Denis Smith worked in the Office of Charter Schools in the Ohio Department of Education. In this article, he points out the paradox of tasking a state agency with both promoting charter schools while supposedly regulating them. This is a conflict of interest.
This explains, he writes, why it was predictable that David Hansen, who was supposed to regulate charter schools, got in trouble for cooking the books to make the charters owned by Republican campaign contributors look good, even though their schools perform poorly.
Hansen, the husband of Beth Hansen, Governor John Kasich’s chief-of-staff, was put in place by the governor’s team to head the Office of Quality School Choice. His background, as head of the right-wing Buckeye Institute, famous for maintaining a database detailing the salaries for thousands of public school teachers and devoid of salary information for CEOs of national for-profit charter school chains and other privatizers, is now being examined by charter watchdogs as they discover a series of conflicts-of-interest that raise basic questions about his actions.
Here are a few morsels:
“Hansen and ODE were ignoring the big fish,” Stephen Dyer observed. “And that was, unfortunately, Hansen’s undoing. None of these crackdowns were against schools run by big Republican donors — David Brennan of White Hat Management or Bill Lager of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow — whose schools rate among the worst in the state and who educate about 20% of all Ohio charter school students.”
Plunderbund readers, in fact, were informed several days ago that Hansen is a serial data offender.
“This isn’t the first time Hansen has been caught altering charter school data to improve the image of these charter school operators. Hansen was President of the Buckeye Institute in 2009 when they put out a report on Ohio’s dropout recover schools. Similar to the current incident, Hansen’s group altered data to improve the apparent performance of the charter schools. The shady data changes resulted in “a dramatic overstatement of the graduation rates at the charters.” Many of the schools in the 2009 report were owned and operated by White Hat Management. Meanwhile, White Hat owner David Brennan was quietly contributing tens of thousands of dollars to the Buckeye Institute through his Brennan Family Foundation.”
Hansen was a cheerleader for charters who was supposed to regulate them. Never happened, never will happen,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Outstanding critique of the grifters that are profiting–economically and/or politically–from Ohio’s Charter School fraud. Yes, regulators serving as promoters presents a clear conflict of interest. Yet, the real “conflict of interest” is the mere existence of charter schools, a “competitor” with public schools that undermines the entire mission of public education. The systemic problems introduced are well documented on this blog. (Fragmenting of public resources, segregation, skimming, etc.) Vested interest now seek to profit from public school “failing” or the perception thereof….My friend in Akron pays a $1,000 participation fee for her son to play in the marching band…meanwhile David Brennan makes off with millions while he funnels $ to candidates who write laws to help him make millions….There is no such thing as a “good” charter school when considered from the perceptive of society as a whole.
What I love is the disconnect between the rhetoric public school parents hear when these guys drop by tour schools to promote their own careers and their role as charter school cheerleaders at the statehouse and nationally.
It’s like night and day. They do it because they know they wouldn’t get elected on bashing public schools in their district, because, after all, that’s where 90% of voters send their kids.
Great piece. I especially like this part:
“Which brings us back to Hansen. In his biographical summary, he states that his purpose at ODE is to provide oversight for the “development of vibrant markets of school choice in Ohio.” Are we missing something here? How is it that a state education director sees his mission is to foster school privatization rather than to ensure compliance with law and regulation of nearly 400 privately operated, publicly funded schools that are consuming $1 billion in tax dollars taken from local school districts?”
Good question. But look at this from the Obama Ed Department:
“The Charter Schools Program provides money to create new high-quality public charter schools, as well as to disseminate information about ones with a proven track record. Federal funds are also available to replicate and expand successful schools; help charter schools find suitable facilities; reward high-quality charter schools that form exemplary collaborations with the non-chartered public school sector; and invest in national activities and initiatives that support charter schools. Collectively we expect these efforts to increase public understanding of what charter schools can contribute to American education.”
Now that they’ve created a market, will DC dedicate a program to promoting public schools? If they’re “disseminating information” on high quality national charter chains, doesn’t that put public schools in a given area at a competitive disadvantage? How are local public schools supposed to compete with a national government marketing campaign and national development?
This is a really tough editorial on the ed reform situation in Ohio:
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/07/when_it_comes_to_facing_down_o.html
It includes the names of the lawmakers who are directly responsible for this, which is essential. These sponsors and management companies and lobbyists and political appointees are accountable to no one in this state, but these two named lawmakers are. The one and only way to reach the problem is to take it right back to the elected officials. Each and every one of them have public schools in their districts and they show up at election time and claim support. They would not get elected if they operated at home like they do in Columbus.
It does name names which is really good….yet, Mr. Larkin is and has been a chief cheerleader for the “choice” mantra. He’s upset because those gorging at the public trough are making the entire enterprise look bad, an enterprise he is 100% behind. It’s a ” bad apples” argument that ignores the inherent problems with a choice/market system.
They’re the best critics though because they’re the only people who have “credibility” in ed reform circles.
