Kevin McCarthy, State Assemblyman from Sacramento, published a terrific article in the Sacramento Bee with Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, explaining what a rip-off for-profit charters are.
The last time the Legislature tried to prohibit for-profit charters, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed it. Let’s hope that as more legislators understand the frauds in both for-profit and non-profit charters, the Legislature will bar for-profits and regulate non-profits.
They write:
“Across California and the country, corporations are expanding their ownership and operation of charter schools and their profits, subsidized by taxpayers.
“In California, 34 charter schools operated by five for-profit education management organizations enroll about 25,000 students. These for-profit charter schools siphon hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money away from students to generate massive corporate profits, and in many cases provide an inferior education.
“They exploit loopholes in California’s charter school law allowing them to cheat our students and reap huge profits at taxpayer expense.
“We have a long way to go before California’s public education system is adequately funded and cannot afford to line shareholder pockets with scarce state revenues.
“The Legislature has the opportunity to fix this flaw in state law. Assembly Bill 406, authored by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, would prohibit for-profit corporations from operating public charter schools. The bill was approved by the Assembly on Wednesday and now heads to the state Senate.
“It is estimated that California taxpayers provide these companies with more than $225 million a year with little public transparency or accountability.
“K12 Inc., the state’s largest for-profit education management organization, received $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years. In 2016, it reported revenue of $872 million, including $89 million paid to its Wall Street investors.
“It pays millions to top executives while its average teacher salary is $36,000, thanks to heavy recruitment among young, inexperienced teachers, plus burnout and turnover.
“K12 Inc. operates 16 schools in California with about 13,000 students. The average graduation rate of its charter schools is 40 percent, while the statewide rate is 83 percent.
“Like many of these for-profit companies, K12 also overstates student performance and attendance data. Students who logged onto their computers for one minute per day were reportedly counted as full-time students, giving the corporation full average daily attendance funding from the state.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article154084079.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I used to not have a problem with for-profit charters, thinking that if someone could offer an education that parents wanted for the reimbursement rate that is lower than what the local TPS paid, more power to them.
But, I’ve come around to thinking that you can always spend more on students and that as much public money as possible should go to things that benefit students. While demand isn’t being met by not-for-profit charters, the reason is mostly about finding leaders. Also, there are places where the reimbursement rate or charter law make running any charter challenging.
In NY, charters are NFPs and are prohibited from outsourcing their operations to a for-profit company. That seems like the right model for the country.
Solely online charters or other schools just seem too ripe for abuse to warrant paying for, except perhaps in very underserved rural areas.
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“While demand isn’t being met by not-for-profit charters, the reason is mostly about finding leaders.”
Yes, vaunted leaders are missing. All hail the VCL’s!
Screw those who call themselves “leaders”!
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And this will continue because of one thing, 1% ers are investing in this because it’s a scam and they can rip off the taxpayers and they know they can get away with it. Just look at southern Ca and what’s going on there recently.
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Not in California but the statement, with facts and figures, is a breath of fresh air. I hope the bill gets traction.
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Diane, I also want to mention the the person to the left of Kevin McCarty, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. Her daughter attended (real) public schools in San Diego during her K-12 years. Lorena Gonzalez walks the walk as well and is not there as a photo prop.
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In practice, there is no such thing as a non-profit charter school.
They pay exorbitant salaries to their managers, way out of proportion to those earned by public school administrators (Eva Moskowitz and Deborah Kenney are the poster children for this), and are used as real estate, vending and tax plays their administrators and funders,
Should there ever be a move to rein in today’s Robber Barons who have infested the world of education, serious thought will need to be given to regulating so-called philanthropies, subjecting them to a more critical eye, and restricting them from being used as an alternative means for the Ovelclass to further enrich itself and increase its power at the expense of the polity and the rest of us.
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Pretty broad statements that you make that are for the most part untrue. The reason you know about those anomalously high salaries is because they are disclosed on 990s. The Sam data shows the vast majority of not for profit charters are not paying like that. Also, while there are some anecdotal stories about real estate,schemes, etc., I’ve seen nothing that suggests it’s widespread.
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What do you consider “widespread?”
Investigative reporters are at work. I am not certain if there is a national database of the frauds. There should be.
I just looked at the “topics” search function on Diane’s blog under charter schools, K-12 Inc., Education Industry. These posts are from one blog. They are indicative of multi-state fraud making national news.
In Ohio, the most reliable tracking of charter fraud comes from William L. Phillis.
Goggle any on these topics. Judge the credibility of the reports.
charter school embezzlement
the tip of the iceberg: charter school vulnerabilities to waste, fraud, and abuse
charter school corruption
celerity educational group
or try this for a warmup.
Report Documents $100 Million in Charter School Fraud in 14 States …
blogs.edweek.org/…/charterschoice/…/report_documents_100_million_in_charter_sch…
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You’re right, John, providing permanent residence/green cards in exchange for capitalizing charter schools, along with the New Markets Tax Credit, could hardly be considered widespread.
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Michael, 25 out of 6800 doesn’t meet my definition of “widespread”, let alone your statement that there is no such thing as an NFP charter school. http://cis.org/Strange-Marriage-of-Two-Programs-EB-5-and-Charter-Schools.
I’ve pointed out your misleading statements about NMTC before. The school that borrows using NMTC does not make a profit, and lots of NFPs such as hospitals use NMTC to fund buildings.
Laura, any fraud is too much, but no, I wouldn’t call it widespread. Fraud exists in traditional schools as well. But, my main point is that Michael effectively said all charters are for profit, which is nonsense.
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The fraud in public schools is penny ante. They must account in public for every dollar they receive.
Charter school frauds are in the millions because there is little to no supervision or accountability.
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