A recent article in the Akron Beacon Journal raises the question of whether Ohio has the worst charter sector in the nation.

Reporter Doug Livingston delves into the charterindustry and what he finds is a nearly unbroken record of failure. Does anyone in the state government care?

He summarizes:

Ohio’s charter schools …

Drawing state dollars from local school districts, charter schools presented a cheaper, market-driven alternative to government-run schools.

■ Ohio law allowed for the first charter schools in 1998.

■ Nearly 40 percent of the 595 charter schools that ever opened in Ohio have closed. Financial difficulty is cited three times as often as academic failure. More than half the time, closure is voluntary, according to a state directory of shuttered charter schools.

■ Ohio’s charter schools rank among the lowest in the nation in advancing student learning.

He describes the intricate financing deals that enables charter operators to make a profit. Those who haven’t mastered the financing and political games are not likely to survive.

The financial transactions are complex:

“Through a public records request, the Beacon Journal reviewed hundreds of invoices, property lease and purchase agreements, vendor contracts, board minutes, court filings and other financial documents detailing how Cambridge spends much of the more than $30 million in state funding its managed schools will receive this academic year.

The paper also toured the company’s flagship school — Towpath Trail High School — and attended its latest board meeting to question the board and its legal counsel about their contract with Cambridge.

The company was born in 2012, founded by Marcus May, a former White Hat executive. Cambridge’s first three customers — dropout recovery high schools, like Towpath Trail, which is geared toward struggling 16- to 21-year-old students — had rebelled against White Hat after persistently low test scores and failing to get answers about how money was spent.

May saw unrest between White Hat and 10 schools over the next year as an opportunity. Without another company to help the breakaway schools acquire buildings and staff, “they would have drowned,” the schools’ attorney said.

May tapped friendships fostered through the years. School Warehouse, a Cincinnati business formed by Steve Kunkemoeller, a business associate of May’s, became the preferred vendor to furnish the schools. Most school boards sign no contract with School Warehouse, which holds a gentlemen’s agreement with Cambridge (enforced by May) to be the one-stop shop for all things furniture. The company serves as a middle man, marking up the price of desks and chairs in exchange for favorable financing terms that are hard to come by. Many banks, noting the high failure rate of charter schools, consider it too risky to lend them money. So Cambridge and Ohio charter schools find themselves turning to familiar faces or independent lenders that inflate interest rates to cover riskier loans.

Searching for vendors when the boards asked for bids, May took matters into his own hands. He founded Rearden Capital and d’Anconia Development to provide financing and line up private investors to purchase school property, often with an option for the schools to buy the property later.

“Rearden” and “d’Anconia” are the neoliberal protagonists in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s ode to an unfettered free-market capitalism. Such is the philosophy May and others bring to public education.

For technology, a key component to deliver curriculum in dropout recovery schools, May turned to Suranjan Shome, who he met while launching a marketing firm named Mindgrab in the Akron Business Incubator. Shome built Epiphany Management Group (EMG) then bought May’s marketing firm. EMG now outfits Cambridge managed schools with technology.

Despite having an office in Fairlawn, the hub of activity for Cambridge is Towpath Trail at 275 W. Market St. May helped board members acquire and turn the old office building into a modern school. At the time of the property transfer, Donald Cureton, a board member at other Cambridge managed schools, was a part owner of the property through Bee Investments, according to records at the Summit County Fiscal Office.

A similar inside deal, involving unknown investors wrangled by May, was behind the purchase and opening of Wright Preparatory School in Canton this school year. The new Canton school board, which borrows members from sister schools, had no capital to buy the property. It turned to Cambridge, which called May for help.

These close-knit arrangements involving transactions that often lead back to May smack of self-dealing, so much so that a grand jury in Florida indicted School Warehouse and Newpoint Education Partners, May’s version of Cambridge in Florida, on charges of grand theft, money laundering and aggravated white-collar crime. A court filing details $40,000 in timed withdrawals and deposits that bounce between unknown bank accounts. The source and destination of the transactions remain a mystery as stakeholders in Ohio, including the schools’ boards, keep a close eye on the Florida case.”

The prolific Peter Greene wrote two posts for New Year’s Day 2017.

