The Arizona Republic recently won a Polk Award for its outstanding coverage of charter corruption.
Craig Harris, a member of the investigative team, writes here about how charters ignore parents’ complaints.
When a student is mistreated, there is no re ourse. The boarddoesnt care. It protects the school,not the student.
Students in charter schools have no rights. The parents of the student in the incident described herewithdrew him from the school.
Harris writes:
“Evan George had finished his classes for the day and was hanging out with friends at American Leadership Academy’s Queen Creek campus, when two staff members approached and accused him of vaping.
“Evan, 16, says he was doing a trick with his mouth that produces a plume of moist air that resembles vapor from an electronic cigarette.
“His explanation didn’t convince the charter school’s staffers.
“Evan was ordered to the administration office, where Athletic Director Rich Edwards took him into a room and searched him, looking for a vape pen, which would have been a violation of school policy.
“He told me to take my pants down, and he put his fingers in my underwear,” said Evan, who is a junior. “I felt scared.”
“The search didn’t turn up a vaping device, according to records the school provided to the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.
“ALA still suspended Evan from school for eight days.
“His parents, Chris and Kimberlie George, said both the Dec. 11 search and the suspension were wrong.
“The athletic director inappropriately touched their son, they said. And the school suspended Evan without proof he’d had been vaping, even though their son’s only prior disciplinary issues were for wearing torn jeans and chewing gum, they said.
“But when the Georges sought an independent review of Evan’s suspension, they found they had nowhere to turn.
“Arizona’s charter schools are primarily run by private companies. They must have a governing board, but school owners get to pick who’s on the board, so many are stocked with relatives, friends and even the charter’s owner. In some instances, boards have just one member — the charter operator.
“Beyond the school, parents can only turn to the state Charter Board. And regulators there, because of limited resources and limited authority, rarely investigate such complaints against schools, an Arizona Republic investigation shows.
“The result is a lack of independent oversight that leaves students and families at some charter schools, in disagreements big and small, with no recourse to challenge school officials’ actions — even if they think those moves inhibit their students’ academic progress or personal safety.
“ALA Queen Creek officials denied the Georges’ request for an appeal hearing before ALA’s Board of Directors, which is composed of friends of ALA founder Glenn Way.
“Evan was never afforded due process,” Chris George said. “He wasn’t able to speak to his accusers, and the dismissal hearing was a farce. There was no interest in what the truth was.”
The Arizona Republic has previously written about Glenn Way, the founder of this charter chain.
On July 11, 2018, the Arizona Republic described how Way has made millions of dollars through hischarter chain.
“When Glenn Way moved to the East Valley at the end of the Great Recession, he might have been looking for a fresh start.
“The charter school operator was deep in debt to the IRS, had sought bankruptcy protection, and recently resigned from the Utah Legislature after his wife filed a protective order against him, public records show.
“Arizona offered other opportunities for someone in his line of work: A more lightly regulated charter school industry that’s well-funded.
“At his American Leadership Academy, which he launched in June 2009, he promised students would find “the best educational experience … in a moral and wholesome environment.”
“Thanks partly to Arizona’s favorable charter school laws and lucrative no-bid contracts with ALA, Way would find new wealth.
“The schools, which have made patriotism central to their brand, including red, white or blue student apparel, have been a hit in the conservative East Valley. American Leadership — which bears the same name as a charter school Way and his wife, Shelina, operated in Spanish Fork, Utah — has over nine years grown to a dozen campuses with 8,354 students in Florence, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek and San Tan Valley.
“Way’s own development and finance companies bought the land and then built most of the school buildings. Then, they sold or leased them to American Leadership Academy, where Way, until last year, was board chairman.
“An Arizona Republic review of property records shows that during ALA’s nine-year expansion, businesses owned by or tied to Way made about $37 million on real estate deals associated with the schools — funded largely by the Arizona tax dollars allocated to his charter schools.
“Way disputes the profit figure, saying undisclosed capital costs tied to the campuses, such as street improvements, trimmed profits to $18.4 million. He did not provide documents to show a lower profit.
“But building and selling the schools weren’t the only ways he has profited. Another one of Way’s firms is paid at least $6 million a year to operate them under a contract with American Leadership, records show.
“An Arizona charter schools watchdog said regardless of the precise size of the multimillion-dollar profit, it’s clear that Way has profited handsomely — like other charter operators — using Arizona’s loose charter school laws.
RELATED: Basis attributes much of its success to Arizona’s laws
“Meanwhile, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools is investigating allegations of financial mismanagement at ALA.
“Way said there has been no wrongdoing.
“Charter schools were not designed for people to make a profit,” said Chuck Essigs, government relations director of the Arizona School Association of Business Officials.
“Way disagrees.
“The (charter school) law is silent on the question of profit, and for good reason. Arizona families will only benefit if more operators of quality charter schools are enticed to expand their offerings in our state,” said Way, who is building a home in Queen Creek valued at nearly $1 million.”
It must be the height of patriotism to get rich from public funding intended for schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is CRAZY.
So Charters were supposed to offer choices. LOL! LOL! LOL!
What Charters did was make everything the SAME. There really aren’t any ‘real’ anything in charter schools.
Choice in Charter Schools really means eating only JUNK FOOD.
The Arizona Republic’s articles are fine, but they make one misstatement: ““Charter schools were not designed for people to make a profit.” Of course they were.
Charters may not have been designed to make a profit, but in Arizona, many charter operators have figured out how to make millions from charter schools, mostly with slippery real estate deals.
The AZ Republic won a prestigious Polk award for its investigation of charter frauds.
“Beyond the school, parents can only turn to the state Charter Board. And regulators there, because of limited resources and limited authority, rarely investigate such complaints against schools, an Arizona Republic investigation shows.”
