Laura Chapman, tireless researcher, did a cursory scan of the abundance of billionaire cash flowing into charter schools, enhanced by another $400 million from the U.S. Department of Education. There are literally dozens more foundations and organizations pouring money into the charter industry, such as Reed Hastings (Netflix), Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, John Arnold (ex-Enron), Michael Dell (computers), the Fisher Family (Old Navy, the Gap), and many more.
Why is the U.S. Department of Education pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into this well-funded industry? Betsy DeVos recently handed out $399 million to jump-start new charter schools, even in districts and states where there is no demand. Next year, Congress has allotted $450 million for charters, whether they are wanted or not.
What is clear from Laura’s review is that charter schools are not in need of funding. They are in need of accountability, transpency, stability, supervision, regulation, and integrity.
She writes:
I just did an analysis of these USDE grants, announced by Politico, in tandem with the Walton Foundation 2020 plan for charter school grants. Of course charters have many big funders. For example the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has propped up the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers with grants to date of $35,954,074.
The 2020 plan from the Walton Family Foundation (prepared in 2015) begins with the prideful claim that the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart wealth) has supported 1 in 4 charter schools.
The 2020 plan provides for a five year investment totaling $1 billion for charter schools and supporters.
Between the Walton Family Foundation and USDE grants, thirty states will see inflows of funds for charters and with only a few exceptions (five), these states will have funds from both sources (in addition to many other funders).
The Walton Foundation is supporting charter-friendly STATE policies in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
For 2018-2019, the Walton wealth is supporting charterizing in: Arkansas (any district); California (Los Angeles specific boundaries, two grants]; California (Oakland, two grants), Colorado (Denver, two grants), Georgia (Atlanta, two grants), Indiana (Indianapolis, two grants), Louisiana (New Orleans, two grants), Massachusetts (Boston); New Jersey (Camden), New York (New York City, two grants), Oklahoma (any district), Tennessee (Memphis, Shelby County), Texas (Houston ISD; San Antonio, two grants), Washington, DC (two grants). “Any district” means there are no constraints on location. Most of the two-for grants are for facilities support in addition to operational support.
All of the Walton and USDE grants are for charter school “startups,” expansions, “replications” (as in a franchise), or charter school facilities financing. It is not surprising that most of the USDE grants are complementing those of the Walton Foundation.
It is easy to forget that NCLB provided for various schemes to finance charter schools (in addition to federal funds). Now there are specialty companies in the business of building out the charter sector. Here are some of the services advertised by one of these.
Begin quote: “Charter School Capital provides flexible funding solutions so charter schools can gain ground and achieve success. Our charter school working capital financing enables school leaders the flexibility and stability to support everyday expenses and — importantly — fuel their growth.
We help charter schools access working capital so they can:
Expand or grow programs, Open a new charter school, Provide new technology in the classroom, Hire and/or develop staff, Address budget shortfalls and delays (deferrals, holdbacks, etc.) gracefully, Improve transportation options, Enrich educational programs, Buy new equipment,
Facilities Financing
Our facilities financing product is a long-term lease that allows schools to access funding through all stages of growth – from start-up to expansion through maturity. As a long-term partner, our team works closely with you as we explore budgetary and financial options to support your facilities needs.
Why long-term lease financing? You can finance 100% of project costs, You can retain control of your facility, You can plan on long-term affordability, You can enhance your existing building or finance new construction, Your lease can be customized to your school’s model – whether blended learning, traditional, etc., Tenant improvements can be financed in your lease, Can be used as take-out financing for an existing bond or potential bridge to bond financing.
We currently own 42 school properties in 11 states, more than $350 million in assets. Schools range in attendance from 135 to 1,200 students with educational programs that include college preparatory, art-focused, STEM schools, and others. Our goal is to aid charter leaders so they have accessible, flexible financing options to meet their schools needs today and the needs they have in the future.
Loan Details
The Charter School Capital loan product is a flexible financing solution that can help schools reach their enrollment and educational goals.Available to schools of all ages, Refinance options available throughout the school year to accommodate growth, Payment plans can be customized to suit school needs, Access to funding in as few as 30 days from date of initial request, Loan amounts based on annual state aid revenue and student count, allowing for increasing scale with growth, NO RESTRICTIONS PLACED UPON UTILIZATION OF FUNDS. (caps are mine, End Quote.) https://charterschoolcapital.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/csc-product-1pager_WC_Facilities_Loans_FINAL.pdf
Here is the Walton 2020 plan: https://8ce82b94a8c4fdc3ea6d-b1d233e3bc3cb10858bea65ff05e18f2.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/04/ab/555b3ee54d3792eebaf27a803400/k12-strategic-plan-overview-updated.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If ed reformers were actually interested in supporting “school choice” they would occasionally support a public school, but they never do. Public schools are deliberately and carefully excluded from all this federally-funded cheerleading for charters and vouchers.
They treat public schools as the disfavored “back up” to the schools they prefer- the schools in the background who pick up the vast, vast majority of students and therefore can be ignored.
Public schools are the schools they take for granted- they don’t offer anything of value to the schools themselves, or public school students, or public school parents. The assumption, I guess, is that we in the disfavored “public school sector” don’t pay any attention to education policy and won’t ever vote on it. I think that arrogant assumption is mistaken.
We need an elected advocate in DC who actually has some passion for our schools- right now we don’t have any. Public school students deserve better and they can have better- we just have to replace some incumbent lawmakers who take public schools, and public school families, for granted.
