I wrote this article that was published in the New York Daily News. It could be subtitled: “Lies that the Charter Lobby Says to Protect Its Money Pit.”
Fix this wasteful federal charter-school fund
By Diane Ravitch
New York Daily News
April 28, 2022 at 5:00 am
The federal Charter School Programs (CSP) began in 1995 as a modest program intended to jump-start new, independent, publicly funded schools free of most regulations. The idea was to free educators from bureaucracy and enable them to create laboratories of innovative practices that could be used to improve district schools. At the time, there were only about 100 charter schools in the nation. It was a bold idea. Having worked in the George H.W. Bush administration, I supported it.
Soon, however, entrepreneurs with no background in education at all realized that the new funding stream could present a profit-making opportunity.
Businessman Ron Packard, with experience at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, saw a chance to use federal funds to help build the highly profitable K12 Inc. online charter chain (now called Stride), which gets dismal academic results but paid him $19 million during a four-year period.
J.C. Huizenga, the Waste Management heir, used federal CSP dollars to launch his for-profit National Heritage Academies, which helped him amass a real estate empire.
Marcus May, now serving time in prison for massive fraud, got substantial funding from the feds for his New Point Education Partner charter schools, some of which he used to buy a yacht and enjoy extravagant vacations.
Marcus May, the CEO of charter school management company Newpoint Education Partners, was found guilty of racketeering and fraud. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $5 million.
The program that began with only $6 million has grown into a $440 million fund rife with fraud, waste and abuse. Now there are more than 7,000 charters. The Network for Public Education, an organization I lead, prepared a report called “Still Asleep at the Wheel,” which used data from the U.S. Department of Education to show that 12% of the schools that got federal tax dollars never even opened and another 25% closed within a few years, but the federal money often landed in the entrepreneurs’ bank accounts.
Almost three decades later, the Biden administration has proposed modest reforms to restore the program’s original purposes, such as barring for-profit charter operators. The charter industry has reacted to his effort to regulate the program with outrage, falsely claiming that he is trying to shut down charter schools. Rather than supporting reform, commentators from the Washington Post to the far-right-wing Newsmax have pummeled the proposed regulations.
Opinion pieces defending the status quo sound as if they were written by the charter industry’s lobbyists. Their lies have become so bold that the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro, issued a scathing condemnation, lambasting the “unserious efforts and false claims” advanced by the “national trade organization of low-quality for-profit companies,” arguments that according to DeLauro are intended to “shift outrage and attention away from the risky, low-quality for-profit charter schools they represent.”
What these proposed regulations will do is make sure that federal funds do not flow to charter schools operated by for-profit corporations. The for-profit operators can still open schools if their state allows them, but they won’t get federal dollars to do it.
The regulations would give a few bonus (priority) points to charter schools that try to be good neighbors with local public schools and find ways to share ideas and services. Is it a requirement? No. But remember, cooperation between charters and publics was one of the original purposes of the program. It makes sense that both sectors should share best practices.
Contrary to the critics’ claims, the local public schools would not have to be over-enrolled for a charter school to get a grant. The proposed regulations are clear. Over-enrollment is only one of many ways that a new charter school can demonstrate that it is needed.
Some critics claim that the regulations will force new charters to be diverse, but this is not true. Under the changes, charter schools in areas where there is no racial diversity would still be able to get CSP funds. And if you are in a diverse community and you want to open a white-flight charter school you can still do it, but not with federal start-up funds. CSP money should not be used to fund white-flight charters.
Finally, the regulations would require states to supervise how the money is being spent — something that has been sorely lacking. That would be a big improvement over the status quo, which has wasted a billion dollars since 1995 on schools that never opened or opened and eventually closed.
Conservatives always prided themselves on being good stewards of tax dollars. There is nothing conservative about refusing to regulate a federal program that hands over $440 million a year to entrepreneurs and grifters without oversight.
Ravitch is president of the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that exists to support and improve public schools. An education historian recently retired from New York University, she served as assistant secretary of education for research under U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander.
Excellent article.
You cannot logically argue with that!
Before President Reagan, conservatives allegedly were good stewards of tax dollars. Under president Reagan the wealthiest Americans might have paid close to 90% in taxes (the Eisenhower tax rates) based on how much they were worth/earned.
Before Reagan left the White House, that all changed. Arguably, President Eisenhower was the last real conservative and a good steward of tax dollars.
Alleged conservatives continued talking (and lying through their bum) as if they were still “good” stewards of tax dollars, but the record/facts reveals the opposite. Republican presidents starting with Reagan are responsible for the lion’s share of tax cuts for the wealthy and the continued growth of the national debt. The national debt grew faster under Republican presidents than Democrats.
And what about the last GOP President, #45?
ProPublica reported, “Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years. The ‘King of Debt’ promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.”
Traitor Donald Trump is not the first liar to build a financial empire on fraud. The Republican Party has had an epidemic of elected liars and fraud starting with President Nixon, and now they are so bad, they have become a serious danger to the US Constitution and our democracy.
