I have always hoped that leaders of the charter industry would call out the frauds in their midst. Where to start? It looks like they have finally turned against the profiteering of Imagine charters. This is from politico.com:
“CRONY CAPITALISM IN THE CHARTER SECTOR? Imagine Columbus Primary Academy in Ohio plans to spend $700,000 on rent this school year. That’s more than the charter school will spend on salaries and benefits, The Columbus Dispatch reports [http://bit.ly/1yrG77D ]. The cost of rent will eat up more than half of the school’s annual state revenue. Meanwhile, Imagine Schools Inc. – one of the nation’s largest charter school operators – rakes in hundreds of thousands in public tax dollars. It’s all thanks to a complicated real estate maneuver, the Dispatch said Sunday. A subsidiary of Imagine Schools Inc., named SchoolHouse Finance, buys buildings and resells them for two or three times the purchase price. SchoolHouse Finance then leases the building from the new owner and rents the space back to Imagine. “It’s legal, but that doesn’t mean it should be,” said Greg Harris, Ohio director of StudentsFirst, an advocacy group that supports charter growth. “We don’t want charter-school operators profiting as landlords.”
– “Let’s call this what this is: Crony capitalism,” Fordham Institute President Michael Petrilli tweeted [http://bit.ly/1s7ZXzT]. At least three states and Washington, D.C. are investigating Imagine for similar practices, the Dispatch noted. One state even shuttered schools operated by Imagine. After an investigation conducted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Missouri, the state board of education shut down six schools run by Imagine in 2012. The paper uncovered real estate deals similar to the ones happening in Ohio and poor academic performance.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Odd that Imagine escaped their attention prior to this one Ohio newspaper piece, considering it’s the largest charter management company in the country and this story came out in 2010:
“The Bakkes became part of the nation’s new crop of education entrepreneurs, founding a commercial charter school company called Imagine Schools. Beginning with one failed charter school company they acquired in 2004, they have built an organization that has contracts with 71 schools in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Imagine is now the largest commercial manager of charter schools in the country.”
“But as Imagine continues to expand, it is coming under growing scrutiny from school boards and state regulators questioning how public money is spent and whether the company exerts too much control over the schools.”
One would think the charter school experts would be familiar with a huge company that runs 71 schools in 11 states and DC. I guess not.
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Off topic, but Dr. Ravitch–please check this breaking news story out! http://live.dallasnews.com/Event/Talk_DISD
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Mark, that story was posted earlier today thanks to a tip from a reader.
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Amazing! $tudent$ La$t finally, after years of “see no evil” finds a charter organization that they can rightfully throw under the bus, even if it’s only the Ohio chapter of the crony capitalist organization that’s doing it. I’m still trying to choke down the bitter irony of one bunch of crony capitalists hypocritically outing another bunch. I guess this fruit hung so low that they had to act, lest it draw undue attention to the corruptness of the entire charter sector. $tudent$ La$t needs to wake up and walk the walk as there are egregious examples like Imagine all over the place. I’ll bet anyone the cold beverage of their choice that this is the last pointed criticism from $tudent$ La$t that names names. Back to see no evil ASAP for them I’m sure.
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And now; how absolutely “courageous” that Students First and Michael Peterilli, two leading “elite” members of the Charter Industrial Complex NOW decide to “pile on” one of their former buddies and co-conspirators for just doing what ALL charters are doing, in one way or another: Maximizing their gains from the public’s hard earned taxes meant for the education of our children.
Such egregious, unethical and often illegal behavior runs rampant in Charterland. It happens with big corporate entities, with medium size companies and so called “non-profits” and little family run “community charters.
It’s the Wild West in this “No Accountability”, “No Scrutiny” Charter Territory and It will unfortunately stay that way until we wake up, shut them down, And put that money that currently makes these people rich back into our schools where it belongs.
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“Senate Education Chairwoman Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering.
She has assembled an informal working group, including state officials and outside education experts, to work on a bill she hopes to introduce by spring. She’s heard concerns about lease deals like Imagine’s that have led to schools being shut down in other states, but her panel has not yet discussed the issue.”
