NBC in Miami noticed that a large number of charter schools were opening and closing. Forty-nine charter schools have closed in South Florida in the past five years, with more than 40% owing money to the state. The children who enrolled in these schools were dropped with little notice and had to scramble to find a new school.
In Broward County alone, 12 charters have closed, owing $1 million in taxpayer funds unaccounted for.
Florida has more than 600 charter schools. 246 have closed in the last five years. They come, they go, the kids are left behind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When are the politicians in this country going to take the hands of these charters out of their pockets and see them for what they are. Are they wearing blinders made of money. This is getting crazy all around the country.
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“When are the politicians in this country going to take the hands of these charters out of their pockets. . . ”
When they get finished playing pocket pool. (which is never)
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I really appreciate NBC looking into this and doing some real investigative reporting. We need more investigative reporting on real issues. Thanks NBC News!
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Have we Jeb Bush to thank for this?
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I’m sure Tony Bennett had his dirty little hands in it when he was in Florida.
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Finally, a network TV station covers a story on fraudulent charter activity in Florida!
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“In Broward County alone, 12 charters have closed, owing $1 million in taxpayer funds unaccounted for.”
Gives new meaning to the oft-repeated phrase used by those starving public schools and fattening charters: “You can’t solve problems by throwing money at them.” [Just consider the infamous midyear dump; please google this blog.]
Exempt anything too-big-to-fail and manufactured wars, among others, but doesn’t make any sense when we are hit with the self-proclaimed “education reform” mantra about the existential threat posed to the US of A because of the “factories of failure” and “dropout factories” called public schools.
Ah, but when it comes to charters, have they ever considered that “you can’t solve problems by throwing money away that you don’t even know where it went or what it was used for”?
Just don’t hold your breath waiting for self-reflection, self-correction and apologies from those in the self-styled “education reform” movement. Take Antonia Hernandez, for example, director of the California Community Foundation. A huge fan of former LAUSD Supt. John Deasy—until he, er, found himself inexplicably under a bus—while he was busy firing Ms. Patrena Shankling and passionately pushing his iPad and MISIS fiascos among many other disasters, now finds herself in a quandary when faced with the inevitable results of backing an incompetent bully who created catastrophes that will harm students, parents and public school staff for many years to come—
[start quote]
“What we have right now is complete dysfunction,” said Antonia Hernandez, director of the California Community Foundation. She and other community leaders have tried to agitate for better leadership, and she thought Deasy, despite his missteps, was rattling many of the right cages.
So what next?
“We don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-1207-lopez-badyear-20141207-column.html
“We don’t know what to do anymore”?!?!?!?
That’s the response? Give up? Grab your pearls, find the nearest fainting couch, and wait for the next “maximum leader” to tell you what to do and say and think? And just what do the enablers and enforcers of the “new civil rights movement of our time” say in public about failing to gin up your “grit” and “determination”?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
Even a broken clock that doesn’t walk its own talk is right two times a day.
😎
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This post is a real winner. Unbelievable.
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We need to find a Winston Churchill of education for Ms Hernandez. “Never give up.” LA schools have many serious challenges and I don’t presume to have the answers. But the people of Coventry coped after worse events than Deasy slinking out.
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It’s just wild to read the charter management company website.
It’s so blatantly commercial.
“Newpoint operates several different school models under three primary brands as described here.”
Primary brands! It looks exactly like a hotel development company.
How one can read this stuff and continue to DENY they are privatizing and commercializing K-12 education is beyond me. They are. The obviously and blatantly are, and if anyone in Florida is still denying it they are bought off or blind.
http://www.newpointeducation.com/content/about-us
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I think it’s great that local media has started to look at charter schools, but I wish they would ask the next logical question, which is this “what does this do to the existing public schools in Florida”?
The charters are only half the story of ed reform. The other half is what ed reform has done to existing public schools. These two systems are CONNECTED.
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This is a three-part story. The third part is marketing so-called competency-based personalized learning through on-line schools–with or without any token “bricks and mortar” operation.