I once wrote a detailed email to the Obama Ed department, 2010 or so, where I pointed out that they were promoting charter schools nationally while apparently completely unaware of the real-life charter situation on the ground and the damage they were doing to public schools. I got back a response where the public employee explained to me that charter schools are public schools. Incredibly patronizing, simple language, 9 word sentences, probably a 3rd grade reading level, like I don’t live here and haven’t been watching this for 15 years. He dodged the entire issue and instead explained to me that charter schools are publicly-funded. I would bet I know more about how charter schools are funded in this state than he does.
They think we’re morons, basically, that any objections are a “misunderstanding” or “fear” or “protecting the status quo”. You can’t make a dent in it. It’s a belief system at this point. They only listen to fellow “movement” members.
Credibility and ed reform in the same sentence is an oxymoron.
Perhaps Larkin could explain how $1.6 billion in charter school debt, with an 18% return to the bond holders (WSJ) serves the interests of students and taxpayers.
Linda, every charter person I know would prefer to have our buildings paid for or have access to cheaper debt. In general, it’s teacher’s unions that lobby against this in efforts to me it harder to run charters.
John,
You and I can observe (1) the teachers unions’ ties to Gates, (who used Capital Impact Partners to get financing for schools partnered with Reed Hastings) (2) the unions’ lack of traction, in any venue, for the protection of public education and (3) a lack of union management interest in organizing a voting block of their members. It’s America’s shame that labor is abused on all fronts, as if the nation was a corrupt 3rd world country.
The corporate PR that unions are bogeyman only resonates with dim-witted Fox viewers.
No doubt the charters would like more debt. It’s a scheme perfected by Wall Street in the 80’s, with leveraged buyouts. It’s even better for Wall Street, when they can get states like Texas to offer government resources to pay off the charter loan defaults.
John,
You must ascribe to what Rick Berman peddles.
Low cost financing is unavailable because the charter school product is so flawed. The only reason the product secures any financing, is plutocratic influence in capital markets, in state capitols and Washington and, in the media. Gates and Dan Loeb, prime the capital markets. Betsy deVos, Eli Broad, and the Waltons, prime the political markets. And, Roger Ailes and advertisers, prime the media markets. What’s amazing is that, even with all that pumping, the charter school product hasn’t been a blow-out.
In Ohio, the “good” charter sponsor is reportedly, Fordham. What happens when the Waltons and their cronies pull the plug on funding for charters? An inconvenient question?
Linda,
Funding sources generally only provide money for starting charters, which is frequently necessary because we like to ramp up in grades. The reason charters are hard to finance is because they have to continue to earn the right to exist, typically every five years. If a charter gets pulled, the entity ceases to exist and the lender takes a loss. Also, charters only get paid if they have enrollment, so fiscal challenges closely follow any failure to keep full enrollment. That can quickly lead to a spiral of cutting staff, lowering quality, losing revenue, etc. that can spell a quick end for a charter that slips up.
John-
Crying a river.
Repeating- (1) a flawed product
(2) plutocrats inflating the market with political, financial and media influence (3) no union involvement. Unions aren’t even playing defense, let alone, offense.
This decision is about as logical as appointing a veteran of charter schools to run Philadelphia’s public schools. It shows the same level of wisdom as putting the fox in charge of the hen house. I guess conflict of interest is an archaic term.
I don’t know. Cuomo promotes corruption while making huge productions out of attempts to regulate it, and then pulling them back. That actually works well in martial arts, I believe.
Chiara asks: “How is it that a state education director sees his mission is to foster school privatization rather than to ensure compliance with law and regulation of nearly 400 privately operated, publicly funded schools that are consuming $1 billion in tax dollars taken from local school districts?”
The reason that you see this as not making sense is because you see charter schools as privatization instead of as public schools that are also under his control. I understand that you disagree with it, but that is the reason.
What is described in the article is despicable. It’s no different than government corruption in many areas and people who benefit personally from this should be prosecuted.
However, I don’t think the combined promotion and regulation of charters is inherently a problem. The dual goals lead to higher levels of accountability by good authorizers. Would you see an issue if a State Ed department was responsible for both regulating and promoting magnet schools? Doesn’t NYCDOE regulate and promote their specialized high schools?
The problem is bad authorizers and bad charter laws, including any that don’t prohibit self-dealing and other conflicts of interest. When that happens, it is a black eye on the movement, just as cases like Roosevelt, NY are black eyes on school districts.
Education is a prime target for corruption because of the amount of money spent.
Corruption is baked into the cake. The establishment of another set of “public schools” to compete with local schools will inevitably become a struggle of marketing, lobbying and frankly thousands of attempts, big and small, to undermine the authentic, public non-profit to he benefit of the de-facto private for profit…The Common Core is one of the larger efforts….also, “grades” for schools…There is no such thing as a “good” charter school when considered from the perceptive of society as a whole
You can call a pig an elephant, I suppose, but that doesn’t make it one. Calling charter schools “public” doesn’t make them so either. Public financing does not make something “public” unless you’re trying to claim that Boeing is public.
A government of the people, by the people and, for the people is not,
by definition, corrupt.
“…a major change in rhetoric from charter school supporters who have slammed urban schools as failures for years. And most charter schools exist in cities only because of the grades Adler now calls “inequitable.'”
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/07/charter_schools_want_their_inequitable_bad_grades_in_urban_areas_changed.html