Last year, the Arizona Republic wrote an expose of the millions made by Glenn Way, founder of a charter chain in Arizona, primarily by real estate deals and construction of the schools by “related” companies. He previously ran charters in Utah.
Now Way plans to launch a charter chain in North Carolina, which welcomes for-profit charters.
Way’s chain in Arizona has a red-white-and-blue patriotic theme.
A charter school operator who made millions of dollars building, selling and leasing properties to the schools he runs moved a step closer Monday toward setting up shop in North Carolina.
The N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board voted Monday to recommend giving a full interview to Wake Preparatory Academy, a proposed K-12 charter school that wants to open in 2020 in northern Wake County. Wake Prep would be managed by a company whose owner also owns the company that would build and lease back the facility to the charter school.
Wake Prep is proposing to contract with Arizona-based Charter One to manage the school. Charter One manages American Leadership Academy, a network of Arizona charter schools. Former Utah state legislator Glenn Way founded ALA and owns Charter One and Schoolhouse Development.
The Arizona Republic reported last year how Way had made as much as $37 million by setting up no-bid deals in which he built school campuses and then sold the properties at a profit to the ALA charter schools. The newspaper’s five-part investigation into charter schools earned it the prestigious George Polk Award for Education Reporting.
Under Wake Prep’s proposed agreement, the school would contract with Schoolhouse Development to build the facility and lease it back to the school. The lease would start with the school paying $2.2 million the first year, $2.6 million the second year and $3 million in each of the next three years.
Bruce Friend, a CSAB member, said the board needs to get questions answered before recommending that the State Board of Education approve the school. Aside from questions about the lease, concerns were also raised that Wake Prep plans to pay Charter One up to 15 percent of its revenues annually…
Some charter schools are managed by for-profit companies. Last month, the advisory board recommended that the state approve three new charter schools in Wake County that would have contracts with for-profit companies.
This is the second time that Wake Prep has tried to open in North Carolina. The school applied last year to be managed by a different company before withdrawing its application.
Hilda Parler, a former CSAB member and president of Wake Prep’s board, said Monday that there’s high demand for high school charter seats among families in northern Wake.
“The population in the Wake Forest, Rolesville area is growing leaps and bounds,” Parler said. “New construction is everywhere.”
Parler was asked why she didn’t apply to just open a charter high school. She answered that a K-12 charter school would be more “lucrative” and “economically feasible” than only offering high school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
AH … LUCRATIVE. Sick.
The charter industry is a chain of corruption that exploits the lack of regulation and refusal of many states to provide oversight. They are corporate carpetbaggers that migrate to areas where they can engage in profiteering without government oversight holding them accountable. They are deliberately gaming the system for profit.
I have been receiving emails from a group called “Public Impact” based in Chapel Hill, NC.
They talk about their “Opportunity Culture” that turns schools around. They target minority children. It sounds as it could be sponsored by a very progressive organization.
But today the email touted Public Impact’s work in Arkansas, quoting the State Ed Department, Which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Walton Foundation.
I went to the website and sure enough, the magic elixir is “high quality charter schools.”
A Reformer scam.
I went to the website
Corporate Carpetbaggers. Yes.
I note that this charter start-up is in a place that is quickly developing into a suburban location. This is not your standard mission of “help the inner city this is a civil rights issue” . Instead, this is an attempt to profit from the expanding urban center into a place where a community exists, but the community school is not large enough to accommodate the new suburban arrivals. Is someone going to build the new schools? Will the charter do that? Who will own the resulting buildings, the atheletic facilities and the band instruments?
More importantly, will these schools contribute to the fabric of a changing community? Or will they rive off a small group of students who are easy to teach and make sure they do not understand their neighbors? Will these schools be around for the grandchildren to attend, benefitting from a great tradition?
These are the questions which must be answered. Any single negative answer negates the whole idea.
The power elite wins again…like locusts, devouring o the money tht should go to public schools.
stripping the previously healthy vine
posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Charter-Profiteer-in-Arizo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Diane-Ravitch-190314-533.html#comment728106
with this comment and link to your articles here
This post will make your head spin. https://medium.com/orchestrating-change/whos-who-in-the-arkansas-charter-school-movement-7d85d80951f5
Public schools in communities of color are taken over by the state, and charter schools open. One high-powered chain. spreads it’s tentacles across the state, scooping up the best students. A rotating cast of characters plays musical chairs at the state board, the state education department, and superintendencies.
The schools targeted for closure and privatization are schools that enroll mostly children of color. Everyone feels powerless to stop the Walton train. Behind it all: ALEC, the Koch brothers, and the Walton Family. The Walton Family owns everything and every body.
Wanna see howthe corruption works in California?https://dianeravitch.net/2019/03/10/california-more-on-tony-thurmonds-charter-task-force/
“The charter industry is infamous for protecting its turf and fighting any regulation or accountability. This is like asking representatives of Big Tobacco to participate in a discussion of whether to regulate cigarette sales.
“Charter law in the state is notoriously lax. A district with a tiny enrollment can open a charter in a district 500 miles away and collect a commission on the students who enroll. If a charter asks a district for permission to open or for a renewal, and the district rejects the application, the charter can appeal to the county board. If the county board says that its application or its record is deficient, the charter can appeal to the state board
Former ass’t Sec’y of Education, Diane Ravitch, posted earlier that “there are no teachers on the task force appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond to study charter law in California, but that’s not quite right. The task force is meeting regularly and it would likely be impossible for a working teacher to leave her or his classroom on a weekly basis to attend task force meetings.”
However, there are at least two members of the task force who were active teachers: Erika Jones of the California Teachers Association and Cindy Marten, superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District.
Ravitch can’t understand why the task force has so many representatives of the charter industry on a committee to study charter law, when only 10 percent of students in California schools are enrolled in charters. “Under Governor Jerry Brown, the state board rubberstamped applications despite rejections from the affected district and county. Under current law, the state need not consider the fiscal impact of charters on nearby public schools, a factor which has severely damaged Oakland, Inglewood, and other districts. Under current law, charters are parasites on the districts that are forced to host them, draining away students and resources and leaving “stranded costs” (fixed costs).California has had a large number of scandals in the charter sector. The most recent occurred when the CEO of the Celerity Charter chain pled guilty to using the schools’ credit card to charge luxury items, including designer clothing, fancy hotels, haute cuisine and limousine service, as well as to fund her Ohio charter school.”
Lucrative! It should be illegal to profit off education.
So he’s run the scam in two states already and is launching in the third. That leaves, what 44 to go? Plus Puerto Rico, of course. (There are at least two states that don’t permit charters, right?)