A small Texas charter organization has spent sizable sums to buy residential condos, claiming they are for “office space and storage.”
“Accelerated Intermediate Academy – the charter school network criticized for its purchase of a Houston condominium with taxpayer dollars – also owns a second condo in downtown Dallas where similar units have been appraised at more than $300,000.
“The network also shelled out nearly $120,000 in property taxes on the Houston property, including $45,700 in late fees and attorney costs, in 2016 after the Harris County Appraisal District denied a request for a property exemption, tax records show.The two-school charter network, which served fewer than 300 students last year at two campuses, spent $427,238 for the Houston condo and an undisclosed amount for the high-end Dallas residence, property records show. Both were purchased in June 2011…
“The property purchases and tax payments mean hundreds of thousands of dollars less for the academy’s classrooms, raising additional questions about the network’s leadership.
Accelerated Intermediate Academy has received about $55 million in taxpayer dollars since opening in 2001, producing solid academic results. It is one of dozens of charter school networks that are publicly funded and privately governed by nonprofit boards to provide parents an option in place of traditional public schools.
“A Houston Chronicle investigation last month uncovered the Houston condo purchase in 2011 and reported that the school’s superintendent, Kevin Hicks, earned more than $250,000 each of the past three years despite several parents and former teachers saying he rarely appeared on the Houston campus….
“School officials told appraisers in Dallas that the unit would be used for office and records storage, even though the school already had a 9,600-square-foot campus in the nearby suburb of Lancaster. That campus has never enrolled more than 17 students since opening in 2012, according to state reports. The Houston unit also was described as an office and storage facility.
Following both purchases, school leaders sought full property tax exemptions, which routinely are granted for charter schools. The network noted in a letter to Harris County appraisers that “the only funds we receive are state and federal funds….”
“Accelerated Intermediate Academy’s properties had high-end touches befitting their price tags, according to online real estate listings. The Dallas unit came with hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, a wine cooler, granite countertops and access to a rooftop deck with a hot tub. The 1,118-square-foot Houston condo has floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood floors and access to a pool with skyline views.
“As Accelerated Intermediate Academy has sunk money into buying properties, however, the charter network has paid teachers salaries that are well below average, payroll data shows. Most of its educators have earned about $35,000 to $45,000 in recent years. By comparison, the starting salary at traditional public school districts in the Houston area is about $50,000.
“The school also has stockpiled $12.5 million in cash, enough to cover six years’ worth of operating expenses; most schools keep three to six months’ worth of operating expenses in cash.”
Every storage space should be equipped with a wine cooler, granite countertops, and access to a rooftop hot tub.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“As Accelerated Intermediate Academy has sunk money into buying properties, however, the charter network has paid teachers salaries that are well below average, payroll data shows. Most of its educators have earned about $35,000 to $45,000 in recent years. By comparison, the starting salary at traditional public school districts in the Houston area is about $50,000.”
Ohio charter teachers are also paid less than Ohio public school teachers. It’s substantial. It can be a difference of 10k a year.
Public school kids have actually benefited from charters paying less. My son has had several teachers thru the years who started at charters and switched to publics after they had some experience, because the pay is better. We also get teachers from the local Catholic school who come for the better pay and (particularly) better health care benefits.
Charter teacher pay is never discussed in ed reform. It’s one of the many, many subjects that are off limits. It might be interesting to study it as a market- do the better teachers seeking higher wages move from charters to public schools?
I wonder if that’s the reason ed reformers in NYC (and elsewhere) are creating their own speedy-quick teacher certification processes- because they need a lower-wage pool of teachers to burn out and thru- lower wage as compared to public schools.
If unionized teachers have higher wages then it’s easier to create your own lower wage non-unionized “pipeline” of employees than it to compete on wages with public schools.
Teacher pay dropped dramatically in Wisconsin when the state was “reformed”. That wasn’t an accident.
How on earth does a school that has never enrolled more than 17 students stay open? That’s half of ONE of my classes (I teach 8 classes, 4 every day)!!!????
Because no one regulates it. There are thousands of charters all over states. Depending on state regulators to oversee thousands of locations is ludicrous. It was never going to work. It never will work.
Public schools were overseen locally for a reason- because the regulator has to be close to the entity regulated. They set school systems up with local regulation because it makes sense.
I know, Chiara. It was more of a rhetorical question. But when all of these hyper-capitalists come out and say that “competition” will winnow out the “bad” schools, I like to point out these kinds of conundrums, because, obviously, competition isn’t working the way that Adam Smith and others envisioned.
As Peter Greene often comments, “School choice doesn’t foster superior schools, it fosters superior marketing.”
You wonder where the regulators are in these states. It’s literally like they transfer public funds to charters and then that’s it- there’s no regulation at all. It’s like a huge voucher payment, essentially school-wide vouchers.
