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Shawgi Tell: The Pace of Crime and Corruption in Charter Schools Continues

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2026 //
2

With the rapid spread of vouchers, which are busting the budgets of several states and tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, it’s easy to overlook the danger posed by charter schools. Charter schools are a strong step towards vouchers, replacing neighborhood schools with consumerism. Almost 90% of American students attend public schools. We should be funding those schools, not schools operated by private boards and religious groups.

Dr. Shawgi Tell reminds us that charter schools continue to breed corruption and fraud, as they drain resources from public schools. Charter schools are not subject to the same accountability as public schools. They operate under private management, which shields them from the accoubtabilty to which public schools are subject. Without oversight or accountability, bad things happen.

Dr. Tell is a professor of education at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York.

He writes:

Even though they make up only 8% of schools in the country, crimes, scandals, and arrests take place at a robust tempo in the nation’s privately-operated charter schools.

These non-stop wrongdoings usually include fraud, embezzlement, harassment, and a range of sex crimes.

This is not surprising given the weak accountability, transparency, and background checks that have plagued the crisis-prone charter school sector for more than 30 years.

A small sample of headlines from just this year speaks volumes:

·        Cedar Rapids Prep Charter principal terminated this week as second harassment charge is filed (The Gazette, April 3, 2026).

·        Las Vegas charter school assistant principal arrested on child abuse charges (FOX5, March 23, 2026).

·        L.A. charter school teacher accused of assaulting 6-year-old girl (2UrbanGirls, March 21, 2026).

·        Little Elm charter school teacher arrested for child sex crimes (FOX 4, January 30, 2026).

·        $25M swindled by fraudulent charter school recovered for San Diego K-12 students (City News Service, January 30, 2026).

·        Owner of Newark charter school accused of stealing wages from teachers (NBC Bay Area, January 21, 2026).

·        Former New Orleans charter school may have improperly spent more than $600,000, audit says (NOLA, January 21, 2026).

·        Former Midlands charter school teacher arrested for allegedly assaulting student (WIS, January 14, 2026).

·        North Carolina charter school teacher charged with multiple child sex crimes, including against a student (FOX 8, January 3, 2026).

Do such horrible things happen in traditional public schools and private religious schools? Yes they do, but when looking at scale, scope, frequency,  and proportionality, they are considerably more rampant in charter schools, which are deregulated businesses governed by unelected private persons.

The privatization and marketization of education lends itself to such phenomena on a broad scale. Privatization increases corruption and lowers standards across a broad range of operations, roles, and services. Converting public programs and services into capital-centered programs and services usually enriches a handful of people while harming the public interest in the process. When programs and services focused on uplifting people and society are transformed into profit-maximizing entities, the majority suffers.

See here for more examples of charter school crimes and scandals.

Shawgi Tell (PhD) is the author of Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud

Oklahoma: Jewish Families Oppose Public Funding for a Religious Charter School

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2026 //
0

An organization called the Ben Gamla Charter School Foundation wants to open a virtual Jewish religious charter school in Oklahoma.

The story is not as straightforward as it appears.

Behind the Florida-based Ben Gamla charter chain is a for-profit management company called Academica, which derives huge annual profits from its connection to more than 200 charter schools across the nation.

There are fewer than 9,000 Jews in the state of Oklahoma, and they are not clamoring for a Jewish charter school.

The state charter board twice rejected the Ben Gamla application, because a previous appeal for a Catholic online charter school was turned down by Oklahoma state courts, then by a 4-4 decision in the U.S. Supreme Court because Justice Amy Coney Barret recused herself due to her friendship with a lawyer for the religious school.

The Ben Gamla Foundation filed a lawsuit on March 24, claiming that the state law banning public funding for religious schools is unconstitutional religious discrimination.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to strike down Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter schools, and to order the state to stop denying applicants on the basis of their religious character.

“We’re asking the court to end that blatant religious targeting and allow families to choose schools that are best for them,” Peter Deutsch, a former Democratic congressman in Florida and founder of the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges that Oklahoma’s requirement that charter schools be “nonsectarian” is unconstitutional, citing the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

But Jewish organizations in Oklahoma are wary of the Ben Gamla application. A small group of Jews and a rabbi in Tulsa recently asked to join a lawsuit to block the Ben Gamla charter school.

The group filed a motion Wednesday in federal court in Oklahoma City seeking to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, which is trying to become the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.

Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, the principal rabbi of Congregation B’nai Emunah in Tulsa, says he opposes the mixing of religion and government because of the potential for abuse. His own children attend a public elementary school in Tulsa.

