The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has filed a “right to know” action to gain access to the financial records of the state’s charter schools, including Cybercharters.
Charters were supposed to be more accountable and transparent than public schools, but they are neither. Some charter operators have made millions of dollars in profits from taxpayer dollars, with neither accountability nor transparency.
“The Pennsylvania School Boards Association today said it has filed Right-to-Know requests with charter and cyber charter school operators asking for financial information about their schools.
“The requested items include advertising costs, contracts with private management companies, advanced academic courses offered, salary and compensation information for all 180 brick and mortar and cyber charter schools in the state.
“The Right-to-Know requests also ask for documents related to leases and real estate and donation information from foundations or educational improvement organizations.”
“Nathan Mains, PSBA executive director, said the information being sought will help his association and the school districts it represents to better understand how charter schools operate and to provide transparency to taxpayers on charter school spending.
“For years charter proponents have criticized public schools claiming they don’t understand how charter operators work or the costs and benefits of charters,” Mr. Mains said in a press release
“Another purpose to filing the Right-to-Know requests is for the PSBA “to make sure public funds are being spent in the best interest of Pennsylvania children,” Mr. Mains said.
“Tuition for charter school students comes from the coffers of their home public school districts. The PSBA release said last year nearly $1.3 billion was paid in charter school tuition.”
The organization representing the state’s charter schools scoffed at the request and said the PSBA has all the information it needs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Whatever happened to this?
“The former CEO of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School and his accountant have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of mail fraud, theft or bribery concerning a program receiving federal funds, tax conspiracy, and filing a false tax return. The announcement was made today at a news conference by United States Attorney David J. Hickton; FBI Special Agent in Charge Gary Douglas Perdue; Akeia Conner, Special Agent in Charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation-Philadelphia Field Office; and Steven Anderson, Special Agent in Charge, Department of Education Office of Inspector General-Mid-Atlantic Region.
The 11-count indictment, returned on August 21, and unsealed today, named Nicholas Trombetta, 58, of East Liverpool, Ohio, and Neal Prence, 58, of Koppel, Pennsylvania.
According to the indictment, Trombetta was the founder and superintendent of the PA Cyber Charter School. Trombetta created a series of connected for-profit and not-for-profit entities to siphon taxpayer funds out of PA Cyber and to avoid federal income tax liabilities. The indictment alleges that Prence, an accountant, assisted Trombetta in the tax fraud scheme.”
Weren’t we promised charter school regulation after this came out, in 2013? Are lawmakers too busy opening new charter schools, or what?
http://www.fbi.gov/pittsburgh/press-releases/2013/former-ceo-of-pa-cyber-nick-trombetta-and-cpa-neal-prence-charged-in-elaborate-fraud-scheme
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I think half the sleazy things that charter schools do are perfectly legal! They seem to get away with “murder” (so to speak — not real murder) and like Al Capone, the rare times they get in trouble it seems to be about not paying taxes, and not the myriad other things they do.
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This one was really bad. It’s an incredibly complicated story that started in Ohio and then extended to Pennsylvania.
I read the affidavit by the FBI agent. At one point these two gentlemen were exchanging bags of cash in a Pizza Hut parking lot. All public money.
This isn’t a close call. It’s blatant lawbreaking and corruption, and it went on 15 years. The (federal) tax issue allowed the feds to reach it, which is good since no one at the state level was planning on doing anything.
Pennsylvania, in my opinion, is as bad as Ohio on regulating charter schools. They’re just behind Ohio on the public figuring it out. They’ll get there, and so will Michigan.
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I hope every school board association in every state will make a comparable request. there has got to be heat put on this industry.
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Disclosure should be required to use public funds. They should have to play by the same rules as public groups when they use taxpayers’ money.
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Is this the same Lauren Hawk quoted in the piece?
“Lauren Hawk, Public Relations Specialist. Whether a news crew is needed for an event or an evening news feature on a new business venture, Lauren is the go-to specialist for media placement. Though she attracts media for all client industries, she specializes in public education and franchise entities.”
http://sylviamarketing.com/?page_id=18
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From the piece accessed by the link in the posting:
[start excerpt]
Lauren Hawk, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, questioned the timing of the request in an email Friday.
“The odd thing about the request is that PSBA represents the school districts that are the authorizers of every brick and mortar charter school in the state and, as such, already have access to all of the information they requested,” she said. “This request is not to ‘… better understand the work of charters around the state.,’ but is simply to harass charter schools and force them to take resources and time away from educating students to respond to redundant requests.”
Robinson called the claim that districts can access charter school financial records “blatantly false.”
“Once a charter is established, the authorizing district has very little access to records that are to be public,” he said. “Cyber charters are authorized by a state body and not by districts, making it even more challenging to gain access to public cyber charter records.”
“Nearly $1.3 billion tax dollars left public schools for charters last year. Calling this a publicity stunt and harassment is insulting to the taxpayers who have every right to know how their $1.3 billion is being spent,” he added.
[end excerpt]
So charter schools are just like public schools—only a lot lot lot better.
Rheeally! But only if you count being worse at lying—
“Better.”
And it also makes perfect sense on the Bizarro World of the old SUPERMAN comics—
“In the Bizarro world of “htraE” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!” In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: “Guaranteed to lose money for you”. Later, the mayor appoints Bizarro No. 1 to investigate a crime, “Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together”. This is intended and taken as a great compliment.”
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
😎
P.S. From the same wikipedia entry: “In popular culture ‘Bizarro World’ has come to mean a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations.”
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I love how she thinks that asking charter schools to respond to records requests is a waste of time, and she then expects districts to collect the records and respond to the request.
Districts are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs with plenty of time to respond to records requests on charter schools? They’re not doing any “important work”?
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Chiara: ¿what?
😳
You want charter school operators to take time away from counting up $tudent $ucce$$ in order to comply with burdensome regulations? You know, the time and effort needed would require stealing valuable money from, say, the advertising budget—and what self-respecting charter school would want to shortchange the adults charged with pushing their product?
😱
Next thing I know, you’ll be asserting that the rheephorm mantra of “unfettered greed will answer every need” doesn’t work in education—
But come to think of it, I guess I’ll have to go along with what you wrote.
Especially since charter advocates keep intoning the phrase “charter schools are public schools”—
When are they going to act like it when it comes to transparency, accountability and responsibility re public monies?
😎
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The complaint, unions and public schools are greedy and inefficient.
The assumption, those are bad things.
The reality, charters and privatizers just thought that greed and inefficiency wasn’t being exploited to its full potential. Now they have proved their point.
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If the PSBA goes after a court order, what are the odds that the Charters will start using shredders and erasing data from computer files and e-mails. In fact, the Charters might have already started.
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Would that the Indiana school board had such insight.
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Pennsylvania tax payers deserve accountability. We cannot be supporting a $1.3 billion expenditure without any trace or accountability for where the money went.
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