An earlier post reported that officials in Oregon are trying to recover $20 million from two Oregon charter founders. A reader in Oregon added the following information:
In 2010, AllPrep academies, Oregon’s home-grown charter founded by educational entrepreneur Tim King (a former North Clackamas School District teacher) began having financial problems. A decade previously, King founded three charter schools in that district: New Urban High, Clackamas Middle College and Clackamas Web Academy. In 2008, he left to start the AllPrep and other charter schools in a half-dozen small districts across the state, from Sheridan to Estacada to Sisters to Burns.http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2010/05/allprep_charter_school_network.html
In 2009, Whitney Grubbs (then dissemination grant coordinator for Clackamas Web Academy) wrote this opinion piece in the Portland Tribune.
http://portlandtribune.com/component/content/article?id=51075
“As controversy surrounding the proper role of on-line education in Oregon’s K-12 system began to mount, Clackamas Web Academy principal Brad Linn knew what he had to do. ‘I was very confident that we had a great program that was serving the needs of a diverse group of kids in our community, ‘ said Linn, a first-year principal. ‘But I knew if we really wanted people to stand up and take notice of our small charter school, we had to improve our test scores.’ ”
King’s legacy still exists with Clackamas Web Academy. The Oregonian puts their test scores in the bottom tier.
http://www.edline.net/pages/Clackamas_Web_Academy
http://schools.oregonlive.com/district/North-Clackamas/
http://schools.oregonlive.com/school/North-Clackamas/Clackamas-Web-Academy/
Director of Head Start in Portland since 1975, Ron Herndon wrote one year ago, “follow the money.” As the governor’s ill-advised proposal became law, we must “keep tabs on how many ’30 pieces of silver’ and well-connected committee members are rewarded from state coffers.”http://portlandobserver.com/2012/01/proven-educators-not-called-upon/
Whitney Grubbs, a former Stand for Children team leader and an attorney, had already advanced up the ranks. She is Governor Kitzhaber’s P-20 policy advisor under Dr. Rudy Crew, Kitzhaber’s appointed Chief Education Officer, who heads the Oregon Education Investment Project and replaced our elected State Superintendent of Education.
http://dasapp.oregon.gov/statephonebook/display.asp?agency=12100&division=12105
For more:http://www.facebook.com/OregonSaveOurSchools/posts/462571257118317
Diane Ravitch's blog 
More of the Peter Principal. The worst rises to the top. This is politics in America today. It must stop or we are finished. We need the best, most honest and smartest leading us not the worse sell outs who will do anything for a few dollars more.
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Oh wow. I live in Burns. In 2010 when my daughter was a senior, myself and a dozen other parents discovered that the charter school listed them as students–and received state funding for them– even though our kids went to the regular high school and had never taken a class with the charter school. I was soooooo angry.
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¿Dónde está José cuando las fuerzas de las escuelas charteras lo necesitan?
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3 firms hired to try to figure out mess in integration district program, How much do you suppose this will cost the taxpayers?
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/189294941.html
The board of the West Metro Education Program has placed its superintendent on administrative leave while a complaint against him is investigated.
Superintendent Daniel Jett, 68, will be paid at his annual rate of more than $163,000 while the complaint is investigated, according to Ann Goering, an attorney advising the board of the 11-district integration school district.
Jett did not respond to e-mails and phone calls Thursday seeking comment. On Wednesday night, the board voted to hire three firms to assist it during the investigation of the complaint.
Goering said that Antoinette Johns, a former Brooklyn Park superintendent, will start Monday in Jett’s role for the district until the School Exec Connect firm finds a longer-term substitute. “This may be a little longer than a few days,” Goering said.
The board also hired a firm to investigate the complaint against Jett and a law firm to advise the board on issues related to that investigation. Jett worked for six years as superintendent of the Minnetonka district and has headed the integration district since 2003. He was granted only a one-year extension of his contract when the board last acted on that.