“I am passionate about Jewish education—indeed, I have dedicated my life to it. Kaiman wrote in a declaration filed with the court. “Children in my congregation, including my own children, receive excellent, privately funded Jewish education through our synagogue and at home in accordance with our community values. But the mixing of religion and government creates opportunities for religious coercion…”

The motion was filed on behalf of the seven by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Education Law Center, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed.

The Ben Gamla school would under insert religious teaching into all subjects and require all employees to uphold Jewish values in their lives. What any of that means is unclear. How would math, reading, science, and other subjects be taught from a Jewish perspective. What sort of “values” would employees uphold and who would determine whether they did?

The Ben Gamla application is opposed by state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is against religious charter schools. But Drummond leaves office in January and might be replaced by a supporter of religious charter schools.

The state charter school board is pro-charter and is not vigorously opposing the Ben Gamla application. In fact, the state charter board retained First Liberty Institute to represent it. It is a conservative Christian legal group that believes that religious charter schools should be legal.

Oklahoma Jews are opposed to Ben Gamla. The Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City sent a statement to the state Attorney General saying that religious charter schools “risk eroding the constitutional safeguards that protect both religious freedom and government neutrality toward religion.”

Ben Gamla’s financial interdependence on the Academica charter chain should alarm Oklahomans as much as the effort to turn public money over to religious schools.

Academica is a very wealthy for-profit charter management organization.

According to Ben Gamla’s strategic plan, Academica will control its budget and finances, facilities and management, human resources, and much more. And, of course, charge a management fee.

Academica manages more than 200 charter schools in at least 22 states. Its biggest chains are Somerset Academy (at least 80 campuses), Mater Academy (40-50 schools), Doral Academy, and Pinecrest Academy.

Academica held more than $115 million in properties in Florida in 2010 and collected $19 million in profit. That’s 16 years ago, the network has vastly expanded, and no one has updated the total value of Academica’s real estate since then or its annual profits.

Academica makes its hefty profits through management fees and “related party transactions.”

This is how a “related party transaction” works:

A real estate LLC controlled by Academica allies buys or builds a school property. The nonprofit charter school, like Ben Gamla or Mater or Somerset, leases the building. The school collects public funds from the state or the city, then pays rent to the LLC. The rent is high, often as much as 20% of all public funding. The management company chooses the services provided, making contracts with its allies.

The Network for Public Education described Academica in its report on for-profit schools:

Academica: The largest EMO is Academica, based in Miami, Florida. Academica’s owner is a real estate developer, Fernando Zulueta, who opened the first charter, Somerset, as part of a housing development he had constructed. He reasoned that his real estate venture would be more attractive to buyers since students would have a school within the development. Using their real estate companies, Fernando and his brother, Ignacio, built what journalist Jessica Bakeman called “an empire of charter schools.”

Over 100 active corporations linked to Fernando Zulueta and his family members are listed as residing at Academica’s Miami headquarters at 6340 Sunset Drive and 6457 Sunset Drive in Miami.39 They include real estate corporations, holding companies, and finance corporations, as well as sub-chains both within and outside of Florida.

Like many other charter schools and chains, Academica cashed in on the COVID Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic. Individual schools and other nonprofit and for-profit entities related to the chain received in total up to $35.7 million dollars, even though there is no evidence of revenue lost during the pandemic. In fact, during the pandemic, the EMO continued to expand. In total, charter schools cashed in on one billion dollars from the PPP program.

Mater Academy Foundation, Inc., the related non-profit corporation that oversees Academica’s Mater brand of charter schools, acquired a $127.5 million educational facilities lease revenue bond to purchase several facilities from Academica. The South Florida Business Journal detailed the purchase price of several of the facilities and the Academica-affiliated real estate entities that cashed in on the sales, concluding that “the Pandemic Profiteering deal allows Academica to cash out after investing in the development of charter schools, although it will still earn management fees for the schools.”

The connection between Fernando Zuleta’s real estate holdings and his for-profit managed charter schools goes beyond the state of Florida. According to the State Public Charter School Authority, Academica Nevada pays the lease on behalf of the charter school Mater Academy Mountain Vista of Nevada to Stephanie Development LLC. The managingmembers of Stephanie Development are Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta and Robert and Clayton Howell. Robert Howell is the manager of Academica Nevada.

About 18% of all charter students are enrolled in for-profit charter schools, like those of Academica. If Ben Gamla is approved in Oklahoma, that will open new horizons for their expansion.

