Alan Singer asks why National Heritage Academies is still in business, in light of its business practices. For-profit companies are good at making profits, and that’s what NHA does well.
NHA has most of its charters in Michigan, where more than 80% of charters operate for-profit. It has ties to ALEC and conservative think tanks.
It also operates charters in other states.
Singer writes:
“In 2005, the State University of New York closed the Rochester Leadership Academy Charter School because of poor academic performance by its students. Four years later the former charter school’s board of directors sued the for-profit management company, National Heritage Academies. The suit claimed that National Heritage Academies failed to provide the promised “management, operation, administration, accounting and education” which resulted in the school losing its state charter. In addition, the board blamed the management company for the loss of over $2 million.
“In March 2010 the Rochester Leadership Academy Charter School board and National Heritage Academies reached an out of court settlement. National Heritage Academies agreed to “donate” $175,000 to a non-profit organization selected by the charter school, however because of a confidentiality clause in the agreement no other details were released to the public.
“National Heritage Academies is a for-profit corporation based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It operates 75 schools in nine states with approximately 50,000 students. In 2011-2012, it was the third largest for profit charter school company in the United States based on number of schools with second largest number of students.”
NHA also operates charters in Brooklyn. “In May 2014, the New York Daily News reported that National Heritage Academies charged its Brooklyn Dreams Charter School $2.3 million a year to rent space in a Catholic Church that the management company leased from the church for much less. The going rate for rental of this kind was between $14.25 and $25.50 per square foot, but National Heritage Academies charged the school $46.99 per square foot. While neither the management company nor the church would admit how much the company was actually paying to the Brooklyn diocese, the New York Post claimed it was only $264,000 per year. National Heritage Academies also charged another charter school it manages, Brooklyn Scholars, well over the market rate.”
A good business.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No child left behind. King: we must act now, or else young children’s futures will be squandered. Charters are essential if we want to preserve the life opportunities of young children, especially the poor among them. No time to waste.
Indeed, the more time we have to examine the reality behind the Charter Movement, the more disgusted parents will become…which means the money faucet is threatened.
“The first time as tragedy, the second as farce” comes to mind here. King #1; King #2.
More million$ pi$$ed away on charter$! The Rochester City Schools are today in dire, dire circumstances both financially and academically. In terms of leadership, the district is also a mess. In desperation, the BOE has even asked the University of Rochester to help save East High School.
And this is the city from which Andrew the Cuomo annointed his first lieutenant governo!, Obviously Duffy’s role was to advise on how best to undermine public schools.
“governor” (although I think “governo” is probably more accurate!!)
I’m guessing the answer will be found by following the money trail round and round to the pockets of whatever politicians they have in their pockets.
Michigan is conducting the same free market ed reform experiment that failed in Ohio.
No one will stop it. There’s been no additional regulation in Ohio over the last decade, although they are well aware of the abuses.
There was a brief ray of hope in Ohio after a newspaper did an expose, but the Ohio Department of Ed sent a stern letter to charter “authorizers” warning them they make take action at some undetermined point in the future, this is their last warning, we swear, so that successfully headed off any regulatory changes.
It’s a free for all, basically. Wait ’till they start closing without warning. That’s exciting, for the public schools who are legally obligated to take the displaced.
We’re building the airplane in the air, as they like to say at those conferences and conventions.
Chiara,
We already have the closings without warning. I have two friends who taught at charters in Michigan who find themselves without a school next year. Their charters were slightly underenrolled and the management company wasn’t making enough money according to both. The charters claimed that they closed the schools for academic underperformance but my friends say that their scores were comparable to surrounding schools.
So we see another charter game. Claim a school closed for performance and not because of financial reasons. The media then says, “See, those charters can be closed unlike traditional public schools (grumble, grumble).”
Meanwhile parents of those charter kids are now searching for a new school through no fault of their own. Market advocates will claim that this is the market weeding out the weak but it is highly disruptive to families seeking a stable environment and community for their kids.
“We’ve reinvented how schools run,” said Neerav Kingsland of New Schools for New Orleans, which promotes and supports charter schools. Kingsland is leaving the organization to try to export the model to other cities. “If I am unhappy with service I’m getting in a school, I can pull my kid out and go to another school tomorrow.”
See? It’s easy!
He just pulls his individual child out and puts them “in another school tomorrow”
No concern at all for how that approach might work within a public system or the chaos it would create in terms of planning and funding or community stability or any of those mundane, old fashioned ideas, no concern for the other children in the system, it’s just all choice and freedom! Everyone wins! No one ever loses!
Public schools are systems in any given area, and pretending they aren’t doesn’t change that. If they pull on one string in the system, the whole thing is affected. Turning them into contract service providers doesn’t change that. It just ignores the problems created in the one set of schools that have to take all comers.
How can this be exposed? I’m from Cleveland, Ohio where charters and teach for America run rampant.
Plunderbund, a website for news in Ohio, reprinted a letter from an Athens, Ohio, school board member. In the letter, which was sent to almost every school board in Ohio, the board member asked community boards of education to play a more active role in contact with the Ohio Board of Education. I contacted my board, enclosing a copy of the letter. I asked the board to communicate, the residents’ views, to the state board.
Ohio politicians won’t listen to reports of charter corruption, particularly Kasich. We can work to defeat him in November.
They can’t find money for public school but can waste millions on charters which are long on promises, short on production. So what else is new? Like someone above said, follow the money trail. Best government money can buy.
And why does ASCD continue to shill for these sham charter schools by advertising job openings for them in their daily “SmartBrief”?
I thought NY didn’t permit for-profit charters, as in IL. Or is a non-profit charter school considered legal cover for a for-profit CMO there?
Perhaps NY operates in a manner similar to the way Idaho operates. By law, charter schools in Idaho must be run by a non-profit board of directors. However, that non-profit board of directors can hire a for-profit company to provide curriculum, personnel, and management. That’s how Idaho largest virtual charter school has been administered since its inception, by K12, Inc. The same ploy is being used to enable Pearson to operate Idaho’s INSPIRE Connections Academy.
Chi-town,
In New York, for-profit charters were recently banned by law but existing ones were grandfathered in place.
I have a lot of trouble nailing down the exact differences between for profit charters, and not for profits…..and whether those differences are significant in ways which should cause us to look at them as different from each other. In St. Louis, there were questions raised about an option being considered by the state appointed board…..their lowest performing schools (5), could be turned over to non profits to run. I have tried to compare what is happening in Missouri to what has happened in Michigan…..Detroit started with 15, and quickly multiplied to 50. The state commissioner in Missouri is grabbing every unaccredited school she can, removing the elected boards, appointing boards and setting up her own state district for poorly performing schools, and it looks like there will be an explosion of non profit charters………..anyone who knows enough about Michigan and Missouri…….I would appreciate insights into whether something is going on which is similar, or whether it seems to be quite different. I have been chiding the Post Dispatch editorial board, which supports elimination of elected boards, teasing them that the St. Louis appointed board sees throught what state Chris Nicastro is planning…..and they are not enthused.
ran out of gas…..”sees through what Missouri State commissioner Chris Nicastro is planning…..and they are not enthused.”