It’s the same in Ohio- charter schools are STATE schools.
Wait until ed reformers get their wish and public funding is “portable”- going to private schools and hundreds of educational contractors. There won’t be any transparency and due process at all.
Remember “preexisting conditions” in health insurance? We’ll have the same sort of cherry picking in publicly-funded schools.
The problem for ed reformers is not that they’re terrible at “governance” – although they are- it’s that their privatization goals are completely inconsistent with equal access and transparency.
There won’t be any recourse when children are tossed out of publicly-funded private schools and since all of ed reform are now backing private school vouchers. whether charters have any transparency or process really becomes a moot point.
As an example of the absolute incoherence in ed reform:
“With that mission, the foundation helped to launch and continues to invest in Remake Learning, a regionwide network of learning providers, including schools, YMCAs, independent makerspaces (open workshops where children have access to a range of design-and-build tools, such as 3D printers, screen printing machines, and computer-aided drafting software), libraries, museums, and many more. The lean staff at Remake Learning provides a gentle center of gravity for the network, asking members only to commit to a set of values, share information about their organization…”
This is their Super Voucher idea, where any contractor can receive public school funding.
What happens when the contractor excludes a student for real or imagined disciplinary infractions, with no due process and no chance for appeal?
What happens when one or two or a hundred of the “educational service providers” flunk students or deny them advancement?
They’re all publicly-funded under ed reform dogma. Does that mean they have to accept all comers and offer those they reject a process to appeal? If the contractor rejects my son’s admittance to their publicly-funded class or educational service, to whom do I appeal?
They’re not putting any thought into these schemes. The schemes have no mechanism to ensure equal access or process.
Approximately 15 minutes after they jam this Super Voucher idea thru a state legislature one or another student will be “suspended” from one of these programs and the child’s parents will expect some due process – they won’t get it.
How can they say they care about “equity” when the “governance” systems they develop don’t include any process at all to ensure equity?
Public education provides a voice to the voiceless. As an ESL teacher, I worked mostly with poor, minority parents. I assisted in many parent concerns and complaints between the district and parents during my career. My district also provided a parent liaison for Spanish and Haitian Creole speakers that attended any committee on special education committee meetings with parents to ensure open communication. It is essential that all parents be fairly represented when important decisions are made about children.
Sometimes “choice” equals no choice if public schools are not available, and students are only accepted at one charter. This alienating treatment by corporations will lead to misunderstandings, poor communication and and a lack of trust by parents.
“independent makerspaces (open workshops where children have access to a range of design-and-build tools, such as 3D printers, screen printing machines, and computer-aided drafting software),”
What if I pay the “independent makerspace” with my publicly-funded ed reform supervoucher and the independent makerspace decides my child isn’t well-behaved enough for the facility?
Do me and my child get some process? A hearing? A chance to appeal this decision? Or are we just arbitrarily excluded from a publicly-funded service solely on the discretion of the contractor?
Now that the echo chamber have decided that “publicly funded” = “public” and are jamming vouchers thru at the federal level I would suggest they put some serious thought into what this means for people. They’re contracting with private entities. If they think it’s difficult to ensure “equity” now wait until they have 50,000 private contractors to monitor.
“provides a gentle center of gravity for the network, asking members only to commit to a set of values, share information about their organization”
Tell the charter parents ed reform is sorry their son got expelled with no process and no chance for an appeal, but they should be comforted by the fact that ed reform provided only a “gentle center of gravity” for charters, where people “commit” to a “shared set of values”….
It’s all very groovy and cooperative until “the learning networks” boot a student who is paying with public funds. Then that student will demand some process and a right to appeal the decision of the contractor. Rightfully so! After all “publicly funded” means “public”, right?
It’s just reckless and well, THOUGHTLESS. It’s not a “mission statement”- it’s an (enforceable) right to due process. Either students have it or they don’t. If they don’t it is solely at the discretion of the contractor.
“Johnny Collett
The Education Freedom Scholarships would empower students & families to choose the best educational setting for them regardless of where they live, how much they make, and how they learn.”
*subject to acceptance of the student by the private contractor
That’s what Mr. Collett neglects to mention when he’s selling this unicorn and candycane vision of “freedom!” That private contractors don’t have any obligation to provide any due process or transparency at all to students and families.
That the US Department of Education is spouting this ed reform gibberish and pretending it has some mechanism to ensure due process and equal access is just shameful.
It’s sloppy work. They’re churning this garbage out without any consideration of what this will look like in the real world, for real students.
I eagerly await the first lawsuit when a publicly-funded contractor rejects or expels a student paying with a Freedom Voucher. That won’t be free.
The education that students get for their voucher is substandard.
Since January, the US Department of Education has done nothing but promote charter and private schools:
“These are the faces of #EducationFreedom. They are students, they are parents, they are teachers – and these are their stories.”
What a shame that thousands of public employees add no value to the schools 90% of children attend.
They don’t even address public school families or students- 90% of students are completely excluded from this federal agency, simply because they attend public schools. The ideologically incorrect “government schools” are deliberately excluded from all policy discussions.
It’s outrageous. Total and complete capture by the “ed reform movement”, so much so that they no longer do their jobs.
When you read something like this, where an individual is making huge profits on the public’s dime, it is incredibly so far far away from the original concept of a charter school. As envisioned by Al Shanker, a charter school would be an adjunct school within a district that would help struggling students and was run by innovative teachers that were interested in trying alternative ways to reach out to those affected students.
Al Shanker introduced the idea of the charter school. His proposal was a school within a school, staffed by qualified teachers who had the consent of their colleagues in the building and the local school board. It was supposed to be a R&D center for the whole school. Its purpose was collaboration, not competition.