Archives for category: Arizona
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Jim Hall: Arizona Charter Operator Makes Millions by Real Estate Deals with Taxpayer Money

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2017 //
3

Jim Hall, whom I wrote about in the previous post, has uncovered many charter scams in Arizona. Here is his latest report. Open the link to read his attachments and documentation.

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability

arizcsa1000@gmail.com
602-343-3021

The Consequences of Unregulated Charter Schools:

The Leona Group LLC Reaps Millions in Real Estate Profits While Arizona Taxpayers (and Students) Foot the Bill

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability recently released two reports on charter school classroom spending in 2016 (see links below) finding that 191 Arizona charter schools are efficiently run and spend more money in the classroom than on administration and facilities combined. A majority of charter schools, however, spend less on classroom instruction than on administration and buildings. Imagine Inc. and the Leona Group LLC manage the majority of schools spending more on administration and facilities than in the classroom.

This report focuses on the Leona Group LLC which manages 25 schools in Arizona (and over 60 schools total in five states) to try to understand why Leona Group LLC managed schools spend so little on classroom instruction.

These were the key findings:

In 2007, Bill Coats, the sole owner of the Leona Group LLC, sold 10 schools owned by Leona Group LLC to a non-profit foundation Coats created in 1998, the American Charter Schools Foundation ACSF), for $33,890,485 more than their market value.

Bill Coats maintains the same management control over the schools as he had when Leona Group LLC owned the schools but now has set management fees that are not based on student enrollment.

ACSF schools have declined in enrollment by 25% since their purchase in 2007.

Between 2007 and 2016 overall instruction spending in ACSF schools has declined from $2090/pupil to $1455/pupil while facilities costs increased from $1455/pupil to $2479/pupil.

The real estate windfall Bill Coats received in 2007 by selling schools to his own foundation has caused ACSF to cut classroom spending to among the lowest rates of any school in Arizona – to fund the excessive mortgages.

Jim Hall, founder of Arizonans for Charter School Accountability, stated “ The Leona Group LLC has made tens of millions of dollars selling schools to their own non-profit foundation for double their market value – and still retain complete management control. The schools now spend most of their budgets on mortgages and management. Arizona doesn’t monitor charter school spending so this kind of waste and abuse goes unnoticed.”

Hall continued, “ The Arizona Auditor General needs to monitor charter spending and the Arizona Board for Charter Schools needs to sanction charter schools that divert public funds to corporate profits at the expense of children in the classroom.”

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Retired Educator Creates “Arizonans for Charter School Accountability,” Exposes Frauds and Scams

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2017 //
13

Jim Hall retired after three decades in education. He founded Arizonans for Charter School Accountability. He explains here:

I retired in June after over 30 years in education and 23 years as a school principal. One day I happened to find my research on charter school financing that was to be my dissertation for a PhD I never completed. I did a little research into one of the charter school companies I was studying and realized there were still major concerns about the financial accountability of charter schools in Arizona. I noticed that the charter organization was having a board meeting on September 10th so I decided to attend.

I started this organization largely because of an incident that occurred when I attended the board meeting. The Board President demanded to know my name – I repeated over and over that I was a member of the public and did not have to give my name. At the end of the meeting, a senior member of the company that manages the charter schools demanded my name in the hallway outside the meeting room. I refused and she pulled out her phone and took my picture saying “I’m taking your picture in case there are problems in the future”. I was completely shocked at this display of arrogance.

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability was born the next day. I filed a complaint with the Attorney General on behalf of ACSA regarding the violations of Arizona’s open meeting law. The AG’s office investigated the charter organization and they were forced to revise their website at each school and provide documents they had neglected to post in the past. The investigation is ongoing. Apparently, from the Board agenda for the October 15, 2014, they are being subjected to a “document audit” by the Attorney General’s office.

