Jane Nylund, a parent activist in Oakland, wrote this incisive overview of charter frauds in her district and submitted it to the Task Force reviewing the California charter law. Please copy and forward to the Task Force at:
She writes:
For fifteen years as a parent, volunteer, and employee of Oakland Unified, I’ve been witness to what is now a full blown privatization movement in Oakland under our “portfolio district” model. A movement designed to crush our real public schools and privatize them; a movement to close our schools and gentrify our neighborhoods. A movement to allow outside interests and corporations to feed at the trough. And the current laws in California that allow this to happen, unchecked and unfettered. And the absolute failure of any of it to collectively improve the lives of our most vulnerable children.
The time for this damaging experiment on our children is over. Stop clutching at the billionaires’ purse strings, while at the same time declaring that more choice is the answer. Here’s why it isn’t.
Choice in Oakland-Do you want fries with that?
What does choice in Oakland mean? The model here isn’t much different than saturating the poor neighborhoods with cheap fast food. Oh, there’s choice all right-McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, or Taco Bell. Plenty of choice, take your pick. How about a nice juicy steak? Forget it, you don’t need that choice, but here’s some other choices for you. Poor nutrition that fills you temporarily, but ends up starving you of any real sustenance. Saturating neighborhoods with charter schools is the same business model. I heard an East Oakland resident say, in a public meeting, that charter schools were like having drug dealers on every corner. Keepin’ it real….
Scandals? You want ’em, we got ’em
Scandal #1-American Indian Charter
The CEO of AIMS, Ben Chavis stole $3.8M from his schools in rent and paid it to his own leasing company which held the leases for his own schools. Self-dealing Gone Wild. He is in jail in North Carolina awaiting trial for money laundering and mail fraud. You’d think the school would be shut down after that? Nope, the school board wilted under the facade of those amazing test scores, gamed in part by shutting out African Americans and SPED from the AIMS schools, as well as having obscenely high rates of attrition.
https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/turmoil-returns-for-charter-schools/Content?oid=9074129
Scandal #2-Bay Area Technology School
A Gulen school run by Turkish teachers and a Turkish school board. In a squabble worthy of a B-rated movie, the principal was forced out but somehow managed to flee to Australia with $400,000 of our hard-earned tax dollars in his pocket. Nice gig if you can get it.
Scandal #3-Oakland School for the Arts
Full disclosure-I’m a huge arts supporter, and I know plenty of parents who support the school and who have kids there. It’s not the program; it’s the enrollment policy. OSA is an experiment in what happens when a school supported by our former governor is allowed to select its own student body. OSA is now the second wealthiest school in Oakland and has virtually no ELL. How can that possibly happen when the school has a lottery? Easy. You have the kids do an audition and allow the kids into the lottery based on the results of the audition. Private schools do that. Is it discriminatory? Yes, the ACLU said as much. Does it violate charter law? Yes. Has anyone done anything about it. No, because of big $$$ and the support of Jerry Brown and Friends. Alternatively, Jerry could have supported more arts funding in public schools instead of opening OSA. Food for thought….
Scandal #4-Castlemont Junior Academy and Primary Academy
This was a script that practically wrote itself. Open charters right next door to the neighborhood elementary, Parker. Next, install a OUSD board member, James Harris on the charter board, as well as Yana Smith, the wife of former OUSD Chief of Schools Allen Smith. While it might have been legal, the perceived conflict of interest was breathtaking. Lastly, watch in amazement as the charters implode a few months later, due to low enrollment. Parker, the real public school has to enroll approx. 85 children from the elementary charter mid-year. It doesn’t get more disruptive than that. Startup funding? Gone….
Scandal #5-Aspire Eres and the annexing of the Derby Parcel
When Reed Hastings says “Jump!”, Aspire says, “How high?” Aspire, in a bid to purchase city-owned public land for charter school expansion, tried to negotiate a backroom deal with the city. The expansion had not even been approved by the school board, but that’s okay because Reed Hastings doesn’t like elected school boards anyway. They just get in the way of his personal business. Public school activists found out, organized the public, pushed back hard, and thwarted the deal.