Maybe Chairwoman Lehner could let the public in on who those “outside education experts” are who are busy drafting Ohio law. Will their names/organizations be on her bill?
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Fordham Institute is an “authorizer” in Ohio… they proudly claim that they have the best charter in the state.
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Peggy Lehner’s lack of action led to the embarrassing and egregious things happening in Ohio. She “loves Governor Kasich.”
And, Gov. Kasich loves campaign donations.
She’s made a laughing stock out of the voters of Ohio.
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She took 5000 from Brennan (White Hat). That’s out of 300k but he’s donating as an individual and it’s in her top ten individual donors.
I wonder if we could hit these ed reform politicians in their districts by pointing out that they don’t support the local schools they (allegedly!) represent. Lehner HAS public schools in her district. Why doesn’t she support them? Did people hire her to promote charter schools?
http://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=2932624
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They are testing the public reaction to their chosen sacrificial lamb. Will the public accept this token sacrifice or is the public finally aware and angry enough to demand that the charter industry be thoroughly scrutinized.
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I always get a chuckle out of the phrase “Crony Capitalism” —
as if there were any other kind …
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Jon Awbry thank you for the good chuckle; I’m reading “Waking the Frog” that pinpoints the illusion of so called “free market” and details why the free market cannot help us with issues like Climate Change.
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Education Next is the newsletter for Fordham Institute and they push charters; they affiliate with PEPG which is , in my opinion, worse than Broad. Carol Burris left a comment on the Education Next newsletter this week…. quoting Carol’s comment:
“Carol Burris says:
10/13/2014 at 3:59 pm
Ask a NYC Catholic school leader WHY they are shutting down and they will give you a one word answer: charters.
You are correct. They are a great institution with a selfless mission.
I appended another comment (but mine always get deleted so it won’t be there long)
jean says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
10/14/2014 at 5:16 am
Catholic schools have supported communities; our priest /Monsignor operates one of the best in the state and my colleague is on the board of another very good one. People reading here need to know that “charters” are part of the “crony capitalism” and it is not what is intended by the parochial school system at all.”———————————————–In the city where I volunteered at the shelter for women and children the Principal of the parochial school was president of the shelter and 14 churches (of all denominations) worked together. Also, I think the parochial schools have NOT sold off their buildings to charters so i think this is worthy of a discussion.
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Jean,
What is PEPG?
Thanks,
Duane
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Duane: NYCity educator explains it the way I understand it….”Harvard is the currently the home of The Program on Educational Policy and Governance (PEPG), which is affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, and has notable alumni such as Michelle Rhee (whose anti-teacher and anti-labor behavior needs no introduction) and Cami Anderson (who is currently busy privatizing and charterizing NYC’s District 79/alternative high schools).
PEPG describes itself as “a significant player in the educational reform movement” that provides “high-level training for young scholars who can make independent contributions to scholarly research… foster a national community of reform-minded scientific researchers… and produce path-breaking studies that provide a scientific basis for school reform policy.” (I’ll have some more to say on the ideological basis of the pseudo-science that forms their “scientific research”)” end quote from NYCity educator
Paul Peterson –I call him Shumpeter Peterson because he believes in the destructiveness of change/reform.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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Duane:
Paul Peterson brings this theory to the work with “leaders” he trains…Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress. InCapitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), the Austrian ….”
When I make a comment I say “you can close a grocery store and the lettuce will die on the shelves…why are we doing that to children?” and of course I get some nasty remarks (National review online)…
I prefer the book “Waking the Frog” that tells the truth about the illusion of so-called “free markets” and why the “free market” is not going to help us with issues like Climate Change.
Duane, I keep referring to Wilson’s article that you posted and his term “psychometric fudge”
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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Thanks for the acronym explanation, Jean. I’m AI so I need all the help I can get when trying to figure out acronyms.
