Anna Phillips of the Los Angeles Times has written a powerful expose of California’s “Wild West” charter industry. This is the first of three articles.
The article is titled:
“How a couple worked charter school regulations to make millions”
The article begins:
“The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles.
“Though she was fresh out of college, she was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for the school to churn so quickly through teachers or to mount surveillance cameras in each classroom. Old computers were lying around, but the campus had no internet access. Pay was low and supplies scarce — she wasn’t given books for her students.
“She struggled to reconcile the school’s conditions with what little she knew about its wealthy founders, Clark and Jeanette Parker of Beverly Hills.
When Kawamoto saw their late-model Mercedes-Benz outside the school, she would think: “Look at your school, then look at what you drive.”
“That didn’t sit well with us teachers,” she said.
“The Parkers have cast themselves as selfless philanthropists, telling the California Board of Education that they have “devoted all of our lives to the education of other people’s children, committed many millions of our own dollars directly to that particular purpose, with no gain directly to us.”
“But the couple have, in fact, made millions from their charter schools. Financial records show the Parkers’ schools have paid more than $800,000 annually to rent buildings the couple own. The charters have contracted out services to the Parkers’ nonprofits and companies and paid Clark Parker generous consulting fees, all with taxpayer money, a Times investigation found.
”Presented with The Times’ findings, the Parkers did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“How the Parkers have stayed in business, surviving years of allegations of financial and academic wrongdoing, illustrates glaring flaws in the way California oversees its growing number of charter schools.
“Many of the people responsible for regulating the couple’s schools, including school board members and state elected officials, had accepted thousands of dollars from the Parkers in campaign contributions.
“Like other charter operators who have run into trouble, the Parkers were able to appeal to the state Board of Education when they faced the threat of being shut down; the panel is known for overturning local regulators’ decisions. A Times analysis of the state board’s decisions has found that, over the last five years, it has sided with charters over local school districts or county offices of education in about 70% of appeals.
“California law also enables troubled charter operators to escape sanction or scrutiny by moving to school districts more willing to accept them. The Parkers have used this to their advantage, keeping one step ahead of the regulators.”
The Parkers live in a 7,700 foot mansion in Beverley Hills, valued at more than $15 million.
The city and county have repeatedly tried to close down their charter schools, only to be overridden by the state. Their scores swing wildly from the lowest in the state to among the highest, then down again. The Parkers contributed to the then superintendent’s campaign fund. He recommended renewal. The state board agreed. Soon after the renewal, a teacher at the school wrote county and state officials to complain about malfeasance and neglect at the school, so bad that students were endangered. Children were sometimes served food that was spoiled or undercooked. Supplies were scarce.He was fired.
Mrs. Parker, who receives a salary of $285,000 as superintendent of her charter chain, gave Mr. Parker a contract for $575,000 to manage construction of their new school in Inglewood.
Last year, Governor Jerry Brown reluctantly signed legislation banning for-profit charters (reluctantly, because he had previously vetoed similar legislation), but that has no effect on this charter chain, which is technically not for profit.
Phillips describes the law, how it was written to “unleash creativity” by deregulating charters and by requiring them to get approvals by local, then county, then state officials. California has 330 different authorizers, compared to only 18 in Texas. Oversight is patchy, slipshod, sometimes nonexistent. As the Parkers realized, campaign contributions to school board members can ease the way to approval.
The Parkers are adept at shopping for friendly authorizers. They opened a charter in distressed Compton and generously contributed to the campaign funds of board members, including the board President.
When the school came up for renewal, district staff warned of deficiencies, noting that “Jeanette Parker had not disclosed who was on her organization’s board or whom her charter was doing business with.”
“Please note that the petition is generally vague and inconsistent regarding the details of the programs outlined in the petition,” the report said.
“Still, district officials recommended renewal. They had been assured, Brawley said, “that the deficiencies identified in the petition would be rectified.”
“When the charter’s renewal came up in December, Compton school board members did not discuss the charter’s academic performance. They did not question the Parkers, who sat before them in the audience.
“What they did was a foregone conclusion.
“The board took less than a minute to vote unanimously to renew Today’s Fresh Start until June 2023.”
Big shout out to policy influencers like Fordham Institute and the money guys and gals behind them.