The charter organization finally posted their 2015 budget that should have been posted in July. It was a mess – there were significant areas that had they simply left blank. I found that they submitted this budget to the Arizona Department of Education and it was accepted, apparently without examining it. I made official complaints to the Arizona State Board of Charter Schools against the charter organization for filing incomplete budgets. I registered a complaint to the Auditor General’s office because ADE was negligent in accepting the budgets.

This week, on October 15, 2014, the charter organization submitted their Annual Financial Report for 2014 to ADE as is required by law. It too was full of omissions. Looking back over the last five years, all of their annual financial reports were incomplete. Today I filed additional complaints with the Charter School Board and the Auditor General’s office.

The budget and the annual financial report are literally the only documents charters have to submit to the State, since they can request waivers from compliance from both financial regulations and procurement rules. The State of Arizona apparently doesn’t even read these documents.

Charter schools waste millions of education dollars every year, at the expense of public schools and the children of Arizona. Corporate charter schools act with impunity because no one examines their actions.

I now have a passion that will fill my retirement. The Arizonans for Charter School Accountability will continue to examine the financial dealings of this charter organization and others. We will file complaint after complaint. We will go to the media to expose corrupt organizations. We will fight to change the law so that charter schools have financial accountability to the taxpayers of Arizona.

 

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Fraud, Hoax

Arizona: Poll Shows Public Would Pay More for Better Education

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2017 //
7

A group called “Expect More Arizona” conducted a poll and found that the public is willing to pay higher taxes for better schools. Arizona is currently overrun with charter schools, most of dubious quality. Choice has left most children behind.

 

A survey conducted in mid-December on behalf of Expect More Arizona affirms that education is still the most pressing issue on the minds of Arizona voters, above immigration and the economy.

 

When asked to name specific concerns related to education, lack of funding and teacher pay/teacher shortage rose to the top. In fact, when asked what issue, if any, voters would be willing to pay more in taxes to support, higher teacher pay was the top issue across all political parties.

 

The poll also showed strong support for the renewal of Prop 301, a voter initiative passed in 2000 that provides a six-tenths of one cent sales tax for public education, resulting in more than $650 million in revenue each year. Additionally, voters surveyed support possibly increasing the associated sales tax rate in order to fund teacher pay or K-3 literacy programs.

 

Other notable results from the survey of likely Arizona voters show:

 

Finding a long-term solution for education funding is rated as a top education priority by 84 percent of likely Arizona voters, regardless of their age, party affiliation, ethnicity, economic status, or geographic location.
Ninety-five (95) percent of voters believe it is important to provide schools the funding they need to attract and retain great teachers with 76 percent agreeing Arizona is facing a teacher shortage crisis.
An overwhelming majority agree that Arizona must ensure all students receive the support needed to read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade (95%).
Voters agree all students deserve a great education (96%) and that education impacts the strength of our communities (95%).
Eighty percent agree that increasing the number of people who graduate from the state’s public community colleges and universities will help improve the state’s economy and 75 percent of voters also agree that community colleges and universities should receive additional funding.

Categories Arizona, Funding

Arizona: A Proposal to Hold Schools Accountable Based on Test Scores

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2016 //
12

 

Arizona spends less on schools than most states. The governor, Doug Ducey, is determined not to raise taxes. The public is willing to spend more to improve education but the governor wants to hold the line.

 

Robert Robb, an editorial columnist for the Arizona Republic has an idea: cut the schools loose from school boards and judge them by standardized tests. And hold everyone accountable for results.

 

Arizona currently spends, from all sources for all purposes, $9,500 per K-12 student. That’s low compared with other U.S. states. But it is in the range spent by countries in Western Europe.

 

For example, Finland spends roughly the same per pupil as does Arizona, and it has one of the highest performing school systems in the world, based on international test scores.

 

However, to have high performance with existing dollars would require blowing up the existing delivery system and substituting a new one built from scratch.

 

What would such a system look like?

