An investment group in Portland, Oregon, paid $72 million for five charter schools in Florida. The investors paid nearly $18,000 per student.
Do you think these are public schools? Do you think they are community schools?
Charter School Capital, an academic investment group based in Portland, just scooped up five charter schools spread throughout Florida for $71.74 million. The sellers were MG3 Development Group and ESJ Capital Partners, a pair of local real estate companies.
The deal illustrates how investing in nontraditional real estate like schools can be lucrative, especially when other markets like residential and commercial properties appear to be cooling down.
According to a news release from Colliers International Education Services Group, which brokered the deal on behalf of the sellers, the portfolio encompasses 295,992 square feet split among five schools in Riverview, Vero Beach, Coral Springs, Davie and Plantation. Colliers’ Todd Noel and Achikam Yogev worked on the sale.
MG3 Principal Hernan Leonoff told The Real Deal that his firm developed the schools in Riverview, Davie and Plantation, plus renovated the facility in Coral Springs while ESJ acted as the lead company in building the portfolio. MG3 had no involvement with the Vero Beach charter school.
The ownership varied between properties: for most of the schools, MG3 had a minority interest while ESJ, led by principals Arnaud Sitbon and Gabriel Amiel, was the majority owner.
The sale breaks down to about $242 square feet, but Leonoff cautioned that a school’s capacity for students is a better gauge of pricing because common areas can skew square footage.
The five schools can house roughly 4,000 students, he said, bringing the price to about $17,935 per enrollee. That’s significantly more expensive than the $16,641 per student that tennis pro Andre Agassi and his partner Bobby Turner sold their Boynton Beach school for in August.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps it would be important to point out that this transaction was only the property, not the schools. It might also be important to remember that NY Mayor DiBlasio demanded that NYC charter schools pay rent to the city before the state intervened.
What does your second sentence have to do with this post?
The big bucks in the charter industry come from leases and rentals on the property. Charter schools in NYC should be paying rent for the public property they use. They are not public schools. How about we offer free public space to Trinity, Dalton, St. Bernard’s, Brearley, and the many other nonpublic schools, all of which–like charters–are independent of the public school system.
Property is not worth anything without income (rents). The income comes from education budgets that would otherwise be used to pay the cost of instructing kids. Therefore every dollar that is diverted to paying rents to the investors = one dollar less for instructing kids. Most people don’t pay taxes, the source for these rent payments, with the intent of making already wealthy investors even more wealthy. It is income redistribution plain and simple.
Thanks Ray Triana–very well put.
Caprice Young is the spokes person for Charter School Capital and has been working closely with them for many years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7gGwxmjvz4
Well, this is truly creepy.
Here’s hoping these investors loose their shirts in the deal. I’ve read about ‘education investors’ who didn’t make money. May their luck be that good.
This industry will absolutely boom under DeVos. I wish Trump HAD dissolved the US Department of Education. We would do better with independent brokers.
If all they do is send funds to contractors in “ed reform” can’t we let 99% of them go?
A broker and an accountant could do their job, cheaper and probably better.
Get rid of all of them and send my public school whatever funds remain after charters and private schools get first dibs. Good riddance. We’ll just go our own way. I don’t need to be paying public employees to act as intermediaries with contractors. It’s a waste of money.
We would have been better off without the DOE. Now I fear they will try to dream up some new draconian punishments for refusing to participate in testing.
“As governor, Mike Pence strongly advocated for education reforms, overseeing a vast expansion of the state’s private school voucher program and a boost in funding for charter schools.
Now as the incoming vice president, Pence has the chance to promote those same policies on the national stage.”
If your kid is in a public school the smartest move is to immediately transfer to a charter or private school.
DC is lock-step anti-public schools now. The whole gang will be working against you, and you’ll be paying them to do it.
They don’t even mention public schools in Our Nation’s Capitol anymore. Get out while you can. Public schools are unfashionable and have been abandoned by the Best and Brightest. It’s not like any of them would ever dream of sending their kids to one anyway.
