Yesterday we learned that Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to ban for-profit charters. This sounded great, but there are very few for-profit charters in California other than K12 Inc. Even K12 Inc.’s CAVA (California Virtual Academies) won’t close until their charter comes up for renewal. It can go on ripping off students, families and taxpayers until then.
The fact that the California Charter Schoools Association celebrated the ban is evidence that it will do nothing to curtail the graft and corruption that is commonplace in the California charter industry.
How timely that Steven Singer explains that there really is no difference between for-profit and non-profit charters. They all drain resources and the students they want from public schools, undermining them and threatening the future of public education.
He writes in part:
“Stop kidding yourself.
“Charter schools are a bad deal.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re for-profit or nonprofit.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re cyber or brick-and-mortar institutions.
“It doesn’t matter if they have a history of scandal or success.
“Every single charter school in the United States of America is either a disaster or a disaster waiting to happen.
“The details get complicated, but the idea is really quite simple.
“It goes like this.
“Imagine you left a blank check on the street.
“Anyone could pick it up, write it out for whatever amount your bank account could support and rob you blind.
“Chances are you’d never know who cashed it, you’d never get that money back and you might even be ruined.
“That’s what a charter school is – a blank check.
“It’s literally a privately operated school funded with public tax dollars.
“Operators can take almost whatever amount they want, spend it with impunity and never have to submit to any real kind of transparency or accountability.
“Compare that to a traditional public school – an institution invariably operated by duly elected members of the community with full transparency and accountability in an open forum where taxpayers have access to internal documents, can have their voices heard and even seek an administrative position.
“THAT’S a responsible way to handle public money!
“Not forking over our checkbook to virtual strangers!
“Sure, they might not steal our every red cent. But an interloper who finds a blank check on the street might not cash it, either.
“The particulars don’t really matter. This is a situation rife with the possibility of fraud. It is a situation where the deck is stacked against the public in every way and in favor of charter school operators.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Steve Singer is correct that there is money to be made by charter managers to the detriment of children in both for-profit and non profit charters. Without going into the weeds, there can be a difference in how they go about it. There is also a difference in how the public reacts.
In Florida, almost one half of charters are run by for-profit companies i.e. over 600. Bringing awareness to voters that charters may be called public schools but are run privately is important. For-profit charters have made that easier by getting involved in both ethical and criminal activities.
The privatization movement has been taking bites out of the public school system. We can bite back.
“Bringing awareness to voters that charters may be called public schools but are run privately is important.” And not only important but essential is the fact that voters must be made to understand that there is no “separate” money for charter/choice schools — it all comes our of the same “public education” funding source.
The upcoming possible strike by LAUSD teachers will be very telling. Is Superintendent Beutner just testing the waters to find out just how much support there is for teachers amongst parents? Most certainly, Beutner was an extremely unpopular choice by all facets of the school district except for the charter friendly board members which included disgraced criminally indicted Ref Rodriguez. But, will parents who are certain to be challenged with child care issues rise above Beutner’s rhetoric and realize that, if the teachers lose, so will their children in the long run? Is Beutner hoping that parents will respond by abandoning their public schools for non-union charters? Steven Singer did a masterful job detailing exactly what parents can expect if they chose charters who can use their per pupil funding to market their schools to the community. As in any industry where there is a profit to be made, the value of the product will be the focus, not the negative consequences that are sure to result.
Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez was “criminally indicted” prior to his plea. After his guilty plea and sentencing the correct way to refer to Ref Rodriguez is “convicted felon,” or “criminal convict.” The former being more precise from a legal standpoint.
Stop kidding yourself. It doesn’t matter if they’re cyber or brick-and-mortar institutions.
It is a situation where the testing deck is stacked against the CHILDREN.
If an institution operated by duly elected members of the community, or an alternate
institution, pulls the “testing trigger” the harm to the children is the SAME.
Forking over “public money” to the testing complex, ISN’T a responsible way
to handle public money, even under the umbrella of “community based, locally controlled, transparent, non-profit…” no more than forking over “public money”
to charters. Mounting the high horse of indignation doesn’t hide or change that.
“Forking over “public money” to the testing complex, ISN’T a responsible way to handle public money,”
Exactly!
“But, but we have to standardize test the students or else the state will withhold the funds.”
I’m not holding my breath waiting for a district to challenge that thought by not implementing the educational malpractice that is the standards and testing regime.