Be sure to read NPE’s report:

For-Profit Charter Schools Gone Wild—Proof That Greed and Education Don’t Mix

https://share.google/KgVigiNsDfKzQa0AD

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Oklahoma, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state

My Views on Mayoral Control of Public Schools in NYC

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2026 //
17

I submitted the following testimony to the Committee on Education of the New York City Council, when it held public hearings February 10, 2026, on the current system of natural control of the schools.

I studied mayoral control and other forms of governance when I wrote my first book, The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973.

My testimony follows:

The time has come to rethink the governance of the New York City public schools. 

Mayoral control in its present form was enacted by the Legislature in 2002, at the behest of newly elected  ayor Michael Bloomberg. 

The Legislature was no doubt dazzled by Mayor Bloomberg. He was and is an amazing businessman who built an iconic technology-media corporation. 

To think that this titan of American business was willing to take responsibility for the school system was an exciting prospect. 

What is more, the Mayor boldly said that he could fix the schools. He projected confidence. He believed, and he was convincing. 

The Legislature gave him an unprecedented level of control over the system. The Mayor would appoint a majority of a new board, which he called the Panel on Education Policy, its name a signal of its powerlessness. The eight of 13 members appointed by Bloomberg served at his pleasure, not with a fixed term. This arrangement eliminated any likelihood that his appointees would exercise independent judgment. On the rare occasion that they did, he fired them. 

And of course, the legislation gave Bloomberg the power to pick anyone he wanted as Chancellor. 

For Chancelor, Bloomberg appointed a lawyer, Joel Klein, who had no experience as an educator or an administrator. 

Klein spent 8 1/2 years as Chancellor. 

During the 12 years of the Bloomberg mayoralty, there were many changes–the dissolution of large high schools, the creation of scores of small schools, the opening of charter schools, the imposition of a standardized citywide curriculum in math and science, the launch of a Leadership Academy to train new principals, and a heavy emphasis on standardized testing to judge students, teachers, principals and schools.

Schools received A-F grades, based on whether their test scores went up or down. Schools were closed if their scores were persistently low. Test scores were everything. 

When Klein left on the first day of 2011, the Mayor appointed a retired magazine publisher who had no relevant experience. That didn’t work. After 3 months, she was gone. 

While there was much breathless reporting about a “New York City Miracle,” there was no miracle. New York City’s public schools are not a paragon for other cities to follow. 

The problems of educating New York City’s public school children have not been solved. 

Mayoral control in the administrations of DiBlasio and Adams continued to reflect the inherent flaws of the concentration of power in the hands of the Mayor. 

If we step back for a minute, the nation is now experiencing a Presidency in which almost all power resides in one person: the President. Surrounded by a servile Cabinet, a Congress whose majority supinely obeys almost every Presidential order, and a Supreme Court with a sympathetic conservative majority, Americans can see daily the dangers of a government that has no checks and balances. 

The New York City public school system is no different. Checks and balances are necessary. Presently, there are none. 

Top-down management with no checks and balances is especially inappropriate for the school system. Parents and communities feel that they have no voice, and they are right. 

The truth is that there is no organizational structure that is perfect. Mayoral control has been tried for nearly a quarter-century. We now know that it has multiple flaws. We know that there has been no”New York City miracle.”

Some adjustment is needed now. 

I propose reviving the Board of Education. Every borough should be represented on that Board. The Board should select the Chancellor, who reports to the Board on a regular basis. The Board should be composed of people devoted to improving the public schools–either as educators or community advocates. They should know the schools and school leaders in their borough. They should regularly attend meetings of local school boards. They should serve for a set term and should be free to exercise their independent judgment. They should receive a salary for their time, so that their service on the Board is properly compensated. It would be a full-time position. 

Clearly, the Mayor has a large stake in the schools. He or she should have representatives (but not a majority) on a reconstructed Board of Education. 

The Mayor’s ultimate power is that he or she controls the budget. 

Will such an arrangement solve all problems? No. But it will create a structure where parents and communities have a voice and are heard. The Board, when choosing a Chancellor, should select an experienced educator, whether chosen from the city or from another school system. 

There will still be controversies. It’s inevitable. Over funding. Over building new classrooms to meet the requirement to reduce class sizes. Over charter schools. Over admissions to gifted programs and selective schools. Over racial segregation in a system whose students are overwhelmingly Hispanic, Black, and Asian.  

The Mayor–every Mayor–has a full plate of issues to deal with: economic development, public safety, transportation, natural disasters, building codes, public health, housing, and much, much more. He or she doesn’t have time to run the school system, nor is he or she likely to be an experienced educator. 

