A charter school in Sarasota, Florida, is in court over a simple question: who owns the school?
The for-profit corporation Imagine Schools says it owns the school. The board of the charter fired Imagine and says the board owns the school.
The board didn’t like paying Imagine nearly $1 million a year for its services.
Charter operators around the nation will watch to find out: Who owns this school?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What about the tax layers whose money supports the school?
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Taxpayers
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This is a very important issue. Well done contracts make it clear that it is the local charter board that has ultimate responsibility for the school. Sadly, not all contracts are well done.
As to the role of private companies in schools…for some years there were companies that were contracting with school districts to run programs. This is far from the first time it has happened. I remember Sylvan Learning, a tutoring company being given a contract here in St. Paul to run a major portion of an elementary school. Fortunately some of us pushed for an evaluation. After a few years the contract was not renewed.
Some companies deliver poor quality. Others are much better.
Public accountability for public funds is crucial.
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In Ohio, the boards of 10 charter schools are suing the management company they “hired,” because it refuses to tell the boards what it spends and how and why.
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Can any school fight for independence from a parent company or a CMO.
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The game from the beginning has been to obtain the property in their name. We have been watching that setup for a long time. Now they are launching it. We thought it would start here. Maybe there is a fight for the first to do this. Now it is not only the revenue but the tangible real property as an asset in their name. Think of this amount of money over all charter schools on their own property. Who knows if they win this one next they will go for ownership of their percentage of property when jointly located on a normal school site. After all if you got away with that one why not all the pie? If you were a Wall Street Hedge Fund manager would this not get your attention with the potential profits?
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George is right: in Florida the game for Imagine and Mavericks is to be a real estate company with education as the loss-leader. Former Florida reporters Lisa Rab and Ron Matus wrote several wonderful exposes in their respective papers.
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Citizens are waking up from their recession-induced sleep to ask, “Oh my goodness, have we given away our local school?”
Please write to your legislators to demand that all public schools, traditional or charter, remain in the hands of the public. Also, each school should have very strict oversight of taxpayer money.
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I don’t know that “sleep” is quite the right word, because it puts too much blame on us, the bottom of the heap, and it leads to finger pointing.
A very normal, usually even healthy, reaction to catastrophe (like the 2008 crash, massive job loss and rampant foreclosure) is to look inward and protect yourself and your own, even if you are not directly hit (and, of course, if you are directly hit, you’re too busy trying to survive to look outward at what’s going on).
The disaster/vulture capitalists know this, and that’s specifically why they make use of any natural disaster that conveniently presents and, in the absence of natural disasters, they create disasters themselves.
We haevn’t been “asleep”, we’ve been intentionally traumatized.
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I would guess the Imagine company can show a bill of sale if they think they own the school. And not all of us have been asleep. Some have been screaming wake up America and see what they are doing to your country. Some people have to hit bottom before they can focus on what is going on awake up to make the changes – just makes things harder to correct,.
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When I used the word “asleep” I was really speaking for myself. When did taxpayers vote to allow our schools to be privatized? I have no recollection of this happening and find it difficult to believe that citizens allowed it to happen.
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… and so the monster lashed out at its creator.
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Justin Matthews is only out for himself and no one else. He loves to be in the spotlight. How dare he put the school, students and families through this ordeal in the middle of the school year. He and his board need to be kicked out!! Now..don’t wait until May 31!!!!
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