Michigan Technical Academy in Detroit closed its doors. Teachers who had worked there on contract just learned that they would not be paid, because the school has other debts.
Teachers at the Michigan Technical Academy had contracts that required the school to pay them through the summer for work they did during the school year. But the school’s management company, Matchbook Learning, alerted teachers in an email Wednesday that the money would instead go to pay off the school’s debts.
Tough luck for teachers who counted on that income to pay their debts, feed their children, meet the mortgage or rent payment.
That’s why unions were created.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They undoubtedly have to pay the front companies operated by the charter owners that did contract work for Matchbook (which, true to its name, seems to have gone up in flames)
Priorities.
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Beat me to it, Poet, but you have a three hour time zone head start.
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Unbelievable. Charters are SCAMS. That’s what one gets when one works for a charter school. SICK.
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The most nauseating aspect of this is the final line of the email which the charter operators sent to teachers.
Keep in mind that this is an email telling the teachers that the charter operators are screwing them out of two months of pay because the operators used it to pay off debts rather than pay those teachers, and .. well … sorry, but there’s nothing that those teachers can do about it.
The closing of the email reads:
“We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.”
I kid you NOT. That’s what they wrote.
It’s here:
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/detroit/2017/07/26/detroit-charter-school-teachers-get-tough-news-their-school-was-in-debt-so-they-wont-get-paid/
I’m sure those charter operator bosses got paid.
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By the way, this is happening in Matchbook charter nationwide. Here’s the same story from New Jersey:
http://www.nj.com/education/2017/06/nj_charter_school_wont_pay_teachers_when_it_closes.html
This also is relevant to the situational “public” nature of charters. When it’s to their advantage — i.e. when getting “public” tax money or selling themselves to the public — then they’re “public”schools. However, when it’s to their advantage in other ways, then they claim, “Oh, no. We’re private.”
In this instance, the employees of this “public” charter school claim, “If the school’s public, that means we’re “public employees” of the state of Michigan or New Jersey, or wherever, and according to state law, you, as our employer, are legally required to pay us.”
“Oh, no we don’t. You see our charter school company a private entity, or a private actor contracted by the state, so those laws don’t apply to us.”
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Jack: good catch.
I now await the stirring, logical and convincing refutation of the points you made by the pro-charter pro-privatization rheephorm-minded folks that visit this blog.
Or not. Can I hold my breath that long without passing over to the other side?
😎
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Thanks for the larger perspective on this outfit. I see that the teachers hope lawyer-up in order get some of the money they earned.
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Matchbox is a failed “blended learning” experiment- cheap schools for low income kids:
“Matchbook Learning, a national non-profit K-12 school management organization, was founded on the premise that traditional non-technology based innovations in public education have failed and will continue to fail to scale the breadth of need in our nation’s struggling schools. We believe that online and blended learning represent the first and best chance for the success our children deserve.”
Ed reform still promotes the chain. The founder speaks at ed reform conventions.
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Matchbook Learning: what an appropriate name for “educational” arsonists.
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On second thought, perhaps that was they used when they sketched out their business plan. Either way.
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Matchbox is the quintessence of racism: put those kids on computers. They don’t need real teachers. Depersonalized learning is good enough for “them”
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Welcome to the world that DeVos, #FakePresident Trump, and ALEC want to build.
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How about every time this happens the state government needs to step in and pay the teachers what they are owed. After a few charter schools doing this then there might be laws passed against charter schools and for profit schools.
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Yeah, like that’s gonna’ happen!
The state governments are buying into the “charter mess” to avoid accountability (pension, salaries, learning expectations/standards, etc.).
You really think they’re going to kick in to pay what they tried to avoid paying in the first place?
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Heidi that is genius!
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It is illegal not to pay an employee for work performed! Those teachers can get paid.Those teachers should call my husband Robert Levi @ 1-248-366-4412 and check out his website @ Robertlevilaw.com. He has recently had some great success representing teachers against for profit management companies.
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I have a funny feeling that the school’s creditors have a close relationship with the school’s administrators and/or Board, thus the need to pay them instead of the teachers.
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That is illegal. Those teachers should call my husband Robert Levi @ 1-248-366-4412 and check out his website @ Robertlevilaw.com. He has recently had some great success representing teachers against for profit management companies.
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