This post contains a positive agenda for all those who care about education. We are all familiar with the attacks on public schools and teachers. We spend a lot of time saying NO: no to privatization, no to high-stakes testing, no to rating and ranking students based on test scores, no to evaluating teachers by test scores, no to bonus pay based on test scores, no to for-profit charters, no to public funding of religious schools.

Peter offers his list of the 9 things he wishes for.

1. Get rid of the Big Standardized tests that now rule schools.

2. Fair and equitable funding for all schools.

That’s two. Read the other 7 —and offer your own.

Peter Greene has made a list of the 12 things he intends to do this year. They are not exactly resolutions, which are like saying “I will lose 10 pounds and stop smoking,” nor are they wishes, that depend on what someone else does. They are intentions: This is what I will do.

We can all resonate to his intentions. I did.

For example:

1) Be present and pay attention. It is easy to get wrapped up in the To Do List of the classroom teacher. Well, easy for me, anyway. But our students need to be present and paying attention, to hear what they say and see who they are even when they aren’t explicitly trying to be seen and heard. Nothing that I do in a classroom is more important than finding the connection to each student.

2) Do not wait for someone else to stand up. Do not count on someone else to advocate for what I care about. Do not leave it to someone else to call a Congressperson or a state official about the issues that matter. Especially don’t say, “That’s what I pay union dues for. They can handle it.” Call. Write. Speak up. Stand up…

6) Be honest. There isn’t anything more important. Even if it bothers members of your own tribe. Even if it isn’t what was true to you yesterday. Even if you are afraid to be seen by those who may strike back….

9) Value people. Value people. Value people. Money and power and privilege are only important insofar as they help you take care of other people. The circumstances of your life, particularly the circumstances of your profession, have put a whole bunch of people right in your path. Start by looking out for them.

10) Advocate for what you want, not what you don’t want. You already know this from the classroom– it is infinitely more useful to tell a student what you want him to do instead of what you want him not to do.

11) Always say what you mean, and say it like you really mean it. Never stop considering the possibility that you may need to change your mind.

12) Never let tradition, authority, systems, habit, or other people’s power substitute for using your best fresh judgment. Start the question from scratch; if you were in the right place before, you’ll be lead right there again. Don’t just grab last year’s unit plan– ask yourself how you, right now, would teach that unit. And always make sure your best fresh judgment includes consideration of the ideas and words of other smart people.

Steven Singer has been very productive this past year as a blogger.

Here are his very best posts, according to him. Most will show you how to resist the corporate takeover of public education.

“Singin’ in the Rain” is my favorite all-time movie, so of course I was saddened by the deaths of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. I had the good fortune to see Carrie’s one-woman show, “Wishful Drinking.” And I appreciated that she transformed the image of a princess from a helpless prima donna waiting for a prince to rescue her into a smart, strong, resourceful woman who rescues men.

I started googling her, Debbie, and her father Eddie Fisher. Eddie abandoned Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie’s best friend. I found this in Eddie’s bio.

“In 1981, Fisher wrote an autobiography, Eddie: My Life, My Loves (ISBN 0-06-014907-8). He wrote another autobiography in 1999 titled Been There, Done That (ISBN 0-312-20972-X). The later book devotes little space to Fisher’s singing career, but recycled the material of his first book and added many new sexual details that were too strong to publish before. His daughter Carrie declared, upon publication: “That’s it. I’m having my DNA fumigated.”

At the family Christmas dinner in New Jersey, someone asked the question, “What is the best Christmas movie of all time?” There were many suggestions, but the consensus was Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring James Stewart.

When I got home from dinner, I found Stuart Egan’s post about the film. It turns out that Bedford Falls High School plays a significant part. Frank Capra knew, and his audience understood, the central role that the town’s public school played in the life of the community. There was no talk of choice or accountability or data. Just an institution that bound together the life of the community.