Scandal #6-the 100% Grad Rate myth
This is one of my personal favorites because of the inevitable comparison of district schools’ to charter schools’ performance. How many more times do we need to see grad rates/test scores stats tossed around on social media, popping up like so many toxic mushrooms. How can a charter school claim 100% (or close to it) grad rates when they lose 40, 50, or 60% of their children in high school? Easy, charters typically don’t backfill. Real public schools backfill; they fill that seat as soon as a student wants it, at any time. Any student, not just the easy ones.
Scandal #7-Charters are superior to district schools because of their amazing test scores! (Marketing 101)
See Scandal #6. Until charters can claim that they educate the same number of FRPL, ELL, and SPED kids, and also have the same number of suspensions/attrition, there is no valid or fair comparison here. The student populations served (or not) are usually significantly different.
Scandal #8-the “rightsizing” myth
Portfolio models “rightsize” (translation:downsize) by closing mostly district schools. But the schools don’t close; they are privatized into charters via Prop 39. Out of 18 of the last Oakland district school closures, 14 were converted to charters. This scandal illustrates the utter lack of local control on any charter openings/closings. Easy to open, nearly impossible to close, favoring charter growth by design. OUSD admitted that closing schools doesn’t save money, and yet they (Walton/Bloomberg-bought board) push the narrative constantly. It’s a mantra that’s growing stale but refuses to die.
Scandal #9-the “high demand” for charters myth
See Scandal #8. How to create demand? Close your neighborhood elementary schools, which then feed into the middle schools (demand dries up there as well). Then, open a charter right near these same schools. Doesn’t take a genius to see how that will turn out. Ask the students at Roots International how they feel about their neighborhood school closure. But our charter-friendly ($$$) school board fully supports this portfolio model; there are charters right around the corner that former Roots students can attend instead. Instant charter demand creation.
Scandal #10
The fact that all these scandals exist at all, and that public school advocates, as well as tenacious local reporters, have to do the important work of digging up the information and presenting it to the public. This is what accountability looks like in Oakland and the rest of California. We are getting tired of doing the job that the Office of Charter Schools is supposed to be doing, but doesn’t. And this list is far from exhaustive; it’s likely just the tip of the iceberg, because of the lack of transparency.
Our school district loses $57M a year to unfettered charter expansion. It’s time to get back to some no-nonsense approaches to this problem such as real local control, as well as including impact to district finances. Charter schools don’t have the right to expand just because it’s what the Waltons and Reed Hastings want. The Waltons don’t send their children to Oakland public schools. District schools aren’t offered the same expansion opportunity and if they were, Oakland Technical would be the size of a small college by now. This failed experiment on our most vulnerable children must end, and I implore the task force to make the recommendations that will serve the needs of ALL students and stop supporting an agenda that clearly favors charter expansion, the theft of taxpayers’ dollars, and not much else. The time is now, and if not now, when?
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great work, Jane Nylund.
At the national level, there are two Democratic politicians from California who promote privatization- George Miller, formerly in Congress now steering the Bipartisan Policy Center, a powerful lobby shop, and the current U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, a corporate Democrat.
Tom Daschle is also a problem. He chairs the board of the charter-loving CAP and, he founded Bipartisan Policy Center. At BPC, higher ed is in the cross-hairs.
I had a one-on-one with Susan Davis about eight or nine years ago. Her mantra then was we need testing “how else are we going to hold schools accountable?” I told here that testing was not a valid measurement method for her purpose and that the school accreditation process was a much better accountability tool. She of course ignored me. How else are you going to get hedge fund money from DFER?
the hedge-fund-funded reformer understanding of “accountable” being very different from veteran teachers’ understanding of the same word
Republicans hate democracy. DINO’s see no money for themselves in a democracy.
“He is in jail in North Carolina awaiting trial for money laundering and mail fraud”
Wow. I had no idea.