I can’t think of any important problem that mayoral control has solved.

My advice: Create a stable and democratic structure.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Curriculum, Disruption, New York City

Florida Legislature Planning a New Cash Subsidy for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2026 //
1

Jason Garcia, an investigative reporter who writes, a blog called “Seeking Rents” uncovered a new Republican plan to shovel taxpayers’ money to charter schools. Under Ron DeSantis and a Republicanncontrolled legislature, Florida is determined to crush public schools by sending public money to charter schools and vouchers.

Here is a new twist: Republicans want school districts to share their funding with charter schools they did not authorize.

Garcia reports:

Five years ago, Republican leaders in Tallahassee gave the charter school industry something it had been seeking for years: A way around local voters.

The change — obscured inside larger education legislation that also included restrictions on the participation of transgender students in school sports — gave state colleges and universities the power to authorize new charter schools.

In other words, it enabled charter schools — public schools run by private management entities rather than public school districts — to bypass locally elected School Boards and work instead through the governor-appointed boards that control state colleges and universities.

The industry now wants to make local voters help pay for these state-imposed charters, too.

The idea is contained inside a package of tax cuts and tax-policy changes proposed last week by the Florida Senate. It would require school districts to split revenue from what’s sometimes called the “additional millage” — an optional property tax that county voters can levy via referendum in order to raise extra funding for their local schools — with every charter school in the area.

A school district currently only has to share proceeds from the additional millage with charters that the school district itself approved.

The immediate impact would be minor: There are currently only 12 charter schools across Florida that have been approved by an “alternate authorizer” like a college or a university.

But it could escalate quickly.

Just last month, for instance, the board of trustees at Miami Dade College signed off on six new charter schools — doubling, in one meeting, the number of charters in Florida approved without permission from the local school board.

They are the first of what could become a wave of new charters unleashed by the Miami college, which just launched a new authorization program late last year, according to WLRN Public Radio and Television.

WLRN reported in December that Dade College had begun pitching its authorization services to prospective charter operators. During one webinar, a college administrator told attendees that they could expect friendlier treatment from governor-appointed college boards than voter-elected school boards.

“I think one of the benefits of going to a college authorizer is that colleges are wanting to do this,” he said. “We’re going to be looking at the same types of things that the districts look at, but with the mindset that we really do want to make this a partnership, and we want to make it successful.”

It’s not the only potential accelerant that could lead to more charters sidestepping school boards.

Florida lawmakers last year approved a major expansion of the state’s “Schools of Hope” program, an incentive program through which charter school operators can get lucrative cash grants and low-interest loans if they open up new campuses in certain locations. The law was pushed through Tallahassee in part by lobbyists for Success Academy, the New York charter network that plans to open new schools in Miami.

The new law enables Schools of Hope charters to work through college and universities rather than solely through school districts.

Miami, Florida’s most populous county, certainly seems to be the focal point of this latest legislative proposal, too. 

Additional millage property taxes expire every four years unless extended by voters through. And Miami’s tax, which generates more than $400 million a year, is currently set to lapse on June 30, 2027 — which means the School Board may soon schedule another countywide referendum.

The provision requiring local school districts to share money with state-imposed charters would take effect just before that vote could happen. 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, DeSantis, Education Industry, Florida, Funding

46 States Have Charter Schools But NOT South Dakota!

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2026 //
2

South Dakota is one of the few states that has not allowed charter schools, the schools that are paid for with public funds but managed by private boards.

Democrats oppose charter schools because they take money away from real public schools, which are usually underfunded.

Republicans love charter schools because they own the door to the next step: vouchers. Charters tell the public that schools are a consumer choice, not a civic duty.

The South Dakota legislature just defeated charters in a tie vote, and the Republican Governor refused to break the tie.

No charter schools in South Dakota!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, South Dakota, Supporting public schools

A Review of My Book in the Wellesley Magazine

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2026 //
11

I am a proud alumna of Wellesley College, class of 1960. Wellesley literally changed my life. My best friends today are classmates; we meet monthly on Zoom to compare notes. We confess our deepest hopes and fears and stand by one another. I have returned for Reunion every five years since graduation. I love the campus and the memories.

I have supported an annual lecture series at Wellesley that has brought terrific thinkers to the campus.

Not long ago, my sons endowed a Professorship in my name, the first endowed chair in the education department. It is called The Diane Silvers Ravitch ’60 Chair in Public Education and the Common Good. The first person to hold the chair is a brilliant young scholar named Soo Hong.

