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Conservatives Warn Trump Not to Make School Choice a Federal Program

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2017 //
19

At a recent meeting at the Heritage Foundation, conservatives warned that federal control of school choice would be very dangerous.

“A panel of education policy experts agree the Trump administration appears to be moving toward some form of federal management of school choice, but warns that attempts to influence school choice policy from Washington, D.C. could undermine the president’s stated goals of returning education decisions back to the states and local governments.
The panel convened at the Heritage Foundation in the wake of Trump’s statement during his address to Congress that education is “the civil rights issue of our time.” The school choice theme that Trump has adopted since the tail end of his presidential campaign has been largely directed at minority children who are stuck in failing public schools and whose parents or guardians may not have the financial means to transfer them to a private or religious school.

“Trump’s choice for U.S. Education Secretary – Betsy DeVos – worked in her home state of Michigan primarily on school choice and school voucher programs, which allow families to use taxpayer funds for tuition at private and religious schools.

“On the campaign trail, the president proposed block granting $20 billion to families for school choice, and in his recently released budget, he proposed an additional $1.4 billion be spent on school choice programs in 2018.

“Trump also urged Congress to design legislation that funds school choice for low-income families. One such bill, H.R. 610, introduced by Iowa Rep. Steve King (R), has been vehemently opposed by homeschooling families across the country because of concerns the legislation will result in regulation of homeschooling nationwide.

“The panel, led by American Enterprise Institute education fellow Gerard Robinson, discussed ideas on how the federal government might attempt to actually implement school choice policy, whether through financial mechanisms such as school vouchers, education savings accounts, or tax credit scholarships, in which organizations obtain tax credits for donating scholarship funds to individual students or groups of students.

“When I hear folks talking about getting Washington involved in tuition tax credits for scholarship-granting organizations, and I hear the proposals that are being broadly floated, it makes me extraordinarily nervous,” said American Enterprise Institute education policy director Frederick (Rick) Hess. “It takes me very much back to 2000, and the 24-page document that the Bushes drafted that was the original No Child Left Behind.”

“Hess also pointed out the tremendous effects a federal tax credit scholarship program could have on the demands for private schools in the education market.

“If we get into Washington doing scholarship-granting organization tax credits…this is going to have enormous effects on private schools, because it’s going to distort the marketplace,” he said. “They’re going to need to be eligible for these funds.”

“Hess also explained the potential “strings” attached to federal taxpayer dollars as they go to private and religious schools, especially those that are strapped for cash and are willing to go to great lengths to obtain the funding. He warns that a future, more liberal Congress and administration would likely attach greater regulations to those schools.

“When you get a Democratic administration, an Elizabeth Warren administration, and they decide that eligible schools … need to have anti-bullying programs and other accommodations?” he said. “We will very quickly wind up and wonder, ‘What the hell were we thinking, inviting Washington into these decisions?’”

Hmmmm.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

When PBS Sold Airtime to Bill Gates to Promote the Common Core

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
64

After I posted the story about the forthcoming PBS Series called School Inc., which promotes privatization, reflecting the views of the privatization movement, I shared the story with investigative journalist David Sirota. He recalled the time that his journalism compelled PBS to return millions of dollars to billionaire financier John Arnold for a program he funded about “the pension crisis.” Arnold has a passion for eliminating pensions for public employees.

He also pointed out a story about Bill Gates’ generous support for PBS programs like The Teaching Channel and for programs advocating for the Common Core.

Now, we understand that PBS and its affiliates need to raise money, but the public expects that whatever they feature will be fair and balanced, not an advertorial.

And we certainly don’t expect PBS to align its programming with the whims of rich individuals who seek to undermine and/or privatize and/or control public education.

I would certainly be shocked to see a program on PBS funded by billionaire Robert Mercer on why the nation does not need public television. Yet PBS has shockingly committed to airing a four-part series attacking public schools and praising the virtues of privatization.

When does the public interest get equal time?

Please call 703-739-5000 to register your protest.

Be sure to ask when they will give equal time to expose the corporate attack on our public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Media, Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider on the Pahara Institute, Which Trains True Believers in Privatization and Testing

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
14

Mercedes Schneider wrote an excellent study–“A Chronicle of Echoes”–of the echo chamber of corporate reform.

In this post, she reviews one of the entrails in the belly of the beast. It is called the Pahara Institute, which claims to train leaders who will create the high-quality, high-performing schools that all children need.