Ohio is about to fling open the doors to this third rail using ALEC’s model language to change operating rules.
Jeb Shrub (Mollie Ivins’ name for the Bush children) loves this. Make a fortune. One-time product development (or product “play-list” cost), low overhead, and so on.
Much of the language for this impending tsunami comes from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). One example is here. http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/course-choice-program-act/
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Gracias, Chiara, for reminding us about the negativeeffects of charters, vouchers, etc. . . on existing public community schools.
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As an FL public school teacher I can tell you both “fraud and horror” stories. For example, a charter K-8 School called Somerset SOHO (south Homestead), one of over 10 Somerset-“chain” schools. They wanted to expand to 9-12 but had no room, so they just stuck the 9th and 10th graders in the back of the 8th grade “room” (ie. portable) and made them do Virtual School. So, essentially little to no direct instruction was given to these students, they just did “internet school”. Yet, the charter school was getting funding to pay more teachers based on K-12, but few to no additional teachers were hired, because there was no space to house them.
Parents that know education are beginning to realize the fraud and deceit of many charters schools and are pulling their kids out of them. Yet, many parents like the “small and cozy” nature of charter schools, even if the pedagogy is inferior.
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the other thing you-all should know is that Newpoint, the management company in the piece, took over three White Hat schools in Ohio.
They’re replacing rip off charter management companies with OTHER rip off charter management companies. It’s now second generation rip-off.
http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/2-new-middletown-charter-schools-to-open-next-year/nXW5c/
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Here is a list the 276 charter schools that have failed in Florida
Click to access closed_charter_schools.pdf
In my home town of Jacksonville we went from 9 in 2010 to just approving our 35th and 36th a few weeks ago.
It is truly disheartening.
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Sorry, off-topic, but another one of those you-can’t-make-this-up things. Apparently Chicago is entering into a loan with Goldman Sachs, the Pritzkers and other hedge fund types for pre-k funding that incentivizes kids not going into special education. For every pre-k kid who does not get an IEP, there’s a $9,000+ reward. Who gets that reward, you might ask? Good question. Answer: the lenders. http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2014/12/rahms-pay-for-success-pre-k-program-who.html
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This was posted in a prior thread I believe. The money “saved” on remediation, cuz rigor will take the “special needs” right out of the students, will be the ROI. Amazing. You can’t make this stuff up.
All the Wall St. firms will be doing this.
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Is that legal ?
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$1 million in taxpayer money unaccounted for among 12 charter schools? One school in NC spent nearly $300,000 and was open only 4 weeks.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/11/24/5339274/documents-raise-questions-about.html#.VIXp_4VtoQ8
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What amazes me about it isn’t the money, it’s the safety issue.
They do absolutely no due diligence on these administrators, and then they fill the facilities they run with children.
They never visited that location. How do they know the charter operator is running a SAFE school (fire, other hazards) let alone a GOOD school?
He submitted nothing on financials. What did he submit on whether the school was safe for occupancy by children? Aren’t they worried that this absolute lack of oversight will result in a tragedy?
The loss of money could be the least of their problems if this reckless approach goes bad.
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I just what to ask, WHY do people keep sending their own KIDS to these charters? Wouldn’t you want better for your own children?
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Cary444: Marketing! Marketing! Marketing! Promises of college admission. Promises of high test scores. P.T. Barnum was right.
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Plus, many parents are “fearful” of larger public schools and the false perception that they don’t educate as well. So, they “run away” to a safer place, instead of working to make the local public institution better. IMO, every parent that leaves to a charter never joined the PTSA and worked to make the public school better. They want to have the right to complain and choose, but the responsibility of participation and sacrifice they shun.
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Some parents may have different preferences than Cary444, and/or their local zoned school might be more than just a soupçon of parental involvement away from being the kind of school any commenter here would send his own kid to.
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You’re saying that some parents have a preference for fly-by-night shoddy operations? Each to his own, I suppose.
