A teenager decided he wanted to be a school superintendent, so he created his own school corporation, and the state—which loves to encourage choice—registered his corporation.
“A boy in LaPorte, Ind. created the fake school– the LaCav Community School Corporation.
“The 13-year-old is part-time seventh grader, part-time superintendent. He applied his fake school district to be registered with the state and he succeeded.
“The Indiana Department of Education gave Leo Cavinder a non-public school number.
“A spokesperson for the department says that number can do nothing on its own and that it was quickly revoked when they realized the LaCav Community School Corporation has no students.
“No funding ever changed hands, but the ability for a seventh grader to be taken seriously as an adult raises some questions.
“I had seen other school corporations and I just thought it was cool to have my own,” said Cavinder.”
Leo showed that Indiana has no standards at all when it comes to approving school corporations. Everyone welcome, including crooks, frauds, and con artists.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is Leo Cavinder a future president in the making? If this 13-year-old is corruptible, the kleptocracy will be hiring him soon. Maybe Eli Broad will offer him an education in (non) leadership through his Broad (conman in training) Academy.
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More likely a future Andy Borowitz… or John Oliver….
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Send the kid an e-mail and let him know that he could become the next John Oliver. Why wait. He could launch his own YouTube channel and get started now.
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He dreams of being a superintendent himself, but knows it’ll take a lot of work.
“Probably work my way up from like teacher, secretary, assistant superintendent to superintendent,” Cavinder said.
Why bother with all that work and preparation, though? He can just open a school and name himself CEO in Indiana.
In two years he’ll be an in-demand speaker at ed reform events in DC and they’ll be “scaling up” LaCav Community school nationwide. I don’t even think he has to finish 7th grade.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Wow!
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When they were “reforming” Detroit a local woman was in the paper talking about how she was going there to open a charter school. We’re a hundred miles from Detroit and it’s in a different state. I have no idea why this person thought she was qualified to do this, but she was interviewed as if opening a “public” school was just another small business opportunity. Just crazy. They’ve all drunk the kool aid. No one even questions this stuff.
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Taking a seventh grader seriously as an adult doesn’t bother me nearly as much as crooks, frauds, and con artists creating their own school corporations. Either way, in this case their thought process was the same: “I had seen other school corporations and I just thought it was cool to have my own.”
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I think the fact that they took a seventh grader seriously is indicative of the roots of the crooks, frauds and con artists. The fact that they couldn’t check so much as a birthdate tells you that there is absolutely NO oversight on these kinds of “schools”. The crooks, frauds and con artists would have to be stupid NOT to take advantage of that.
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Probably a good “Choice” for Indiana.
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“Reform” is a joke without rules, oversight and regulation, and it is mostly about gaining access to public money. It took a child to demonstrate Indiana’s incompetence.
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“It took a child to demonstrate Indiana’s TOTAL incompetence.”
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You misspelled “incompetence”: it’s spelled “corruption”.
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To be fair, he has about as much training in school finance and administration as some of these other charter schools.
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I forwarded this blog to my state senator and state representative. [R-IN].
……………………..
Dear Senator Niemeyer and Representative Slager,
Quote: “Leo showed that Indiana has no standards at all when it comes to approving school corporations. Everyone welcome, including crooks, frauds, and con artists.”
Tell me again about the wonderful things politicians in this state are doing to help students and teachers achieve their best? You were conned by a tech savvy 13 year old.
Sincerely,
Carol__
Schererville, IN
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Another one for the file. Will there be copy-cats?
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What was the objection? That he didn’t know anything about education?
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If an 18-year old can buy an AR-15, why a 13-year old cannot register a school corporation?
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The “Charter School Scam” is so easy to pull of, yet Education Secretary DeVos is pouring public tax money into charter schools in spite of the fact that The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which finds that, because of their lack of financial accountability to the public “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets, especially hedge fund pockets.
If nothing else is required of charter schools, one thing must be required so that charter schools are accountable to taxpayers and inform taxpayers as to how taxpayer money is actually being spent; that one key thing is: Charter schools must be required to file the SAME detailed, public domain financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file.
Charter schools will cry out that this is “too burdensome” — yet public schools file such reports. What would the outcry be if public schools were “freed” of this “burden”? Why, the outcry would rattle the very heavens! So, why is it that private charter schools are allowed to get away with taking public tax money and not have to tell the public on an annual basis how those public tax dollars are spent?
Charter schools bill themselves as “public schools”, but Supreme Courts in states like New York, Washington and elsewhere are catching on to the scam and have ruled that charter schools are really private schools because they aren’t accountable to the public because they are run by private boards that aren’t elected by voters and don’t even have to file detailed reports to the public about what they’re doing with the public’s tax money.
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Thanks for this post, Diane.
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VP Pence should be pleased about this… Lest we forget, he was the driving force behind this kind of deregulation… oh… lest we forget… we might not be wanting to celebrate should Stormy Daniels or Mueller succeed in forcing Mr, Trump to go back into the hotel management business…
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“Should Stormy Daniels or Mueller succeed in forcing Mr, Trump to go back into the hotel management business” … Trump, a known micromanager, might have his office in a prison cell.
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Lloyd: Sounds wonderful to me. The big problem is that Pence is a religious fanatic who would go along with everything the conservative GOP desires. He looks good but is evil. I’d like to see him sharing a prison cell office with our Orange IDIOT. We can dream.
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Pence could turn out much worse than Trump.
Pence has been linked to the Koch brothers, and he is a member of ALEC. Pence has spoken more than once at ALEC’s annual, secretive, secluded meetings.
Pence has proven himself to be a loyal lackey of the Koch brothers but Trump, on the other hand, won’t let anyone tell him what to do. If you want Trump to do something for you, the best way is to pay for it with tens of millions of dollars since Trump is probably hanging onto his empire with fingernails that have been chewed to the quick.
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Lloyd, dreams sometimes come true. Stormy’s lawyer hinted on TV that there might even be a paternity suit but one assumes a porn star knows about contraception
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Indiana is proving itself to be a “Great” state, more like “Grate” state. Here is my today’s letter to Senator Todd Young [R-IN]. Hope all of you sign up to protest in your area.
….
3/8/2018 March For Our Lives on March 24 across the USA will protest against corrupt politicians like Senator Todd Young. NRA blood money of $2,896,732
On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets to demand that our lives, and safety, become a priority — and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today. We’re marching across the country and at the Capitol to make sure our collective VERY LOUD voices will be heard.
I will be marching with friends and my homemade signs in Highland, IN. This country has had enough of NRA bought out politicians like corrupt Senator Todd Young.
Possibles signs:
$2,896,732 in NRA Blood Money—Corrupt Senator Todd Young”
“Corrupt Senator Todd Young, Your Silence is Killing Children”
”Gun Control—Stop Protecting Guns and Protect Children”
“Protect Children, Not Your machines of Violence”
“Prayers and condolences are not enough. Government officials need to TAKE ACTION OR STEP DOWN”
“WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED”
$30 million in NRA Blood Money—Corrupt Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief”
“WE DEMAND A BAN”
‘PROTECT OUR KIDS, NOT YOUR GUNS”
Chants: “Hey, Hey NRA. How many kids have you killed today?”
“No more silence, END GUN VIOLENCE!”
We are reclaiming our society and our public spaces for the lives of our children. 96 people are killed by guns EVERY DAY in the U.S. An American is 25 times more likely to killed with a gun than citizens of other wealthy countries.
Your generous gun bribe by the NRA can no longer trump our lives or our safety.
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