If you look at the list of big-name participants, which includes local superintendents, state superintendents, even a former Secretary of Education, you realize why all these people sound like robots. They have been programmed in their echo chamber.

But one question keeps popping up: These people are in positions of power. They are not on the outside looking in. Where are the great schools and the great districts that they should have produced by now? One day, all children will have an excellent education, but is there a timetable? Ten years? Twenty years? The fifth of never? Will they ever deliver? Or will they just keep promising and promising until the funders stop funding?

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

Trump-DeVos Suck Up Watch: PBS Is Showing a Series Attacking Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
42

Laura Chapman wrote the following expose of a new series that will appear on PBS. It must be public television’s effort to curry favor with the Trump administration, as it reflects the extremist agenda of Betsy DeVos, who is intent on creating a free market in publicly-funded schooling. Since Trump’s budget has proposed to eliminate funding for public television, this series may be a demonstration that even PBS will give a showcase to libertarians who want to destroy public institutions.

More than ten years ago, PBS ran a four-part series called SCHOOL, produced by Sarah Patton, Sarah Mondale, and Vera Aronow. It was a history of public education that documented the role of public education in welcoming generations of immigrants and leading the way to a better society. For the past four years the same team has been creating a one-hour documentary exposing the corporate assault on public education. They have struggled to find funding, but they are near completion. The very least that PBS could do to compensate for featuring a one-sided rightwing diatribe against public education would be to show “Backpack Full of Cash,” which portrays the bitter forces of reaction that seek to destroy one of our most treasured democratic institutions, public schools funded by all and open to all.

It is ironic and sad that public television would lend credibility to an attack on public education. Encouraging the forces intent on destroying everything “public” will not save public television.

Chapman writes:

“I just posted about the SCHOOL, INC. television programs on PBS. I did not do enough research. Here is what you really should know about the programs.

“These programs are pure propaganda for so-called free market education. They have been produced courtesy of Free to Choose, a promoter of all things that the late Milton and Rosa Friedman would love.

“The PBS website says that funding for these programs has been provided by the Texas-based Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Foundation. See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rose-Marie_and_Jack_R._Anderson_Foundation
The Anderson Foundation s one of several ultra conservative funders, but the series is also sell-funded by being part of the Free to Choose Network. That Network is a non-profit set up by the one of the Executive Producers Bob Chitester

“Bob Chitester is chairman, president and CEO of Free To Choose Network, a 501-c-3 public foundation housing Free To Choose Media, an award-winning, global entertainment company which produces and distributes thought-provoking public television programs and series. In 1977, Chitester and economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, undertook a film project which became Free To Choose, an award-winning PBS TV series and an international best-selling book based on the series. You can learn more about the connection of this non-profit to the Friedman doctrine of market-based education here and elsewhere on the internet. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Free_to_Choose_Network

“Among the others responsible for the series is Andrew Coulson. Coulson is the Creator, Writer, and Director. His bio, posted on PBS, says Coulson studied mathematics and computer science at McGill University and worked as a Microsoft software engineer. In 1994, he became ” troubled by the fact that teaching and learning were being left behind by the relentless progress in other fields. His book, Market Education: The Unknown History, received endorsements from Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, and University of Chicago education psychologist Herbert Walberg. His 2009 paper for the peer-reviewed Journal of School Choice was the most comprehensive review of the worldwide scientific literature comparing alternative education systems. In 2011 he conducted a statistical study titled “The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools?” Coulson has ….testified before the United States House and Senate on the state of American education and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court. He was senior fellow in education policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, and contributed chapters to books by the Hoover Institution and Canada’s Fraser Institute. Prior to his death in February 2016, Coulson made arrangements to ensure School, Inc. would be completed for broadcast television.”

“There are many reasons why I support my local PBS broadcasters. This programing is not one of them.

“Overall, I think that PBS has done a miserable job of seeking spokespersons for public education, especially parents, students, administrators and politicians. Diane Ravitch has appeared on Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers and a few other programs, but I have seen no real coverage of the issues facing public education right now.

“I wonder if PBS scheduled this series to coincide with the Betsy DeVos/Trump agenda that will pour money into vouchers and set in motion market-based education as if the new norm for American education. I wonder if Milton and Rosa Friedman smiling. Did PBS intend to insult many of their supporters, including me, by scheduling this series now?

“Please be aware that this PBS series is a propaganda machine for market-based education. The programs are not presented in a context that makes that obvious.

“I intend to let my local PBS stations know that this series looks like a well-planned and perfectly timed promo for the DeVos/Trump agenda.