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…and any public institution is only as strong, good, efficacious as the input of the stakeholders that use it and are supposed to contribute to it and support it. Any “bad” public school reflects the “badness” of the local stakeholders; in that they are unwilling to work to improve it. But instead, they complain about it and then want the “choice” to go somewhere else.
Yes, there are “bad” schools and teachers and administrators that are lazy and apathetic, but maybe that is because the participating stakeholders are not holding them accountable, working to improve it and putting effort to their discontent.
No parent should have the “right of choice” to leave a local public school for a charter, who has not first joined the PTSA and done some volunteer work. To complain without contributing is hypocrisy.
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This is a hilarious comment in light of the recent post where commenters reacted with horror to the idea of teaching minority kids “grit.”
Are you listening, families living in government-created, white-citizen-enabled hypersegregation? Rick Lapworth has some advice for you.
Sure, your schools are 100% black and/or Latino, and 100% FRPL-eligible, and they are educating far more than their fair share of your community’s or metropolitan area’s ELLs and SWDs.
Sure, it is taken for granted that we don’t hold Other People to task for exercising their “Exit” option whenever they want, however they want, without having to defend or explain themselves. Moving to a suburban district that might as well be a gated community, paying for private school, working a DOE connection, prepping for admissions tests — that’s all American as apple pie.
But you parents without money, without connections, and without time, who are stuck in a neighborhood because of the color of your skin? The buck is going to stop with you. You need to pull up those bootstraps and fix your neighborhood schools that are staffed largely by people living outside the neighborhood. Quit slacking and hop to it!
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Concerned that your kids’ high school science teacher is a creationist? Join the PTA and work to change it!
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Well FLERP and others, I appreciate your concern about me being a science teacher and a creationist, but at least you don’t have to worry about me not teaching all the facts and evidences and letting students make up their own decisions and inferences (or as the intelligent design advocates say, “go where ever the evidence leads”). No, the issue of bias, data-picking, selective inferences, and not exposing kids to the facts both pro and con for any origin model….that is what the evolutionist do. They will not, and are not, open to an open dialogue discussing all the evidence, ie. anomalous and refuting evidence, because they want a monopoly of thought, ie. their atheism forced down the throats of all.
I’m not threatened by any origin model, but apparently some are.
Even Gould and Ager (neither friends of creationists) have admitted that every supposed evolutionary sequence (ex. dog-like creature evolving into a horse, or cow-like evolving into a whale) in text books is NOT supported by the fossil evidence, because the sequence in the fossil record is often out of order (ie. more recent transitions are actually found in more ancient rocks).
Ohhh, and lets not discuss how C-14 evidence totally refutes the millions of years it supposedly took to form the geologic column (where dinosaur bones supposed to be 60 million years old still have significant C-14 levels, dating by that technique as around 20,000 years).
So, maybe before you criticize my beliefs (and I teach all aspects of all theories and models, exposing students to as much data as possible, not just what is in selective and preinterpreted state textbooks) you might want to read some research literature from outside your own paradigm. For “they that answer a matter before knowing all the facts are fools”.
Grace,
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How old do you believe the earth is, Rick? 20,000 years old max? Or are you one of the 6,000 year guys?
How old do you tell your students the earth is?
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I’m not sure FLERP, do you know? All I know is that the supposed age has expanded by orders of 1000s in the last century, yet if the universe is all that old there are many phenomena that do not fit, ie. number of super novae remnants, quasar pulsing, etc.
There are many different chronometers by which to measure time, ex. Ar-K, U-Pb, C-14, erosion rates, deposition rates, genealogies, etc… and most of these are not concordant or congruent, but yield highly discrepant ages. People pick and choose the dates that fit and support their model the best, both evolutionists and skeptics.
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I was taught in school that it’s several billion years old. What do you teach your students? Do you tell them that nobody knows how old the earth is? Could be 6,000 years old, could be 4 billion years old, but scientists really have no way to narrow it down?
