Our new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is very enthusiastic about virtual charter schools, even though the research shows that students don’t learn much while enrolled in them. Apparently, good works mean less than good profits.
In Arizona, a new online high school is returning remarkable profits. Jim Hall, retired educator, started an organization called Arizonans for Charter School Accountability, and he has a well-documented, horrifying story to tell about the defrauding of taxpayers.
News Release Contact Jim Hall
Arizonans for Charter School Accountability
arizcsa1000@gmail.com
602-343-3021
February 27, 2017
Phoenix, Arizona
The Consequences of Unregulated Charter Schools:
For-Profit American Virtual Academy Nets $10 Million Profit in 2016 After Siphoning $84 Million from Non-Profit Primavera Online. (Full report)
In its first year of operation as Primavera Online High School, for-profit charter holder American Virtual Academy (AVA) made an astounding $10 million profit in 2016. American Virtual Academy was given the charter for Primavera Online by non-profit Primavera Technical Learning Center (PTLC) in 2015 without compensation.
PTLC operated Primavera Online from 2002 to 2015 and had annual revenues of over $30 million a year with accumulated total cash assets of over $44 million with no debt. PTLC was the richest non-profit charter holder in Arizona in 2015.
On May 21, 2015 the PTLC Board suddenly decided to relinquish their charter to their software supplier, American Virtual Academy. There was no money exchanged in the transaction. PTLC is now out of the charter school business and is sitting on $44 million in assets.
Both PTLC and AVA were incorporated and directed by the same man, Damian Creamer. Creamer and his family members have received over $2 million in compensation as officers of PTLC. PTLC has employed Creamer’s software company, American Virtual Academy, since 2005 – paying AVA over $84 million from 2009 -2015 just to use software created by Creamer for Primavera Online.
In 2016 Primavera Online had a record year earning over $40 million. Creamer paid his new software company, FlipSwitch Inc., $13 million for software licenses and another $2.5 million for software support. Despite these huge expenditures, AVA cleared $10 million in profit that went to the company’s only stockholder, Damian Creamer.
Jim Hall, founder of Arizonans for Charter School Accountability commented, “This is worst case of a private citizen profiting from the actions of a non-profit organization imaginable. There is a charade going on in the charter school industry, both in Arizona and around the nation, that allows charter owners like Damian Creamer to control non-profit charter schools to enrich their for-profit subsidiaries – and themselves.”
The full report is at azcsa.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Cross-posted at Oped https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Arizona-Online-High-Schoo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Fraud_Online-Education-170228-587.html
More to come and plenty of documented fraud from the online charer industry and very few, if any, prosecutions for fraud.
The perfect student for voucher schools will be the 5-percent that is the most difficult to work with and teach in the classroom because of a rebellious nature that disrupts the learning environment on a regular basis.
Traditional public schools will use voucher programs to move, force, these children out so test scores will climb, while corporate charters will move, force, these children out to get rid of them because they can’t be domesticated and trained to fit the profile they want.
HBO’s series “The Wire” explores this in season-4, where two former police officers from the first three seasons work with the most difficult children in Baltimore’s public schools, and the TV series goes into detail showing why these children behave the way they do. In one episode, one of the former police officers explains why and what he said fits what I learned as a teacher working with children like this for thirty years in schools with child poverty rates between 70 – 100 percent.
“The Wire” also dramatically reveals how destructive the testing culture is that ranks and punishes teachers and students based on test scores in addition to explaining why the similar method used in police departments based on arrest stats caused the U.S. to have the world’s largest prison population.
Your assumption that online high schools cater to the “5% who are most difficult to work with and teach in the classroom because of a rebellious nature that disrupts the learning environment on a regular basis” is offensive. You can call for charter and virtual school accountability without insulting the students who attend. My son who attends virtual online high school has Autism Spectrum Disorder. He is very intelligent and learns quickly, but struggles with the social nature of traditional public schools and brick and mortar schools. He is excelling in his studies and finally learning without the fear and stress of traditional schools. I am a public school educator, and I can tell you that if a child is acting out and being disruptive there is likely a reason that needs to be identified and the child needs supports to remedy the situation. What they don’t need is to be called names and dismissed as unworthy of an education.
