Thanks to Leonie Haimson for posting this information about the New York State Comptroller’s audit of charter schools in Albany. The links are a must-read. When you read the links, you will understand why the New York Charter Association fought all efforts to permit the State Comptroller to audit the charters; the charters won in court, but the legislature revised the law, allowing the audits to proceed.
Leonie Haimson writes:
Albany Community Charter School – Financial Operations (Albany County)
The board failed to fully evaluate the choice of its school building for the site selection of the elementary school or middle school. Auditors found the school could have saved from $200,000 to $2.3 million if it purchased the elementary school by issuing debt instead of continuing to lease the building.
The building was being leased from the Brighter Choice Foundation,
http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/schools/2013/albanycharter.pdf
The Brighter Choice Foundation, founded by Tom Carroll, who is one of Albany’s top lobbyists for privatization. More on him and the Foundation here:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/charters-get-even-more-brazen
http://www.edwize.org/thomas-carroll-wal-mart-and-the-effort-to-defeat-the-albany-school-budget
http://www.albanycharterschoolnetwork.org/community/brighter-choice-foundation/history/
In response to the crises faced by the Albany public schools, a group of concerned civic and business leaders founded the Brighter Choice Foundation (BCF) in 2000. At the time, the mission of BCF was to undertake a variety of educational initiatives aimed at addressing the dire educational situation in Albany. These educational initiatives included:
- Providing technical assistance and other support to public charter schools, public schools, and private schools pursuing innovative educational practices, with a focus on schools serving urban and economically disadvantaged children.
- Supporting innovative educational approaches, including longer school day and longer school year models; single-sex instruction; subject-based elementary-level instruction; looping and integration of social and educational programs.
- Conducting and commissioning research on the effectiveness of different educational approaches.
- Supporting educational scholarships, with a focus on programs that serve economically disadvantaged students.
- Serving as a clearinghouse for information on educational best practices.
Thirteen years after the start of its mission and with nine charter schools up and running in Albany, BCF has become an organization dedicated to the support and success of those schools. Today, those nine charter schools supported by BCF collectively represent the Albany Charter School Network (ACSN).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These public private partnerships mask corruption particularly, in states that have no oversight or who have captured regulators.
Speaking of corrupt beyond belief, Rhee has her fingerprints all over this scandal in CA.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/31/national-educationreformadvocatesoughtcalderonasinfluence.html
Speaking of charter school shenanigans, this is the rage here in Floirda
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/31/3723517/charter-school-retracts-letter.html
and to see the letter sent to parents
http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/10/florida-charter-school-get-your-kid.html
The real estate angle with charters is huge and completely unexamined.
I don’t understand why they are permitted to enter into property agreements with such blatant conflicts of interest.
I just despair in Ohio, because the contractual arrangements are so convoluted and there are so many different entities and parties and so few regulators.
Ohio would have to create a whole regulatory arm with staffing to adequately monitor this. Leaving it up to the state auditor (where the auditor has limited power over charters because of legislation charter operators lobbied for and won) is really a joke.
We’re trying to pass a bond issue in my district to build a new school and each and every step of the process has gone thru the state, from assessing the existing facilities to qualifying for (some) state funding.
Why don’t charters have the same regulatory oversight that public schools do, at least as far as public funding and property issues? Surely they could have “freedom to innovate” AND some oversight over public funds.
So they continued to contract with the Brighter Choice Foundation after this?
“The former chief financial officer for the Brighter Choice Foundation, which provides funding and support to 10 public charter schools in Albany, has been charged with embezzling $202,837 from the organization.
The arrest Wednesday of Ronald A. Racela marks the second time in four years that Racela has been charged with grand larceny. Two years ago, Racela admitted stealing $53,931 from KeyBank in Albany, where he was employed as a manager in the Community Development Lending Group, court records show.
M. Christian Bender, executive director of Brighter Choice Foundation, said Brighter Choice officials were not aware of Racela’s criminal history when he was hired as financial director of Brighter Choice Charter Schools in June 2010. Bender said Racela described his separation from KeyBank as “tense” but did not disclose he had been arrested for embezzlement eight months before he was hired by Brighter Choice.
“I knew that it had not been a smooth separation, but obviously I had no idea that it involved criminal activity on his part,” Bender said Friday.
Still, a state Education Department spokesman said the agency sent written notice of Racela’s criminal history to the charter school last March, when it denied the school’s request to clear Racela for employment. The spokesman said the agency had first flagged an employment clearance request for Racela that was submitted by Brighter Choice in December 2011. By that time, Racela had already been working for Brighter Choice schools for about 18 months.”
Nursing home aides who make 9 dollars an hour get a more rigorous background check than this guy was given.
Let’s hope they’re doing background checks of the teachers, right?
You mean it is not “ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN”?
As noted in the Audit:
“On May 26, 2011 the Board approved a compact agreement between the School and the Foundation. All Board members present at the Board meeting voted in favor of the compact agreement, except for
the Board President who recused himself from voting because he is
also the Foundation’s Chairman.
With the regulations set the way the corporations want, the Hedge funds are anxious to invest and double their money in 7 years with their money guaranteed by the government. So now “wall street” is pushing for more and more Charters.
The really sad part is that they are not doing anything illegal since they changed the laws for their profits! Yeah, the boards are appointed by the corporations with the chairman of the corporation is the president and the chairman is a minion for the big money corporation!
It is amazing how this was crafted by the corporate reformers though out the Nation. They changed laws and set up initiatives for their profits, then rapidly moved into urban areas unnoticed. Now that they are expanding to less urban areas, people are starting to take notice!
I read this after watching a debate on TV about the food stamp cuts. The GOP speaker said we should gut the food stamps program because there is fraud. Why don’t we hear them calling for the end of charter schools because there is fraud,fraud, and more fraud? It’s OK for the rich to commit fraud?
annieeducator: you cut straight to the heart of the matter.
Thank you for your comments.
🙂
Diane, since the terms of this discussion are so important — as shown by the reformy capture of the word reform — here’s one suggestion.
From now on, let’s not call them charter schools. Let’s call them unregulated schools.
How many parents would jump for joy if they heard that an unregulated school was coming to offer their children “choice”?
Check out the front page of today’s( Jan. 25, 2014) Albany Times Union, more questions from Comptroller DiNapoli about the financial relationship between Brighter Choice Foundation and the charters it runs….and collects rent from…..