Indiana blogger Steve Hinnefeld reveals a new charter scam: remote renewal of controversial charter schools. in this case, the charter is affiliated with the Christian rightwing Hillsdale College. Please open the link to finish the post.
Seven Oaks Classical School in Ellettsville received a 5-year extension to its operating charter recently. Well, not that recently. It happened in December 2022. Ellettsville and Monroe County residents may have missed it, though, because the extension was approved nearly 200 miles away.
It was approved by the three-member board of Grace Charters LLC, a nonprofit formed by Grace College and Theological Seminary to authorize charter schools, which are publicly funded and privately operated. The board met on the Grace College campus in Winona Lake, Indiana.
To meet legal requirements for public meetings, a notice was published in the local newspaper: the Warsaw Times-Union, which probably no one in Monroe County reads. One member of the public attended, according to minutes of the meeting: Seven Oaks headmaster Stephen Shipp.
The situation highlights the tension between public and private in Indiana charter schools. The Seven Oaks website says charter schools are “tuition-free, open-enrollment public schools.” But the school’s authorizer, which sets the terms of its operation and is supposed to hold it accountable, is a private, Christian college with no connection to the community where the school operates.
Seven Oaks is part of a network of charter schools aligned with Hillsdale College, a conservative and politically active private college in Michigan. The Hillsdale charter initiative once cast itself as part of a “war” to reclaim America from “100 years of progressivism” in education. Its president, Larry Arnn, led Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission and its promotion of “patriotic history.”
Grace College has also granted a charter to Valor Classical Academy, a Hillsdale-affiliated school that has stalled in its attempts to open in Hamilton or Marion County.
Along with the Hillsdale affiliation, there are other factors that distinguish Seven Oaks from public schools: for example, its demographic profile. Out of more than 500 students, one is Black and nine are Hispanic, according to state data. Fewer than 20% of students would qualify for free or reduced-price meals if they were provided. (The school doesn’t provide transportation or school lunches).
This chart shows the percentage of students who are Black, Hispanic and eligible for free or reduced-price meals in Monroe County public school districts (Monroe County and Richland-Bean Blossom community school corporations) and charter schools (Bloomington Project School and Seven Oaks Classical School).
Nine of its 38 teachers are Hillsdale College alumni, according to profiles on the school’s website. In 2021-22, the most recent year for which a state teacher statistics report is posted, nearly 40% of its teachers had emergency licenses, compared with 4.6% in local public school districts.
The 24-page Seven Oaks charter extension reads like a standard agreement, with boilerplate language from state law and recommended practices for authorizing. It spells out the duties of each party, the expectations for the school, and the legal remedies if something goes wrong. An attached accountability plan includes out-of-date references to state assessments and, I’m told, is being revised.
The agreement says Grace College gets to keep 2.5% of the school’s state funding as an authorizer fee. That’s less than the 3% maximum that Indiana allows. In 2023-24, the college will net about $93,000.
Grace initially approved a charter for Seven Oaks in 2016 in one of Indiana’s first examples of what’s called authorizer shopping. The school’s founders applied to the Indiana Charter School Board, but it rejected their application. They reapplied but withdrew after a negative recommendation from the board’s staff. Then they took their plan to Grace College, which said yes to a 7-year charter.
At that time, private colleges could authorize charter schools in closed-door meetings with no public notice. Since 2017, they’ve had to use nonprofit authorizing agencies, such as Grace College’s Grace Charters LLC, that are subject to open-meetings and public-records laws. Even so, it can be hard to keep up. I started asking by email about the Seven Oaks charter extension in March; it took until late May to get copies of the December 2022 board minutes and the school’s extended charter agreement.
Transparency is one issue of having distant authorizers for charter schools, but there are others. The National Association Charter School Authorizers cautions against throwing the door wide open for higher education institutions, or HEIs, to authorize schools, as Indiana has done since 2011.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hillsdale is conservative. Until a breakdown of number of administrators/faculty/students or some other measure is employed that identifies right wing Catholic, right wing protestant, its labeling as Christian confuses the public’s understanding.Christian
schools are understood to be protestant.
Highly political public policy advocates who are
Catholic achieve cover, divert attention, when the catch-all term, “Christian”
is used.