“I will also ask for them to take affirmative steps to support public education and the public schools in their viewing areas.

“PBS seems to be satisfied with educational programming for use by teachers and cartoony programs for children. Sesame Street is hosted after it has made money elsewhere. Unless I am mistaken, Trump’s proposed budget for PBS will bring a 20% cut, not total elimination.

“PBS needs all the support it can get. This is not a way to support the public schools who serve the majority of our students and with uncommon ingenuity and devotion in the midst of budget cuts and unwarranted, unsupported attacks from billionaires, including the funders of these programs.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

BREAKING NEWS: Julian Vasquez Heilig Has Won OK to Open Five For-Profit Charter Schools in Michigan!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
19

Julian Vasquez Heilig has deep ties to the state of Michigan, as he is from Lansing, and he graduated from the University of Michigan. He has made his mark as a scholar of education policy at the University of Texas and now Sacramento State in California. Although he has established a reputation as a well-informed critic of charters, he could not pass up the opportunity to open a chain of charters in his home state of Michigan, where anyone can open a charter school and the financial rewards of for-profit charters are large. What’s principle when profits are so alluring?

The five charters will open this September, which is kind of quick, but then they are mostly online schools. It is no problem that Julian will continue to live in California, because, well, the weather is better.

It took only four weeks to have his request approved, so why wait to get started?

Here are three of his five new charters. You will have to open the link to read about the other two. They are doozies:

SELL Academy: SELL Academy will be primarily online and have a statewide attendance zone and serve grades 9-12. The school plans to implement an online real estate and sales curriculum through partnership with Trump University. The school aims to integrate sales into project-based learning experiences to allow students to develop critical thinking skills and a deeper understanding of sales— including real estate deals. Tremendous! There will be a brick-and-mortar location at a Trump property to be determined later.

Perfect Graduation Academy for Boys: Perfect Academy for Boys will be primarily online have a statewide with a brick-and-mortar location on land to be purchased by school and then leased back to me by my Charter Management Organization at a “great” price. Perfect will serve grades 9-10. The school will be a single-gender charter school that provides a rigorous, college preparatory program for grades 9-12. We will have a 100% graduation rate for everyone that is still at our school after four years. I promise. Perfect Academy for Boys will offer an extended day, week and year religious-based educational program. The focus is on boys, because, well, you know boys.

Exodus Academy for Girls: Exodus Academy for Girls will be primarily online have a statewide with a brick-and-mortar location on land to be purchased by school and then leased back to me by my Charter Management Organization at a “great” price (see above). I am actually thinking I might sell this school before it opens or mid-year. I’m taking offers— I’m ready to exodus.

He says he knows that Betsy DeVos will be thrilled with his success and that he was inspired by her comparison of schools to Ubers and other disruptive innovations in ride-sharing. He wants to be part of the new economy.

Need I say that Julian will be leaving the board of the Network for Public Education as of close of business today?

(April Fool!)

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Hoax, Humor, Privatization

Carol Burris: The Secrets of Arizona’s High-Performing Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
51

Carol Burris has been conducting an investigation of charter schools in many states, beginning with her series on California. In this post, she analyzes the remarkable test scores of certain high-performing charter schools in Arizona.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/03/30/what-the-public-doesnt-know-about-high-performing-charter-schools-in-arizona/

Public schools are supposed to learn from the “innovative” practices of charter schools. So, what can be learned from Arizona’s best charter schools?

1. Choose your students carefully.
2. Give preference to students who are white and Asian.
3. Avoid students with disabilities and students whose English is limited.
4. Minimize the number of children who live in poverty.
5. Make the demands so challenging that the weakest students leave.

The top charter schools in Arizona are the BASIS chain, founded by Michael and Olga Block. The first was founded in Tucson in 1998, followed by one in Scottsdale in 2003.

BASIS Tucson and BASIS Scottsdale became top-ranked schools on Newsweek’s “America’s Most Challenging High Schools” list, and later flew to top spots on the Best High Schools list of U.S. News & World Report.

Advocates touted the Tucson and Scottsdale schools as miracles, holding them up as examples of what high expectations, combined with the freedom afforded charter schools, can do. BASIS exploded. There are now 18 BASIS charter schools in Arizona, three in Texas and one in Washington D.C., all managed by the for-profit corporation, BASIS Educational Group, LLC. The same LLC also manages five for-profit BASIS private schools in the United States and one private international school.

Pretty impressive.

But Burris examined the demographics.