The two-school district was launched to help promote integration of student populations between Minneapolis and 10 suburban districts. It also provides training to teachers and students in intercultural issues and has run a program that allows low-income Minneapolis students to attend suburban schools.
The investigation involving the Jett complaint follows one in which a complaint against Kevin J. Bennett, principal of the two schools, was investigated. Goering said interviews have been completed in that investigation.
STEVE BRANDT
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Joe,
To answer your first question. Probably less than KIPP spends on marketing and advertising in a month!
Pointing out the foibles of a few public employees does not a case make to discredit public education. To me the best way to view this public vs private/charter school “foible rate” would be “what is the percentage of each group that has foible problems?” My guess is that the private/charter group would have quite a lot higher percentage, but until one does an actual study we won’t know for sure so my conclusion has to be correct-ha ha. Now if I only had the money to repeat that over and over and over and over to the media so that it magically becomes the truth, just like the escuelas charteras sound machine has done in tooting their own horn.
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If you are a uniter of both sides as you claim, why is it you never respond to the text of the post, but usually just log a similar case where the public school system was just as incompetent?
As if that makes the example above understandable or better.
You claim to want improvements in all schools, but you quite obviously favor the charter version. You are here to defend the non traditional quasi publics.
Please don’t tell us about Saturday again and all your great work (tooting your own horn). Try not to deflect.
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Actually, Linda, I don’t “claim” to improvements in district and charters. We work on this daily. Clearly that really gets to you & some others.
I’m here to see if there are people who want to work together. Yes there are, and I appreciate those of you who have contacted me to discuss, for example, the promotion of music education, helping students creation You-Tube videos on various subject. or the creation of new schools, whether district or charter. Others interested can write joe@centerforschoolchange.org
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Quite simply, you are here to promote yourself. I don’t buy your schtick. Work with kids directly and be a bit more humble. They are a very good judge of character. No response is needed.
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The difference is that in a public district there are enough people who can blow the whistle on cheats and thieves. In the charter barely any accountability exists. It is a legal money grab. There will always be cases of human failure. The problem with charters is that the boards are phony and a CEO works in an office free from checks and balances. He is a dictator who rules with impunity and legally loads his money full of taxpayer money. Stop defending a corrupt system. If you really love the idea of charters you would fight to put an end to it all. The beef is that it is a legalized con game.
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Nothing like sweeping generalizations, is there, Dee Dee? “the problem with charters is that the boards are phoney and tha a CEO works in an office free from checks and balances. He is a dictator who rules with impunity and legally holds his money (?) full of tax payer money.”
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Since this concerns you, ask your “reformer” friends to not make sweeping generalizations about all public schools as well. Thanks Joe.
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We agree completely on that, Linda. Like you, I can encourage others but I can only take responsibility for what I do.
Although you’ve said you don’t want to hear any more about what I do, I do write regularly about good things happening in district schools.
I think if we had more people open to learning from each other, the students would benefit.
While this piece is oversimplified, what Taft (district) High School in Cincinnati did is terrific. We have brought people in from this and another terrific Cincy (district) high school to work with district & charter public schools.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/PersonOfWeek/principal-turns-school-student-time/story?id=13166519
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Did you see in the article where it defined his salary? You’d never know how much a charter CEO makes because it is private. The board wouldn’t do anything because it is full of the CEOs flunkys etc. Joe. Don’t you think that is wrong?
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Joe, public schools have nothing to learn from charters. I believe in the last CREDO study Mirron made the point that charters were supposed to be able to innovate. He pointed out that that never happened due to RTTT and NCLB basically put a stranglehold on the schools. They had to tighten their curriculum and chase test scores. There is nothing to learn. What would a school that can;t keep staff members have to teach public schools with stable staff and superior curriculum?
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Fortunately there are educators who are willing to learn from each other.
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Yes, Joe we know. We do it E V E R Y D A Y! We live it. We breathe it. We ARE it.
You have not cornered the market on creativity, collaboration and innovation.
Good things happen everyday in many, many public schools.
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