Last night, after midnight, one of my dear classmates sent this review, just published. It made me very happy.

  1. WINTER 2026

About-Face

Books and media by the Wellesley community

Image credit: Agata Nowicka

AUTHOR Catherine O’Neill Grace

PUBLISHED ON February 24, 2026

ISSUE WINTER 2026

“I was wrong” is one of the most difficult things for a human being to say. Imagine saying it when you have been a conservative public intellectual and expert on public education for decades. Yet that is exactly what Diane Silvers Ravitch ’60 does in her engaging new memoir, An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else.

The author of numerous books about the history of American education and education policy, Ravitch turns to the personal in this volume, describing in depth her childhood in Houston, her experience at a segregated public high school, and her journey to Wellesley College in the fall of 1956.

At Wellesley, Ravitch learned not what to think, but how. She arrived on campus feeling, by her own account, like a “fish out of water.” But the College provided her with brilliant peers, gifted teachers, lively debate, and enriching friendships—including with “Maddy,” Madeleine Korbel Albright ’59. She recounts the hilarity of writing the junior show, Call It Red, and the excitement of seeing Fidel Castro speak at Harvard while she was working as a reporter for the Wellesley News.

A political science major at Wellesley, Ravitch went on to earn a Ph.D. in history from Columbia. As her memoir unfolds, she writes openly of loss—the anguish of the death of her 2-year-old son from leukemia, the painful dissolution of her first marriage. And she writes of love—at an education conference in 1984, she met teacher Mary Butz, who became her wife.

She also writes about intellectual transformation. As an education reformer, Ravitch believed deeply in standards, accountability, high-stakes testing, and school choice. Woven through the book is an account of her transition from outspoken supporter of conservative, market-driven policies in public education to one of their most forceful critics. Like many policymakers of the late 20th century, she saw competition, data, and pressure as levers that could fix public education. Serving in senior government roles, including assistant secretary of education during the George H. W. Bush administration, she helped advance reforms rooted in these assumptions, convinced they would raise achievement and close gaps.

But watching these policies unfold in real schools forced her to confront their consequences. High-stakes testing narrowed curricula and hamstrung teachers. Charter expansion and privatization failed to deliver promised gains while draining critical resources from public systems. Most troubling, education reformers increasingly blamed educators for failures that Ravitch now sees as driven by poverty and inequality. Children—especially poor children—were being left behind.

By the end of An Education, Ravitch emerges as a committed advocate for public schools, professional teachers, and democratic accountability. She followed the facts where they led and changed her mind. In this open-hearted, expansive memoir, she explains why.

A former classroom teacher, Grace is senior associate editor of this magazine

Diane Silvers Ravitch ’60
An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else
Columbia University Press, 248 pages, $24.95

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Personal, Privatization, Standardized Testing

Kentucky Supreme Court Rules Charter Schools Unconstitutional!

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2026 //
1

Good news for Kentucky’s public schools and taxpayers! Unlike the Supreme Courts in Ohio and Indiana, Kentucky’s Supreme Court ruled that the State Constitution means what it says.

Kentucky’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that charter schools are unconstitutional!

What You Need To Know

The court unanimously upheld a lower court’s block of House Bill 9
Justices said charter schools aren’t “common schools” under the state constitution
Public funds for schools outside the “common” system require voter approval
Lawmakers could pursue charter schools only with a constitutional amendment

The court unanimously agreed with a lower court’s decision to block House Bill 9, which would have let publicly funded charter schools open in Kentucky. The justices ruled that charter schools, as they are set up now, are not considered public schools under the constitution, so they cannot get public funds without voter approval.

At issue are Sections 183, 184, and 186 of the Kentucky Constitution, which say the General Assembly must provide an “efficient system of common schools” and that public school funds may be allocated only to this system. The court said charter schools operate outside local school district control, can cap enrollment and are exempt from many regulations governing traditional public schools, placing them outside the constitutional definition of “common schools.”

Many years ago, I visited Kentucky to speak to the state school board association. The walls were decorated with banners from school districts. Clearly, the students, parents, and educators of Kentucky are devoted to their public schools. But the charter industry was determined to plant charter schools in Kentucky, even though the State Constitution requires a common school system.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that charter schools are NOT public schools!

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Republican-backed bill establishing a statewide public charter school system was unconstitutional.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Michelle Keller, the state’s high court struck down 2022’s House Bill 9, which would have allowed approved groups to create and oversee charter schools funded with public education dollars.