Betsy DeVos reorganized the ED dept and elevated the Office of Nonpublic Education so it reports directly to the Secretary. This is important, before it was a small agency under the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elemtary and Secondary Education.
I disagree, that public schools need an advocate in WashDC. Public schools are a state/municipal enterprise , and 90% of the funding is state/local. What is needed, is to get the feds OUT of K-12 education entirely. Everything that the Dept of Ed tries to do, and the programs passed by the federal congress (Common Core, ESSA, etc) only seems to make things worse.
Why send tax dollars to the bureaucrats in WashDC, who will siphon off 50+% in the swamps of WashDC, and then send a pittance back to the states, with all kinds of strings and mandates?
The states/municipalities should be demanding that the feds just “butt out” of their public school systems. States can raise the taxes in their own states, without the bureaucrats in DC ripping them off.
Shut down the Dept of Ed. Solve your own problems at the state/municipal level.
Seems to me that the only thing that will stop the expansion of the charter sector will be the wholesale meltdown of our economy. When? I don’t know but as soon as the economic shit hits the fan, those with the money won’t be interested in financing the losing propositions that are charter schools.
There are many reasons for publically financed public schools but one of the main ones is that education should not be a commodity that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder nor should it be a for profit (yes, even not-for-profits make a lot of money). The financiers, as has periodically happened throughout the last two hundred years always overstep the bounds in the search for easy money. The resultant economic crashes always hurt the “little guy” the most-in the case of charters the most innocent, the students who will be left without recourse to education when and if the privateers/financiers have their way (or if we allow them to have their way)
.
Suppose you build 100 new charters and they are all underenrolled?
I believe Swacker is correct here is his assessment that the charter expansion will continue until the money hits the fan. When this happens the money will not be plentiful and charter schools will see a huge turn in the support. Students will suffer.
However, I also suspect that once our economy moves out of the current state into a slow down of serious proportions, then we as a society as a whole will experience chaos like we have never seen before. Right now people are letting things go ignoring because the economy is good right now but when the cash dries up and people start losing jobs well then we will see a revolution this country has never known.
I hope that your concluding thought does not occur, but it may be a true revolution that can only change the way this country is currently constituted. But, hell, more likely than not I’ll be dead by the time that revolution happens.
Yes. From the very beginning of suddenly forced NCLB dictates entering the low-income high school where I worked it was transparent (to me) that the entire reform game was ALL about the money, not the kids. The only reasons testing/blaming/closing/chartering has teeth is that the money is there for opportunists to find. Take away the money, and the entire greed-based system falls in on itself.
Watching what is happening in the charter “industry,” it looks like the Waltons’ investment will pay off: these schools will supply plenty of compliant, non-union-organizing employees for the avaricious company that is so lucrative for them.
Sadly, what you state seems to be true.
The Walton’s plan is a propaganda pamphlet. Like DeVos the Waltons value choice over anything else. Their dictum assumes all “choice” produces high quality education, but we know this to be untrue. Lots of so-called choice schools get poor results. The Waltons want their projects to be replicable. There is no magic is getting good results in charter schools. All they have to do is select the best students, unload the non-compliant or troublesome and massage the faux data. Then, repeat the lie again and again.
CA is in trouble. Marshall Tuck (of Eli Broad campaign funding) is clearly going to win the position of State Supt of Public schools, if the money wins this race.
Should Charter schools be under his Title?
Tuck is even being supported here in Palos Verdes Estates by Richard and Melanie Lundquist who own shopping centers,etc.
Although the Lundquists support democrats for higher office, they are also investing in Charter Schools now as a new business. They held a recent event for Tuck for big ticket admission for his candidacy.
Everyone has to peel back the onion to see where the big money is coming from and who’s benefiting. It’s certainly not the children who benefit.
“It’s certainly not the children who benefit.”
That’s a feature of the edudeformer and privateer agenda. It’s the adults who are supposed to benefit-financially that is-from that spending.
Maybe he won’t win.
If public school parents vote, Tony Thurmond will win.
I guess the key is how to get the parents to do so, eh! What you are doing most certainly helps but I think a more grass roots effort is needed. Whether that support can be drummed up in the few days left. . . ? I hope!
An investment in the destruction of democracy and prevention of equity.
Thank you, Laura, great work. This deserves a larger audience.
The next step is full/comparable vouchers to “Chartered” parents for home schooling their children Pre-K-12. Can’t be that far out. tb
This year, the Gates Foundation has a new Post Secondary Success Director. His prior experience- Boston Consulting Group’s Social Impact and Consumer Goods Practices area.
Does, data collector, Bill Gates, have a master list of the university education departments fully co-opted by corporations? Frederick Hess’ goal, as described in “Don’t Surrender the Academy” (Philanthropy Roundtable), for the wealthy to takeover university departments, met.
Paul Allen died this month. If the others on the list from the “Layman’s Guide to the ‘Destroy Public Education Movement” kicked the bucket, democracy fighters could exert greater energy to topple the Koch’s influence.
I read the 2014 article by Hess. He believes universities and schools of education should become propganda mills for the destruction of public education aided by dedicated billionaire funding of entire departments, endowed faculty positions, and belief tanks housed in the university. This is a dangerous stance and aided by the excessive wealth available to demolish the very concept of academic freedom and independent research.
Frederick Hess is an affront to American democracy.