In Arizona, 3% of the state’s students are Asian, but 32% in BASIS charters.

In the state, 5% are American Indian, but 0% in BASIS.

In the state, 45% of students are Latino, compared to 10% in BASIS.

In the state, 39% of students are white, but 51% in BASIS.

In the state, 3% are black, and 5% in BASIS.

In 2015-16, only 1.23 percent of the students at BASIS had a learning disability, as compared to 11.3 percent of students in the state. BASIS schools had no English Language Learners. And in a state in which over 47 percent of all students received free or reduced- priced lunch, BASIS had none. Although BASIS may have some students from qualifying households, it chooses not to participate in the free or reduced-priced lunch program.

There are economic barriers to entry:

Because BASIS provides no transportation, where it places schools — along with the lack of a free-lunch program — discourages disadvantaged students from applying. There are also hefty “suggested” parental contributions. BASIS requests that families contribute at least $1,500 a year per child to the school to fund its teacher bonus program. Enrollees must also pay a $300 security deposit, purchase some books, and pay for activities that would be free if the student attended a public school.

The curriculum is so rigorous that less than 50% of those who enter will remain to graduate.

Only the strong survive, and that boosts the rankings of BASIS in the various magazine rating systems.

And then there is the money!

As the empire grows, the management fees grow. The Blocks opened a private LLC to shield their finances from public views.

Salary and travel transparency disappeared in 2009 when the Blocks opened a private, for-profit limited liability company, BASIS Educational Group, LLC. Now the couple’s salary and expenses are hidden from the public. According to the 990 for 2009, BASIS School Inc. spent $3,902,122 in total on school salaries, and $1,728,000 on “management.” BASIS Educational Group, LLC, the for-profit that contracted with BASIS Schools Inc., received $4,711,699 for leased employee costs and $1,766,000 for management, indicating that there were also substantial fees that went to the Block’s LLC.

The latest 990 shows just shy of $60 million going from the non-profit to the for-profit corporation to provide services to BASIS schools.

These are publicly funded private schools whose “owners” generate huge income for themselves.

But as Secretary DeVos reminds us so often, this is child-centric education, and it is not about adult interests. Right.

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, For-Profit

Municipal Analysts Ask Whether Charter Schools Make the Grade

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
7

I received an invitation to a meeting of municipal analysts in New York City.

MID-TERMS ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER … CAN CHARTER SCHOOLS MAKE THE GRADE?

Date: Friday, April 7, 2017
Time: 11:30 am – 2:00 pm
Location: Yale Club, 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, NYC

Summary:

Can charter schools achieve investment grade status? Despite failures and successes, charter school debt has grown rapidly as facilities’ needs increase— over 5% of national K-12 students attended a charter school in 2014, with much higher percentages in certain inner cities. Investor reception remains mixed, however, in that charter schools can be closed by their authorizers or fail on their own. MAGNY presents a discussion between two experts presenting opposing views. James Lyman, Director of Research at Neuberger Berman, views all charter school debt as having below investment grade characteristics regardless of size and financial performance. Jessica Matsumori oversees about 265 charter school debt ratings as S&P Global sector lead for charter schools, with about half falling into low investment grade categories. Jessica will explain the S&P rating distribution based on S&P criteria and median ratios. After short presentations and a moderated discussion, the floor will be thrown open for questions and further discussion.

Moderator:
David Hitchcock, Senior Director, S&P Global

Presenters:
James Lyman, Director of Research, Neuberger Berman
Jessica Matsumori, Senior Director, S&P Global, sector lead for charter schools

Cost: $75 for members, $85 for non-members

Payment: Event payments are no longer accepted at the door. Register and pay instantly from our website (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Questions: Contact Stephen Winterstein at programchair@magny.org.

If you plan to go, you should be prepared with statements by Moody’s Investors Service, which rates municipal debt.

This one says that charter schools weaken the finances of urban districts.

“New York, October 15, 2013 — The dramatic rise in charter school enrollments over the past decade is likely to create negative credit pressure on school districts in economically weak urban areas, says Moody’s Investors Service in a new report. Charter schools tend to proliferate in areas where school districts already show a degree of underlying economic and demographic stress, says Moody’s in the report “Charter Schools Pose Growing Risks for Urban Public Schools.”

“While the vast majority of traditional public districts are managing through the rise of charter schools without a negative credit impact, a small but growing number face financial stress due to the movement of students to charters,” says Michael D’Arcy, one of two authors of the report.

