Mercedes Schneider read the voluminous indictment of the founders of the online charter chain called A3. She describes the counts in the indictment in this post.
She writes:
In this post, I offer excerpts of the 67 counts detailed in the 235-page indictmentof Sean McManus, Jason Schrock, and nine others who used weaknesses in California’s charter school laws to construct a network of fraud and launder $50M in public funds into their own pockets over the course of years. These 11 individuals (and unidentified others) did so by opening multiple charter schools and using companies, both pre-existing and newly-created, to establish a complex system of self-dealing– with little to no education actually happening via those exploited, educational dollars.
The California legislature is currently deciding whether and how to reform the state’s charter law. The California Charter School Association is fighting any accountability or reform of the law. If a theft of more than $50 million by charter vultures doesn’t persuade the legislature of the need for reform, nothing will.
Bring on more theft of public money! More millions scooped up by entrepreneurs and grifters!
Thanks, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Bill Bloomfield, the Fischer family (the Gap and Old Navy), the Walton family, and all the other billionaires who make this piracy possible and who fund the CCSA!
Why spend money on public schools when it can go right into the bank accounts of smart and savvy entrepreneurs?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What this shines new light on is the aspect of homeschooling. In California, a parent can sign up with a charter school that provides some funding to the parent and the only requirement from the charter is that a teacher gets “in touch” with the student once in every 20 days for an unspecified amount of time. This is clearly part of the scam detailed in the indictment. So, who is overseeing these charters???? Anyone want to guess???? I think the answer is NO ONE.
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and depending on the state, online program admin can get money up-front for kids they entice into enrolling, with zero accountability for how the program actually pans out
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California can take a page from Ohio’s playbook- elect a Republican Attorney General who lets charges against the largest charter operator languish. (The operator made campaign contributions to the state GOP.) And, as added protection, elect the judges of the Republican Chamber of Commerce.
Fordham, one of Ohio’s millstones.
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Are they ever planning on recovering any of the funds, or do those just go to the ECOT founder’s heirs?
How much did the family profit off that scam, and why can’t Ohio recover stolen funds? They don’t seem to have any trouble seizing assets from ordinary, non-politically connected people. They do that every day. For some unknown reason the ECOT profits remain in the hands of the family. Poof! Gone, never to be seen or heard from again.
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Columbus is the capitol city for a colonial government of grifters and their enablers.
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Ohio’s gerrymandered politicians pass ALEC’s laws and thwart accountability for theft, what can you say, in excess of $60,000 per year for each middleman who rubber stamps, is a great gig for Rethugs.
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“Conspirators also enrolled children for Track A from pre-existing youth programs such as sports teams, camps, gyms, private schools both religious and secular, and private enrichment centers. Conspirators paid pre-existing youth programs for student report cards and enrollment documentation and used the documentation as the basis to enroll students in public charter schools. ”
There should be a new investigation of this part. Do people in the programs know they’re selling the lists? That the private schools are selling the students report cards?
I have wondered about this myself. I got a solicitation for a charter school that is 60 miles away, in my son’s name. I think they got his name from a summer program he attended in the city where they are located. I didn’t even imagine that it was sold to the charter but now that seems possible.
The charter has since disappeared without a trace, like so many in Ohio – we were one of the “sucker states” who were “flooded” with charters at the height of chartermania, our feckless lawmakers were bamboozled into rubberstamping everything these folks sold, so good thing I didn’t transfer him. He’d be back at his public school anyway.
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Yeah…. I have questions about the sports teams and youth programs, too? How is it that sports teams and youth programs have access to any kind of education records on a kid? When we sign my son up for hockey every year, we never have to give any kind of info about school or grades, just the usual demographics is all that is required. Something sounds fishy?
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If ed reformers are actually interested in studying “cybercharters” instead of promoting them, they might look at the “churn” in these schools. The students don’t stay in them. They jump in and out. That’s why they’re a problem for public schools and that’s why they cost. Because the students return way behind and the public school then has to bring them back to the rest of the group. That costs and it directly affects every single student who stayed in the public school because they are constantly reintegrating these students and that takes time, money and focus away from the students who didn’t jump in and out.
There is downside risk to ed reform experiments and they refuse to see it because they refuse to look. Portraying experiments as risk-free is ridiculous. Refusing to study what seem to me to be obvious downside risk is an indication that ed reform is an echo chamber. That should alarm them. They’re supposed to be “academics”. These ed reform shops are located at universities, and many of them are public. They have a duty to ask questions. That’s what we’re paying them for.
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Exactly, Chiara! At my school, we get kids in and out from online “schools” constantly, and it takes us months or years to get the kids up to speed again. We should get MORE money from the state for students who come back from these “schools.”
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It is disheartening to see the extent of the loss of money, by theft, which takes place with charter people. One wonders if these people, some of whom would see themselves as people of importance, are aware of the example they set before the next generation of people.
Hopefully though, this can be reined in, as people and groups continue fighting for oversight of these charter schools.
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Thieves are thinking about their bank accounts, their cars, their winnings.
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Sean McManus called himself “Joseph McManus” when he and his colleagues used weaknesses in Ohio’s charter school laws to try to open a “blended learning” STEAM charter school in Columbus, Ohio using the California Prep email address. http://www.charterschoolspec.com/data/NewSchoolSubmissions/OhioSTEAMColumbus9-12-Intent-toApply-andExecutiveSummary.pdf
And the Ohio Legislature is poised to soften its laws pertaining to charter schools…
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Change of subject here— our school district (four schools in Vermont) hired a charter school principal from American Promise Schools in Detroit, and within the year he has caused four teachers to quit and another two to retire, a huge number in a school with less than a dozen teachers. Dopes anybody know anything about American Promise Schools?
When I first heard he got hired, I suspected it might be an opening gambit in this state by the charter industry. Nobody has been forthcoming about this, although the rumor is he will be out come this fall.
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