From the Washington Post:
— “Trump could open door to expanding D.C. school voucher program,” by Emma Brown and Perry Stein:
“The District is home to the nation’s only federally funded school voucher program, and for the past eight years, advocates for the program have been on defense, fighting to keep it alive under a president who opposes the notion of using taxpayer dollars to pay tuition at private and religious schools. But then Trump, voucher supporter, was elected president.
Trump’s nominee (for education secretary), Michigan billionaire and conservative activist Betsy DeVos, has quietly helped introduce vouchers in many states nationwide, spending millions of dollars to support candidates who agree with her and to unseat those who do not.
The prospect of an expanded voucher program is not a welcome one among the District’s elected officials, who chafe as Congress … passes laws that shape the landscape of city education. Many also are ideologically opposed and worry that an expanded voucher program could threaten the progress and growth of the city’s traditional public and public charter schools.”
Since public schools are now unfashionable and hopelessly stigmatized, perhaps charter operators will now stop their false and dishonest use of the term “public charter schools.”
Since Madame De Vos is so fixated on vouchers, we’ll probably see these rank opportunists turn on a dime and try to re-brand themselves.
How does “The Jefferson Davis Charter Voucher Academy of Excellent Excellence” sound?
For those interested, I’m seeking investors.
When does Alex Jones start his charter school chain?
The fact that your Mayor thought it was just fine to charge charter schools rent would say that he felt (and NY Teachers union felt) that charters paying rent was OK
Well, since they are not public schools, they should be required to pay rent, and it’s only because the Governor is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the charter industry that they weren’t.
What is your point, sir?
Didn’t know DeBlasio was mayor of Florida. Learn something new every day.
Last I checked building maintenance and debt service aren’t free.
Are public school advocates, teachers and children still permitted inside the US Department of Education they’re all paying for?
Or are we all supposed to fund and back his privatization effort, although it DIRECTLY harms our children’s schools?
Has Trump spoken to a single person outside the ed reform echo chamber? 90% of kids in this country attend public schools. When do they get an advocate in DC?
Chiara for someone who posts on this site so much its beyond comprehension I must say that I am not sure if you support public education or if you are against it. Your comments are so off the wall with your command of the English language that many times I am not so sure what the hell you are trying to say making me believe you are some immigrant who speaks english as a second language. It would be interesting to see if you can simplify your posts and indicate exactly who you are supporting rather than spewing on and on about what it is I am not sure. This is not a knock but rather a question to you and your writing skills. Further try replying to some other posts to give your opinion directly instead of us readers trying to figure out if you are a paid troll or what…
You obviously have not spent much time on this blog. Anyone who has knows exactly what Chiara is saying. If you truly were concerned about Chiara’s position, you would not be using language intended to disparage her comment. I suggest that you read back through the archives. If you can’t figure it out, you don’t belong here.
I don’t quite understand how these investors would make money. Is it from the sale of the property itself (the school buildings) or from the running of the school?
From the property through rent paid and any appreciation if it occurs
Their income sources are likely to be twofold: charging above-market rents and fees to the charter school corporation they control, and nickel-and-diming students and teachers, in order to skim the per-student funding they receive from the locality and state.
Plus opening and closing on a whim, actual children looking for an education be damned.
I think the general public has NO CLUE as to what exactly a charter school is AND as to how private entities can make a LOT of money from charter schools. There needs to be a “charter schools for dummies” article written….that is simple, to the point, and crystal clear…exactly WHAT charter schools are (and are NOT) and why private entities can make SO MUCH MONEY from them. Does any such article already exist?
Property is not worth anything without income (rents). The income comes from education budgets that would otherwise be used to pay the cost of instructing kids. Therefore every dollar that is diverted to paying rents to the investors = one dollar less for instructing kids. Most people don’t pay taxes, the source for these rent payments, with the intent of making already wealthy investors even more wealthy. It is income redistribution plain and simple.