“Charter schools can pull students and revenues away from districts faster than the districts can reduce their costs, says Moody’s. As some of these districts trim costs to balance out declining revenues, cuts in programs and services will further drive students to seek alternative institutions including charter schools.

“Many older, urban areas that have experienced population and tax base losses, creating stress for their local school districts, have also been areas where charter schools have proliferated, says Moody’s. Among the cities where over a fifth of the students are enrolled in charter schools are Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Nationwide about one in 20 students is in a charter school.

“One of the four risk factors Moody’s identifies as making a school district vulnerable to charter school growth is that the school district is already financially pressured and grappling with weak demographics.

“A second factor is having a limited ability to adjust operations in response to a loss of enrolment to charter schools.

“Shifts in student enrollment from district schools to charters, while resulting in a transfer of a portion of district revenues to charter schools, do not typically result in a full shift of operating costs away from district public schools,” says Moody’s Tiphany Lee-Allen, the Moody’s Associate Analyst who co-authored the report. “Districts may face institutional barriers to cutting staff levels, capital footprints and benefit costs over the short term given the intricacies of collective bargaining contracts – leaving them with underutilized buildings and ongoing growth in personnel costs.”

“A third risk factor for a school district is being in a state with a statutory framework promoting a high degree of educational choice and has a relatively liberal approval process for new charters and few limits on their growth, as well as generous funding.

“For example in Michigan, the statutory framework emphasizes educational choice, and there are multiple charter authorizers to help promote charter school growth. In Michigan, Detroit Public Schools (B2 negative), Clintondale Community Schools (Ba3 negative), Mount Clemens Community School District (Ba3 negative) and Ypsilanti School District (Ba3) have all experienced significant fiscal strain related to charter enrollment growth, which has also been a contributing factor to their speculative grade status.”

That was in 2013. Last year, Moody’s wrote that the decision by Massachusetts’ voters not to expand the number of charter schools was a “credit positive” for the state.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/16/moody-calls-charter-school-rejection-credit-positive/Z7Eb1Xu8PGDJKMj1EIntLP/story.html

“Moody’s Investors Service said Massachusetts voters’ decision to reject Governor Charlie Baker’s charter school expansion plan is “credit positive” for the state’s urban governments, freeing them from potential financial pressures had the proposal been approved.

“In an announcement this week, the bond rating agency said the history of charter schools shows they drain money from city governments’ education budgets, citing Boston, Fall River, Lawrence, and Springfield in particular.

“A city that begins to lose students to a charter school can be forced to weaken educational programs because funding is tighter, which then begins to encourage more students to leave which then results in additional losses,’’ the Moody’s report said.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Funding

Will Pinkston: The Charter Industry is Unraveling in Nashville

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
17

Will Pinkston, a member of the Metro Nashville school board, has long been suspicious about the ability of the charter industry to keep its grandiose promises. Now, he says, charter schools in that city are in crisis.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2017/03/29/nashvilles-charter-school-industry-unraveling/99747782/

He writes:

“It was just a matter of time before the wheels came off Nashville’s charter school industry. This year, it’s finally happening.

“Advocates for charters — publicly funded private schools — have long argued they’re the best approach for improving K-12 public education. But national research shows, and now a series of new local developments reinforces, that charters are just a collective ruse pushed by special interests trying to privatize our school system.

“The latest example is RePublic Schools. In March a federal judge certified a class-action lawsuit brought by Nashville parents who complained their families are being subjected to illegal hardball recruiting tactics by the charter chain.

“RePublic allegedly sent text messages to thousands of parents. As it turns out, RePublic harvested student and family contact information from a Metro Nashville Public Schools database, then turned over the personal information to an out-of-state vendor that generated the texts.

“Sending unsolicited text messages is a violation of federal law. In their class-action lawsuit, the parents are seeking damages of up to $1,500 per person — leaving RePublic potentially on the hook for millions in penalties.

“Of course, the irony here is: RePublic — which boasts it’s “reimagining public education” — is at the forefront of a movement that claims students and families are flocking to charters. The reality is: Demand for RePublic is anemic, which is why the chain is sending mass text messages in a bid to draw more students and more public money.

“Rocketship is another charter chain that isn’t living up to its own marketing hype. Worse, Rocketship is failing some of Nashville’s most vulnerable kids and, like RePublic, operating in violation of federal law.

“On March 7 WSMV-TV reported that California-based Rocketship isn’t providing legally required services to students with disabilities and English language learners. A report by the Tennessee Department of Education even found that Rocketship is forcing homeless students to scrape together money to pay for uniforms.”

