The largest of Pennsylvania’s virtual charter schools is under investigation for its handling of public money. It’s offices were raided by the FBI earlier this year. It fired its top executives. The investigation continues.
Apparently the money rolled in so fast and furiously that the charter came up with ingenious ways to spend it, like sending a large number of its executives to get an online master’s degree on the public’s dime. But the lawyer for Pennsylvania Cyber Charter is not answering any questions. He seems to have forgotten that where public money goes, public accountability and transparency must follow.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All taxpayers, not just PA’s since Federal dollars are no doubt involved. Ah…the joys of charters. You get what you pay for and legislate. Wake-up folks. Time is a wasting.
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I still can’t believe I went to this school!
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Of course, this pales in comparison to the constant waste of public money in public schools. Teacher’s Unions are continually wanting longevity raises, but are not held accountable for horrible graduation rates. In NJ, only 16% of black 12 graders can read at grade level. Where’s the outrage? It certainly isn’t reformers that have created this status quo of failure. In Jersey City only 9% of high school graduates are college-ready. 19% of black students drop out. Where’s the outrage over the status quo?
I’ve found that the pro-teachers-union shills offer no real solutions except, “pay us more for doing less and don’t hold us accountable.”
It’s time for change. Rather than shrieking against charters, choice and accountability, how about coming up with some new solutions? In Jersey City, we spend almost $22,000 per student per year. For those kind of dollars we can send every kid to a private school and actually end up with educated kids instead of breeding a culture of failure and poverty.
Why are, in your opinion, the teachers unions always on the right side of every argument? Have you ever considered that they are wasting public money on a massive scale? Of course you haven’t considered that — the unions are all that matters. The education of our children falls secondary.
Public Schools aren’t a public works program. They have but one purpose — to prepare our kids for the future. If it takes charters, choice and accountability reform to make that happen — great! We should stop holding the conventional public schools as some sort of holy institution. We ought to concern ourselves only with results.
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New Jersey has one of the nation’s top performing school systems.
The cyber charters are a sham.
They are home schooling at government expense. They get horrible results.
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I am not from NJ anymore, but I find it hard to believe that Jersey City is spending $22,000 per student. I have feeling you have included operating costs as well. That figure means nothing if you are top heavy with administrators. What is the ratio of administrators to students? Teachers to students? What is the average class size in each grade? Is every class well resourced? Do the teachers supplement or buy their own supplies? Do schools typically have a library? A nurse? How many students/social worker? Music? Art? Physical education? Extra curricular activities? Sports? What is being spent on standardized testing? Where is it in the budget? I would be very suspicious about where that money is going. I would be looking at that budget line by line. At $22,000/ student, you should have some pretty nice schools.
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Shall I assume your definition of “results” is merely test scores? And all failure and all poverty stem from one institution in this country, is that what you are saying?
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Brian, how many charter school teachers have you interviewed? I have worked in two and know they are not better than regular public schools. There are a lot of teachers who do not work in unionized schools. Your comments about student drop-outs fail to blame the parents and their families. Why?? Would you let your child drop-out of school? Not do their homework? Charters exist for people to make money. Public schools waste money? Hmm. Tell me how? I really think you need to start interviewing charter school teachers because you are not living in reality.
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What else would you expect from a charter school especially a virtual one. Is this a game show or education? Obviously it is a game show. Charter schools are a bad joke on the American public. Just read the Stanford Study on the national situation and only 17% do marginally better than regular public schools. If you use the “Correction Factor” which is allowing for charter schools to avoid most ed code and local law and ordinances, cherry picking parents and students, not dealing with behavioral problems, ESL and special education charter schools now score real low on the totem pole.
An example of failure is one of the first in California Vaughn Street Learning Center run by former California State Board of Education member and so called education expert Yvonne Chan. She has had this school since about 1994 and is one of the first in California. I recently went onto the California Dept. of Education (CDE) website and looked at her school. Amazingly, her present (2010-11) API scores were only 710. Over the last 10 years they have only gone up by 20 points a year. This is nothing to brag about. In Compton the elementary scores are 800-900. In Inglewood, which was just taken over by the State of California, they are about 800. What is she bragging about? No one takes a close look at this situation. It is all about ideology and making money. After all the hedge funds are quoted as saying “We learned there is a lot of money in education and we can double our money in 7 years in charter schools instead of 12 years by using government money.” Do not forget about the profit from the rented facilities many use.
K-12 general fund revenue in the U.S this year is about $700 billion. The DOD Budget is about $642 billion. Now is this big money or not and do not the wealthiest say “We need another big revenue generator.” Just think about the scam being pulled for profit at the expense of “Real Public Education.” At LAUSD, the second largest school district in the U.S., I have never seen any charter school person at the Board of Education for all of the children only for their personal profit and agendas. Also, not one that I have talked with knows the revenue/student of LAUSD. Our superintendent, John Deasy, has a phony PHD and the board knew it before they voted him into being the superintendent as I called every board members office before the was elected. Just go onto your search engine and enter John Deasy, University of Louisville and you will see. He quits his Prince Georges County superintendents job one week after the stories broke and one week after that is hired by the Gates Foundation. Now what does that say about he ethics of the Gates Foundation? Obviously, they have none.
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When the people of Pennsylvania paid their taxes do you think they ever thought they would get conned like this?
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