In addition, Hillsdale is not accredited. It also has its hand in the American Birthright standards that many states are trying to adopt, including Ohio. So, in order to teach in Ohio, you must have a degree from an accredited university, yet Ohio teachers may be expected to teach a set of standards developed in part by a non accredited college.
Thanks for the comment.
My kids were fortunate to attend a Hillsdale-affiliated public charter school and graduated after eight and nine years of attending their school. The school they attended is majority-minority and provides a beautiful education to its students. I drove my kids to school 40 minutes in each direction to get them away from their horrible local school.
Diane, I’m sensing some anti-Catholic bigotry on this blog. I hope I’m wrong. I know the audience is mainly atheists, but let’s stay civil.
jacquilenhardt5598 Ha! You think?
But perhaps things have changed since your kids went to Hillsdale. FYI I’ve stopped reading Linda’s notes (and will continue to delete them quickly and unread) precisely because of the correctness of your complaint about anti-Catholic bias. My hope is that the public schools you refer to have been able to fend off the propaganda aimed at them, and/or actually improve as a public institution, if indeed they were that bad. But do be critical of the anti-public-school propaganda also. It’s concerted, well-funded, and has been around a very long time.
As you might guess, there’s a history of the bias here and my response to it here, which is probably available in the archives. For me to respond, however, (other than here, to you) would only be to repeat what I have said before many times over, but with apparently no furtherance of understanding or break with that most definite bias. No need of course unless you have an interest. In the past, it’s been similarly obvious.
Also, I’m guessing you know there is a lot to complain about in the more recent history of the right-wing elements of the Catholic Church, including their becoming bedfellows with oligarchs, and their manipulation of SCOTUS and federal judges over the years . . . none of which I, for one, defend. But writing from my own view, I would expect open mindedness from most here (and there’s always hope), but not from Linda’s notes. CBK
When a blog post gets hijacked by nonreligious bigots, don’t read it. Yeah, bigots come in all stripes. I’m not sure what the dividing line is between someone who is into bigotry rather than just plain old bias/opinion. The smug, superiority or the downright derisive contempt do get in the way of discussion.
I have never heard of a public school system being able to forbid a school from busing its students. The issue here might lie in your calling charters public schools. I’m not sure what you think makes them public. Using tax dollars does not make it so. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know the clear differences in governance. You also know that under funding of public education has been a long time problem, not to mention the out of school factors that play are far greater role in school achievement than what happens in school.
Hello spedektr Responding to your note, I’m a little unclear about your meaning, or even if your note is to me specifically, though it says so on the note in my box; so I’ll take the sentences one at a time:
You write: “I have never heard of a public school system being able to forbid a school from busing its students.”
ME: Nor have I. I believe this comment came from jacquilenhardt5598? In any case, it’s a question of fact, which I haven’t looked into; but my guess is that it’s about long-term laws and protocols as applied to new “charter” situations that were originally written and meant to protect children.
YOU write: “The issue here might lie in your calling charters public schools. I’m not sure what you think makes them public. Using tax dollars does not make it so.”
ME: An oxymoron, at best. But I see charter schools and vouchers (not at first, but now in many oligarch’s minds) as running short-term interference heading for the long-term private control of all, and for the long-term erasure of public schools. If true, this means that the long-term people have the money, political power, and the motivation to be sure vouchers and charters look good, and even are good in many senses, in the short term for the parents, students, and the “hired hands” who run them and who probably don’t have a clue about the intentions of the long-term thinkers, or about what’s “on the line” about the loss of THEIR democracy. Their wresting away power from public control (local, state, and federal) will in the end ensure that the curriculum and the running of the schools, including what color the students are, can change at the whim of dark money “owners” and corporate heads once privatization of everything has taken hold.
You write: “If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know the clear differences in governance. (ME: Yes.) You also know that under funding of public education has been a long time problem, not to mention the out of school factors that play are far greater role in school achievement than what happens in school.”
ME: Yes, I do. Also, I don’t like the tone here sometimes, some of which I myself have been snarked into participating in; though I have no regrets about countering the anti-Catholic and even anti-religious bias and outright smearing that rears its ugly head here way too often. Let it be known if others here don’t know it already . . . I do not support and only have contempt for the political and other overreach of the religious right here in the United States, including that coming from deep-right factions of the Catholic Church that BTW are about as far from the Christianity of the New Testament as can be. I have repeated these points in multiple ways over and over again and still get painted as a defender of such behaviors. And so, I quit reading some people’s posts seeing no point in talking to the politically deaf and, if not dumb, apparently seriously psychologically blocked. CBK
Sorry, CBK, it was in response tojacquilenhardt5598. I should remember to include a name. I think I hit the reply button to their post, but my response appeared under yours.