It’s okay if you are offended. That doesn’t bother me in the least. And I’m not going to apologize for you being offended. That’s on you, not me. You decided to be offended probably because you took offense from something you don’t understand.
For-profit on-line schools are perfect dumping grounds for the 5-percent, and would also work well for home schooled children with parents that are heavily involved in the process, but don’t expect the 5-percent I’m talking about to learn much because the only reason an on-line school would appeal to them is to legally escape the brick-and-mortar schools where they hate the disciplined environment required for learning.
If it wasn’t for the law, the students I’m talking about would not be there. They’d be working mowing lawns or picking tomatoes or strawberries or selling drugs.
I did not say that the on-line schools would focus only on the 5-percent that are the most challenging to teach and work with. These are not special needs kids. These are kids that grew up in a harsh environment with poverty, drugs, streets gangs and violence. These are the kids I taught for thirty years and I know an on-line school is not going to teach them anything because many of them are not motivated to learn in any kind of educational environment except when a teacher somehow reaches them, but that is not the norm. It is so rare for most teachers that when a teacher motivates one of these challenging children to cooperate and learn, it is an achievement worth celebrating. But without someone there with those types of children, the odds are heavily against success sitting alone in a room at home in front of a monitor.
The 5-percent I’m talking about doesn’t include special needs children with motivated, involved parents.
This also explains why for-profit, on-line high schools have the lowest graduation rate in the nation. About 30 – 40 percent, I remember reading. That is because the 60 – 70 percent that did not graduate spent little or no time in front of a computer. They were watching TV, playing video games, or out on the streets where they want to be and the on-line school doesn’t care because they get paid if the child makes an effort to learn or not.
For highly motivated students and special needs students with involved parents, no problem because they will sit down in front of the monitor and do the work.
But the children I’m talking about are the ones that don’t want to be in school for a number of reasons. Growing up in an environment of poverty with violent street gangs and drugs on corners does that to children. Their perception of the world and how to survive in it doesn’t match what most middle-class children experience.
Teacher said, “I am a public school educator, and I can tell you that if a child is acting out and being disruptive there is likely a reason that needs to be identified and the child needs support to remedy the situation.”
I was a teacher for 30 years. I know what I’m talking about. When you are working with 200-children a day in five or six classes, there is little or no time to provide what some of those children need to remedy the situation that causes them to not want to learn or cooperate. The system doesn’t allow time to find the remedy, because the system doesn’t have the money it would take to hire enough teachers, counselors, and tutors to remedy this problem.
I taught in a school district with the child poverty rate ran from 70 to 100 percent depending on the school, and I worked an average of 60 to 100 hours a week to just do my job, to teach, plan lessons, contact parents when needed, correct student work, etc.
Anyone, anyone, anyone that thinks vouchers or on-line education is going to remedy this situation for the children I’m talking about is an ignorant fool. It is impossible for a teacher who is human to work any harder than they already are.
How do you get an alcoholic to stop drinking when they don’t want to stop?
The same question can be asked for children that hate being in school and don’t want to do what it takes to be educated.
I should have added that the perfect children for voucher programs will not change their behavior patterns once they are in one of those fake, virtual schools. Their life is the streets and they will not learn even with a voucher program. Instead, the majority of these children will be tracked straight into a prison (probably a for-profit prison) or an early death, because the world they come from is a brutal world filled with poverty and drugs.
Sadly, yes, Lloyd.
But hey, those for-profit prisons have to make money, too! /snark
Again, I am still waiting for an answer to my question: how does the extraction of profits from education make it better?
Steve,
I hope you have the chance to ask DeVos that question.
Profits above all. Children are commodities to make money off of, not young humans who deserve the best education (and living conditions, and environment) that we can provide.
{{Sigh}}
Hideous.