Let’s face it. Some people have the Midas touch.
Take Jon Hage, the CEO of the for-profit charter chain, Charter Schools USA.
He was named Floridian of the Year.
He has a yacht named “Fishin’ for Schools.”
And he has figured out a cool way to make his charters very profitable.
This comes from Coach Bob Sikes in Florida:
“This week’s hilarious story that Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage owns a yacht called Fishin’ 4 Schools overshadows what may be some major wrongdoing on the part of Hage. In a column that appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, Hillsborough League of Women Voters president, Shirley Arcuri revealed this little tidbit:
“Another area where the distinction between public and private is blurred for the benefit of for-profits is in the issuing of bonds. Although Florida law prohibits charter schools from issuing bonds, Charter School USA has found a way.
“When naming Jon Hage, CEO of Charter USA, as Floridian of the Year, Florida Trend in December 2012 contended that Charter School USA is the largest seller of charter school debt in the country. “It will sell $100 million worth of bonds this year, Hage says. … The bonds come with tax-exempt status because they are technically held by the nonprofit founding boards that oversee the schools.”
Endless to say, Hage is not and never was a teacher.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These bonds have a tax-exempt status, but who plays the owners of these bonds their monthly checks and where does the money come from?
The money comes from revenue; per pupil funding.
The borrower agrees to pay the bondholder a fixed rate of interest, the dividend. That’s tax exempt.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/column-charter-schools-fail-to-boost-achievement/2172950
This is the original piece about charter school financing:
“For example, Public Education Capital Outlay funds, used to build and maintain public school and university buildings, are being diverted away from traditional public schools and to charters.
In 2012, $36 million of state PECO funds were allocated to charter schools; in 2013 it was $91 million of a $97 million total allocation. These funds are spent by the charter schools, often by for-profit management and real estate development companies that are hired to build and staff the charter schools. Should the charters close, these costly assets remain with the for-profit company and are lost to the public.”
The bonds certainly don’t go towards teacher salaries. I googled Charter Schools USA and one of their bullet points is to pride themselves on giving bonuses to teachers whose scores are up. Everyone should know by now that this doesn’t work…it’s phony economics designed to weaken, undermine and decimate the teaching profession.
Here’s more on bond issues for charter schools:
“The tax-exempt charter school bond market has grown to more than $6.4 billion since 2010, with the issuance of about $1.14 billion in bond offerings from January 2011 through May 2012, according to a Local Initiatives Support Corporation report.
Charter School Bond Issuance: A Complete History, Volume 2, an update of the community development financing organization’s 2011 report, includes extensive data and analyses, including listings of schools’ debt, results from an examination of hundreds of school financial reports, debt payment performance, indicators of schools’ creditworthiness, borrowing costs, and data breakouts by state.
Four states – Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Texas – account for more than 50 percent of the bonds, according to the report.
The report states that the average issue size overall is $12.1 million, while the average for issues examined since January 2011 is $15.2 million. The average total borrowing cost for issues in the latest 17-month period was 7.6 percent. The default rate reported on the total $6.4 billion is 2.7 percent.”
http://www.charterschoolcenter.org/news/charter-school-tax-exempt-bond-market-grows-64-billion
Disgusting. Another charter con artist getting rich off of the taxpayer. More corporate welfare/fascism
The League of Women Voters in Florida is really doing their job. If only every LOWV was so clear about the charter scam.
Public school districts have sold bonds like that for decades. What’s the big deal about charters doing so?
Because the schools are owned by a private company, and that is a private benefit at taxpayers’ expense. And if the charter school closes, the assets stay with the private company. Not to mention that charters continually brag that they can “educate with less money.” Issuing a bunch of expensive bonds kind of blows that argument out of the water.
Because the tax exemption is itself a government subsidy and the revenue is also public funds. It’s all public money and it’s going into a privately-owned asset.
“Public Education Capital Outlay funds, used to build and maintain public school and university buildings, are being diverted away from traditional public schools and to charters.
In 2012, $36 million of state PECO funds were allocated to charter schools; in 2013 it was $91 million of a $97 million total allocation. These funds are spent by the charter schools, often by for-profit management and real estate development companies that are hired to build and staff the charter schools. Should the charters close, these costly assets remain with the for-profit company and are lost to the public.”
91 of 97 million in public funds went to private owners in Florida.
The people there don’t own those schools, but they paid for them.
This is how Charter Schools USA operates: A charter school USA school was just approved in my home town of Jacksonville Florida. They started construction before it was officially approved and despite the fact that just happened this past Tuesday they are already running advertisements to attract students that talk about all their accomplishments.
There is a very tangled web that this charter school weaves. The land was purchased and the school was built by Red Apple, the construction/leasing arm of the for-profit Charter Schools USA outfit. It is then leased to Renaissance charters, the non-profit arm of the aforementioned Charter Schools USA and if their history holds true above fair market value. Renaissance then turns around and hired Charter School USA to manage the school sending them an undetermined amount of management fees. This is a scam that would make Columbian drug dealing money launderers envious.