We are pretty much in agreement, CBK.
speduktr No harm, no foul. CBK
If using tax dollars made an organization public, then Harvard and Yale are public colleges and Lockheed Martin and Boeing are public entities.
jacquilenhardt5598 My response to you went to moderation. Watch for it later, if things stay the same here. CBK
Would you like some hosts, ya know the body of Christ with that whine?
Was that too uncivil for you jacquilenhardt5598?
You want civility when the book that you base your superstitions on can hardly be considered civil?
Oh, and I fully understand what R. Catholicism is about having gone through K-12 Catholic schools. . . with daily Mass grades 1-8. Talk about indoctrination into a cult.
“I know the audience is mainly atheists”
There are, unfortunately, many people who are–let me try to be polite here–so unfamiliar with philosophy and the history of ideas and so incapable of subtlety of thought that they instinctively cleave the world into two all-inclusive groups, Christians of various familiar contemporary kinds (those who perceive The Truth) and “atheists” (a group that somehow includes everyone else). LOL. They cannot conceive, for example, of people who
a) are religious nontheists (which would include literally billions of Buddhists) or
b) are theists but not monotheists (which would include animists, such as practitioners of Shinto, and polytheists and pantheists and panentheists and henotheists, such as most Hindus, as well as most of the people who have ever lived on Earth, including most tribal or indigenous peoples and all humans who existed before ONE TRIBE OF THEM invented monotheism) or
c) reject scientism, determinism, and materialism and don’t consider the subject of the proposition “God exists” to be clear enough to warrant judgment about the truth or falsehood of the proposition–as in, “that’s an idea so unclarified as not even to be wrong,” which would include me.
And, of course, those familiar with the early history of Christianity (that is, with Christianity in the first few centuries after Christ) will know that there were LITERALLY HUNDREDS of different Christian sects with vastly differing belief systems (including many Gnostic sects that believed in TWO GODS) and that by one count, done by professors at Gordon Theological Seminary (an Evangelical Christian institution), there are over 36,000 current Christian denominations, each with differing doctrines and dogmas.
–Elitist Bigot Bob Shepherd
cx:P reject scientism, determinism, and materialism BUT don’t consider
So, to be clear about this. What I have seen in the comments on Diane’s blog is a lively discussion of an extremely wide range of ideas related to religious belief and practice and how these, in the United States, influence education, politics, and the law. I’ve encountered on these pages extremely devout persons, Catholic and Protestant; people with clear antipathy for religion in general or particular forms of it; atheists; agnostics; and so on. Diane has been, as long as I have known her, a champion of freedom of expression and thought. She even wrote a great book–one that I highly recommend–attacking censorship from the Left and the Right. Given the wide range of beliefs expressed and defended on these pages, it’s bizarre to characterize the people here as “mainly atheists.” I am not an atheist, for example, though some of your ire is clearly directed at me personally. That’s OK. Let it rip, I say. As one of this non-atheist’s favorite poets, John Milton, wrote,
“And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falshood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors, in a free and open encounter.” –Areopagitica, 1644.
It is exactly this free argumentation in an open forum–this existence of a place allowing free interchange of contradictory ideas, a hēliaia–that some religious people WANT TO BE PROTECTED FROM. I am reminded of the “Hear No Evil” monkey. Oh no. Make it stop!
But here’s the thing: Religions and political parties put forward a) descriptive propositions about the world and b) propositions of policy, and I believe STRONGLY that these should be as subject to critical examination and debate as are propositions in science like “light propagates in the ether.” So, when people claim that a) references to LGBTQX persons are pornography and that b) all books containing any such references must be removed from school libraries, and they do so for religious reasons, why should their assertions be accorded some sort of special “hands off” status? Not buying that. That’s undemocratic. That’s the way of autocracy.
