Denis Smith is a retired school administrator who worked both as a sponsor representative for charter schools as well as a consultant in the state charter school office. In this five-part series, he offers his perspective about charter school governance and how this mechanism designed to provide transparency and accountability for public entities is sorely lacking and may in fact be the “fatal design flaw” of these schools.
Part Two
In September 2008, Dennis Bakke, the founder and CEO of Imagine Schools, one of the nation’s largest charter school chains, wrote a lengthy internal memo to his company’s regional directors that contained his candid views on the role and function for the governing boards of “our” schools, as he described the Imagine brand. The memo, which became widely known a year after it was sent by email to his key contacts within the company he founded along with his wife, Eileen, is quite revealing and offers a snapshot about how executives of private national charter school chains want absolute control of the “public” schools they operate. Due to its length, the memo is condensed within the following passage.
What are we learning about the selection and care of board members for our schools? Most Board members become very involved in the life of the school. Often, even before the school begins operation, the Board members have taken “ownership” of the school. Many honestly believe it is their school and that the school will not go well without them steering the school toward “excellence”. They believe they are the “governing” Board even if that adjective to describe the board has never been used by an Imagine School person. Many become involved in the daily life of the school, volunteering and “helping” teachers and other staff to get things done. Even those who are not parents, take “ownership” of the school as if they started it… [The board members] didn’t finance the start up of the school or the building. They didn’t find the principal or any of the teachers and staff. They didn’t design the curriculum. In some cases, they did help recruit students.
The complete text of this revealing memo is found at this link: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091102/LOCAL10/911029966/1216/LOCAL1006
Bakke’s memo is important because it mirrors the thinking of national charter school chains as well as those who are managed by smaller for-profit management companies which may operate within a state or a regional basis. All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.
The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.
In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.
With such latitude, it should come as no surprise that the law is silent regarding the place of residency of board members, registration of the members with the secretary of state, citizenship requirements for members of the governing board, let alone how an appointed governing board member is obligated to represent the interests of the school’s stakeholders – students and their families.
In such loose legal construction, charter schools become the creatures of those who “own” them, rather than the public who pays for them and expects resident children to receive an appropriate education. Yet the charter school chains have it both ways. When convenient, the management companies refer to “public charter schools” and “schools of choice,” yet operate them in a manner that doesn’t accept the principle that the public owns the school rather than the corporation that operates the building. To add more complexity to the muddled charter school world, Imagine and some other chains also own some buildings as one way to add emphasis to their usage of the term “our” schools.
This flaw in charter school genetic code will, over time, be its undoing, for the American public is showing signs of increasing impatience with institutions, and like it or not, charter schools will not be immune from this impatience. In the end, charter school chains can’t have it both ways. If they believe the companies “own” these “public” schools, then surely the public will understand that the companies also “own” the boards. When the public fully realizes this state of affairs, the backlash against privatization will begin in earnest.
An owned or bought board is not characteristic of our democratic system. School governing boards were created to provide oversight, set policy, ensure that laws are adhered to, and hire and evaluate the school’s executive and financial officers. If charter school boards are not doing these things, they should be abolished so that the facade of faux governance is exposed. We the public can’t let national chains like Imagine have it both ways.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
fascinating
Thank you, Diane, for digging beneath the surface, in the classic tradition of the great American muckrackers!
The appearance of democracy while crushing its spirit seems to be the name of the game these days. These fake charter boards are not much different than the mayoral control exercised in many places – the New York City PEP under Bloomberg is an excellent example of a sham board – even with the public allowed to know who was on the board, to protest them, and to make themselves heard, the board still did not act democratically (the mayor as a proxy for democracy because he was elected seems dumb).
We have a lot of people these days who are convinced that if they had the power to make changes without opposition, they could get things done that would improve schools (and make a buck in the process). While they do indeed have the ability to “do” more and do it quicker than with more democratic means, it seems like that amount of control has led to a pace of change so fast that no reasonable human being could keep up with it, and those dictating the changes don’t care whether their timelines for change are realistic, or reflect a realistic way of bettering lives.
The sand shifts so quickly these days as an educator, it’s a wonder we’re not excellent dancers because you have to be to keep up with all these vacillating demands with less resources and more needy students.
I keep waiting for the big backlash. If the public could truly see these schools close-up (and what has happened to their tax money) they would be outraged.
I know this is off topic, but a large Florida school district is considering drastic changes to its elective courses, because the pay portion of the “merit” pay law passed a few years ago kicks in next school year and requires end-of-course exams for ALL subjects. It’s too much work to create tests for specialized courses, so they will be morphed into other things or cut completely. I’m sure this will happen all over the state in the next few years if this law isn’t repealed. So much for the “customized education” so many reformers tout. It’s going to be one-size-fits-all because there isn’t enough money and time to make tests for all of these courses.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-orange-cuts-electives-tests-20140326,0,3176841.story
Charters barely have electives. They are too expensive yet, Rep. Lyons of Michigan (the ultimate charter cheerleader) says that they are “innovative”. What a joke.
Forwarded this and the earlier report on charters to Cliff Peale at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Hope other Ohio readers of this blog will forward the series to their newspapers as well. Unfortunately, most of the points also apply to other states.