 

It would be entirely financed and controlled at the state level. Funding for all purposes, operational and capital, would be folded into a single, lump-sum, per pupil grant. The grant would go to whatever public school the student attended.

 

The principal at that school would have control of the elements of educational success: money, personnel and curriculum. Local school boards and central school district business offices would be neutered or abolished.

 

That would put in place the infrastructure of educational success. But actual success would be ensured by a rigorous regimen of accountability through testing. Failing to achieve the educational benchmarks set by the state would have consequences for all — administrators, teachers and students.

 

Arizona has never had such an accountability- through-testing regimen.And the state Board of Education is fleeing in the opposite direction, bent on adopting a new school grading system even more meaningless and useless than the previous one.

 

This is a surprising proposal because it echoes the failed test-and-punish accountability regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Both efforts said that test scores should be used to measure success and to hold everyone accountable. Fifteen years later, what is there to show for these multi-billion dollar initiatives? They aimed to produce higher test scores, and by their own goals and measures, they failed.

 

Mr. Robb must have a lot of faith in standardized testing if he thinks, like Margaret Spellings, Sandy Kress, and Arne Duncan, that they are the best way to identify success.

 

Since he brought up Finland, he should look into that nation more closely. Start by reading Pasi Sahlberg’s wonderful book, Finnish Lessons, or Finnish Lessons 2.0. What he would learn is that students in Finland don’t begin formal academic instruction until they are 7. They never take a standardized test until the end of high school. Their teachers are carefully selected, well prepared in a five-year program (that is hard to get accepted into), and given substantial autonomy over how and what to teach. Children have recess after every class, rain or snow or shine. The arts and physical education are very important. Creativity and play matter.

 

Please, Mr. Robb, learn more about Finland, and compare what you see in Arizona to what the Finns do.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Testing

Arizona: Charter Chain Accused of Teaching Religion

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2016 //
22

A charter chain in Arizona is being sued in federal court for allowing the teaching of religion in school. One of the board members of the chain is a son of a member of the state board of education, appointed by Governor Douglas Ducey.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports:

A national organization filed suit Wednesday against an Arizona charter school with ties to a member of the state Board of Education, accusing it of using state funds to illegally teach religious doctrine.

The federal court lawsuit claims that Heritage Academy, with three campuses in Maricopa County teaching grades 7 through 12, is violating the First Amendment, state constitutional provisions and Arizona laws through the instruction provided to students as well as the required reading.

Attorney Richard Katskee, legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that specifically includes teachings of founder, president and teacher Earl Taylor Jr. that the Ten Commandments, including those that mandate the worship of God, must be obeyed to attain happiness.

Other teachings, he said, include that socialism violates God’s laws.

And Katskee said the school engages in a form of proselytizing by telling students “they are duty-bound to implement and instruct others about these religious and religiously based principles in order to restore the United States to freedom, prosperity and peace.”

Among the academy’s board members is Jared Taylor, who is Earl’s son. Taylor was one of Doug Ducey’s first appointments last year to the state Board of Education.

Neither Taylor would comment on the specifics of lawsuit. But the elder Taylor said he has answered similar allegations in the past for the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.

Calls to Whitney Chapa, the board’s executive director who has access to those files, were not immediately returned.

And gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato said his boss had no comment on the lawsuit.

Under Arizona law, private and even for-profit corporations can set up charter schools. They are considered public schools, entitled to state aid and cannot charge tuition.

They are exempt from some — but not all — of the regulations that govern traditional public schools. And there is a specific requirement that a charter school “ensure that it is nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies and employment practices and all other operations.”

There also is a state constitutional provision that bars the use of public money for religious instruction and a separate one forbidding the use of state taxes for any sectarian school.

Does the explicit language of the state constitution matter any more?

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Privatization, Religion

Edward F. Berger: We Must Recover from the School Choice Movement and Reclaim Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2016 //
27

Edward F. Berger is a retired educator who lives in Arizona and builds community support against privatization of public schools.

