The board of the Imagine charter school in Sarasota decided to fire Imagine by a vote of 5-0 and take charge of managing the school, renamed Sarasota Prep. The board had been paying an annual management fee of $890,000 to the Imagine corporation, which is a for-profit charter chain.
The CEO of the charter school, Justin Matthews, announced to the staff that Imagine was no longer in charge.
But then things got more interesting, after the CEO sent this email:
“The almost 1 million dollars per year that was previously paid to our former Educational Management Organization (EMO), Imagine Schools, INC. will now be used directly to enhance our school’s program,” he wrote.
“In response, Imagine Schools sent its own email out to parents that said Matthews was placed administrative leave and the charter school’s board did not have the authority to leave.
“As we return to school on Tuesday, I believe it’s important to reassure you that your school and your child’s teacher remain full-fledged members of our Imagine Schools family. We are the parent company of Imagine North Port and not a management company to your campus. This means we have been here from the beginning, partnering with parents, community leaders, and the local Board to found this school. We have taken on long-term and multi-million dollar financial commitments to support Imagine North Port,” wrote Rod Sasse, executive vice president at Imagine Schools in Sunrise. “…On Friday, February 15, 2013, the local Imagine North Port board expressed an intention to sever affiliation with Imagine Schools. There are several fundamental misunderstandings in the Board’s belief that they have the legal ability to make such a decision and we are working to address and positively resolve this with the Board members.”
Who owns the charter? Imagine or the board? Who’s in charge? Can the board fire the management company?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So if you pull the parent trigger and sell your school to a charter company, you have to go through litigation to try to get it back? And people want to do this?
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The trigger only fires in one direction: privatization
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If parents and teachers use the “Trigger” properly they can lock out the privatizers and run it themselves. Think outside of the box for the “Outcome” you want for your community and children. You set the discussion, do not let them do that.
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I think George may be on to something.
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Thanks Ken. We do not have more money, we must out think them.
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George and Ken – think about what schools the Trigger will be pulled on. It will not be the schools where the parents are organized, knowledgeable and wealthy enough to make a difference. They would already have “fixed” their school.
The trigger is going to be pulled on schools in low socioeconomic areas where low-information parents can be buffaloed. You just gave an educational HMO a free campus. Remember HMOs? The less you provide, the more you make.
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Problems like this should help the public understand that the “education reform” movement is about money more than anything else.
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The question should be “Who is in charge of this “Public School?” Charters are supposed to be public aren’t they? The word public defines whose school it really is.
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I seem to remember reading about a court decision that made clear that charter schools were not “public schools” and not, therefore, obliged to observe pubic school equity expectations. A subsequent warning was issued to parents of kids in charters to look out for their kids Constitutional rights, because the charter school didn’t have to.
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So if the board is dissatisfied with the management company, then they should be able to fire it or refuse to pay its exhorbitant fee. The question is, what does the school get for that huge outlay of money and is it worth it? That money would buy a whole bunch of supplies and field trips. This sounds like a wonderful way to get rid of for-profit charters.
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I was part of 3 closing schools run by Imagine Schools, and each time the lives of all the staff, parents and students were disrupted. Uncertainty, suspicion and torn loyalties lingered in the air for months or longer as one management company was left to complete the school year while another prepared for the takeover. Many teachers lost jobs and many families were left confused. Worst of all, the quality of life and education for students suffered. This is not just about Imagine Schools since many education management companies face board renewal and power struggles, but this has become too common. Imagine Schools may really believe in empowering parents and providing choice and better educational alternatives, but the existing structures too often setup a community destined for strife and failure. We really need stable schools where true community can grow and be reflected in the educational climate. I believe we can and should provide some degree of choice and parental involvement while also preserving the classic neighborhood school. Do you? I hope we can figure out how to get that.
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And THAT’s why the life of the true, community PUBLIC school needs to be maintained, and why public schools (and not charters) are the heart and soul of American education. Use the money (and get rid of the $$$ testing, as well, using THAT money directly for the students) for hiring more social workers and counselors at schools, for maintaining school libraries and for keeping class sizes
within normal limits (class size matters!). Education has been for sale and, in so doing, has caused chaos and misery for children, parents, communities and teachers. And, I’m quite certain, this will be well-explained in Diane’s new book. And, BTW, in REAL, old fashioned public schools, there IS parent involvement. Ever hear of the P.T.A.? How about something as basic as a Local School Council, or a community organization that becomes involved in the neighborhood school?
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I couldn’t agree more. Public schools have struggled and failed in some areas, but that doesn’t mean the basic model is wrong. Detroit schools have been awful for years, but look at the underling social and economic problems. We need to address root causes in the community instead of implementing market solutions where the market is clearly not working equitably already. We do need to keep resources close to home. Small neighborhood schools and districts with democratically elected school boards can work.