I was reminded of Garrison Keillor’s great statement about those who dare to attack public schools:

“When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.”
― Garrison Keillor, Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America

The Republican National Committee issued this statement to celebrate Christmas:

“WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus and Co-Chair Sharon Day released the following statement celebrating Christmas:

“Merry Christmas to all! Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.
“Even as we celebrate, we must also remember those among us who are less fortunate. Many on this day are without hope, and need the kindness and compassion of those around them. It is our prayer we will rise to meet the material, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals all around us, and what better day is there to love our fellow man than today?
“As we open presents, enjoy Christmas dinner, and celebrate our own family traditions, we are mindful of our men and women in uniform. Many are stationed around the world today protecting our freedoms, and cannot be with their own spouses, children, parents, and siblings. We express the deepest gratitude for service that takes them away from celebrating with loved ones, and we ought to remember them in our thoughts and prayers not just on Christmas Day, but the whole year round.” 

Just for the record, Trump is neither my savior nor my king.

I said there would be exceptions. Here is one.

I Love My Country

By Dan Rather, Dan Rather’s Facebook Page

25 December 16

I love my country.

I love it with a clear eye to its failures as well as its triumphs, the hypocrisies it embodies as well as its loftiest ideals. My love for the United States was forged through a child’s eye, shaped by the lessons of my parents and teachers. It was baptized in memorized incantations – like the Pledge of Allegiance and Star Spangled Banner, as well as the hagiographic biographies of men like Washington and Lincoln that one reads in grade school. Over the years, as my experiences grew and my readings deepened in complexity, I sought out a much more nuanced definition of patriotism. It was one that demanded opposition to, and the exposure of, the wrongs inherent to so much of our society. It was a sense of American exceptionalism to be worshiped at the altar of a free and independent press. It was a shining light illuminated by the accomplishments of men and women of reason who had the courage to challenge the conventional wisdoms they saw as outdated, naive, or cynical.

As I grew, I began to see a deep undertow that was also part of our country. It was one fueled by my fellow citizens who were suspicious of growth, skeptical of knowledge, and closed minded to new ideas. Elitism can be a pernicious force in a democracy, but championing and celebrating those who have risen to prominence on the basis of their hard work, mental acuity, wisdom and knowledge is what has made our country great. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams “there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.” Our national scaffolding was built by such men – and women.

Of course the path of our national identity has wavered from Jefferson’s ideal on several occasions. In a column in 1980, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

I have seen many societal outbursts of ignorance, and I would argue that we are in an age where that feeling is ascendent. But I have also seen the countervailing forces that have shaped America into the greatest land of science and ingenuity the world has ever known. It is a battle for the soul and destiny of our national narrative. Our future prosperity and strength demands that the forces of reason win out.

But as much as I love my country, I also love humanity. I seek not a zero sum world where America’s victories lie in others nations’ defeats. And here is where I would caution the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

You have appealed to the some of the basest fears and lowest instincts of our electorate. You have appointed men and women as your advisors and to your cabinet who seem outright hostile to science and reason. You mock those who have pursued lifetimes of thought and study and elevate know-nothing over know-something. This has given you a short-term burst of political power but do not think that American greatness is preordained. It needs cultivating and care.

This is a big and wondrous world. There are other places for the best minds to go. This will be America’s great loss if Mr. Trump dims the light of knowledge. I will mourn the passing deeply but I will hope that other nations aren’t so shortsighted. Progress, reason, science, justice… these are human ideals that must flourish for the sake of all of us, in whatever land they can take root.

I deeply hope that we can still continue to call the United States the greatest nation on Earth because that will mean that we have made the right choices.

In 1969, as Congress was debating a costly particle accelerator to study seemingly abstract physics, the director of the Fermilab, Robert Wilson, was asked in a hearing whether the research might be applicable for military purposes. His famous reply stands not only as a potent symbol of his age, but a North Star by which we must continue to steer our ship of state.

” …this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.”

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!

Enjoy the day. Play with your children or grandchildren, your nieces and nephews.

For some, this is a lonely time of year.

Think about helping those who have no family. Invite friends over if they are alone.

Go to a homeless shelter, a church, a synagogue or anywhere they are serving a meal and offer your help.

Reach out and share some love. It feels good to give.

As for me, I am taking a break until January 2.*

See you back here then. Stay healthy. Happy 2017!

*PS: This is not an ironclad promise. If something comes my way that is irresistible, I’ll post it. Otherwise, take a break.