In this post, he explains the failure of charter schools (which he calls “partial schools”).

This is how the school choice movement went wrong:

Politicians, ideologues, so-called libertarians, and crooks attracted by profit motives, took over the charter school experiment. They decided, with no educational data to back their decisions, that charter schools, regardless of whether they worked for children or not, whether they served America’s need for an educated populous or not, would become stand-alone schools that could be run with little accountability, certification, or even democratically elected boards. Now, tax money is often used to create private Real Estate empires. Our tax dollars that we pay for children and their education are siphoned off to individuals, corporations, and companies that contract with charters to provide “services.” Is it any wonder that hedge fund operators and the self-appointed reformers see charter schools and outfits like K-12 as income generators? Is it any wonder that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies cannot keep up with the criminal activities of those milking the system? These thefts are criminal even if approved by legislatures. Are you surprised that the largest Charter School operator in America is a Turkish political movement using our tax dollars to bring their people (they call them teachers) into America to support a political agenda in a foreign land?

Groups motivated by Koch, ALEC, and those with hedge fund mentalities of fraud and greed, have gone against the clear and expressed wishes of the great majority of Americans (exceeding 85%) who support community based, public, comprehensive schools. Let’s be very clear. The great majority of Americans want children exposed to and involved in these areas of learning: Art, music, the sciences, history, civics, theater, health, languages, social studies, reading, writing, critical thinking, physical education, athletics, cooperative experiences, computer sciences, computer literacy, clubs, projects, research… and this is only a partial list of what public comprehensive schools provide. We citizens want the development of self-motivated children, children with ethics and empathy. Children with heart. Constant testing for data does not serve our children.

Parents, educators, and communities united can push back against the corruption in the charter industry.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Arizona: Parents and Teachers Will Protest Budget Cuts at Capitol on Thursday #NowItStarts

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2016 //
2

This just in:

 

 

Arizona education supporters, led by the state’s Teacher of the Year Christine Marsh and Valley Interfaith Project (which is the local affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation), will launch an effort this Thursday, May 19, to signal to the public and to policy makers that the abysmal lack of education funding in Arizona is not acceptable.

 

The rally, called #NowItStarts, will be held on the Arizona State Capitol grounds at 4 p.m. in Phoenix to draw attention to the nearly $2 billion in cuts to Arizona public schools, which have stymied teacher pay raises, slashed classroom spending, and left the state’s aging school facilities in disrepair.

 

The rally comes in the aftermath of a controversial ballot proposition being voted upon today.  Proposition 123, a lawsuit settlement brokered by Gov. Doug Ducey, would end a protracted lawsuit filed when the state withheld voter approved inflation funding from Proposition 301, a voter approved measure from 2000 that legislators ignored during recession budget shortfalls. 

 

The measure, which has deeply divided supporters of public schools, would replace 72% of the funding due to the schools and would draw largely on the state’s land trust fund to resume inflation funding.  If it passes, the state would still rank 48th in per pupil spending, spending $3,000 less than the national average.

 

“Regardless of whether Proposition 123 passes or fails, it’s not OK that Arizona education is so underfunded and undervalued by the powers-that-be,” said Marsh, an AP English instructor in Scottsdale.   

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts

Arizona Voucher Bill for Half the Children in the State Advances in Legislature

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
14

The appropriations committee in the Arizona House voted 8-5 to approve vouchers (called “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts”) for about half of the state’s 1.1 million students. One of the supporters of the bill wanted vouchers for every student in the state. The vouchers will drain students and funding from public schools. There is no evidence that vouchers improves education, but it is a red-button issue for libertarians, who want to eliminate public schools. They seem unaware that every nation with successful schools has a strong public school system, with neither vouchers nor charters. I cannot explain why Republicans are so unwilling to call vouchers by their rightful name. They have come up with all kinds of euphemism (“opportunity scholarships,” “education savings accounts,” etc.), but a voucher is a voucher is a voucher. Vouchers have not improved the schools or the educational outcomes of children in Milwaukee, the District of Columbia, or Cleveland. But when dealing with ideologues, facts are irrelevant. Republicans in Arizona are determined to wipe out public education, step by step, starting with vouchers for special education, then expanding until it is vouchers for all.