Keller wrote that the language of the Kentucky Constitution with regard to the “common schools” system is clear on this front. She cited Section 184 of the document, which set up the public schools system. “The interest and dividends of said fund… shall be appropriated to the common schools, and to no other purpose. No sum shall be raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters, and the majority of the votes cast at said election shall be in favor of such taxation,” the section reads.

Keller’s opinion echoed a lower court ruling from Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. “Charter schools are not ‘common schools’ as contemplated under Sections 183, 184, and 186 of the Kentucky Constitution,” Keller wrote.

Charter schools — schools that are publicly funded but operated by independent groups with fewer regulations than most public schools — are technically legal in Kentucky, but HB 9 would have created a mechanism for funding them with public dollars. The bill legalizing charter schools, but not building in a mechanism to fund them, was passed in 2017 as a priority bill under then-Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican.

Since defeating Bevin in 2019, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has been a staunch opponent of funding charter schools.

Keller wrote that the court’s opinion does not amount to an evaluation of the policy arguments for charter schools, but rather the plain language of the constitution. “We cannot sell the people of Kentucky a mule and call it a horse, even if we believe the public needs a mule,” she wrote.

The law labeled charter schools as part of the state’s public education system but exempted them from many statutes and regulations governing traditional local school districts.

Keller wrote that the “public” label on those schools was something of a misnomer. “Our precedent… requires the system to be ‘unitary and uniform’ and not duplicative. It does not allow for a parallel system which is not within the common school system. A system that calls itself ‘public’ must be accountable to the public. Simply putting the label ‘public’ on something does not make it such,” Keller wrote.

Read more at: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article314759611.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Kentucky

Stephen Dyer: GOP Sponsors a Bill That Will Screw Trump Voters

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2026 //
0

Stephen Dyer, former legislator and critic of school privatization in Ohio, explains here how a Republican-sponsored bill will hit Republican districts hardest.

He writes on his blog Tenth Period:

It’s no secret that over the last decade, Ohio has gone from a battleground state to a pretty red one, especially when Donald Trump is on the ballot. The major swing that occurred between 2006 when Democrat Ted Strickland won 70+ counties and 2024 has occurred in rural and urban counties, especially around the Mahoning Valley.

Gov. Ted Strickland’s 2006 victory map

President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory map

So what does the Ohio GOP do this year, which is shaping up to be a tough year for them anyway, to hold onto their Trump coalition? 

10th Period is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Try this: Introduce a bill that would, if passed, require folks living in Mahoning County to increase their property taxes by an average of $2,300 per $200,000 home and Trumbull County by $1,886, or close their kids’ schools. 

During a year where everyone is so pissed about property taxes being high that they want to actually get rid of property taxes.

Yeah. Pretty stupid, right?

Why would they do something so stupid, you ask?

So they can maintain an unconstitutional private school tuition subsidy that lets Les Wexner — the guy who was best buddies with Jeffrey Epstein —get a taxpayer funded break on his private school tuition bill.

I can’t make up this shit, man. 

These guys obviously think they’re politically invincible. 

I ran some more analysis of the bill that Callender introduced (who was Ohio Charter Schools’ go to lawyer prior to returning to the House a few years ago), which would block state aid to any school district that’s suing the state over its private school tuition subsidy, which, again, has been found to violate the Ohio Constitution.

Needless to say, the results are not awesome. 

The average Ohio school district would have to go for a levy that runs about 32 mills and would cost a homeowner of a $200,000 home an additional $2,200 a year. And that’s only if they want to keep their kids’ schools open. 

Because scores, if not hundreds, of school districts would cease operating under this bill

As you can see, the impact is worst for urban districts, but rurals are really hammered too.

This data is using the most recent Ohio Department of Education District Profile Report (for income and millage) and the most recent District Payment report for February 2026

I mean, you’re going to have poor, small town¹communities having to contemplate losing an additional 5% or more of their income to pay for Les Wexner’s private school tuition cut? That’s what you’re going with? This year?

Some other tidbits:

  • Trimble Local in Athens County would have to raise their property taxes by a staggering $11,355 per $200,000 home to replace the extorted money. That’s a 162.26-mill levy to raise what amounts to 23% of the average district resident’s income.
  • Steubenville — the home of Dean Martin and a famously Trump-y area — would need to go for a 119-mill levy, costing the $200,000 homeowner another $8,350 per year, which is 16% of the average family’s income there.
  • There are 56 Ohio school districts that would need to go for 50-mill levies or higher to replace the state aid Callender wants to cut. Or those kids — all 137,455 of them — will no longer have schools.
  • There are families in 22 Ohio school districts that would have to give up 10% or more of their average income to make up for Callender’s proposed cuts.
  • The average share of the cost in these districts that’s borne by the state is 47%. So the “you need to tighten your belt” argument ain’t working for these districts.
  • All so Les Wexner can get his private school tuition subsidized. 

I could go on. I posted the spreadsheet here, in case you want to look at more of these just amazing consequences. Not every school district has joined the lawsuit. So these data only apply to those who have. But there are so many of them (@300, or half of all Ohio school districts) that you can extrapolate the results. If every district joined, the effect would be nearly identical to what’s happening in those that have already.

I will say that this bill is clearly unconstitutional. I don’t know how the state will argue that removing funding from 700,000 students is going to provide those same students with a thorough and efficient system of common schools, as the Ohio Constitution mandates. 

So, in short, there is simply no way this bill survives even a modicum of legal scrutiny. So the chances of this happening are next to nothing.

Bu then if it’s clearly unconstitutional, as Callender must know it to be, then why do it? Scare local school districts form joining the lawsuit, or leaving it? Fat chance of that happening. I’ve been hearing districts and, more importantly, parents are more pissed now than they were before.

Like I said earlier, this is quite a play for Callender to make in an already tough political environment 9 months from an election that is expected to be focused on affordability and corruption.

But hey. It’s worked for these guys before and they keep winning in gerrymandered districts. 

So why change now, right?

1. These district types are ones developed by the Ohio Department of Education, not me.

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Funding, Hypocrisy, Ohio

Peter Greene: Charter Operators Ask Federal Government for Another Handout

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2026 //
3

Back in the late 1980s, when charter schools were a brand new idea, advocates said that charter schools would be more accountable, cost less, and would get better results.

It was also speculative, since no charter schools existed then. I believed it would turn out that way, as did other proponents of charter schools.

But none of those beliefs/hopes panned out.

We now know that charter lobbyists oppose accountability in state legislatures.

We now know that charter schools do not get better results than public schools, unless they exclude the kids who get low test scores.

We now know that charter schools do not cost less. Many of their leaders are paid more than public school leaders (some are paid $1 million a year). They lobby legislatures to give them the same funding as public schools. In some states, charters have won the power to locate rent-free in public school buildings.

Peter Greene here explains that the charter industry is seeking federal legislation to underwrite the cost of charter school facilities. The federal Charter School Program already provides $500 million a year to start new charter schools or expand existing ones. This grand gift, which the Trump administration increased, ignores the fact that demand for charter schools has declined while charters continue to close because of falling enrollments.

Peter Greene explains the latest grift here:

Among the various bills thrown at Congress is one that finds new ways to throw public money at charter schools.

HB 7086, the “Equitable Access to School Facilities Act,” proposes to send money to charter operators, via the state, to buy and build facilities for schools.

The cost of coming up with a building to put charter schools in might seem like part of the cost of being in the charter school business, but charter operators don’t much care for having to fork over the money. In some states, legislators have solved the problem by just allowing charter schools to just take public property. Florida is rolling out a law that lets charters take public school real estate in whole or in part just by saying, “Hey, we want that.” It’s an extraordinary law, sort of like the opposite of eminent domain, in which the facilities that taxpayers have bought and paid for suddenly belong to a private business.

HB 7086 wants to propose a similar federal solution, delivering grants to any states that come up with clever ways to gift taxpayer dollars to charters that want to build or buy some facilities, or want to come up with fun ways for charters to grab taxpayer-funded buildings.

The bill comes courtesy of Rep. Juan Ciscomani, an Arizona Republican, who just wants to make sure that every school is a great school. In a press release, he explains:

Sadly, access to appropriate and affordable school buildings for charter schools continues to be one of the biggest barriers to growth. Unlike district schools, charter schools aren’t guaranteed access to school buildings or traditional access to facilities funding sources like local property tax dollars.

Yeah, I was going to open a restaurant, but access to food and cooking supplies was a big barrier to growth, so maybe the taxpayers would like to buy that stuff for me?

Or maybe when you decide to go into a business, you do it with a plan that takes into account the cost of being in that business. Certainly the notion that building and financing facilities is easy peasy for public school systems is disconnected from reality. When West Egg Schools want a new building, they have to convince the taxpayers or else that school board will find themselves voted out of office.

If you want to get into the charter school biz, you need a plan about how you’ll manage the cost of getting into the charter school biz. “Well, get the feds to drain taxpayers to fund it for us,” is not such a plan.

Also delighted by the bill is BASIS Educational Ventures, the big honking charter chain that may have the occasional financial issues, but gets a pass on having to display financial transparency.