When will we learn, when will we ever learn?
“We live in an age of philanthrocapitalism, where the wealthy disguise schemes to enrich themselves as benevolence, generosity and humanitarianism.”
Philanthrocapitalism is more about capitalism than philanthropy. When billionaires or corporations set up an LLC, it is an act of selfishness, not selflessness. Make no mistake. These investors want to make money from education, and they intend to limit their liability. They get to use tax dollars for their own private investment. Like every corporate venture, they will repeatedly lower the bottom line to extract more profit. Students are not the first priority.
“Thanks to some Clinton-era tax breaks, an investor in a charter school can double the original investment in just seven years! I can even get the public to pay for the same building twice! And even then taxpayers still won’t own it!”
In addition to “finding money on the street,” our laws including the New Market Tax Credits make investing in charters a highly profitable business. Some of the laws are so outrageous, they legalize the theft of public property. This is harmful, reckless neoliberal policy that needs to end. Privatization is rife with waste, fraud and embezzling of funds that should be used to pay for public education. This is legalized vandalism of a public institution.
I’ve heard of “non-profit”
But what’s a “nom-profit”?
Is that where you profit from your name?
I suggest you change your name to SomeNOM poet. Or maybe the artist, formerly known for about twenty seconds, as SomeNOM Poet.
I found a hundred dollar bill on the street once.
Of course I asked the first person I met (a charter school CEO, as it happened) if they had lost a hundred dollar bill and when they said yes (what’s the chance?), I promptly returned it to it’s rightful owner.
I think I’ve said this before in a comment or comments here. Any legislation that legalizes publicly funded, private sector charter schools, profit or non-profit, is a Trojan horse designed to legitimize and establish these schools in the public mind.
Once this terminal cancer is established legally and in the public mind, it will be almost impossible to get rid of it. The double standard created will become the norm.
Traditional public schools will be transparent and held accountable to other legislation and laws that specifically name them public schools.
The publicly funded private sector charter schools will be opaque and will not be held accountable to the legislation and laws that only refer to public schools by name.
Two systems with two sets of laws.
That transparency will be used to set up and frame the traditional public schools for failure and destruction while the charter schools hide their many failures and flaws behind a wall.
As a legal scholar I’m often taken aback by how effectively the ruling class has deceived the public on the issue of 501(c)(3) “non-profit” corporations. Aside from their ability to further the fringe-right’s agenda, and their main purpose to extract public wealth from the commons with no oversight or transparency, 501c3s are an instrument to buttress what Professor hooks calls the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.”
Everyone on the left should read and discuss the definitive book by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence on the issue of non-profits. This passage is quite informative:
“Operators can take almost whatever amount they want, spend it with impunity and never have to submit to any real kind of transparency or accountability.”
I wish charter school opponents stop arguing against the existence charter schools by talking about lack of transparency and accountability. Even if a charter school is fully transparent and accountable, it takes money away from public schools. Even if the check given to the charter school is not blank, as a minimum, it has the charter school’s students’ tuition written on it.
Charter schools and vouchers are the usual scheme: 90+ % of the population is screwed so that 10% can have their freedom of choice.
“
One local, charter friendly politician here in Memphis was elected this year because she promised to create fully transparent charter schools.
“Even if a charter school is fully transparent and accountable, it takes money away from public schools. ”
Yes! Yes x 1000!
Every time a state legislature or the US Congress passes legislation with the term “charter schools” in it, that term justifies the existence of two publicly funded education systems in the US instead of one.
#1 – The K-12 public ed system is transparent, mostly democratic because of local elected school boards, except where they have been subverted by huge campaign contributions to the minions of billionaire autocrats like what’s happening in LA Unified, and must follow all legislation and court cases that apply to ed codes in every state and the nation. Parents and local voters have a voice in this ed system.
#2 is the publicly funded, private sector charter school K-12 ed system that is mostly opaque and doesn’t have to follow any laws for the first K-12 system. Parents and local voters have no voice in this system.
We had a dual school system for many years.
The Brown Decision was supposed to signal an end to that system.
Bad habits die hard.
Within this article, Singer links to another of his [at “whether the charter is a disaster or a disaster waiting to happen”] which is pure gold. It’s called “The Best Charter Cannot Hold a Candle to the Worst Public School.” Addresses points made by Mâté and NoBrick.