There is a simple solution to any problem with charter school chains: they could be prohibited. This is a question of the proper level of state regulation.
It will never go in that direction, though. The goal is to replicate and standardize. It won’t be the “school” that will standardize, it will be the CMO.
“As a refresher, the Miller-Kline charter bill from 2011 would have allowed states to tap federal funds to replicate charter school models that have a track record of success. It also sought to help charters gain access to high-quality facilities and encouraged states to work with charters to help them serve special populations, such as students in special education.
The major difference this time around, sources say, could be a greater emphasis on ensuring that federal funding goes to Charter Management Organizations (such as KIPP, or Aspire). That’s something U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has supported, and it’s a piece of a bipartisan charter school bill written by Reps. Jared Polis, D-Col., and Tom Petri, R-Wis.”
They’ll end up with four or five national (large) CMOs and no smaller entity will be able to compete with them.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2014/03/house_education_leaders_workin.html
Why not? In my state no legal entity (person or corporation) can own more than a single liquor store. No wine at Trader Joes for us. The Sam could easily be true for charter schools if the problem with charter schools is the chain status.
Because it doesn’t make any sense.
There’s a reason we created school districts in the US 🙂
They’ll consolidate and standardize.
Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) are essentially networks of schools. These schools are managed by a leadership team that provides shared academic, human capital, back-office, operational and financial services. Often launched from the base of a single successful charter school, CMOs combine the autonomy of local, school-based decisions with the ability to provide leveraged support and effective management across many schools. They seek to create a flexible, scalable and replicable model for delivering results to their students.
– See more at: http://chartergrowthfund.org/what-we-do/investing-in-cmos/#sthash.mIX6514O.dpuf
The same argument could be made about liquor stores in my state, but it has not succeeded.
Tha variety of school district sizes in the US is breathtaking. Some school districts have more students than there are in my state. Some school districts in my state are half the size of the high school my youngest attends (about 1,200 in the high school). There does not seem to be to much in the way of returns to scale in education internal to the school or school district.
Equating liquor to students. Nice.
Indeed not. Thinking about the scope of state law and regulation. State regulatory power is extensive, and can be applied to charter schools like any other enterprises.
Restrictions on alcohol sales are traditionally examples of blue laws that were intended to enforce religious standards. I don’t think this is something we can expect to see expanding in the deregulation climate of neo-liberal free market territory.
They are examples of the states power to regulate, which can, of course, be applied to charter schools.
Is the problem with charter schools a problem of poor regulation or is it that there is no possible charter school can provide a worthwhile education no matter the regulatory environment? The focus on chain schools in the post suggests that it is a regulatory issue, though I think the orthodox opinion on the blog would be that all charter schools should be closed, and that the school in Walton Kansas (and likely the town) is just collateral damage that is unavoidable in the search for someone’s conception of the greater good.
Unless fundamentalist churches start seeing a puritanical relationship between blue laws and the neo-liberal agenda to promote unregulated free markets, don’t hold your breath waiting for increased regulations on charter schools. Many of those folks blindly follow the lead of big business and are not inclined to put the breaks on anything that limits profiteering.
It seems to me that you are more likely to get a change in the regulations governing charter schools than you are to get a change in the law banning charter schools. Do you disagree?
So I looked up our Imagine school clone, the one that tried to take down our Teacher’s union – Imagine says they own the building, a former religious school, yet they still pay over a million a year in “occupancy fees” or rent, back to – themselves, according to thier tax returns. In front of the building, there is a pillar with the Ten commandments engraved on it.
Thou shalt not steal, Mr. Bakke.
Shameful. Pretending to believe in the Ten Commandments while you rob the public.
This is increasingly more common. In 2011-12, according to Gary Miron from Western Michigan University, who has studied charter school financing, 36% of charters paid management fees to education management organizations (EMOs) from tax dollars –rather ironic, considering charters were supposed to reduce bureaucracy not increase it.
This looks like double dipping, but EMOs also serve as a cover, since EMOs are private companies, so there’s no way to compel them to share information about their operations, products, customers, clients or services.
In Chicago, the UNO charter chain created its own EMO “and began paying itself a “management fee” of $1 of every $10 it received from local, state, and federal sources. (Some years… more. In 2012, those fees totaled $5 million.) …UNO had control over how that cash was spent.
Once the charter manager collects the fee, the funds go under “the veil,” says Miron. “Basically, all of this money ends up getting paid to the management company, but we don’t know how much goes into their pockets or how much they spend on administrators, or administrators’ nephews or uncles.”
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2014/uno-juan-rangel/
“teachingeconomist
March 26, 2014 at 7:05 pm
The same argument could be made about liquor stores in my state, but it has not succeeded.
Tha variety of school district sizes in the US is breathtaking. Some school districts have more students than there are in my state. Some school districts in my state are half the size of the high school my youngest attends (about 1,200 in the high school). There does not seem to be to much in the way of returns to scale in education internal to the school or school district.”
You’re still thinking of this in terms of districts, and states. That isn’t the model.
There is no school district in the country that is interstate, multi-state, yet charters are. There are charters in my state that operate in OH, FL, PA and AZ. There’s no comparison to that in public schools. None.
That isn’t how it would work. Here it is again:
“CMOs combine the autonomy of local, school-based decisions with the ability to provide leveraged support and effective management across many schools. They seek to create a flexible, scalable and replicable model for delivering results to their students.”
And here’s the House bill:
“The major difference this time around, sources say, could be a greater emphasis on ensuring that federal funding goes to Charter Management Organizations (such as KIPP, or Aspire).”
They fund the CMO which manages the school. Anywhere. In any state or several states or 50 states.
“Scalable” is a goal. “Replicable” is a goal. “Small and individual” isn’t a goal 🙂
A CMO could manage a national network of essentially the same model school.
They’re already doing it. How many states is KIPP in? Rocketship? The big networks will drive the smaller networks and the independents out, because they operate on per pupil funding and they’ll centralize all administrative and support services and large CMO’s will be able to do that more efficiently. The schools will be national “brands”. They already are.
It’s wild to think about, because you could have a situation where in 20 years PUBLIC schools would end up the small, individual, localized schools and 4 or 5 national “brands” of charter schools would be the standardized model 🙂
This is the product of state regulation. States can choose as they like. I can not buy wine, liquor or full strength beer at any chain store. A state could easily do the same for charter schools. It is a question of regulation.
By the way, hitting an a few random links I have found unified school districts in my state with fewer than 300 students in the district. Do you think those students get a massively inferior education to the students in LA unified where there are 640,000 students in the district?
“Do you think those students get a massively inferior education to the students in LA unified where there are 640,000 students in the district?”
No, but those students aren’t all going to a KIPP school, or a Rocketship School. The economies of scale are more than administrative and operations. They take the KIPP method and practices and replicate them in a new city or state.
The public school comparison doesn’t apply. Public schools have defined boundaries, jurisdictions. I live (relatively) close to the state lines of both IN and MI. My local school district can’t open and operate a school in MI or IN not matter how “successful ” our “model” is (if we had a “scaleable” defined model, which we don’t).
But a charter school can, and they’ll do that with a national or regional or multi-state CMO. They’ll take that “brand” and that formula and that method and expand. They are already doing it.
There’s a charter in Cleveland that gets a lot of adoring press. They have three schools in Cleveland. They announced they want to open in Chicago. Cleveland Public Schools can’t open a school in Chicago, but a charter based in Ohio can.
Can Illinois regulate and say “Academy X cannot open a location in Chicago because it is a Cleveland charter school”? I don’t think they can. What makes it a “Cleveland” charter school? Not one thing except for its current location in Cleveland, and the fact that its Ohio authorizer gave it a charter. If that same brand of charter expands into Chicago and Illinois or the city of Chicago gives it a charter it is then a “Chicago charter school”.
So what do you think about the education that students get in school districts with less than 600 students? If that is of sufficient scale to do a good job of educating students from kindergarten through 12, surely a stand alone charter high school with 600 students would be of sufficient scale as well.
Chiara, do you know why a charter would lose its tax exempt status? If anyone on this blog knows could you please explain why? Why would cause the IRS to remove this status?
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/03/back_to_school_for_state_rep_a.html
This is the most pro-public school editorial I have ever seen in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
“State Rep. Andrew Brenner, a Republican from Powell who serves as vice chairman of the House Education Committee, was deservedly blasted recently for calling public education “socialism” and suggesting the government privatize schools.
Brenner, who proves the pitfalls of safe political seats — his district is staunchly Republican and he has no challenger in the May primary — wrote his inflammatory column on the Brenner Brief News, a website run by his wife. Apparently, he paid no attention to the fact that Ohio’s privately managed, publicly supported charter schools have been a bust in far too many cases.
“In a recent telephone interview with the editorial board, an apologetic Brenner said he was misunderstood. He said he was trying to say that the education system is publicly owned and managed and that he wants fellow conservatives to consider how they can improve it, since privatizing Ohio’s schools “is never going to happen.”
That’s a lot of backtracking from an essay that flatly says we need to sell off government installations such as schools to private interests.
We are tempted to call for Brenner’s removal from the House education committee. But instead we issue a challenge to Brenner, a public school graduate who says he is interested in helping failing urban and rural school districts: He should visit several struggling public schools in Northeast Ohio, talk to parents, teachers, and principals and find out what they really need. We’ll bet that privatizing the system is pretty low on their list.
They might ask for a fairer school funding system so that charter schools — even the worst kinds — aren’t favored; or for money for broadband and computer hardware so they can be prepared for Common Core tests or for more money for preschool and schools that offer social services, which Brenner says he advocates.
In short, instead of name-calling, Brenner should consider how he might give universal, free public education a helping hand. We are waiting.”
A bold defense of public education! I almost fell off my chair when I read it.
I live in a conservative district (not his) so I wrote him a letter and asked him what the people in his district would think if they knew that he wants to privatize their local schools- that would not be popular here, to put it mildly, and I don’t imagine it would be any more popular in HIS conservative district.
I like to think I had some influence on his terrified back-tracking 🙂
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.