Steve Miller writes in the Texas Monitor about the special protections provided by the law for charter schools. They claim to be public, they claim to be accountable, they claim to be transparent, but only when it suits their convenience.
Take the powerful IDEA chain, which has recently received over $200 million from Betsy DeVos’ personal slush fund called the federal “Charter Schools Program,” which currently spends $440 million of our taxpayer dollars to finance rapacious corporate charter chains.
IDEA has a private corporation that is neither accountable nor transparent.
IDEA Public Schools, for example, allows first class air travel for its employees and is looking into the lease of a private jet. But as long as it insists that the perks are being paid for with private funds, the expenditures are free from oversight, discovered only through deep dives into IDEA’s tax returns.
Charter schools and open records are “an enormous can of worms,” said Joe Larsen, a Houston public records lawyer. “It’s neither dog nor wolf — it’s kind of private and kind of public. The courts and the legislature keep grappling with it, as they want charters to have the advantage of a private entity to make more efficient choices.”
But, he said, the effort to allow charters the freedom to innovate also gives them more room to operate on the margins of transparency.
A public records dispute between a Pharr newspaper and IDEA, one of the state’s biggest charter operators, shows the divide.
In 2017, the Advance News Journal in Pharr asked for details of IPS Enterprises, a business created by IDEA. Charter officials refused to provide details and referred the request to the state attorney general’s office for a ruling.
When that office said IDEA had to provide the records, the nonprofit sued AG Ken Paxton, citing a 2015 state Supreme Court ruling that found a nonprofit need only provide records related to businesses funded with public money. And, IDEA said, IPS Enterprises is unrelated to the $400 million in public funding it receives.
IDEA won the lawsuit, and today no one knows much about IPS Enterprises, a for-profit entity that state records show is based at the same tax-exempt Weslaco address as IDEA. Records show IPS in 2017 received a $4.7 million contract from the U.S. Department of Education.
The newspaper never even considered suing IDEA for the records.
“We didn’t even get involved after they sued the AG,” said Advance Publishing publisher Gregg Wendorf. “They have way more money than us anyway.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The idea that “charters should have the freedom to innovate” is nonsense. Where are all the innovations that they were supposed to share with public education? Lack of oversight and accountability has not produced innovation. It has produced a cottage industry of waste, fraud, nepotism and embezzling. Other than creating winners, losers and profits for charter management companies, charters have accomplished little of value. We should not be harming public schools to make money for wealthy investors. Turning tax dollars over to private companies without accountability is reckless policy.
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yes: when “innovate” simply hides “suck up additional public tax funding”
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It’s very important they reveal the private funding because the selling point the charter salespeople use is charters get X state and federal funding and produce Y results.
If they receive private funding that public schools do not receive that has to be included in any real analysis of whether to expand them.
When media analyze charter funding they should list the “state share” – the public funding- and then any additional private funding.
Because that’s what these schools COST. Which you have to know if you keep expanding them!
If they DON’T include the private funding, and reach their goal of replacing all public schools with charter schools, the public will get a nasty surprise when they realize the public funding isn’t enough to cover the costs of the schools.
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The Jubilee schools situation fits the description of donor withdrawal?
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“(Pro-charter legislators & pro-charter court judges) want charters to have the advantage of a private entity to make more efficient choices.”
Yeah, it’s all about those “efficient choices”, such as using tax dollars to pay for “a lier jet” for high-up charter school executives (or at least first class air travel.)
Face it. If a public school superintendent used tax funds to pay for his own lier jet, the right-wing school privatizers would go ballistic.
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They have to do the same thing with the private school vouchers they’re backing and all promoting.
Does the voucher cover THE COST? Not “does the voucher equal what public schools get”. That’s the wrong question.
If they are going to install a system of private schools funded with public money we need to compare total costs, not partial costs. We’ll find out eventually! They can’t finesse this forever!
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Because extend this out. Take the public subsidy for charter/private schools and eradicate public schools from the “system” they’re seeking.
Are the COSTS of the new privatized system equal to the costs of the old public system? All revenue from all sources. Is it the same? If it’s not then the public doesn’t know what privatization costs, they just know what they’re paying.
I think their claims of cost for these fragmented systems are delusional. They will not be able to pay the same for privatized, fragmented systems and get the same value as public schools. This “specialization” they’re doing in schools will cost MORE than a comprehensive school. They are making a promise they will not be able to deliver on, and I think the hope is they get rid of enough public schools so there’s no turning back when that becomes obvious to the public. Then watch the private funding disappear.
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In the financial information reveal, include Cristo Rey’s scheme where the students work 5 days a month for companies doing data entry/filing and their pay goes back to Cristo Rey (is it a Catholic NGO?) Will Cristo Rey continue to get $6,000 per student from Ohio taxpayers if its San Jose model- digital learning, one teacher, one tutor one coach is implemented in the state?
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Michigan ed reformers ACTUALLY BELIEVED that they could privatize schools and cut public costs to 5000 dollars a student.
This was their actual plan. It’s delusional. ONE special needs student is all they need and they don’t have enough funding.
The voucher promoters are making the same claim, except it’s worse, MORE misleading, because they are insisting that a low value voucher = private school tuition of 20, 30, 50k a year. It doesn’t.
They know darn well that NONE of these voucher students will have a voucher worth anything near elite private school tuition, but this is what they sell parents- that they will be able to “choose” any private school just like wealthy people do. This is not true, but they ALL use the talking point, from DeVos on down.
They know what Sidwell Friends costs. Why are they telling poor and middle class parents they can use a voucher to cover the costs of the “same schools” the Obama’s use? No, they can’t. Not even close. Yet this nonsense is embraced in ed reform. They all repeat it and endorse it and it’s innumerate. It’s incorrect.
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Chiara,
This is a crucial point.
Voucher advocates sell the idea by falsely claiming that poor kids should have “the same choices” as rich kids.
Then they offer a voucher worth $5,000, which will not be enough for tuition in an elite private school where tuition is $50,000.
The goal of vouchers is to cut costs.
No child with a voucher has “the same choices” as rich kids.
If the Disrupters really want to make sure that zip code doesn’t matter, then they should advocate to build low-income housing in affluent suburbs. You won’t hear that. Not a word.
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not a word. Yes.
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When a Catholic conference representative, who met with DeVos, is quoted in a Koch-linked think tank post saying unequivocally that school choice has worked across the board- we know there is no bottom floor for morality.
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And the market responded to the voucher nonsense. A bunch of low quality, low cost private schools have sprung up to take the low value vouchers offered by ed reformers.
They created a whole new category of school. Cheap, low quality private schools that they can pretend are the “same schools” wealthy people have always used.
Don’t ask then what the public is paying. Ask them what it COSTS, because if they succeed with privatizing all schools the public subsidy + private costs is what you will be paying. Someone has to pay it and it isn’t going to be governments run by ed reformers.
They’ll “give” you a low value voucher and YOU will pick up the rest. One way or another. Because it has to be paid.
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These are people who proudly make the argument that K-12 schools should be funded like colleges.
Really? So their dream is to create a system where the public subsidy covers 25% of the cost of a K-12 education and students or their families beg, borrow or steal 75%? Because that’s how colleges work.
The voucher is a BAD DEAL. They are handing you something of much lower value and just finessing costs with a blizzard of ideological BS. But that bill will come due once they “transform” it into a 100% voucher system. Then it shows up in your mailbox.
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The COO of New America (the think tank of Google’s Eric Schmidt) cut her teeth privatizing the schools of New Orleans. New America, in addition to firing the staff who reported that tech industries have too much power (Barry Lynn’s group), posted a list of recommendations for higher ed- N.A.’s plot, money for public universities should be shared with private colleges.
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Ooooooh, take the money and run” — Steve Miller, about charters
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Nice addition to the discussion.
This is the anthem that should run wherever ed reformers appear.
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