Katherine Kozioziemski tells the sad story of her bad experience with a charter school that promised the moon, but turned into a grand financial scam. Her post appears on a new site sponsored by the Network for Public Education called “Public Voices for Public Schools.”
She begins:
I knew something was seriously wrong as soon as I saw the budget of the charter school my kids attended. As a member of the school site council, I was on the budget committee. Now, as I looked at the numbers, I could see for myself how dire the situation was. The school was paying five times fair market value to lease a property from a shell company created by the former CEO of the charter management company. We were on a fast track to bankruptcy.
How did a charter school created by parents and teachers morph into a series of shell corporations and a money-making scheme so complex that the Securities and Exchange Commission would ultimately step in? The story begins nearly two decades ago with budget cuts. Like districts all over California, the Livermore schools had been forced to make deep cuts, including shuttering two beloved magnet schools. The Livermore Valley Charter School, which opened in 2005, emerged from a grassroots desire to provide art, music and science—all of the things our district schools were being forced to eliminate.
To me it sounded like the promise of Disneyland: a private school education at a public school price. While classes in the public schools had 25+ kids in a class, the charter would cap its class sizes at 20. I bought into it–hook, line and sinker.
Within a few years after opening, the K-8 school was in financial freefall. That’s when the CEO proposed an ambitious plan that would not just save the school but create a high school as well as acquire two additional schools in Stockton. By the time my son started at Livermore Valley Charter in 2012, I was already hearing whispers about the company that now ran the school: Tri Valley Learning Corporation. By 2015, when my kids were in kindergarten and third grade, signs that something was seriously awry were impossible to ignore.
Open the link to read the rest of this shocking story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Instead of testing kids, a better measure of learning is whether or not our young can recognize PROPAGANDA. Propaganda is everywhere.
And Charters are BAD.
AMEN Yvonne,
The most crucial step toward healing is having
the right diagnosis.
If the affliction is precisely identified, a
good resolution is far more likely.
Diagnosis:
Effective propaganda starts where
“faculties of discernment” ends.
Conversely, a diversionary diagnosis usually
precludes an effective resolution.
Yes, for the money choice “schools” are bad.
The din of propaganda remains effective.
Yes,rump is a dolt.
The din of propaganda remains effective.
Yes, the testing paradigm is bad.
The din of propaganda remains effective.
So when it comes time to decide what
“fish to fry” you must ask,
who benefits, who suffers?
a great statement to describe exactly what so many have endured for two decades of test-and-punish policies: The Din Of Propaganda Remains Effective
Thank you, NoBrick. Your comment sure is insightful.
The DIN of Propaganda fueled by BIG $$$$$$ interests need to be examined and elucidated.
I am still totally shocked by those who drank and kook-aid and actually thought winning the lottery to attend a charter school is good. I felt embarrassed for those parents and kids who thought they won the jackpot. They were INSTEAD “HAD” … big time.
We need to stop the flow of public dollars into unaccountable private pockets. When public money disappears behind the opaque wall of private ownership, there are too many opportunities for waste, fraud, crooked real estate deals and embezzling. When financial schemes collapse, the families and students are disrupted as students are displaced. At the same time public school budgets are fleeced to pay for the private fraud. Students in public schools lose art, music, library services, guidance counselors so private grifters can siphon funds for their reckless real estate deals. Privatization does not improve education. It allows private investors to take advantage of public dollars without consideration of the consequences.
By the way, I thought the “live in California” button at the end of the article was a clever way for state residents to voice their concerns about privatization. I hope a lot of residents send Newsom a message.
Huge charter chain in Texas sues to keep public in the dark about finances:
“You want the good news or the bad news first?
Okay, the good news is: The Office of the Texas Attorney General recently ruled that certain public information requested by this newspaper is indeed subject to public disclosure. IDEA Public Schools needs to give up the goods, so to speak.
The bad news is, as the large charter operator has done in the past, it’s now filed a lawsuit in Travis County, naming itself as the plaintiff and the AG as the defendant, claiming that the AG is wrong as it relates to this matter. The information requested of it by this newspaper should not be made public.
IDEA did this with a past public information request filed by this newspaper in 2017. Countless months passed by before a district court in Travis County ruled in favor of IDEA. The information requested back then could remain private even though it involved the expenditure of public monies, opined the court, or words to that effect.”
Ed reformers are supposedly committed to transparency in public schools. Why does this only apply to the district schools they disfavor?
With their committment to “transparency” one would think the echo chamber would be demanding this huge charter chain open the books- but you won’t hear a word about it anywhere in edreformworld. Criticism- or even any real analysis- of charter schools is forbidden. All mentions of charter schools must be 100% laudatory and all mentions of public schools must be 100% negative.
Imagine the outrage in ed reform if a giant Texas school district wouldn’t turn over financials? But because it’s a charter it’s fine.
https://www.anjournal.com/news/idea-files-lawsuit-disputing-ag%E2%80%99s-opinion-certain-info-public
If IDEA had nothing to hide, it would not likely attempt to suppress the release of the financial information. Why shouldn’t the public know what is happening with their tax dollars?
Here’s one of the hundreds of ed reform echo chamber groups demanding transparency from public schools:
“Just 1 in 5 families has been asked for input into how their schools spend an unprecedented $122 billion in federal stimulus funds, despite a mandate that states and districts incorporate feedback from a broad array of community members, a new National Parents Union survey finds.”
Does not apply to charter schools or publicly funded private schools. Ed reformers make no transparency demands on the privatized schools they promote- in fact. you won’t even hear about charters suing not to release records.
Their committment to “transparency” begins and ends with the public schools they lobby against. The charter and private schools they promote get a pass.
Wholly and completely biased against public schools, across the board. And public schools still pay them as consultants! Why? What possible benefit is there to hiring a group of people who oppose public schools to advise public schools? Surely “support public school students” should be a rock bottom requirement for employment?
Completely agree on why public schools do things that enable their own demise. I see it tons in my son’s elementary school. Jack Schneider made a comment in one of the You Thbe discussions about how reform has gone on for so long it starts to appear normal. I think this is very true especially for young teachers that simply don’t know what it used to be like.
“Students from China were recruited to attend the school at $30,000 a head, then enrolled as public students to get state funds.” How many problems are there with that single statement of fact alone? Foreign nationals recruited? Paying tuition and also receiving public funding? Boggles the mind. What a criminal disaster.
A shocking story that has been repeated over and over throughout the country. Start a charter school. Lease a building in the name of a shell company. Charge the school far more than market rate for use of the school. Build your own private equity at taxpayer expense.
A scam that has been repeated again and again and again in the charter industry.
This story is unbelievable. After all the years I have read this blog – I still can not believe the types of crooks are getting away with scams on this scale….. using public school money.
How is this not being caught sooner?