There’s one for New Jersey too:
“NJ taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and renovate charter school buildings, but the public doesn’t own them.
School buildings that are paid for with millions of dollars in public money but owned by private groups.
Inflated rents, high interest rates and unexplained costs borne by taxpayers.
And tax dollars used to pay rents that far exceed the debt on some school buildings.
This is the world of charter school real estate in New Jersey.”
“NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents, including lease, property and financing records, state-issued bond sales and audits involving a cross section of charter schools around the state.”
https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/watchdog/2019/03/27/nj-charter-schools-nj-tax-money-disappearing/2139903002/
I think it was inevitable that the public would find out that they’re paying for this real estate and these school facilities but they then don’t own the property or buildings.
That was bound to be a problem. Of course the public believe they should own the schools. They paid for them.
In some of these cases they’re paying for the school twice- they paid to build the school and then they pay rent to occupy it. Just crazy. And completely unregulated. The state doesn’t even review the contracts.
Yikes! Good catch, Chiara. NJ has a tight grip on charter authorizations compared to other states. Other than the charter expansion in Newark & Camden, I’d thought we were in decent shape. Very interesting article. As Bruce Baker says, charters were just thrown out there 20 yrs ago w/no guidance or obvious sources for facilities funding, so they ‘got creative.’ And the sponsor of the charter law says back then they never imagined charters would be big schools– maybe 500 studs tops. Hopefully articles like this will bring attention of legislators & taxpayers.
Anyone know when this was or will be published. I did not see it in print, but perhaps I missed it.
This story highlights the stream of corruption in the charter industry. It is an endless pay to play scheme on many levels that diverts money from legitimate accountable public schools and squanders public funds that are funneled into the pockets of opportunistic profiteers. This story also illustrates the failure of government that often gives charters preferential treatment and easy access to funds with little to no accountability. Privatization is a system that allows wealthy backers use their wealth to compromise local officials. When are elected leaders going to start supporting legitimate, well resourced public education for all? We are wasting far too much money on failed privatization while the public schools that serve the most students are starving.
“We didn’t envision organizations like KIPP coming in,” he said. “We envisioned that charter schools were going to be community-based … to reflect the needs of the community and the parents. They’ve become much more institutional, much more corporate than the original concept of the legislation.”
Ah, yes, the fabled “original intent” of charter schools. The go-to excuse.
Next they need to ask whether the national chains move funding between schools and states. If so, that promises to be a rude awakening for the public.
DeVos takes a lot of heat, and deservedly so, but the complete lack of oversight of federal dollars to charter schools can be laid squarely on Arne Duncan.
He couldn’t shovel federal funding out the door fast enough to build these schools.
They increase it every year too, while they decrease public school funding.
“Agnostic”, my foot. It’s a pro-charter, anti-public school agenda and has been since George W Bush. Nearly 20 years now.
The Chair of the CAEP Board finally added Pahara Fellow to her posted bio, at the scandal-ridden, private University of Southern California (or, as critics call it, the University for Spoiled Children). The Dean of education neglected to mention Pahara is funded by Gates and that the founder of Pahara also founded Bellwether, TFA and New Schools Venture Fund.
The question is why Board members like executives of the NEA and AFT elected her to Chair CAEP.
It looks very much as if the Parkers are bribing their way to re-approval. Clearly they have enough money to do that easily. We need better laws about what constitutes a non-profit entity, and a lot of loopholes need filling.
Men like Gates who used their wealth to create the system that allows the abuse should be held accountable by the 99% for what they’ve done.
I just got through looking at my email. My husband is on Wharton’s mailing list. I couldn’t help seeing the irony in this message from his old school after reading about scandal after scandal in the charter sector. The notice encourages him to sign up for a trip to the island to develop “partnerships” to serve Puerto Rico’s “bright” future. The meeting is called Crossroads: Investing in the Future. My cynicism totally engulfs me!
“This one-of-a-kind event zooms in on the economic and social situation in Puerto Rico in the wake of its current fiscal crisis and its recovery from damage caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Featuring academic experts from Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania as well as local economic and civic leaders, this conference is a partnership that will help drive Puerto Rico’s bright future.”