Yet Rocketship continues to seek more charters.

Another charter chain is in financial trouble.

And all these charters drain money from the Nashville public schools.

How much longer will this ruse continue? We have had charter schools for 27 years, and there is still no existence proof that they are better than public schools, except for their willingness to exclude the kids who might lower their scores.

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

Bruce Baker: Why #PublicGoodsMatter

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
45

Bruce Baker employs a series of tweets to demonstrate the fallacy of “the money follows the child.” Public money is collected for the public good. Public money supports services and institutions for future generations, not just for those now using them. The oft-heard demand that “the money follows the child” is fallacious. It is used to privatize institutions created for all.

https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/public-goods-the-money-belongs-to-the-child-fallacy-in-tweets/

Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Ex-Charter School Leader Charged with Fraud, Money Laundering: What Would DeVos Say?

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
18

Until 2012, the most celebrated figure in the charter school industry was Ben Chavis of the American Indian Model Schools, a group of charter schools in Oakland, California, that got phenomenal test scores and major national publicity. The networks came to gush over the schools, Governor Schwarzenegger praised them, George Will admired them, and David Whitman called them one of the best paternalistic “no excuses” charter schools in the nation in his book Sweating the Small Stuff (2008). (In 2009, Whitman became Arne Duncan’s speechwriter.)

Chavis was controversial for many reasons, including his outspoken contempt for unions, liberals, multiculturalism, and certain minorities. He also dished out harsh punishments. He was a pioneer of the “no excuses” charter movement. I have written many posts about the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of Chavis (see here and here and here, for example).

If you want to know why Chavis was so controversial, read this article in the Los Angeles Times, written in 2009, when he was at the height of his fame.

The story from 2009 begins like this:

Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: “We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.”

That, it turns out, is just the beginning of the ways in which American Indian Public Charter and its two sibling schools spit in the eye of mainstream education. These small, no-frills, independent public schools in the hardscrabble flats of Oakland sometimes seem like creations of television’s “Colbert Report.” They mock liberal orthodoxy with such zeal that it can seem like a parody.

School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded “self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort,” to quote the school’s website.

Students, almost all poor, wear uniforms and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school. One local school district official was horrified to learn that a girl was forced to clean the boys’ restroom as punishment.

When Chavis took over the schools, the enrollment was mostly American Indian. But over time, the American Indians disappeared and were replaced by Asian students. And the scores went up and up.

In 2012, a state audit reported that $3.8 million had been reallocated from the school accounts to Chavis’s business accounts. Chavis resigned the next year and moved to North Carolina to work as a motivational speaker.

There are new developments:

Ben Chavis, the controversial former director of three Oakland charter schools, collectively known as the American Indian Model Schools, was charged with mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the schools’ applications for federal grant funds, federal authorities announced Thursday.

Chavis was arrested Thursday morning in North Carolina and has been ordered to appear in federal court in Oakland. He is accused of requesting more than $2.5 million of federally funded grants in violation of conflict-of-interest rules.

This is not the first time Chavis has been targeted for financial impropriety. In 2012, an investigation by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team found that from 2007 to 2011, Chavis had directed $3.8 million from the school to companies he owned for contracts not approved by the school board. He stepped down from the school in 2013. The investigation’s findings prompted the county superintendent to refer the case to federal authorities.

According to the indictment announced Thursday, Chavis, 59, of Lumberton, N.C., and others devised and put into place a scheme from early 2006 through May 2012 to defraud the California School Finance Authority by requesting federally funded competitive grants for three charter schools in violation of federal conflict-of-interest regulations.

From 2000 to 2012, Chavis served off and on as the director and in various additional capacities for three Oakland charter schools — the American Indian Public Charter School, the American Indian Public High School II and the American Indian Public High School — as well as the schools’ umbrella organization, the American Indian Model Schools, referred to as AIMS.

The indictment, unsealed Thursday, alleges Chavis applied for grants to pay the costs of leasing facilities that he owned or controlled through his companies — American Delivery Systems and Lumbee Properties LLC. He is accused of concealing his interest in the facilities in the grant applications.

The indictment further alleges that the schools obtained more than $1.1 million in federal grants as a result of this fraud and that Chavis used fraud proceeds to promote the fraud scheme at each school.

What would Betsy DeVos say? She doesn’t believe in regulation or oversight of charter schools or voucher schools. Let the free market rule. Chavis no doubt agreed.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Fraud
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