 

 

A House panel voted late Wednesday to let more than half the 1.1 million students in Arizona schools use public dollars to attend private and parochial schools.

 

 

The 8-5 vote by the Appropriations Committee follows the failure of supporters of vouchers to line up the votes in the House to open the door for all students. Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, said she hopes this scaled-back proposal gains more support.

 

 

Lesko also crafted this version of SB 1279 to try to overcome opposition from those who say that the vouchers are used largely by families who already can afford to send their kids to private schools.

 

 

It limits eligibility to students whose family income qualifies them for free- or reduced-price lunch programs. For a family of four, that figure is $44,863 a year.

 

 

Stacey Morley, lobbyist for the Arizona Education Association, said the most recent figures show about 565,000 students participating in those programs.

 

 

But that may not cover everyone who would be eligible.

 

 

Morley said high schools are not required to have such programs. Nor are charter schools.

 

 

That means the number of children whose family income would qualify them could be higher.

 

 

Lesko told lawmakers they should not worry there would be a sudden flood of children, armed with scholarships worth about $5,400 a year, fleeing public schools and taking with them the state aid that had gone to those schools. She said state law limits vouchers to no more than one-half percent of public schools students, or about 5,500 youngsters.

 

 

But Rep. Mark Cardenas, D-Phoenix, pointed out that cap disappears after 2019.

 

 

And Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, conceded his goal is to eventually make vouchers available to every public school student in Arizona.

Categories Arizona, Vouchers

Arizona: Vouchers for All?

By dianeravitch
February 29, 2016 //
12

A reader in Arizona reports that a State Senate committee just passed legislation that would lift all limits on vouchers by 2020. Every Democrat and one Republican opposed the bill. Why destroy public education? Since when did radicalism get confused with “reform”? True reformers want to improve institutions, not blow them up. True conservatives conserve community institutions that serve our democracy. The promoters of this scheme are radicals, not conservatives.

This is unfiltered rightwing ideology. No high-performing nation in the world has replaced its public schools with school choice. No voucher program in this country has produced impressive results. Every little church in the state will open or expand its school and hire uncertified teachers. This is not progress. This is stupidity.

Our reader adds:

“It is likely to pass given the makeup of our legislature and its connections to ALEC. The only hope is that Governor Ducey will veto it. He is pro-privatization and under normal circumstances would likely sign the bill but his own proposed funding plan might be in jeopardy if he did so. That means that there’ a chance that he’ll veto it!”

Categories ALEC, Arizona, School Choice, Vouchers

Gene Glass: The Shame of Arizona’s Elitist Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
February 29, 2016 //
4

Gene Glass, renowned researcher of education, lives in Arizona, where charter schools are proliferating without accountability or transparency. They are certainly not serving the children with the greatest needs, which was the original purpose of charter schools.

 

In this post, he describes the state’s most “successful” charter schools.

 

To sum it up: “They Recruit, They Skim, They Flunk Out The Weak … They are Arizona’s Top Charter Schools”

 

He cites a blog–Arizonans for Charter School Accountability–which investigated the demographics of the state’s top 20 charter schools. Their enrollments are overwhelmingly white and Asian, unlike the enrollments in any of the state’s public school districts.

 

Their students are 86% white and Asian, only 2% Black and 11% Hispanic. Some have no ELLs. Some have no students receiving free lunch.

 

And they are the best charter schools in a state where the governor and legislature want more.

 

Glass writes:

 

Eleven of these 20 schools are run by corporations: BASIS and Great Hearts.
One truly weeps.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Hoax
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »