Andy Spears, editor of the Tennessee Education Report, says that Tennessee should learn from Alabama’s mistakes when authorizing charter schools.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee wants to disrupt public schools and throw open the public treasury to anyone who wants to open a charter school. He wants charters to open without the approval of local school districts, a recipe for disruption and an attack on local control.
Andy Spears writes:
Look to Alabama to see what happens.
Here’s more from the Alabama Political Reporter:
Woodland Prep is a charter school horror story — and it hasn’t even been built yet.
Located in rural Washington County, Woodland Prep, which will open as a K-7 school this fall and add a grade level each year, is everything state leaders assured us could never happen under Alabama’s charter school laws.
Its land is owned by a shady Utah holding company. Its building is owned by a for-profit Arizona company. It will be managed by a for-profit Texas company that doesn’t employ a single Alabamian. It will pay the head of that management company around $300,000 per year — up front. Its application was rejected by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which Alabama pays a hefty sum to review and approve charter applications. Woodland’s management plan failed to meet basic standards for approval in any of the three plan areas reviewed by NACSA.
In spite of all of those concerns, Woodland Prep was approved by the Alabama Charter School Commission — a board similar to the one envisioned by Lee and his legislative supporters for authorizing charters in Tennessee.
Governor Lee is following orders from ALEC and Betsy DeVos. He does not have the best interests of the children of Tennessee at heart.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tennessee’s privatizers? Pilot Gas’ owners?
USA Today 11-28-2017
” ‘I cheated customers and I did it well’, a former Pilot Flying J sales exec tells court’ “
Tennessee privatizers? Autozone executives?
“Autozone reaches $11 mil. settlement for violating hazardous waste laws” 6-19-2019
Reading this and other articles in the Tnedreport site suggest to me that charters and voucher private schools are just another pyramid scheme. Nor are we immune to such huckstering in public education.
Many school districts outsource janitorial, substitute teaching, and similar school necessities. Almost all these businesses are headed by a structure that pays quite a bit at the top. The Gulen charters would appear to be a pyramid scheme that make so much money for this organization that it might be the financing of a political movement. Within that organization, individuals make amounts of money that are obscene when compared to the income level of their student’s families and their employees.
I suggest a simple level of accountability for any charter. We set an administrative cost ceiling on these schools. Directors would make big salaries at the peril of being arrested for fraud. Schools run by people making a significant amount more than teachers who teach there should be shut down.
This measure of accountability should also be extended to public schools,as well. Overburden of administrative cost is one of the biggest problems in the public sector. Here are some things we could cut out without hurting the quality of education:
Administration that reads lesson plans. Anybody can write up,some stuff on paper. No one can really know whether I do my job or not.
Administration that follows test scores. We all know that “measurement” of learning is logically illegitimate.
Administration that designates what is to be taught and when. This assures that only follower will teach.
Anyone else add to the list?
It strikes me that the only difference between the pyramid scheme of the charters and the one that has become public education is that the cost of the administration is more spread out, and this comes under restrictions. So you do not have people obscenely compensated to do harm to education. We still could do better.