Let’s talk about Jonathon Hage the CEO of Charter Schools USA for a moment. He operates just 58 schools, takes home millions in compensation, I have read as much as 4.8 million though I haven’t been able to confirm that, lives in a 1.8 million dollar house and sends his children to an expensive private school. By comparison my super who runs 161 schools, makes 275 thousand and sends his children to public schools. I don’t know how much Superintendent Vitti’s house is worth and where I am sure it is nice I would guess it is worth less than 1.8 million dollars. Furthermore does anybody like to go boating? Well the CEO of charter schools USA does and routinely takes out his, 350 thousand dollar 43 foot yacht which he named Fishin-4-Schools. An ironic name if there ever was one.
Hage is the mercenary face of today’s charter schools
Chris Guerrieri: re your second from last paragraph.
From a comment of mine, 3/30/14, on this blog. NYC. Eva Moskowitz, edupreneur, and Carmen Fariña, School Chancellor.
[start excerpt]
At last count, Eva M makes $485,000 @year for 6700 students in 20 schools = $485,000 ÷ 6700 = $72.39@student [rounded off to the nearest penny].
Carmen F makes $212,000 @year as the School Chancellor of 1,100,000 students in hundreds of schools = $212,000 ÷ 1,100,000 = $0.19@student [rounded off to the nearest penny]
Eva M makes 381 times @student compared to Carmen F @student.
As the charterites/privatizers—including those who push their eduproducts on this blog—gleefully and worshipfully point out, Eva M is worth every penny [if not more!] and Carmen F, well, ‘nuff said…
Yes, Eva M is in for the students, and why not—while that fool Carmen F is willing to settle for 19¢ per, Eva M squeezes more than $70 out of every single last one of her “most precious assets” [channelling Michelle Rhee].
$aint Eva! One angelic halo, coming right up!
😏
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/nyregion/gilded-crusade-for-charters-rolls-onward.html?_r=
[end excerpt]
$tudent $ucce$$. Ain’t it grand?
😎
And the crony contracts are multi-state!
“In June of 2011, Tony Bennett, then Indiana’s superintendent of public instruction, picked a for-profit education company in Florida to run a group of Indianapolis public schools.
The company, Charter Schools USA, set up operations in Indianapolis soon after the announcement and officially began running Manual High School, T.C. Howe High School and Emma Donnan middle school in the late summer of 2012. Millions of Indiana tax dollars have since flowed to the company, which has received many good reviews for its work in Indianapolis.
But a recent hiring decision by Charter Schools USA is sure to raise eyebrows and questions about conflicts of interest, particularly now that Bennett is embroiled in a massive controversy centering on special treatment given to certain Indiana schools during his tenure.
The decision: Charter Schools USA earlier this year hired Tony Bennett’s wife, Tina, as a regional director based in Florida, where Tony Bennett was hired late last year as commissioner of education. And, so, the bottom line is this: Tina Bennett is now earning a paycheck from the company her husband hand-picked to take over schools in Indiana, a decision that was very good for the company’s financial fortunes.”
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130801/NEWS08/308010028/Matthew-Tully-Tony-Bennett-s-wife-now-works-profit-corporation-he-picked-run-IPS-schools
They’re real estate boondoggles – even if the school does horribly, they’ve earned a massive subsidy from the purchase/improvement of their real estate. This is a horrible incentive. It makes it so that a charter is incentivized to open even if it has no good reason to do so except to qualify for perks such as these – they will walk away richer no matter how they educate the children.
How is a win/win situation for privatizers regardless of their performance stand up to public schools and the evil unions who are in it for themselves but can lose their livelihoods for the rest of their lives if they screw up, while a charter operator simply finds the next person they can support who will let them open a school and continue getting richer.
The American Dream, where the government is the biggest consumer with forcibly removed funding, given to choice operators, who will never lose no matter the circumstance and who have guaranteed funding streams….clearly all about the children and not piles and piles of money they’d rather see accumulated in the hands of a few business people and not going towards the thousands of professional educators or the children they’re dedicated to.
That happened with a charter school near the school at which I teach. It should never have opened. It is way too small and we have gotten many of the students back, and yet it is still there. Every year, the district assumes that my school will lose dozens, if not 100, students, and therefore cuts our faculty, and yet we only lose maybe two dozen students, making our class sizes ridiculously high, and yet, like a zombie, this school marches on. Amazingly (or not), the son of a state senator works for the charter management company.
A few days ago there was a very long article explaining the money manipulations done by Hage (specifically in FL) to have maximum profits from the Charter/rennaisance school. I didn’t bookmark it although I assumed it was one of your articles. Can you help me find it. I wanted to share it with some people but can’t remember enough of the facts without the article to refer to. Thanks, Jane K Lippincott email: kandylippincott@gmail.com
It is nice to know about Hage. I was a teacher at one of his schools and have just filed a complaint with FCHR anout favoritism, nepotism and retaliation at his schools. I will be taking Hage to court very soon.