The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina reports that Chinese investors put up $3 million to start up a new charter school, which is now struggling for survival.
Is a foreign-financed charter school a public school?
They did it in exchange for green cards,
Chinese investors provided $3 million in startup money for Thunderbird Preparatory Academy, a Cornelius charter school that’s fighting for survival.
That’s one of the insights that emerged from last week’s state review of the school’s finances, governance and facilities.
Thunderbird’s network of investors and lenders left Charter School Advisory Board members shaking their heads and palming their faces. “A spider web,” one member dubbed it. “Exceedingly messy and complex,” said board Chair Alex Quigley.
But as North Carolina has opened itself to rapid charter school expansion, a growing number of startup schools are turning to charter-school finance companies to pay for facilities. Some also tap a network of companies and consultants to help them run the schools. That means tax money from North Carolina is flowing across the country and around the globe to repay debts and cover outsourced services.
Lee Teague, executive director of the N.C. Charter Schools Association, said he had never heard of the Chinese investment in charter schools. But because charter schools don’t get public money for facilities – and because schools must begin paying bills before the first state check arrives – it’s common to see new schools taking out loans, he said.
Thunderbird, which opened in 2014, got its $3 million through the EB-5 program, which provides green cards to foreign investors who create U.S. jobs. Although charter school salaries are paid with public money, an Arizona-based company called Education Fund of America offers the opportunity to invest in charter schools, claim the job-creation visa benefit and rely on government support of such schools to secure the investment.
Parents at the Thunderbird Charter School are angry, and they have called for the removal of the principal and the chair of the charter board. The school opened in 2014 and has struggled with staff, rodents, finances, and academics.
After probing topics ranging from rodent infestation to high-interest loans, a state charter panel Thursday backed away from a call to close Thunderbird Preparatory Academy in Cornelius.
But the Charter School Advisory Board voted unanimously to demand intense scrutiny in the coming year.
“I think you have a very short period of time to right this ship,” board Chairman Alex Quigley told school leaders.
The advisory board called Thursday’s special meeting after voting June 14 to recommend closing the school when Thunderbird leaders missed a regular meeting where they had been summoned to discuss financial, academic and health/safety concerns.
Thunderbird board Chair Peter Mojica said Thursday that bad publicity has damaged recruitment for the coming year, with enrollment dropping from 500 at the start of last year to 432 enrolled for 2016-17. The school has also lost 11 of the 23 teachers it had last year.
But Mojica said the board and the school’s recently hired principal are committed to fixing problems and reviving the school.
“We have a great school that is not absent of its problems,” he said. “We are well aware of them and are trying to address them.”
Thunderbird, which opened in 2014, has struggled to find and pay for a building, establish leadership and show academic gains – challenges that face many new charter schools. The problems have been compounded by spring flooding and a bitter rift dividing board members, faculty and families.
The school has had three principals in three years. Some parents vow to return to the public schools. Others say they are satisfied. The state has gotten more complaints about this charter than any other.
The Chinese investors have their green cards, so they are not complaining.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article87268177.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder how many other charter schools are operating under similar conditions; that is, as a means for foreign investors to earn EB-5 green cards. Would this also be the path for the Gulen Network of Charter Schools?
Yes Laura…all the Gulen male teachers and administrators (about 3,000 to date) were allowed into the US on EB-5 Green cards. Many have disappeared from view and are hidden in our greater society doing heaven only knows what. What is the American government, this group of deciders whom we elect to protect us, doing by allowing crooks and worse into the country paid for by the American taxpayer? Why are foreign agents allowed to start schools in the US, paid for by us, with NO input from us? How does this improve US education? How does this produce jobs for qualified US teachers and other US support workers?
As someone that watches some of the real estate shows, I have seen this EB-5 green card tactic used in the purchase of a great deal of real estate in New York. Los Angeles and Miami. I do not know if any of these people are vetted for political ties before they do this. I have seen Chinese, Russians, and Arabs purchase property this way. Most of them are probably trying to buy an escape plan if it there is unrest at home; however, I think we have a lot more to be concerned about from this practice than from those that arrive on our southern borders.
Saudi royals own most of Beverly Hills (also Park Ave in NY). They, and other Middle Eastern billionaires have built many mansions of over 20K sq. feet, and despite the drought here, they have grounds that look like the gardens of Versailles….they use our water without any conscience. Their children attend the Beverly Hills school system….long one of the best in the nation…and these parents make amazingly hostile demands of the teachers. There are neighborhoods all over So. Calif. that are cloisters for hugely wealthy Middle Easterners. Mosques here are flourishing as well. In many areas, the only languages that are spoken are Farsi and Arabic, with some Urdu.
And Trump wants to deport the Latinos who serve as these Middle Eastern citizens maids and gardeners. Go figure!
I wouldn’t blame the investors. They don’t care what kind of schools go up in North Carolina. The responsibility rests with North Carolina lawmakers.
The really complex financing, funding and payment arrangements are why I think the “non profit” and “for profit” distinctions in charters are meaningless. The charter board themselves have no earthly idea what’s going on with the financing of this school. How is an ordinary person who doesn’t have access to the records supposed to figure it out?
It’s a series of contracts- it starts with a “charter” (which is just a kind of contract) and then there are layers of contracts after that. In Ohio they can claim they’re “nonprofits” if 96% of the funding flows thru for-profits. The school entity can be a “nonprofit” but that’s meaningless if the school entity controls no funding.