And yes, Wilson’s “psychometric fudge” is a great term. My brother and I when we were doing upholstery would talk about fudging this and fudging that in reference to something that wouldn’t fit quite as perfectly as we wanted and we’d have to “fudge” it a little to get it to fit close enough that no one other than ourselves would ever notice (much like students no piece of upholstered goods is always perfectly square, round, rounded, cut straight, fabric threads straight and even, etc. . .). And that is what the “psychometric fudge” is about, finessing terms and numbers to make them appear correct when they are not and could/should be..
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Greg Harris of Students First: “We don’t want charter-school operators profiting as landlords.”
Um, did he even read the Detroit Free Press expose on charter schools? It is THE primary way for-profit charters generate profits.
Sorry, Greg, but you’re going to have to acknowledge that the real estate leasing method is a charter standard practice.
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It really seems disingenuous to call out one charter organization when so many of these management companies are doing exactly the same thing. Then, these companies hire legislators or family members of legislators so that they can get all of the friendly legislation they want. In Utah, a senator who sponsored all kinds of charter legislation, works for the big charter management company in the state. His replacement is on the Senate Education Committee, and his son works for the same organization. And yet, no one in power, or the media, bats an eye at this.
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It’s much bigger than Ohio. From 2009:
“Imagine typically buys or leases buildings through a real estate arm, SchoolhouseFinance, and uses those properties to attract groups wanting to open charter schools that then pay to rent them.
Last year, Imagine sold 27 of its school buildings to Entertainment Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust that is the country’s largest owner of movie theaters, as part of a deal that won the company $206 million. The buildings that were sold were leased back by Imagine, which then subleased them to the schools that occupy them.
In February, the company sold seven more schools to Inland American Real Estate Trust for $61 million in a similar arrangement.”
Funnily enough, the “hook” for the school, how it’s advertised to parents, is “character-based education”
Imagine teaches children character and values 🙂
Here’s the Entertainment Properties Trust thanking Arne Duncan for their “recession-proof” business that has a “stable, state payor”
“DB: I don’t — there’s not a lost of risk, there’s probably risk to everything but the fact is, this has bipartisan support. It’s part of the Republican platform and Arne Duncan, secretary of education in the Obama administration, has been very high on it throughout their work in public education. So we have both political parties very solidly behind it, you have high demand, high growth, you have good performance across the board.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-big-business-of-charter-schools/2012/08/16/bdadfeca-e7ff-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html
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Aaaand, this morning, the Toledo Blade jumps in with a list of the Toledo Imagine rip-offs:
“The charter school Imagine School for the Arts is paying rent of nearly $1 million a year on a downtown building with the education funding it gets from the state, prompting criticism from a progressive advocacy group that studied charter-school finances around the state.
The complicated financial arrangement also involves a school-affiliated trust company spending more than $7 million last year to buy a building valued at less than $2 million.
According to ProgressOhio, Imagine Schools pays annual rent of $301,320 for the Clay Avenue Community School building, $175,464 for the Hill Avenue Environmental School, and $942,549 for the Madison Avenue School for the Arts.
In addition, all three pay a management fee to Imagine: $483,852 for Clay Avenue, $124,646 for Hill Avenue, and $608,020 for Madison Avenue.
All three had a performance index grade of D in the most recent statewide report card. The district in which those schools are located, Toledo Public Schools, had an overall performance index grade of D.”
This is all news to Ohio lawmakers. None of them have any idea where public money goes, apparently. They’re just there to shovel it out the door to any contractor that wanders up with a campaign donation.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2014/10/14/Charter-school-rent-stirs-debate.html#XYsSjGK5QPoZM3XK.99
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Chiara, please contact parent advocate Karen Miller at kmillerpta@aol.com
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I will, Diane. Thank you.
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“Imagine” (sincere apologies to John Lennon)
Imagine no regulation
It’s easy if you try
No tax below us
Above us only $ky
Imagine all the charters
Living for today
Imagine there’s no oversight
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to sweat or lie for
And no inspections, too
Imagine all the charters
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the charters will cheat as one
Imagine no prosecutions
I wonder if you can
No need for lawyers and trials
A brotherhood of scams
Imagine all the charters
Ruling all the world
You, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the charters will rule as one
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