupervised charters.
It is correct that the California Department of Education does not provide oversight over charter schools. But that does not mean that oversight does not take place. As I said earlier, oversight is the responsibility of the charter school authorizers (CDE is not an authorizer). As I tried to say earlier, the effectiveness of that oversight is open to debate, given that those responsible for oversight have few tools with which to enforce findings and the difficulty of monitoring uncooperative charter schools. The effect might be the same as lack of oversight, but the solution is different.
Many authorizers are too close to the charters to provide meaningful oversight or accountability. Who oversaw the American Indian Charter Schools in Oakland, where an audit found $3.7 million misappropriated and almost no American Indian students? Yes, it was audited but the money was gone.
Unfortunately, audits are only good at finding problems–like the misappropriation of funds–after they occur, not before. Perhaps Oakland should have caught on earlier, but as I’ve said it can be difficult getting the needed information from the charter school, especially if the school has something to hide. At any rate, Oakland has exercised its oversight responsibility, uncovered the problems (which may not have come to light otherwise), and appears to be on the verge of closing the schools. It’s probably true that some school districts (which are the primary charter authorizers in California) are “too close” to the charters to exercize appropriate oversight, but that’s the exception. Charter schools and their “host” districts often have an antagonistic relationship in this state. Anyway, my original point was that there is a difference between no oversight and ineffective oversight. The difference is not in the consequences, but in the solution.
Diane, I think it is time you read the report, DOE-OIG/A02L0002. Don’t listen to their excuses as this is how you personally fell into their clutches for so many years. Their own staff at the November State Board of Education meeting told the board that all was well with charter schools and that they were totally accountable until I went up and read from the report listed above. The place froze. I asked them is they had a copy of the report and if not I could supply a copy. They said they had the report. This means that the board knew that staff was lying to them as they did not ask a question and if I had not brought up this study it did not exist. Does any one else have another explanation for this. By the way it is videoed by the state and should be available. How is it that all of these so called pros do not know about these studies and they are paid big bucks to know and people listen to them as they are supposed to have the knowledge for them to rely on them. What a joke. How many times have I posted on this blog this report and I have not seen one reference to it in all the charter school responses?
George, the link doesn’t work. Get the right link and I will read it.
I do not have a link. It was sent to me and I downloaded it. Here is how you get there. 1-enter U.S. DOE OIG, 2-at the top right of the page click on reports and resources, 3-click on audit reports, 4-click on 2012 audit reports, 5-scroll down to Office of Innovation & Improvement and there is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. This report is deadly to the smoke blowers of accountable and fantastic performing charter schools. It’s like in the Wizard of Oz when they pull back the drape and there is the real Oz. I do not know why it did not show when properly typed into the search engine but it is up on the DOE OIG website as I just found it and did it twice to know it worked.
I believe you are referring to ED-OIG/A02L0002, September 2012 :
Click to access a02l0002.pdf
Thank you for putting up the link.
I would like to ask why none of you are aware of the latest DOE OIG report on charter schools total lack of accountability in Florida, Arizona and California. This report is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. You must all read this and get the word out. This is the best tool against charter schools and their claims other than the Stanford Report. The California State Board of Education froze when I started reading from this report after their staff gave a glowing report on charter schools and their accountability when this study completely proves the staff report to be a lie. You cannot do this by accident. Furthur, the Board of Education to my question of “Do you have this report and if not I can supply it” responded with “We have it.” This means that they knew that staff was lying to them. Is this the same in your state?
George,
I believe you are referring to ED-OIG/A02L0002, September 2012 :
Click to access a02l0002.pdf
This report(as revolting as it is) states that many States are not overseeing their Charters. Among other things, Charters are closing and walking away with millions in grant funds. (and probably opening up some other place)
It goes on to recommend that this lack of oversite stop and recommends steps for improvement.
I am sure that we will continue to lose millions of taxpayers dollars until the Attorney Generals of these States start prosecuting these crooks!
This is one of the things I wonder about. These children who are constantly tested by filling in bubbles how can they be prepared for college. I remember having to buy 2 or 3 blue books to bring to class and then given a sheet of paper with 4 or 5 essay questions and having to answer them in essay form. How can these students be able to do that when all they have ever done is fill in a bubble. Unless colleges are going the way of the standardized test also.
We’ve come up against this in Los Altos–our County-sponsored charter school here is in a war with our local district, and County officials say the laws of the state give them almost no recourse to do anything about it. So even when there is oversight, authorities seem to be at the mercy of toothless laws.
All that said, today’s speech by Governor Brown is truly inspiring. Hopefully the “cronypreneurs” will flee California soon, and hopefully our state will be an example for all of the other states.
The UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL recently released an audit on charter schools. They selected three States to audit and found that:
Issue A—State Education Departments did not adequately monitor charter schools receiving the Federal grants.
The State Education Department did not track, nor could it provide, an accurate list or number of charter schools that received onsite monitoring and desk audits, nor could it provide a reliable number of charter schools that closed during the grant cycle.
State Education Departments were not properly following the monitoring tool process and procedures
Issue B— State Education Departments did not have adequate methodologies to select charter schools for onsite monitoring visits.
Issue C— State Education Departments did not monitor the authorizing agencies.
Issue D— State Education Departments did not track how much Federal grant funds charter schools drew down and spent.
Issue E— A State Education Department reviewers were unqualified to conduct onsite monitoring of charter schools.
Click to access a02l0002.pdf
These State Education Departments could not do these things, YET in their infinite wisdom, they have the ability to monitor tens of thousands of Teachers within their States and determine good from bad and who should keep their jobs!