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I do tell them (“teach them” sounds like indoctrination) that the variance of ages is high, the error of every technique is significant, the disagreement among the “experts” is real and that the evidence suggesting an earth younger than a million years old is pretty robust and valid. Enough said, go out and read from various journals and do some research for yourself (and don’t trust the biased, preinterpreted, billions of years only views of Nat’l Geo, Discovery, or any other evolution-only paradigm [which blinds the mind to alternate data and models]).
Go to ICR.org, or creation.com are read about the plethora of evidence that supports a younger earth.
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So you, a public school teacher, tell your students that there is robust and valid scientific evidence that the earth is fewer than one million years old.
You declined to answer earlier, but I’ll take one last shot at asking you: How old do you believe the earth is? I have a strong suspicion that you believe it’s a lot closer to 6,000 years old than one million years old.
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Although maybe you believe the earth’s age is longer than 6,000 years old (but less than one million years old), but that life on earth is only 6,000 years old. Which raises all kinds of questions about dinosaurs and the Garden of Eden that I’m sure you’ve considered.
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Well…I don’t need to tell you my specific beliefs because I’m sure you neither are forcing what you believe (and ultimately all beliefs have a faith-component) down the minds of others. Here is the deal:1) you go out and read the research and evidence for a younger earth and/or universe 2) you attempt to thoroughly refute all that research 3) if you cannot then come back and we can continue this dialogue…..because I suspect things about you too (maybe as closed-minded as you think I am????)
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I think you’ve given me a clear enough picture. You’re a “young earth” creationist, and you’re a science teacher, and you tell your students that there is robust and valid evidence that the earth is not billions of years old, but rather less than one million years old, and you believe that all life on earth was created in six days, because the Bible says so, and because biological evolution is not possible on a timescale of less than one million years.
I wonder what Dr. Ravitch would have done if she learned her kids’ high school science teacher were teaching them this stuff at Dalton.
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NO FLERP, I may have personal beliefs (based on evidence and facts) but beliefs that go beyond the evidence (just like you have, so don’t be a philosophical hypocrite and make judgments of others faith, when you have yours too [yes, materialistic evolution is beyond science; it is Faith, a form of religion]).
I DO NOT make students believe as I do; I just teach facts and evidences that are often excluded from evo-only textbooks. I expose them to as much as possible and let them make their own inferences “going where ever the evidence leads”, which is the goal of science, is it not.
Does Diane play “thought-police” on this blog, as it seems you want to.
Before you comment on your perceived/assumed beliefs of others, maybe you would want to do some research about those beliefs, so that we can have a more intelligent discussion, not just your “red-herrings” emoticons.
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Not though police, Rick. You can think whatever you want. Can you teach your students whatever you want in science class? Reasonable people may differ.
Do you tell your students that the theory evolution is not possible if the earth is less than one million years old?
Do you teach your students about intelligent design?
If Florida passed a law forbidding the teaching of intelligent design as a legitimate scientific theory alongside evolution, would you comply with it?
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FLERP, the actual age of the earth is open to debate, however based on the best evidence (IMO) the human race goes back about 6,000 years based on biblical genealogies (and as many OT scholars, historians, archaeologists….and even many secular experts have concluded: there is no hard evidence yet to refute any OT event [though many skeptics imagine there to be, or interpret things otherwise). So, according to the historic chronologies that were accepted to be true and valid up until the 1900s (the dawn of Darwinian skepticism, not the dawn of “science”) Bishop Usher’s “The Annals of History” is still a robust and valid work, which has Adam created about 6000 BC, and all the post-diluvial nation formations and migrations occurring after the tower of Babel (Genesis 11: The Table of Nations). Even one of the world’s leading linguist, Noam Chomsky of MIT, has pondered that the Babel “confusion of languages” may be a valid description of the event where the world’s 7 main language families came into rapid existence (because evolutionary linguistics cannot account for the formation of these 7 distinct families).
I teach evidences, and let students decide for themselves.