Here’s a fawning review of his schools from 2013:
“Ben Chavis, founder and principal of the American Indian Public Charter Schools, got permission to compete with the Blob in Oakland, Calif. Chavis vowed, “We’ll outperform the other schools in five years.” He did. Kids at the three schools he runs now have some of the highest test scores in California.”
“The Blob” is how ed reformers were referring to everyone who works in public schools back in the heady days of ed reform. If you look on youtube you can still find videos from “Reason tv” extolling the Chavis. He’s now in jail?
https://www.creators.com/read/john-stossel/04/13/the-education-blobs-revenge
Sorry the article was a bit dated. Update on Ben Chavis. He was arrested in NC in 2017, but the charges were filed in San Francisco. He was supposed to go to trial in SF that year but not sure if he actually did; was released on bond. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-director-oakland-charter-schools-charged-grant-application-fraud-money. Long before that, the school was already under investigation for fraud, including co-mingling of funds and charges to accounts in NC, where Mr. Chavis had a farm…http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2012/06/allegations_of_fraud_at_calif_charter_will_go_to_district_attorney.html
If portfolio districts are “agnostic” why don’t they ever invest in or replicate public schools? Every charter is inherently superior to every public school? Why? Other than and ideological preference for privately managed schools and eradicating labor unions, I mean?
That’s not “agnostic”. It’s slapping a slightly different name on the same charter cheerleading approach they use everywhere. Why don’t public school students deserve investment and support for their schools? I’d switch to a charter too if I was told over and over that no one in government was going to invest in or support my child’s school.
Jane Nylund, I salute you.
You should send multiple emails of this post to your Texas friends. It will give them a crystal ball view into what their future may hold if they do not defend their public schools. The “portfolio model” defines students as holdings rather than people. The lack of oversight and accountability creates an environment where waste, fraud and embezzling are rampant.
I heard Elizabeth Warren say the following in a recent interview: She said,”Markets are fine for some things, but they need regulation and a cop on the beat to enforce the rules. Otherwise, it’s just theft.” That is exactly what the unregulated portfolio model will bring to communities. Lots of theft for not much return for all the money and disruption, and it will impede the public schools’ ability to do their best work due to loss of funds.
“You have the kids do an audition and allow the kids into the lottery based on the results of the audition. Private schools do that. Is it discriminatory?” Yes.
A public MAGNET school in my town (not charter) is proudly invested in selecting and training talent, especially in the performing arts. Auditions are required. In the visual arts, students must submit a portfolio.
Some of the students are in Broadway productions well before graduation from high school. They usually return to school when the gig is over.
Oversight of the school has long been a problem because the elected school board yielded to pressure from the arts community to have a private/public relationship. In this arrangement, a manager of “artistic decisions,” can do hiring and firing. Needless to say, this arrangement breeds trouble from the union and from disgruntled stage parents.
The school attracts some tuition-paying students. Training for professional careers begins in earnest in grades 4 and 5.
“How can a charter school claim 100% (or close to it) grad rates when they lose 40, 50, or 60% of their children in high school?”
Our graduation rate is always inflated by the type of kids we get, mostly good ones. It is interesting, however, that the biggest challenge to the NCLB requirement that stayed intact with the Obama years was that the graduation rate had to climb. This was problematic because our grad rate was naturally very high. One year a sophomore was tragically killed in an auto accident. When his class graduated three years later, the fact that he did not graduate with his cohort counted against us.
So there is one set of rules for charters and a different, more restrictive set for public schools. Who knew?
It gets better. Somehow, Ben Chavis claimed he couldn’t afford an attorney, even after stealing all those millions from our kids. And now the taxpayer is on the hook for paying for his public defender. Must be some luxury farm he’s got there in NC. You can’t make this stuff up…https://www.robesonian.com/news/97572/chavis-indicted-for-money-laundering-mail-fraud
Jane Nylund volunteered at our school. Montera Middle School. Her kids went to school here.
Send the blog’s best regards to Jane.
Thank you.
Fantastic research and reporting by Jane. I’m not sure if I’ve given her full props, so I’m doing it publicly.