Are ordinary people in these states supposed to hire lawyers to parse this “spiders web”?
Give me a break. They know darn well no one understands these arrangements. They admit they don’t know themselves!
When this falls apart in North Carolina- and it will, because it’s a mess in every state they’ve put it in- ed reformers will claim it’s not a “failure of choice” but a “failure of regulation” which is what they’re claiming in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Why do they keep making the same mistake over and over again? Why do they flood these states with charter schools and regulate after the fact? It took them FIFTEEN YEARS to notice a problem in Ohio.
How many states will it take before they get it? 5? 10? 20? The whole country? How many experimental deregulation schemes does it take?
NOT a MISTAKE. This has been planned by the Oligarchs who want us as their slaves, who fund our shady politicians.
When the President and his team of charter cheerleaders were busy expanding charters all over the country was there ANY recognition that states have different regulatory schemes and a lot of the state regulatory schemes for charters are absolute garbage?
How can they continue to tell the public this is about “high quality” charters when that is so obviously not true in vast swathes of the country?
I know none of the architects and engineers of this national privatization plan live in these states but surely they can access a local newspaper.
I think accountability is important, and not just for the “little people”
Let’s talk about “accountability” for the President and his team. They encouraged the unregulated expansion of charter schools:
“Emphasizing the need for additional effective education entrepreneurs to join the work of reforming America’s lowest performing public schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told reporters during a conference call this afternoon that states must be open to charter schools. Too much is at stake for states financially and for students academically to restrict choice and innovation.
“States that do not have public charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top Fund,” Secretary Duncan said. “To be clear, this administration is not looking to open unregulated and unaccountable schools. We want real autonomy for charters combined with a rigorous authorization process and high performance standards.”
It was delusional to believe that all states would set up “rigorous standards” at their gentle suggestion and in FACT states have not done so.
The charter cheerleading has downside risk. It has consequences. They refused to consider it and they’re still denying it. Now that Duncan is off to the private sector who should we hold accountable for the unintended consequences of his free market dogma?
Diane, if Hillary Clinton ever deigns to meet with you (frankly, I’m not holding my breath), THIS is an article she NEEDS to see.
cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Chinese-Investors-Finance-in-General_News-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_China_China-Investment-Corp-160707-557.html#comment605597
on Thursday, Jul 7, 2016 at 9:25:05 AM
with this comment which has embedded links at the post.
When the teachers were kicked out, so the schools would fail, the legislatures took control and the corporate entities that are putting EDUCTION not the MARKETPLACE,
are giving away our schools and thus our future.
North Carolina and Arizona are an example of what happens when th people are blind to what is happening.
How would you like David Koch to write the curricula for your school? North Carolina is fine with Koch written curricula. https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/07/civics-lessons-financed-by-the-koch-brothers/
Go to the Ravitch blog, and get the daily feed… it will blow you mind to see how fast our nation’s ‘schools’ are going down, and with it our democracy… because income equality depends on people learning real skills, and DEMOCRACY depends on shared knowledge.
Click to access hirsch.pdf
Here is Noam Chomsky on ‘consumerism driven education:” It’s part of the way of controlling and dumbing down the population, and that’s important. Much has to do with the catastrophe that’s looming.. take for example ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. It’s corporate funded, the Koch brothers and those guys. It’s an organization which designs legislation for states, for state legislators. And they’ve got plenty of clout, so they can get a lot of it through. Now they have a new program, which sounds very pretty on the surface. It’s designed to increase “critical thinking.” And the way you increase critical thinking is by having “balanced education.” “Balanced education” means that if you teach kids something about the climate, you also have to teach them climate change denial. It’s like teaching evolution science, but also creation science, so that you have “critical thinking. All of this is a way of turning the population into a bunch of imbeciles. That’s really serious. I mean, it’s life and death at this point, not just making society worse.”
Our children are being turned over to the Turks, the Chinese to teach! What other countries now own the schools that teach our children? Isn’t it enough that a large segment of the national debt is also owned by other countries like China, Japan, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia?
It’s obvious that the American public sector is for sale to the highest bidder from anywhere on Earth. It’s an international auction and we the people and our Constitution and Bill of Rights are on that auction block.
Yes, Lloyd. This is the curse of the free marketeers foisted on the rest of us.
Daine Ravitch asks, “Is a foreign-financed charter school a public school?” Good question, and a more fundamental question that also needs answering — in fact, it needs more people asking it — is this: Is any charter school a genuine public school? In truth, there’s no such thing as “public charter schools,” as Hillary Clinton refers to them, because public schools are governed by publicly-elected school boards and file detailed public-domain audited financial reports about what they do with public tax money. The Washington State Supreme Court rightly ruled that charter schools that are run by private boards simply aren’t public schools and aren’t entitled to public tax money. Just because charter schools are open to an often select segment of the public doesn’t make them “public schools” — it’s the governance and ownership of a school that determines whether or not it’s a genuine public school. Someone needs to educate Hillary Clinton about the fact that charter schools are private schools masquerading as public schools so they can profit from public tax money. She should support federal legislation that in order for charter schools to receive any federal money, they must be under the control of publicly-elected school boards.
I really gotta start me one of these charter schools. Sounds like a great way to fund my retirement, get in, get out, retire rich.
….but won’t these problems be fixed once this foreign school that takes American monies and sends them to China is allowed to co-locate with a public school for free? I think they need to call in the Fixer, Evil Moskowit-less to show them how.