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If you consider all that gets paid to middle management and coaches and … in urban districts, you have a decent idea of where that money goes. We’re paying the same thing, we just have people who pretend to know what they are doing instead of having some outside corporation take the money. It’s a waste either way.
In my district, only about half of the money allocated per student makes it to the school. The other half goes to people who are paid to make our lives miserable, and aren’t very good at much else.
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Hi, Wilbert. You’re right about those people who make our lives miserable. I used to call them the clipboard police but now they’re the tablet enforcers.
About charters & the $ – I know a counselor who switched from a charter to a public school this year. She lamented that she missed the higher salary at the charter school. Really? I was under the impression that salaries were lower in charter schools for the people who actually do the work. Apparently not. She said that each teacher negotiates his/her salary. Counselors are in big demand, I guess. Yet, she said the improved working conditions at the public school more than make up for the charter way of life. Since it’s no picnic in the public school system the charter’s got to be awful.
What’s bad for the teachers is worse for the children.
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I was part of 3 closing schools run by Imagine Schools, and each time the lives of all the staff, parents and students were disrupted. Uncertainty, suspicion and torn loyalties lingered in the air for months or longer as one management company was left to complete the school year while another prepared for the takeover. Many teachers lost jobs and many families were left confused. Worst of all, the quality of life and education for students suffered. This is not just about Imagine Schools since many education management companies face board renewal and power struggles, but this has become too common. Imagine Schools may really believe in empowering parents and providing choice and better educational alternatives, but the existing structures too often setup a community destined for strife and failure. We really need stable schools where true community can grow and be reflected in the educational climate. I believe we can and should provide some degree of choice and parental involvement while also preserving the classic neighborhood school. Do you? I sure hope we can figure out how to get that.
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Do you have any idea what services were provided by Imagine that warranted the $1,000,000 a year? They have 70 schools. Does that mean they are making $70,000,000 a year? Holy Cow!!!!
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Education management companies do generate a lot of revenue–no doubt about it. I didn’t really understand at the time, but the worldview and politics of an EMO really do matter. The greatest service often provided is the attempt to sustain privatized education. (Clearly it’s not working.) So, essentially the philosophy and yes management is the service. Some regional administrators are paid by the organization, supplies and of course often buildings are financed too. Grade and record programs, testing services and professional development might be administered, but one predominant philosophy is to let the market work. Some resources supplies and expertise are certainly provided, but on-site administrators are usually given great flexibility with curriculum and salaries all while being encouraged to produce a healthy bottom line.
I do believe many Imagine Schools people believe they are doing good, but sadly as we have seen, education can not function effectively when being managed by conventional market principles.
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Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
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This kind of chaos is reform? Are they forgetting THAT CHILDREN ARE INVOLVED?
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you would say I’m a dreamer….
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But I’m not the only one…
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This school needs a “reverse trigger” law to turn it over to the public district. These schools are nothing but a cash cow to the EMO
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Sir Michael Barber, Pearson chief education adviser and education reformer magnate, has initiated the infiltration of for-profit charter schools in developing nations with contributions from Pearson in the hopes of being able to sell its shares at a profit in the future. The data, at least what is published on the Pearson website, have proven that the privatized schools are providing a quality education for the poor in addition to making profits. How? Keith Somerville provided Barber the opportunity to elaborate on the implementation of his plan for Africa. His refusal to answer a hard line of questioning is probably not surprising, but it is certainly enlightening and worth the read.
http://ksafricajournalism.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/pearson-aims-to-establish-for-profit-schools-for-poorest-in-africa/
So where does that leave us in NY? Correlation does not equal causation; however, one can see the potential rationale. Desired results in countries that redefine poverty suggest that the results of neo-imperalist for-profit schools in the US will render even greater results among the economically disadvantaged. Educators are no longer stakeholders. We have even been assigned the duties of generating the data of our own obsolescence with the teacher evaluation process. Counter-paradigmatic, counter-revolutionary, counter-intuitive, counter-clockwise, high-stakes testing inherently demands dollars. Pearson revenues will be exponential – yes, they will actually become preposterously more profitable than they already are – and the collateral damage of high stakes testing and profiteering of a foreign corporation to our own future citizens raises larger questions. If we have released the reigns of educating our own children to a non-indigenous corporate empire, then who will they be? How fitting that our own unwillingness to adequately invest in the education of our greatest resource, our children, will in the future create an even greater abyss between the “classes.” It’s time to pause before we jump into the inexhaustible fire. It’s time to reinvent ourselves and allow temporary fear and doubt to regress. It’s time to trust that we do have the ability to take educate children, not profit margins. This is not a state issue, nor is it a national issue. Is is a global initiative. Pause. Evaluate. Unite.
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