The Sun-Sentinel in Florida published a scathing series about charter school scandals, made possible by lax laws and almost no supervision.
“Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.
“A recent spate of charter-school closings illustrates weaknesses in state law: virtually anyone can open or run a charter school and spend public education money with near impunity, a Sun Sentinel investigation found.
“Florida requires local school districts to oversee charter schools but gives them limited power to intervene when cash is mismanaged or students are deprived of basic supplies — even classrooms.
“Once schools close, the newspaper found, districts struggle to retrieve public money not spent on students.
“Among the cases the newspaper reviewed:
• An Oakland Park man received $450,000 in tax dollars to open two new charter schools just months after his first collapsed. The schools shuttled students among more than four locations in Broward County, including a park, an event hall and two churches. The schools closed in seven weeks.
• A Boca Raton woman convicted of taking kickbacks when she ran a federal meal program was hired to manage a start-up charter school in Lauderdale Lakes.
• A Coral Springs man with a history of foreclosures, court-ordered payments, and bankruptcy received $100,000 to start a charter school in Margate. It closed in two months.
• A Hollywood company that founded three short-lived charters in Palm Beach and Collier counties will open a new school this fall. The two Palm Beach County schools did not return nearly $200,000 they owe the district.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Of course. That is the point exactly. The laws are tweaked or circumvented for all of this to happen, so the friends of Jeb Bush and his “excellence” organization can MAKE PROFITS off the taxpayers. TFA has a hand in this as well, circumventing regulations and laws, lobbying to get “highly qualified” to include its scabs (meanwhile, certified teachers must jump through hoops to get certified and qualified, and must go to the back of the line behind promised jobs to the TFA scabs). This is why TFA places “leaders” strategically in education to break the law, rewrite the law, circumvent the law – so they can profit off the backs of taxpayers.
Perhaps THAT is the very defense, or perhaps the offense, that teachers and their unions ought to take in a lawsuit. Perhaps in fighting the next upcoming Vergara lawsuits, all of this should come in a counter suit against TFA, Broad Superintendents, and the like.
Its high time the people took back our government. Our elected officials have flown the coop and lost their minds cowtowing to their billionaire masters.
“They” are in a hurry to close “failing” schools so their cronies can open them up, and mind you, they lock stock barrel close a k-8 school, and their cronies open up a k-3 school, adding a grade each year for 5 more years. What a crock. This is choice? What happens to the 4-8 graders who get displaced? Well, they don’t care. Needs to stop. Laws need to be enacted for accountability, and stricter laws need to come into play to STOP the charters. But you know what happens when people try to stop the charters? The governor takes away local oversight, gives it to the State, and then he approves the charters that his masters want. This happens over and over. Needs to stop.
In the aftermath, why are not these thieving charters sued for a return of taxpayer dollars? Where are the billionaires crying foul? Why is this not an educational travesty for the 1%ers? Oh, because they weakened the union, fired some teachers through lies and injustice, opened some schools, made some cash, and paved the way to wash/rinse/repeat this scenario over and over — until nothing is left for the kids. There will be online education for all, except theirs, cuz its the cheapest way to education “the others.” Shame on them. We need some billionaires with balls to fund lawsuits against this mayhem.
Don’t forget public university authorizers!
We just found out in MI they’re making 3% off the top on every kid who transfers out of a public school and into a charter school.
The national hobby of politically-motivated public school bashing starts to make a lot more sense when you realize how many people are personally invested in undermining and then closing public schools.
We should start calling this what it is:an anti-public school movement.
They’ve done NOTHING for existing public schools, and they’ve spent billions of dollars. I resent paying every one of them.
When we lose public schools universities will have played a central role in killing them. That story should get told.
Which do you-all think is the most corrupt ed reform state?
I can never decide. It’s either FL, PA, OH or MI but I don’t follow the western states. I know Arizona is bad.
It’s been horrifying to watch MI and PA follow FL and OH into the “most corrupt” group.
A Move Ohio Forward document was distributed in the capitol, last week. it included the following points. Traditional Ohio students receive 6.6% less in funding because of charters. The ECOT school takes students from 557 of the 638 school districts. The founder of ECOT contributed in excess of $600,000 to political campaigns and candidates.
