Earlier today, I posted about the decision by a judge in Pennsylvania to declare the York City School District to be in “receivership,” meaning that it will now be controlled by the state. The district is being punished because its board refused to follow the receiver’s orders. Parents and educators fought the decision, but their voices did not count.
Here is a comment from one reader (Chiara), who also noted that Vice President Joe Biden’s brother, Frank, came to testify on behalf of the for-profit charter takeover (he works for a for-profit charter in Florida called Mavericks):
York isn’t the first public school district that was completely privatized by a politically connected for-profit charter management company.
Muskegon Heights MI was the first.
It was privatized but it’s never mentioned by ed reformers (unlike say, New Orleans) because the charter management company pulled out and left town when they determined they couldn’t turn a profit. Muskegon Heights doesn’t fit the ed reform narrative so it simply isn’t discussed.
“MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI — Mosaica Education Inc. will no longer manage the Muskegon Heights charter school district, and plans will begin immediately to seek a replacement company.
Muskegon Heights Public Schools Emergency Manager Gregory Weatherspoon said the separation came down to an issue of finances. Mosaica, a for-profit company, was running a deficit budget and not making a profit.”
I think they dump the for-profit charter chains in states where there’s no regulation, lawmakers are completely captured and there’s no national media focus – states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida.
OH, MI, PA and FL get all the ed reform garbage. It washes up here.
OH, MI, PA and FL should serve as a warning to other states not to lift charter caps and deregulate further, but it won’t. They’ll all end up like the least regulated states. It’s a race to the bottom.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/04/mosaica_out_as_manager_of_musk.html
Another, 2old2teach, wrote this pointed question:
It really makes you wonder how these folks dare to appear in public. How do they teach democracy in York, now?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
New Orleans charters are not a success. They are just craftily-packaged garbage. So, to maintain that the “garbage” has not “washed up” in New Orleans is grossly misleading. NOLA charter takeover was a more sophisticated scheme, is all. And the scheming continues.
“How do they teach democracy?”. That about sums it up. They don’t care about giving a voice to the constituents! Much the same type of thing is happening in Jefferson County, Colorado. In one year our district has gone from a top-notch school district to one which ignores what the majority desires for their children. Thanks big money reformers!
Jonathon Hage owner of Charter Schools USA who operates five Charter Schools in Jacksonville and 58 overall does not send his school age children to one of his schools. This is just another example of how these edu-mercenaries have different ideas when it comes to educating other people’s children.
From Coral Springs.com
Charter Schools USA operates 58 schools in several states, including Florida, for a combined 48,000 students, however, Charter Schools USA Founder Jonathan Hage along with his wife Sherry, Chief Academic Officer, send all four of their children to Pine Crest Schools – a private school
Tuition for four children at Pine Crest Schools costs over $100,000 a year. In addition to the annual tuition, the Hage’s are big donors to the school and last year donated over $10,000 to their annual fund.
Broward County has “school choice” which means parents can choose to send their children to any public or charter schools they want as long as it has space and so long as the parents can provide the transportation. And the Hage’s certainly have the right. But what does that say about their own schools if they’re not good enough for their own children?
If driving is an issue from their $1.8 million home in Coral Ridge Country Club, rest assured. There are parents all over Broward County driving their children to schools, including theirs, that are even further.
Charters Schools USA runs seven schools in Broward County including: Coral Springs Charter School, Hollywood Academy of Arts & Science, North Broward Academy of Excellence and Renaissance Charter Schools in Coral Springs, Cooper City, Plantation and Tamarac.
Charters Schools USA receive $5,705 per student from the state of Florida. This doesn’t even include additional millions in facilities funding as well as advanced placement (AP) fees.
Let’s just do the math: With 8,600 students attending their seven schools in Broward County, this brings in over $49 million dollars annually for Charters Schools USA.
http://coralspringstalk.com/charter-school-usa-founder-wont-put-his-own-children-in-his-schools-6996
His schools not being good enough for his own kids coupled with the opulent lifestyle he has created off educating people’s children, you can bet our superintendent who oversees three times as many schools doesn’t live in a 1.8 million dollar home, should tell you all you need to know.
Of course the owners of charter schools dont send their kids into the school districts they take over.
1- they only takeover the poor failing disgricts since they are cheap and will make the most profit off them.
2- they would never live near, let alone in those districts
3- the owners never go to the districts after they do the big “ribbon-cutting” ceremonies on tv news in the areas to look.good
This is just one example of political corruption when it comes to Reformers. Cuomo has proven himself a master by pretending to be a Democrat and yet not following any democratic principles. Obama is the head master as well.
When the truth came out about Biden’s brother, the AFT and NEA didn’t even blink. Instead they happily gave Duncan and Gates their undivided loyalty. Notice how the NEA’s call to remove Duncan has since withered away? Same with the AFT putting him in a corner. Wink, wink!!
“How do they teach democracy?”
Fact or Fiction?
