Ben Joravsky, one of Chicago’s best writers on politics and education, describes here the refusal of the UNO charter chain to release financial information to the public.
He writes:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel keeps telling us that Chicago’s school system is too broke to adequately fund the schools it already has, but that hasn’t stopped him from gearing up to open as many as 21 new charter schools in the next two years.
The mayor likes to say that he’s all about improving the choices available to parents. But before he hands the charters another nickel of our tax dollars, allow me to make a humble suggestion: How about making them disclose how they spend the money we give them, so that parents and other citizens can make even better choices?
This suggestion comes to mind thanks to the ongoing litigation pitting Dan Mihalopoulos, ace investigative reporter for the Sun-Times, versus the United Neighborhood Organization, a charter school empire with 16 schools.
Folks, this is a championship bout. Mihalopoulos’s determination to force UNO to reveal how it’s spent tens of millions of public dollars is matched only by UNO’s determination to keep that information secret.
I only wish they were teaching the details of this fight in high school civics classes—charters included—so that the leaders of tomorrow could learn how Chicago really works.
UNO is Chicago’s largest charter chain. Its founder, Juan Rangel, was co-chairman of Rahm Emanuel’s campaign committee.
Governor Quinn and the Illinois legislature gave UNO $98 million to build more charter schools.
After the news broke that some of that money was funneled to corporations owned by family, friends, lobbyists, and other politically-connected individuals, the state money was put on hold.
First, UNO’s chief operating officer stepped down; then just weeks ago, Rangel resigned.
The reporter Dan Mihalopoulos of the Sun-Times has been trying to gain access to UNO’s financial records, but he has been stone-walled.
You see, UNO is actually contracting with another corporation which is contracting with the city and the state. Both share the same offices, the same board of directors.
So, you see, the UNO charters are not public schools, they are schools operated by contract with the city and state and have no obligation to tell the public how public dollars are spent.
Ergo, the UNO charters are using the same defense used by charters in federal courts and before the NLRB. They are not public schools. They have no reason to be transparent.
Got that?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As I discuss here, no matter how hard state legislatures try to escape charter schools’ obligations to follow federal civil rights laws, they are still considered public schools obligated to follow those law. http://systemschangeconsulting.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/wisconsin-charter-school-bill-exacerbates-failure-to-serve-students-with-disabilities/
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So let me get this straight. It is sometimes or often the case that—
Student rights, parent rights and worker rights are different in charters than in public schools.
Parent, students and teachers in charters can be required to politically lobby and publicly demonstrate on their bosses’ orders while this is prohibited in public schools.
Inexperienced poorly trained teaching staff are preferred by charters over the higher-paid experienced educators in public schools especially when it comes to the most at-need students.
Detention rooms [aka time-out cells aka isolation pens aka gulag units] that wouldn’t be permitted in public schools are permitted in charters.
Principals in charter schools are allowed however much time they please off from their required [and paid] work days in order to garner person $tudent $ucce$$.
But because charters receive public funds [in addition to $$$$ from other sources] they are—
Public schools. Just like any other.
¿?
“The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.” [Mark Twain]
😎
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Student rights under federal law are the same whether students attend district or charter public schools. State law can not over-rule federal laws.
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Joe, you mean that KIPP Star in Washington Heights, NYC, can’t lock little children in a padded closet and call it a calming room?
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As I said, public schools, including charters, must follow federal laws. They must also follow provisions of state laws.
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Funny, Joe, in New York state, it is against the law to lock children in a closet, whether padded or not.
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Federal regulations re students with disabilities cover both district & charter public schools. Some info hear from US Dept of Ed. http://ed.gov/offices/OCR/archives/charterqa/chardisab.html
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I posed the same question to my state rep about the Imagine Charters in my city, Melbourne, Fl. I was told to ask the local school board. That did not make too much sense because Imagine has several charters through out the state. Citizens really need to know what is going on with their tax dollars!
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If you were to ask your local school board, they would tell you to ask your state rep. And ’round and ’round she goes. What, you thought elected officials were supposed to answer to the people? What a quaint notion.
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This is also an issue in Ohio. David Brennan – many charter schools – no transparency – lobbies for laws to make sure that charters don’t have to open their books. He is very influential in Republican politics, very wealthy and apparently very powerful too…..His schools are NOT performing well in Ohio.
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Do we require private colleges and universities that receive federal tax dollars to reveal all of its financial information to the public?
Do we require a private construction company that is hired by a school district to build a new school to reveal all of its financial information to the public?
In Arizona, teachers and administrators can retire and get ‘re-hired’ by the same district as a contract employees via a third party contracting firm. Do we require that this contracting firm reveal all of its financial information to the public?
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We absolutely should. The waste we would find would probably be enough to balance the budget.
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Cynthia Weiss,
All public schools are required to disclose their financial records and to be accountable for the expenditure of every dollar.
You are making the point that charter schools and virtual schools are not public schools.
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But not the financial records of the third parties that public school districts hire. Nothing stops a public school district from hiring outside educators or education services (as they do in AZ and also happens in many states for special education services), but there is no requirement for financial disclosure from these outside providers.