Lloyd: Interesting you should say that about Reagan. Most of my conservative friends would tell you that the democrats were responsible for the ballooning national debt under Reagan. He succeeded in shifting the blame for his essentially Keynseian economic policy onto the democrats. But the facts remain.
My daughter reading her AP History lesson: Well, that Sounds like Trump!
Me: What sounds like trump, sweetheart
dau: Reagan
Me: IN what way?
dau: big tax cut for the rich leads to big deficit
Me (thinking to myself): Easy enough for a child to understand
Me (to my daughter): I wonder if you can find other parallels.
I did not tell her that Trump took his Make America Great Again slogan directly from the 1980 campaign
And his “America First” slogan from the name of a political party founded in the U.S. in 1948 that had as its presidential candidate a former member of the American Nazi Party.
And here I though MAGA meant “Moscow’s Asset Governing America.”
Truly airtight logic.
I worked for a charter for two years that was chartered through Goodwill (sic) Industries. It closed after being open for 12 years because according to the Goodwill CEO, “Your school is not making enough money.” So, a school dedicated to special-needs students was closed because it was not a money maker. That was not the original intention of that school. It shows you that almost everyone in the charter business is only out for money.
I wish that every politician in the country would read this post, Ms. Tooker!
GREAT piece, Diane! Very measured and reasonable.
Here we go again–a bunch of groupies from the Diane Ravitch cult praising some piece she wrote for a major new outlet. These people are clearly easily swayed by reason, evidence, moral clarity, common sense, learning, sound policy prescriptions, and good writing. Yup. You know the type. These are the same sorts of people who believe that scientists know more about Covid than does the My Pillow guy.
oops. cx: news outlet
Hahahahahaha!
The public were told over and over for 30 years that charters would be non profit. It was one of the main selling points used to promote state charter laws- charters would be privately run and owned schools BUT non profits. We were assured of this in Ohio when this started. It isn’t true.
Shouldn’t ed reformers have to explain why they assured the public the privately owned systems would be (at the very least) non profit and now have reneged on that?
Is this what we can expect as they work to privatize more and more of the K-12 system? The ed reform echo chamber will continue to make assurances about “accountability” and “transparency” and “non profit” status of privatized systems, and honor none of the assurances they made?
Actually, we were told that they would be Public schools under private management. No one ever said that they would be privately owned or they would be corporate chains.
Bad news for ed reform:
“But for most parents, these concerns seem to be far from top of mind. That’s according to a new national poll by NPR and Ipsos. By wide margins – and regardless of their political affiliation – parents express satisfaction with their children’s schools and what is being taught in them.”
Despite ed reform’s best efforts, they still have not convinced the public that all public schools are terrible. Better hire some more lobbyists, excuse me, “ed reform advocates” and churn out 50 or 60 more identical anti-public school opinion articles.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1094782769/parent-poll-school-culture-wars
This article is a well crafted explanation that outlines why the charter industry requires regulation. We should flood the White House and Secretary Cardona’s office with it. Perhaps if enough posts are sent, someone with some clout will read it.
You won’t find the NPR/Axios poll expressing satisfaction with schools on any ed reform site.
They exclusively promote the polls that have the results they seek. If the NPR/Axios poll had indicated wide dissatisfaction with schools every ed reform outlet and echo chamber member would be boosting it.
Information that contradicts whatever broad anti-public school sentiment they have all settled on is ignored. They all wrote that the public were “fleeing” public schools due to deep disatisfaction with public schools over covid, or “CRT”, or whatever it is fashionable to attack public schools about this week, and they now must find public polling to validate that. Public polling that contradicts it isn’t considered.
The ed-rformers probably don’t mention this polling subject at all. Gallup and PDK have long shown the same thing.
The presence of the Gulen Schools makes one suspicious of CIA involvement in Charter schools. Where is all this money going? The real estate thing has been discussed here. What other things are going on?
👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 EXCELLENT article, Diane.
Thank you!!
Bad day for an Idea school in Texas, the vice principal’s disciplinary response to a misbehaving 5 year old is the subject of various media reports.
Linda, where is the link to this story?
Lots of media reporting about the arrest including Raw Story, ABCActionNews.com, Fox, San Antonio stations.
One headline, “Vice principal arrested after allegedly pushing 5-year-old …punching him…”
These charter schools are scams! There is a charter school in Beaufort County, NC that desperately deserves a thorough review. I, along with several parents, and former employees know that the school is discriminatory, has violated anti-nepotism policies, violated NC’s SBE conflict of interest policies, is retaliatory against parents who request EC evaluations, asks questions or complain about procedures, and are frequently out of compliance with EC laws. We also strongly suspect financial misconduct. There is no oversight. The administrators and chairman are best friends. The have been hand picked (told to run) and then, miraculously “voted in” after the election. Someone, please help!
I hope you can file a whistleblower complaint
Could you point us in the right direction? One administrator owns a side business of developing new charter schools. He also has placed his entire family (including children) on the payroll at the school. His wife is the 2nd highest paid individual, without the credentials to justify. Former employees believe there are other, larger financial schemes/ issues going on. Earlier this year he listed himself and his wife as “highly qualified”, but don’t even hold the degrees.