If the State told you that you could no longer make moral critiques about Naziism in a social studies class, would you obey the State’s mandates? Well, I would answer the same way about any curricular mandate that makes me not teach all the facts; for such mandates essentially violate the 1st amendment for the State is now restricting teaching to only one belief-system, which is the establishment of some form of religion (ex. The Supreme set precedence that secular humanism is a religion).
Peace,
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Tim, your points are well taken. Yes, many areas are homogeneously poor and minorities, being taught by people that don’t live there. The parents and stakeholders may feel disenfranchised and unempowered, so they don’t join the PTSA and don’t contribute to improve the school. I was only generalizing about the evidence I have where I live and taught, and know from experience (as a past PTSA president) that many parents view the school as a consumer-only institution and only complain, but rarely contribute. Then somehow, they feel they have “earned” the right to choose an alternate school. This is what perturbs me.
All people will perform acts of self-sacrifice for that which they value, whatever that is.
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Cary444, in some cases the parents have no choice, the neighborhood schools are gone, as in New Orleans, or the neighborhood school is being turned into a charter like the hope to start doing here in Nevada.
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Hello local and national media … Charter fraud is a story just waiting to be told.
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And these stories won’t ever make it beyond the local news to cable, where these schools are presented as the perfect alternative to vouchers to private schools.
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Since the idea is to apply free market principals to education, then it should come as no surprise that the majority of these small businesses/charter schools fail.
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My copy-editor’s eye & sarcastic mind are pondering “free market principals.”
Are they Broad Academy administrators? Charter school directors paid mega-bucks?
Concerned mom, Auto-spell likely did that when you meant free market principles, but we welcome a laugh amid frustrating events in our schools.
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It’s was probably my error – grammar is not my strong suit. At least I can make someone laugh with my shortcomings. I should remember there’s a “pal” in principal.
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It helps me to remember a principle is like a rule & both end in -le.
But I think you’re onto something; the term free market principals fits charter directors who wouldn’t have touched education w a ten-foot pole if they’d had to work their way up the traditional route/pay scale.
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Wouldn’t it be great to create a graphic that shows $ amount Florida charter schools gypped the state’s taxpayers? Perhaps the thermometer-style that fund-raisers use.
Display it at Jeb Bush’s speaking engagements. Or his GOP primary events. He knows so much about public education–he & W went to Phillips Academy, his sister to Miss Porter’s School.
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Miami is one of the cities in the US where crime and corruption on politics, education, and sports entertainment are rampant. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a greedy billionaire like Jeffrey Loria, a notorious Miami Marlins owner who forces Miami residents to pay heavy taxes on the new baseball stadium since 2012, would join in hands with Jeb Bush to harvest charcoal mining businesses to high-jack public education in the future.
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With so many charter schools closing, it’s important to keep in mind how many students are going to flood the public schools that are still running in those districts.
The main condition placed on charter schools in exchange for their decreased regulation is to maintain high test scores. While in a lot of cases, charter school closings have been heavily protested and often avoided closing, closed schools would disrupt any school district and any child’s life. One thing that I think is too often looked over in the discussion of school reform is stability.
There are many problems that need to be solved in schools, and we shouldn’t let them fester. However, closing schools can be extremely disruptive for everyone involved. Teachers, who know they will have to find a new place to work, may be unable to exert equal effort as the closing approaches because they will also be searching for a new job. That doesn’t even address the demoralization involved with closing the institution they worked at and contributed to for years.
Meanwhile, the students that go to these charter schools migrate to nearby public schools, potentially flooding them with new students. Although one complaint against charter schools is that they take kids and funds from the public school system, returning students can flood underfunded schools with students who need to reorganize and make space.
The trouble with the basis of charter schools is that the threat levied against them if they underperform is not improvement; it’s closing, which hurts the teachers and students, even if it was a part of the contract with the charter. In short, we should rethink our policy of closing underperforming schools, even charter schools, and instead work to improve and help those that need improvement.
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