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No, Cynthia, you cannot demand the contractor’s records but you can request that the district justify the expense and explain for what the district pays them.
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“But not the financial records of the third parties that public school districts hire.”
So are you arguing that UNO is basically a subcontractor to CPS?
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“You are making the point that charter schools and virtual schools are not public schools.”
You don’t seem to be following. A public school district IF it wanted to, could outsource all the teachers and administrators to a third party. That third party would not be subject to disclosure. District schools already do this in a limited way via things like online course offerings and special ed services.
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If UNO didn’t have its construction grant and its per pupil payments, it would not be able to run its schools. The money to build its schools came from the state of Illinois. The per pupil payments come from taxpayers in the city of Chicago and in the state. In other words their entire budget, with the exception of donations, is derived from tax dollars. Why shouldn’t the taxpayers get an accounting of how this money is spent?
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“Why shouldn’t the taxpayers get an accounting of how this money is spent?”
For the same reason you will not get the financial records of the construction company that built that shiny new school. The school is choosing to hiring for those outside services and the third parties are not subject to disclosure.
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Cynthia, you are reinforcing the point that charter schools are not public schools. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
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Many of us support yearly outside audits, available to the public of all public schools.
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Cynthia, the request is for UNO’s payments to lobbyists, auditors, legal consultants and media spokespeople as well as UNO employee salaries and bonuses and copies of Juan Rangel’s school credit card bills.
The money for those lobbyists, auditors, legal consultants, media spokespeople and employee bonuses came from Illinois taxpayers. The taxpayers have a right for transparency in how this money is spent.
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The questions you are asking are broad, and the answers vary wildly from state to state. Speaking as one with some experience in industrial purchasing for public as well as private clients: although a private company receiving public funds may not have to disclose “all” its financial records, it is common that such a company (or private institution) is subject to auditing of those records which reveal how the public monies are spent. Whether or not such laws are enforced is a political matter.
Arizona’s laws with regard to charters accepting public monies are notably lax. While the state requires, for example, that such organizations abide by state purchasing procedures, exemptions are handed out right & left; here is an article suggesting that the proliferation of exemptions supports cronyism, nepotism & worse: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20121016insiders-benefiting-charter-deals.html
If private ed consultants are accepting public money yet don’t allow the state to track the money they receive (supposedly because ‘private corps are not subject to financial disclosure’), they have presumably received an exemption from the state. That doesn’t mean his or the above practice is legal, or right, or justified under the law. More likely it indicates that politics in Arizona allows these companies to skirt the law, probably because other laws allow corporate lobbies to pay off & influence the manner in which state laws are [not] enforced.
On the national scene, we see how 501c3 organizations break the law daily by expending tax-exempt dollars to influence how laws are written, or [not] enforced. It is not that 501c3 law allows non-disclosing non-profits to peddle political influence. The law just makes it easy for that to happen. As with the non-enforcement of Arizona laws protecting taxpayers, the 501c3 law is engineered in such a way that taxpayers have little resort but to sue apparent abuse, which takes years and lots of money; meanwhile the corporations make hay while they can.
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Surely you are not defending the ability of a sham “management” company to hide the expense of public dollars. This is an unbelievable racket. It is a crime that a “company” can hide the use of tax dollars from the public. The charters are nothing but cash cows. This type of “management” should be illegal because it allows a private entity to fill its pockets full of tax dollars without reporting the usage to the public that provided the tax dollars.
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I owe thanks to the owner of this for reminding me that I forgot something in my above comments—
It is increasingly apparent that often charter school financial accounts are not open to public scrutiny as are public school financial accounts.
This simply reinforces, like a steel trap that has slammed shut, the often-made assertion that charter schools act, and are treated just like, other public schools. In other words, charter school = public school, charter school aka public charter aka public school, charter school is just another name for a public school.
Constant repetition with slightly different wording proves this point beyond a shadow of a doubt!
Or does it?
The cognitive dissonance is hurting my head…
😕
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“The cognitive dissonance is hurting my head. . . ”
Time for a favorite adult beverage, eh!!
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One of the hundreds of lobbying groups pushing cheap “blended learning” for working and middle class kids celebrating the fact that they successfully captured state legislators in GA:
“This thoughtful plan challenges the state to fully embrace competency-based education and blended learning models. It has three main areas of focus: infrastructure needs, digital content and courses, and an increased emphasis on blended and competency-based learning. While deserving of national attention for the breadth of its vision in providing a roadmap to improve education in Georgia, the execution of this plan must avoid timidity and take bold steps to truly see the desired gains.”
– See more at: http://www.digitallearningnow.com/blog/learning-takes-the-lead-in-georgia/#sthash.wfcVXoT4.dpuf
Ed reformers are selling “blended learning” dishonestly.
As the lobbying group explains, it’s about replacing live courses with online courses.
Why can’t they sell this stuff honestly? The whole “individualized learning” slogan is a cover for selling kids cheap online courses.
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And Georgia has soooo much extra money to put enough computers and internet access in every school, and every home….
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Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
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