The Gates-funded Center for American Progress’ efforts in Puerto Rico are led by a former Kaplan guy. CAP’s favorite candidate is Cory Booker. Gov. Neusom’s chief of staff was formerly with CAP and advised the Silicon Valley Fund.
Disaster capitalism.
so transparently SEEN, yet still so shockingly powerful
Shame on Penn!
I think Penn is one of the universities that made a deal to accept KIPP graduates
Penn also gave us Angela Duckworth, the queen of grit.
Penn also had(has) an Arnold-funded center at the university that proclaims expertise in the economy-federal budgets, blah, blah, blah.
Until it was brought to the university’s attention (the President), there was no funder tab identifying the center’s source of largesse.
Reportedly, on April 2, the Global Philanthropy Forum, headed by Jane Wells is going to feature Charles Koch as its keynote speaker. That’s how the vulture villainthropists would thumb their noses at those who created their wealth- the 99%.
The Forum’s website has an e-mail address, info@philanthropyforum.org
Diane Ravitch is a real philanthropist. She doesn’t devise ways to make the rich richer and call it charity like Gates and Arnold do.
The oldest of our 3 daughters is a 3rd year law student at Suffolk Law in Boston, and just published this note on charter schools in the Suffolk Journal of Trial & Appellate Advocacy — the note is very technical and dense, as it should be, but very much worth the read: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.suffolk.edu/dist/1/1241/files/2019/02/Volume-XXIV-Issue-1-tstboi.pdf?fbclid=IwAR21vEdlpe5UOQQcOtzSAm-G-cDTb25-xSIwbxUXnXupamZmg28DvaURgrE
p.s. she will kill me for sharing here 🙂
Suffolk is my hero (if it’s one and the same with the school that early on distanced itself in a public way from Koch influence).
Mary Gans, we will all share with you your pride in your daughter.
Well done to both of you.
Great article. Not too dense & technical at least for this reader, & does an important service to the entire legal community by assessing a path forward in challenges to charter laws. Kudos to Perry Gans!
“Last year, Governor Jerry Brown reluctantly signed legislation banning for-profit charters (reluctantly, because he had previously vetoed similar legislation), but that has no effect on this charter chain, which is technically not for profit.”
“Technically not for profit” is exactly why all charters should be banned. There is absolutely no reason these schools are not part and parcel of the school system just like any magnet school would be. They can be run under different rules — if the school system approves — but the same people responsible for the charter are responsible for all the children in the school system.
And that means that the charter is not there to “compete” and cannot profit at the expense of other children. It can only thrive if it is doing so properly.
There are plenty of models for this in NYC — Brooklyn New School, the Children’s School. Those schools don’t try to benefit by tearing down other schools. They just do their very best to teach the children who win seats at their schools instead of trying to identify the ones they don’t want to teach and showing them the door.
Maybe we need a third name for schools that are lottery based schools that have freedom to experiment but must follow the basic regulations that protect students and taxpayers and are part of — and not separate from – the school system. Then charters can decide if they want to turn into the third type of school or not. I could imagine a school like Community Roots — which is a charter — would not be opposed to becoming a school like Brooklyn New School or Children’s School. Or if they would be opposed, I’d like to hear a clear argument for why that would be a bad thing for them.
In Los Angeles, charters like Pali High — which is more like a suburban public high school that includes choice for students who live outside their catchment area and thus is more diverse than it would have been if just a neighborhood school — could be part of that. Not called a “charter” but with a new name that distinguishes these new types of non-charter public schools where the oversight is based in the community and the school is run by the community and is part of it, not separate from it.
Absolutely agree. 15 yrs ago, our district tried out an ‘in-house’ charter for an underserved segment of the SpEd population. It only lasted 3 yrs due to a combo of insufficient enrollment & the difficulty of scheduling PT SpEd teaching assnts among different district facilities. Might have worked in a bigger city [we are only 30k pop, w/6k pubsch students]. However, it served the purpose of focusing district attention on that SpEd pop, & services were expanded in existing bldgs to better accommodate them thereafter.
