The Houston Chronicle has taken note of the unusual expenditures of a small charter chain that found it necessary to purchase two condos in luxury apartment buildings for “office space” and “storage.”
I wrote about this charter “chain” yesterday.
Since Houston and Texas have been charter-crazy, this is a tiny little wake-up call about the risks of turning public money over to private entrepreneurs without accountability or transparency.
This editorial calls on the leaders of KIPP and other charter chains to join in demanding a state investigation:
“It’s easy to imagine the outrage that would ensue if Houston ISD purchased apartments in posh neighborhoods – and the inevitable electoral fallout for district trustees. With charter schools, however, voters don’t have recourse to the ballot box when problems arise.
“The public needs answers to the serious questions posed by Accelerated’s peculiar spending. TEA investigators must act quickly to ensure charter school funds are spent on behalf of students, and not to support the lifestyles of administrators.”
Start with this embarrassment, then investigate the state’s many Gulen charters, then keep going.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“It’s easy to imagine the outrage that would ensue if Houston ISD purchased apartments in posh neighborhoods – and the inevitable electoral fallout for district trustees. With charter schools, however, voters don’t have recourse to the ballot box when problems arise.”
Actually they do. They can replace elected ed reformers with people who support public education. Has to be at the state level, however, since charter schools are regulated at the state level. Well, “regulated”. Or not, as it turns out.
Since these are essentially state schools the electoral mechanism is state level, not local level. It took 20 years for people to figure this out in Ohio. Other states can learn from our experience.
Bring your complaints to the governor, state legislature and state agencies. That’s where charter schools are governed. Go up.
This governance system ed reformers designed simply skips the local level and goes up to the state level. Unsurprisingly it’s next to impossible to regulate thousands of schools all over the state using exclusively state regulators.
It’s a dumb governance system, which is why public schools didn’t adopt it in the first place.
They’re lucky it’s just financial malfeasance because it’s incredibly reckless. They should thank their lucky stars every day the lack of regulation hasn’t ended in a tragedy involving children’s personal safety. They’re on borrowed time there. It will happen. People who cut corners on financial reporting will also cut corners on safety measures. Reckless in one area means reckless in another. They should immediately verify that the school is following fire and safety regulations, with an independent audit.
The digging into the malfeasance has to begin at the local level.
Here’s a fifteen minute video from Newsbud which describes some the secretive, shady practices of the Gulen Charter chain, the largest charter chain in Texas. Taxpayers should be furious that the state keeps writing blank checks for charters that misuse public funds and violate the law by forcing employees to pay kickbacks to the school in order for them to continue working. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1mYTjRM718
I didn’t know how big Gulen is- they’re the fifth largest charter chain in the country.
Heritage, the Right wing religious charter chain, is also huge. They’re number 4.
My school system is TINY compared to these charter chains. They’re becoming enormous.
Chiara,
By Heritage, I think you mean National Heritage Academies, founded by Jake Huizenga as a for-profit charter chain. Huizenga is from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and close to DVos and ALEC. See Alan Singer: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/why-is-this-charter-schoo_b_5397059.html
If they’re not keeping accurate or complete financial records, chances are they aren’t keeping accurate or complete records as to safety training or drills, attendance, civil rights, or any of the other many areas schools record and monitor.
Don’t say you weren’t warned. People who cut corners or bend rules on money management also cut corners on everything else. Don’t find out the hard way.
Deregulation is wonderful until there’s a crisis and then everyone remembers why we had regulations in the first place. No need to learn that lesson over and over again.
Does Texas have “authorizers” or “sponsors”?
I’d ask where they are but I live in Ohio and we know authorizers do absolutely nothing to regulate their own schools. I have yet to see how they earn their 2% cut of every charter dollar. There are authorizers in Michigan and Ohio that are located hundreds of miles from the schools they’re supposedly regulating. No one even knows if they visit these schools. No one knows who works there, what they’re paid, what they do with the money they skim from charter funding. It’s completely opaque.
The current mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, is self-made African American attorney. From his campaign website, he appears to be supportive of public education, but the big question is what will he be able to do when people like Abbot and Patrick are working to undermine public schools at the state level?https://www.sylvesterturner.com/partners-in-learning/
The governance systems ed reformers designed are really interesting because they’re designed to bypass the local level.
They started with the assumption of bad faith- that local people would oppose them for bad reasons- self interest or fear or stupidity- and that’s how they justified removing decision making from the local level- that it was “for our own good”
It’s AMAZINGLY arrogant. The PLAN was to exclude local government and deal exclusively with the people they had captured- federal and state politicians and “experts”.
It’s a governance system designed by people who have utter contempt for the people who actually use public schools. We’re literally too stupid and selfish to be trusted with our own schools, is the belief.
POSTED THIS AT OPED https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/If-a-Charter-Chain-Owns-Tw-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Accountability_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Corporate-Fraud-171230-637.html
WITH THESE COMMENT S
GO TO THE LINKS!
COMMENT ONE:
While the Trump show distracts the people the billionaires are not only destroying public education but they are making HUGE profits at our expense.See my series 15,880 Districts in 50 States: already divided for conquering: https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html and this series about charter fraud. https://www.opednews.com/Series/CHARTER-Schools–the-scho-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-141014-281.html
COMMENT TWO
I published this post by Diane Ravitch about charter school ‘rip-offs, here at Oped in 2014. https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-great-charter-school-r-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Accountability_Consequences_Education_Educational-Crisis-141006-410.html&series=399
“In a hard-hitting article in Salon, Jeff Bryant writes that the charter school frauds and scams have become too obvious to ignore.’In a real ‘bargaining process,’ those who bear the consequences of the deal have some say-so on the terms, the deal-makers have to represent themselves honestly (or the deal is off and the negotiating ends), and there are measures in place to ensure everyone involved is held accountable after the deal has been struck. ‘But that’s not what’s happening in the great charter industry rollout transpiring across the country. Rather than a negotiation over terms, charters are being imposed on communities — either by legislative fiat or well-engineered public policy campaigns. Many charter school operators keep their practices hidden or have been found to be blatantly corrupt. And no one seems to be doing anything to ensure real accountability.”
Come on.. IT IS TIME TO GET FURIOUS AT THE THEFT AND LIES Look at this in California, from last June..”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.”
“Kevin McCarthy, State Assemblyman from Sacramento, with Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, published a terrific article in the SACRAMENTO BEE,http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article154084079.html#storylink=cpy
explaining what a rip-off for-profit charters are:
“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.”
The ed reform echo chamber has spend 20 years chanting in unison that there is a “skills gap” and that’s why wages are stagnant and economic inequality is skyrocketing.
US workers were the problem. We’re dumb and lazy.
Until they wanted a corporate tax cut. Now they’re all saying wages will go up because we showered corporations with 1.5 trillion in tax cuts.
I have whiplash. The same CEO’s and experts who said the problem was the low quality US workforce now say they just needed a huge tax windfall in order to raise wages?
I don’t know about you but I’m starting to think this isn’t “science”. These arguments the echo chamber makes seem to follow a predictable path- whatever is best for wealthy people and multinational corporations is ALSO best for working people! Always.
Since Houston and Texas have been charter-crazy, this is a tiny little wake-up call about the risks of turning public money over to private entrepreneurs without accountability or transparency.
More than a tiny wake-up call.
The sirens are on full blast and the chartering agency says all is well.