“Instead of glorifying the wisdom of Founding Fathers of the United States, we should recall that North America was created on the unimaginable suffering of the indigenous people, on Christian bigotry and forced conversions, on genocide, and on theft of the land. And that it was not done by some new and extraterrestrial breed or race called ‘Americans’, but by the same European puritans and religious hordes that had already murdered for centuries, all over Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
‘New America’, both North and South, was predictably created on fear, violence and on theft.
We should recall the slaves who were brought in shackles from Africa. Most of them died when traversing the Ocean, women raped and humiliated, children raped and marked forever, men with their dignity taken away from them.
Women and young girls were then chained in the fields, becoming sexual toys for those ‘puritan’ white farmers. Men and children, at least those who survived, were made to work days and nights, until falling dead from exhaustion.
All this done under the shadow of the cross, progress, and ‘democracy’!
This is how America was built. This is the true story, the true narrative, of those ‘great beginnings of the land of free’!
And those theatres of Europe, cathedrals and churches, palaces and parks – all created from loot and genocides, colonialism and the Crusades, ‘military adventures’.
This is how the regime, how the Western establishment always functioned. Rape is love. Indoctrination is education and information. Fear is belief. Slavery is freedom!
Do we want this kind of world for several more decades, even centuries?
I am not asking Parisians, Londoners or New Yorkers. I am not asking corrupt businessmen in Jakarta or deranged preachers in Kinshasa, top military brass in Kigali or the murderous feudal lords in Guatemala.
No humanist, no compassionate human being wants this sort of shit!
And for the first time, people are not afraid to say it, or at least to hear it, or read it!
I am not afraid to write this. Are you scared to read it? I don’t think so.”
“The Empire is Crumbling” ANDRE VLTCHEK
***
Sshshhhhhh, No Brick, you might make them thar Amerkuns feel bad about themselves and how “exceptional” we Amerkuns are.
The way to stop all of this is to write a law that any K-12 school that receives public funding cannot be operated by a for-profit company. That is beyond making them unprofitable by requiring they accept all levels and types of special education. Of course we probably won’t have this happen until we have a professional educator in the White House or at least over the Dept of Education.
Nonprofits still turn a profit. Lots of ways to do this: Become your own charter management org and pay yourself. Eva Moskowitz pays herself $587,000 to “manage” her schools. Individuals on nonprofit boards can give contracts to companies they or their families/friends operate. Individuals on nonprofit charter boards can buy land/buildings and lease these “back” to the charter schools. Make arrangements with publishers for their texts/materials and receive a kickback for requiring students to purchase the texts/materials. Charge parents fees in lieu of volunteering. Fine parents for their children’s behavior infractions. Win state and federal contests based on test results by manipulating testing outcomes in order to rack up thousand-dollar “rewards.”
I’ll stop now.
Don’t stop! People need to hear the truth if they ever expect to make informed decisions.
“$587,000”
Yep, that would be about ten years worth of actually teaching in the classroom.
Heaven help us, Alabama’s legislators are determined to pass a bill to allow charter schools this spring.
It’s VERY innovative. They all do exactly the same thing in every state and city and rural area. That’s called “scaling up” in the faddish, pseudo private sector lingo they adore.
It’s a direct contradiction of all the claims of innovative local schools that they sell, but they never let the fact that none of this hangs together in any coherent way stop them.
I see a Charter Schools USA franchise in your future.
CA has the “Trigger Law”. If a school is called ‘failing’ it can be taken over by a charter if enough parents sign a petition to support this takeover.
In 2013, parents claim that they were misinformed, and unknowingly signed a petition to do so in Adelanto, CA which is a small community if Central CA.
Outraged parents could not do anything–even the court approved the signatures although the parents claim that they were lied to and 97 parents wanted to rescind their signatures but were not allowed. This would have brought the number down to below the needed 50%.
Children have become pawns.
How much profit is this school making and into whose pocket are those dollars flowing?
Is this what we’ve become?
I’m wondering where they get the new employees to work for the contractor when they fire all the public employees.
Is there a huge pool of unemployed teachers and administrators that are just dying to work for less money than they’re making now in a low income district in that area of Pennsylvania?
It looks to me like there’s about 500k people, total, in the broader “York City” area if I expand it to include areas and places that are (maybe) commuting distance.
Do they bring 500-700 employees in from somewhere else entirely?
So does the Pennsylvania school funding stay in Pennsylvania or does it go to fund the corporate headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale?
General question on funding for charter chains: does the money collected in each county, district or state stay with the school in that county, district or state or is it used to expand into/fund schools in other states?
How much York City student funding will go to national marketing/lobbying? Surely someone paid the Vice President’s brother. Where did that money come from? Which schools/students in what state? It had to come from student funding. This contractor has no other source of revenue other than student funding. Which group of (current) students paid for the PA expansion? Florida, Michigan, Illinois?
Wouldn’t you think competent people who work for and are paid by the citizens of Pennsylvania would ask these basic financial questions?
“CSUSA is hiring for the new 2014-2015 school year. We are looking for teachers and administrators who strive for excellence, are committed to improving student learning and demonstrate a high level of professional conduct. Additionally, based on the rapid growth of the organization CSUSA is seeking multiple professional positions at its corporate headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale.”