Diane this is blatant but what about those that take advantage of young minds via video games, sugar, and other bad habits as they concoct their recipes for addiction in the shadows. Good will toward fellow humans is being sold out by the ton not only in the situation above, but in more subtle ways every day in our public schools. From apps to Smart Boards – from I-pads for kindergarten to Fortnight. Even plastic Lego leads a young mind into crappy movies – as does the whole Marvel – Manure Universe. A tsunami of shit – that parents must deal with – and public schools in many cases play right along with.
and so many parents not only deal with it but actively encourage it
I’m speechless, flabbergasted, except to be able to thank the LA Times. My goodness! I am floored.
The LA Times are like an octopus that changes it’s appearance to camoflage itself from it’s prey.
It’s still the same old octopus with it’s tentacles wrapped around the public schools.
well said
SDP,
Like the Washington Post and The NY Times (even the Wall St Journal on most days), you have to make a distinction between the news writers and the editorial page. In my experience, the journalists play their stories straight. But the editorial pages fawn over school Choice and never say a negative word about charters.
I am going to comment and I have not read the article above ! , just a few of the comments. After reading Diane`s blog for a few years – we here all know what is up … like I have said before – charters are set up for fraud, you would have to be stupid to not commit fraud it is too easy but… The general public for the most part is not aware of the machinations behind charter schools. It takes awhile to explain it . I would like to see our narrative out there so thinking people will understand. How do we do this ? Just asking.
C,
It’s happening. The public is waking up. The media are waking up. Deregulation is an invitation to fraud. And many grifters are accepting the invitation.
Was that a young Eli Broad making an appearance at the very end?
The LA Times series is going to throw the public a few bones, exposing a couple beyond the pale examples of charter fraud.
Shining a light on a few bad apples is simply deflection. The editors and publishers of the LA Times are ardent charter supporters and will not be calling for increased scrutiny of the largest charter chains. In fact, I’ll lay 2-to-1 that they will finish their series with a positive expose of Green Dot, or some other organization.
I agree.
By reporting on a few fraud cases, they are surely trying to get across the idea that charters already face close and serious scrutiny and that the fraudulent ones are already being shut down.
In other words, No further regulations are needed.
I totally disagree. Writing about fraud and profiteering in the charter industry demonstrates the need for legislative change and regulation!
The second article in the series, which I will post, shows how rural districts take advantage of loopholes in the law to make money while authorizing substandard charters in other districts that don’t want them. A flat-out documentation of the need for reform of the charter law.
posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-a-couple-worked-charte-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Expose_Millionaires-190329-35.html#comment729245
with this comment which has links a the bob address.
BTW, YOU should become a member of this new-site, which is source for Real news, with an enormous readership. Then you could comment and add your voice to articles posted by me and Carl Peterson about the war on education and the fraud…o you could post your own clinks (Greg, Christine, and all of you who follow education)
If the PEOPLE DO NOT BEGIN TO TALK IN VISIBLE PLACES about the grand theft and utter destruction, then nothing changes. This is a great teacher’s room, where educators share experiences… BRING OTHER PEOPLE HERE!!! I try.
posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-a-couple-worked-charte-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Expose_Millionaires-190329-35.html#comment729245
with this comment which has links at the above address.
.California: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in the Charter Sector
“This is so easily accomplished. You see, there are almost SIXTEEN THOUSAND separate school systems in FIFTY states, and most folks I meet do not know what is afoot in the district next door, let alone the schools in their own districts!” Here is a link to my series at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
Maligned in the media as ‘failing,’ so many school systems are ripe for conquering with ‘policies’ issued by legislatures, with not an educator on board https://dianeravitch.net/?s=legislatures
The corruption is mindboggling. A Layman’s Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement https://tultican.com/2018/09/09/a-laymans-guide-to-the-destroy-public-education-movement/
Get the NPE Newsletter and follow the GRAND THEFT of taxpayer money and the utter demolition of public education in America. http://networkforpubliceducation.org/topics/newsletters/
BTW, YOU should become a member of this new-site, which is source for Real news, with an enormous readership. Then you could comment and add your voice to articles posted by me and Carl Peterson about the war on education and the fraud…o you could post your own clinks (Greg, Christine, and all of you who follow education)
If the PEOPLE DO NOT BEGIN TO TALK IN VISIBLE PLACES about the grand theft and utter destruction, then nothing changes. This is a great teacher’s room, where educators share experiences… BRING OTHER PEOPLE HERE!!! I try.