When will the citizens of Florida say “Enough is enough”?
When will taxpayers stop subsidizing frauds who open charter schools?
The founder of a charter chain in Florida was charged with racketeering and fraud
The founder of a charter school company that managed two schools in Jacksonville was charged Monday, along with a business partner, with racketeering and organized fraud allegedly involving 15 charter schools in Florida.
“Prosecutors say Marcus May, owner of Newpoint Education Partners, is accused of misusing and co-mingling charter school money, as well as taking excessive payments and “kickback” fees, and spending the proceeds on such things as cruises, numerous trips to foreign countries, plastic surgery, home mortgages and a personal watercraft.
“May obtained more than $1 million of public funds from a pattern of thefts from the state department of education, six school districts and 15 Newpoint-managed charter schools,” said District 1 State Attorney Bill Eddins, in a prepared statement.
“In total, Newpoint’s charter schools in Florida received $57 million from the state and from six school districts, including Duval, between 2007 and 2016, the affidavit attached to the charges states.
“In Jacksonville, Newpoint ran the San Jose Academy and San Jose Preparatory High schools on Sunbeam Road. Both are now managed by a different company and serve 310 middle and high school students.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps the more pertinent question is when, if ever, will the bought and paid for government of Florida begin to listen to its residents?
Anne,
The government will listen when you defeat the hirelings of the privatization industry at the polls.
Diane,
I hope you are right. It’s up to us to listen, organize, educate, resist
They will listen when they are forced to. Election losses or a massive strike. Our interests seem to be in isolation from one another and there is no catalyst. Would anyone support a teacher strike in Florida? Would the national teacher unions support it? It does not seem that these terrible laws are getting tax payers upset. If they are they have nowhere to act on it. Individual teachers may feel powerless,too, but collective action might galvanize the opposition.
When will (a majority of) the citizens of Florida say “Enough is enough”?
An overwhelming majority, I hope.
The answer may be found in an Abraham Lincoln quote.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
How long will it take most of the people to stop being fools?
Let’s not forget that Hillary Clinton lost Florida by 112,911 votes
HC had more than 4.5 million votes to the Kremlin’s Agent Orange’s 4,617,886.
The Libertarian had 207,043 votes
Jill Stein had 64,399.
Trump didn’t even take half the vote. He only had 49-percent of it.
If the fools in Florida stay fools, it must be all that sunshine and humidity.
I wonder how much of a roll the sizeable retired population plays. Florida is a cheap place to live if you are on a fixed income.
There are 12,959,185 registered voters in Florida. Almost 4.6 million are registered Republicans and more than 4.9 million registered Democrats. Another 3,478,203 are listed as other.
Less than 10 million registered voters in Florida voted.
I could not find how many eligible voters there were that did not register to vote.
According to PEW Research, it was the Cuban voters in Florida that gave the edge to Trump.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/15/unlike-other-latinos-about-half-of-cuban-voters-in-florida-backed-trump/
I’m not surprised by the Cuban vote. I wonder how many trace roots to the wealthy Cubans who fled when Castro gained power?
Another day another dollar. . .
. . . stolen by a charter operator.
I’m sure the charter operators are making more than a dollar a day. :o) Millions probably.
“Newpoint Education Partners is an education services provider with offices in Clearwater, Florida. The Newpoint executive team has collectively led the development and launch of over 75 schools and is keenly aware of the financial and support resources necessary to facilitate the start-up of a new school or the take-over and continuation of an existing school. Based upon the leadership’s previous experience, Newpoint understands the significant resources, costs and efforts associated with and are committed to providing the resources necessary for a school to successfully open and operate. Newpoint’s leadership believes in establishing strong relationships with all stakeholders including parents, students, sponsors, board members, community organizations and the community at large. We believe that people make all the difference in any organization and particularly in educational organizations.”
The corporate slogan is “Transparency Matters”. Not kidding.
The Florida legislature saw that and “sign us up! how much public money do you want?”
DeVos met with Florida legislators this week. Probably launching the federal voucher program.
No public education advocates invited, as usual. Public Schools Need Not Apply at the US Department of Education.
I’ve written for years that so-called education reform is ripe for some RICO indictments; I’m very glad to see that racketeering was one of the charges in this indictment, and hope that in the coming months and years, some enterprising and politically ambitious prosecutor will discover the utility of using the RICO statutes to go after these grifters and looters.
As of now, there are few or no deterrents to these parasites and predators entering “the education space.” A couple of twenty-year sentences in federal prison (why not try to remain optimistic?) would go a long way toward slowing down the entry of these disruptive innovators/sociopathic privateers into the public schools.
And what about the students who were entrusted to this crooked outfit? What kind of education did they get while the boss was looting the school?