If our public school purchased a luxury condo it would be front page news- a HUGE scandal. We had an entire investigation that centered around one school administrator purchasing one laptop that he took home. It went on for months. The charge was his daughter had primarily used this laptop so the question was had he used public funds to purchase this laptop for his daughter. Charters are buying whole PROPERTIES and there’s no investigation.
I can only speak to CA. Basically, so long as there is no embarrassing expose like you see here, mass parent complaints or the school does not close outright due to fraud, there is effectively no regulation and no check on how charters spend their money. Compounding the problem in CA, many charters are regulated at the County and State levels, neither of which have the inclination or resources to investigate how money is spent. There is no requirement for approval of how money is spent other than the approval by the Board of the Charter, and many of these boards are captive Boards staffed with the Director’s cronies. There are effectively no conflict interest rules, so you can spend as much as you want on executive salaries, payments to related companies, etc., and pay teachers as little as you want so long as you can convince enough parents to send their kids to your school so the state dollars keep flowing.
cross posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Texas-Should-Charter-Scho-in-General_News-Charter-Schools_Diane-Ravitch_Public-Graft_Public-Money-171229-932.html#comment684018
My comment there:
And sweet Betsy Devos wants public money for charter schools. No wonder hedge funds are seeing charter schools a lucrative investments.
Click here for more posts on CHARTER FRAUD,by Diane Ravitch
Included was a link to the TrustEd list, and their picture and words about Diane.
Wow 😮
Condominium well BISCAINE IS located in Dade County next to bayside it’s a very expensive area plus very nice I remember back in the 90’s I was very close to purchase an apartment with ocean view on Biscane and I regretted because now those condominiums are for people with a lot of money I knew a lot of Chaters supporters who are investing money there .
That new that tax-payer money was used in Texas to purchase condos well not millions still that money belongs to us but the millions that COULD be used for purchase condos in Biscane it’s another level of fraud and the only way to prove that is put the LUPE on top of DADE CAUNTY .
WHO I’M ?
NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD SAY THE TRUTH IS I MISS A LOT PUBLIC SCHOOLS BECAUSE CHOICE SUPPORTERS
THEY ARE KILLING THE PUBLIC SCHOOLL SISTEM SOFTLY .
AS THE SONG KILLING ME SOFTLY.
FRANK SINATRA KILING ME SOFTLY A GREAT SINGER AND BEAUTIFUL SONG !
I LOVE NEW YORK AND I LOVE AMERICA BUT I MISS THE BEST WAY TO TEACH STUDENTS I MISS THE PUCLIC EDUCATION.
I NEVER WILL DONAY ONE CENTS TO CHOICE BECAUSE IT’S NOT GOOD CHOICE .
SAY NO TO CHOICE DON’T CHOSE THE WORTS ENEMY OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION.
UP TO YOU
I think to qualify those condos as storage space, they allocated one closet to store a few boxes that came from the corporate charter school. If they actually made that much of an effort to cover their fraud, I’m sure they sent someone around to collect papers (correct school work) to put in those boxes from the teachers and never told them what it was for. Then a few boxes are sent to each condo to be stared in one closet while still leaving room for clothing to hang in that closet.
Shazam, we now have a luxury condo that is being used to store paperwork from the charter school. And of course, whoever lives in the condo will claim they live there to protect that student paperwork from the industry that gathers data on our children.
What they won’t admit is that they are making more money by selling the actual data on our children to the fact-gathering industry.
“Parents and donors are gearing up for the rollout of Illinois’ new tax credit scholarship program.
Under the “Invest In Kids” program, a state tax credit is available to individuals or businesses for donations made to authorized organizations. Those organizations then use the money to fund tuition scholarships for eligible students to attend a school of their choice.”
The Illinois voucher program was included in a bill to fund every public school in the state. Ed reformers held public school funding hostage until they got vouchers.
There has been ZERO coverage of the the public school funding.
90% of families in Illinois are completely and utterly ignored in ed reform circles. To ed reformers, this was a voucher bill. The public schools in the state are an afterthought- a vehicle to carry a voucher bill.
What is wrong here, people. Where is MY condo? How on Earth am I supposed to teach without a wine cooler and a hot tub?! Who needs a school nurse? Forget the library! I just need bubbles.
Ah … public dollars being USED for PRIVATE PROPERTY INVESTMENTS. A FEW are getting rich off the SCAM. Good grief. has the people of this country gone plain stupid?
Uptown Houston is a posh area just outside of the inner loop. Needless to say, it is an upscale area. Are the taxpayers asleep? They are being ripped off, and so am I since I own a property in Houston and pay high property taxes. I am going to contact the mayor’s office. I am willing to pay for education, but not condos. This is clearly fraud. Moreover, how do they justify the high administrative salaries for very few students? Accountability and transparency of public funds should be required. By the way, if they are in need of storage near Uptown, there are several self storage facilities in the Uptown area. This is just misuse of public money.