So, when people in the political realm discuss wealth and income inequality and matters like whether we should raise taxes on the rich, FACTS like those adduced in Thomas Pikkety’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century are relevant, and people should be allowed to argue these in public. There should be no prior restraint on the speech, for obvious reasons. Same applies to all philosophical positions/propositions, I think, including religious ones.
I would say that the most common POV re religion that I’ve seen on this blog is that of folks who retain some vague Christian belief and occasionally go to church but are not necessarily exceptionally devout and do not strongly hold traditional beliefs in things like the Virgin Birth, hell, the devil, and so on. In other words, folks who are like most Americans.
And, ofc, represented among the commenters on the blog are practicing and nonpracticing Jews. Several of the regular commenters are quite devout Christians. Several strongly hold their own syncretic “spiritual” beliefs.
If you wants to git aproval for yore school rite away, jist send $20,000 in cash to Bob n Darlenes Real Good ‘merkin School Approval Service in Slackwater Springs, Flor-uh-duh! Satis Faction Garunteed!
Satis Faction. That’s Latin for All Are Teachers Is Locked ‘n’ Loaded
Bob, I challenge you to tour one of these schools before you pass judgment on them. You too, Diane, otherwise I’ll disregard your opinion, especially when you wrote an entire book championing charter schools. Do you know why I read that book, Diane? I read it because it was on Hillsdales recommended reading list. 🙂
Bob, you sound like an elitist bigot, and after reading many of your comments on this blog, the evidence is clear. Go ahead, Keep those black, poor whites, and brown kids in their FAILING public schools that haven’t even figured out how to teach kids how to READ. Disgraceful
If you have followed my comments on this blog, you will know that I taught years ago in a Catholic girls school and have nothing but good to say about the nuns with whom I taught, who were selfless, hard-working, compassionate, wonderful people. The issue with those schools, j, is poverty. It’s all about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Hungry kids with single parents trying desperately to hold things together put reading My Friend Flicka pretty low on their list of priorities.
@jacquilenhardt5598
Failing public schools??!!!! What a despicable smear. The public schools take in all the kids, there is no screening out of the problem kids, no phony lotteries. All the kids of a particular school district are welcome at the succeeding public school. Charter schools and private schools get to pick and choose who they want in their schools. Some private schools have entrance exams, they are very selective unlike the democratic public schools.
Try to focus on the subject, Joe, which is public charter schools. If you haven’t noticed, this blog is here primarily to disparage and smear the hard work done by charter schools. Public charter schools do not get to pick and choose students. My kids’ school offers a free and reduced lunch program. We don’t have buses because, of course, the local schools and unions won’t allow that.
Charter schools are not really public schools. They have private boards. Some are run for profit. No public school has a private board or is run for profit. Yes, I oppose charters and vouchers. I oppose privatization. Keep reading the blog, especially at 9 am Thursday to learn more. Go to the website of the Network for Public Education to learn more. Inform yourself.
jacqui
Lies and distortion are the stock and trade of school privatizers and religious tribalists. I’ll just correct two of your many egregious errors.
First, states like Ohio have Supreme Courts who have ruled that charter schools are not public. Charters operate as private contractors like when a General Electric jet engine is provided to the government.
I pay taxes and I have a right to democratically elect a school board for the children of the community. My taxes, locally spent, are essential to the economic multiplier effect which is integral to the financial survival of my community I.e. property values, local retailers.
You want my taxes to go to Walmart-type schools or to religious schools that teach women are not equal. That’s what you want, so move to Orban’s Hungary.
Secondly, there’s no anti-Catholic bias at this blog. You and Catherine trot out the excuses of tribalists who don’t like to hear when a former Republican speaker of a state house says a Kansas City bishop, “single handedly torpedoed” the expansion of Medicaid because he wanted his anti-abortion religious view to be imposed.
As long as the state Catholic Conferences employ lobbyists to influence government policy to deny the rights of citizens, you and Catherine look like idiots trying to spin some Swiss cheese defense of the indefensible. Pretend that Bishop Hebda didn’t defend his right to tell his priests they couldn’t vote in the Democratic presidential primary and you’ll look even stupider.
Jefferson warned, in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot. You and Catherine enable with your false charge about anti-Catholic bias. If the USCCB didn’t spend money to deny rights to people who are gay and to women and, didn’t spend money to destroy the concept of public services, then loathing them and exposing them wouldn’t be the duty of democracy-defending Americans.