I just received an e-mail reply from a rural public school teacher in Ohio, in response to the data. He said he is “not a strong supporter of charters” and he is a limited government guy. The question is not why public education is doomed. As cited before, Pogo had the answer.
ECOT founder just wrote a book.
In it, he lists his biggest supporters among lobbyists and lawmakers. Chester Finn is now credited for the worst public school “district” in Ohio. Hah!
I’m interested in the timing of the book, because as you know Ohio charters are finally getting some scrutiny. I’m wondering if charter profiteer released it to “name names” and remind the big shots their reputations are on the line too 🙂
The current Ohio Secretary of State is mentioned. HUGE ECOT supporter. He wants to be governor. Hopefully, this will be an issue for those lawmakers who rubber-stamped this disaster as they move on to fulfill their ambitions.
I’m voting for Nina Turner for S. of. S.. The Dayton Daily News had another charter corruption story on Wed. Thank God for reporter, Laura Bischoff.
And thank you, Chiara, for your posts, always concise and well-informed, with just the right amount of irony, sarcasm and pique
This is funny stuff. MI charters spend 300k on advertising in response to the Free Press whistle-blower series.
Your tax money. Sent right to media companies to promote privatized schools.
“It’s Day Four of the explosive Detroit Free Press exposé of Michigan charter schools and also Day Four of the National Heritage Academies complete takover of the websites of Detroit’s two biggest newspapers with a monstrous ad buy. NHA is Michigan’s largest for-profit charter corporation. Like yesterday, when you open the webpages of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News today, you’re greeted with an overwhelmingly large NHA banner ad”
I don’t know if any of you listen to the Detroit Tigers games on the radio (I do, obviously) but charters blanket baseball games with ads. It’s one right after another. They are spending TONS on media buys. Public schools have had to respond, so they are now buying space. It’s an arms race, all publicly-funded, all money that could be going to classrooms.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/06/for-profit-charter-school-corporations-detroit-media-ad-buy-now-has-a-price-tag-several-hundred-thousand-dollars.html#.U6tFrF-D5YE.twitter
What’s interesting is that the empirical evidence from a RAND study shows that Florida charter schools are graduating more kids and sending more of them to college, but that they are doing this without cream-skimming the best students. rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9433/index1.html
So if Florida tightened up its charter oversight, as does seem appropriate, charters would outperform the public schools by an even greater margin.
WT, the link you posted is for a study published in 2009. A 2013 study put out by Stanford University shows the following:
“Florida students in traditional public schools, on average, read at a higher level than those in charter schools and do just as well in math, according to the study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, released Tuesday.”
http://tbo.com/pinellas-county/florida-charter-schools-lagging-study-says-20130630/
Also http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/11/15/researcher-florida-district-schools-outperform-charter-schools-on-average/
Why do you think test scores are everything? I care more about graduation and college attendance, personally.
No matter how you look at, the reality is that test scores are being used and abused as prime indicator to make prediction for graduation and college attendance.
It’s unfortunate that stories like this never make it out of the local media. This blog is about as “national” as this story will get. You won’t see it on the national cable news networks.
As with everything, context is necessary. Yes, there are charter schools that embezzle money, violate the law, and clearly should not operate. That doesn’t mean I oppose charter schools. Traditional public schools, because there are more of them and have been around for much longer, are guilty of these same crimes in far greater quantity. That doesn’t mean I oppose traditional public schools. A good school is a good thing – charter, traditional, or private.
Chiara, you are upset about tax dollars wasted on bad charter schools. That is understandable, and I feel the same way. Traditional public schools also waste tax dollars. You also note that you resent that your money goes to people you strongly disagree with. That is also understandable. and I agree. There are many people and programs in traditional public schools that I also resent my money going to.
Jennifer, I agree with WT that you might want to think again about citing test scores as evidence. This blog points out regularly, and rightly so, that testing is unreliable and can only encompass a small portion of what a good school accomplishes. I think the same could be said about the study you refer to, WT. Numbers are fairly easy to game and results may or may not be meaningful.