The bill does display one of the lies of the charter movement– that we can finance multiple school systems with the same money that wasn’t enough to fund one. Not that I expect any choicers to say so out loud. But no school district (or any other business) responds to tough money times by saying, “I know– let’s build more facilities.” The inevitable side effect of choice systems is that taxpayers end up financing redundant facilities and vast amounts of excess capacity, which means taxpayers have to be hit for even more money. Legislators continue to find creative ways to A) ignore the issue and B) legislate more paths by which taxpayer money can be funneled to choice schools.

This bill hasn’t died yet. Tell your Congressperson to drive a stake through its heart.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding

Peter Greene: The Education of Diane Ravitch

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2026 //
8

In addition to blogging at Curmudgucation, Peter Greene is a Senior Contributor to Forbes, where this review appeared.

He reviewed my book in Forbes. You may be tired of seeing the wonderful reviews of my book by fellow bloggers. I agree with you….but…the book has been overlooked by the mainstream media. It is the first book I have published that was not reviewed by the New York Times.

I am thrilled that well-informed bloggers have taken the time to read and review it.

An Education

Peter Greene writes:

Diane Ravitch is one of the biggest turncoats in education policy history, and American education is better for it.

She tells the story in her newest book, her memoir An Education. From humble beginnings in Houston, she moved on to Wellesley, where she rubbed elbows with the likes of future Madeline Albright and Nora Ephron. Upon graduation. she married into the prestigious Ravitch family. Casting around for a career, she gravitated toward education history, starting with researching and writing a massive history of New York City public schools, launching her career as an academic.

She was in those days considered a neoconservative. She believed in meritocracy, standards, standardized testing, and color blindness, and these beliefs combined with her academic credentials formed a foundation for a burgeoning career of advocacy for the rising tide of education reform. By the time the 1990s rolled around, she was tapped for a role as Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush. She appeared in television, met and socialized with top political leaders, enjoyed other odd in-crowd perks like a visit to George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch. She was brought onto an assortment of conservative think tanks, served in various commissions and agencies under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and wrote several books that brought rounds of interviews on major media. She was a committed supporter and promoter of No Child Left Behind, which included all the emphasis on standards and testing that she thought she wanted to see in education.

When she graduated from high school, her English teacher gifted her with two quotes. The second was from Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Those turned out to be prescient words for a woman who was about to engage in a public re-evaluation of her entire body of professional beliefs.

Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City and brought in Joel Klein to run the schools, and for four years Ravitch watched the ideas she championed implemented, and she saw the down side. She was critical, though carefully so (it was still not common knowledge that she had years ago left her husband for a woman). But she could see that Bloomberg and Klein were “faithfully, if erratically, imposing the right-wing policies that I had once endorsed and demonstrating their ineffectiveness.”

In the following years, Ravitch “step by step” abandoned her long-held views about education. Those long-held views had been her bread and butter, the web that sustained personal and professional networks. And Ravitch was willing not just to break those ties, but determined to “expose the big money propelling the cause of what I called corporate education reform.” 

Her 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education was a shot across the bow of education reform, signaling a new set of beliefs. “Why did you change your mind,” she was frequently asked.

I changed my mind when I realized that the ideas I had championed sounded good in theory but failed in practice. I thought that standards, tests and accountability would lead to higher achievement (test scores). They didn’t. Even if they had, the scores would not signify better education, just a fortunate upbringing and the mastery of test-taking skills. I originally thought, like other so-called reformers, that competition and merit pay would encourage teachers and principals to work harder and get better results. They didn’t. The teachers were already working as hard as they knew how.

Ravitch came to view the punitive attempt to use test scores to determine teacher careers as demoralizing, destined to discourage young people from choosing the profession. The “toxic policy” of high-stakes testing was ‘inflicting harm on students and teachers.”

Ravitch became a key figure in the movement to support public education in the US. She co-founded the Network for Public Education and spoke out repeatedly against the education reform movement. Her blog became a popular outlet that connected many of the far-flung supporters of public education.

Ravitch has written page upon page critiquing the education reform movement of the past few decades, and in the final chapters of this memoir, the reader can find a clear, crisp encapsulated version of her conclusions and beliefs about the top-down government mandates and big-money attempts to dismantle the public school system and replace it with a multi-tiered privatized system. This brisk, readable book provides a historical recap of the ed reform movement and the resistance to it, as well as the rich history of a woman who, more than any other observer, has examined the pieces of the movement from both sides. 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Vouchers
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