Archives for category: For-Profit
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Ohio: For-Profit Charters Get Rich Running Non-Profit Charters, Taxpayers and Students Get Stiffed

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2019 //
3

One of the most valuable sites online is KnowYourCharter in Ohio.

This post lays out the waste of taxpayer dollars gobbled up by charters.

Time to close the spigot of money going down the drain in Ohio, leeched away from public schools to fatten charter operators.

Ohio has long been a hotbed of for-profit charter schools.

While Ohio requires that all charter schools be technically non-profit, Ohio law permits these schools to hire for-profit management companies that come in and, in essence, run the schooland take control of the school’s taxpayer funding.

For-profit charter school operators have been at the forefront of Ohio’s array of charter school scandals. From White Hat Management’s long history of dodging scrutiny while maintainingpolitical influencei, to Imagine Schools’ boondoggle on school rent agreementsii to the collapse ofWhite Hat’s political successor, Altair Learning Management, that ran the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow – the epic collapse of which was widely reported last year and continues to generate headlines even today. It was recently reported that not one of the more than 4,666 students enrolled in ECOT’s final year actually attended the schooliii. Yet Ohio taxpayers paid ECOT to educate those kids for half a year.

But long overdue change is in the wind. Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder told assembledmedia shortly after he took the gavel that “I know they are technically nonprofit, but that secondtier, those management entities, I believe should be nonprofit.”1

The Know Your Charter website has updated the state data found on the website so parents, students, officials and media can compare the performance of charter schools and local public schools and districts. As part of that new data release, the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project examined how the 178 Ohio Charter Schools run by for-profit management firms2perform and spend money compared with the costs incurred by local public school districts.

The results are eye-opening.

  • Schools run by for-profit operators spend a hefty $1,167 more per pupil than school districts on non-instructional administrative costs3.
  • That’s 73 percent more money per pupil being spent by for-profit operators outside the classroom than the typical Ohio school district4.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider on the Biggest Charter Heist in History-More than $50 Million and Still Counting

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2019 //
14

Mercedes Schneider read the voluminous indictment of the founders of the online charter chain called A3. She describes the counts in the indictment in this post.

She writes:

In this post, I offer excerpts of the 67 counts detailed in the 235-page indictmentof Sean McManus, Jason Schrock, and nine others who used weaknesses in California’s charter school laws to construct a network of fraud and launder $50M in public funds into their own pockets over the course of years. These 11 individuals (and unidentified others) did so by opening multiple charter schools and using companies, both pre-existing and newly-created, to establish a complex system of self-dealing– with little to no education actually happening via those exploited, educational dollars.

The California legislature is currently deciding whether and how to reform the state’s charter law. The California Charter School Association is fighting any accountability or reform of the law. If a theft of more than $50 million by charter vultures doesn’t persuade the legislature of the need for reform, nothing will.

Bring on more theft of public money! More millions scooped up by entrepreneurs and grifters!

Thanks, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Bill Bloomfield, the Fischer family (the Gap and Old Navy), the Walton family, and all the other billionaires who make this piracy possible and who fund the CCSA!

Why spend money on public schools when it can go right into the bank accounts of smart and savvy entrepreneurs?

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Steven Singer: Charter Schools Will Always Be a Waste of Money

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2019 //
17

 

Steven Singer explains succinctly why charter schools are by definition a waste of money. No one has yet explained why it makes sense to have two publicly funded school systems, one public, the other under private management.

He writes:

 

You can’t save money buying more of what you already have.

 

Constructing two fire departments serving the same community will never be as cheap as having one.

 

Empowering two police departments to patrol the same neighborhoods will never be as economical as one.

 

Building two roads parallel to each other that go to exactly the same places will never be as cost effective as one.

 

This isn’t exactly rocket science. In fact, it’s an axiom of efficiency and sound financial planning. It’s more practical and productive to create one robust service instead of two redundant ones.

 

However, when it comes to education, a lot of so-called fiscal conservatives will try to convince us that we should erect two separate school systems – a public one and a privatized one.

 

The duplicate may be a voucher system where we use public tax dollars to fund private and parochial schools. It may be charter schools where public money is used to finance systems run by private organizations. Or it may be some combination of the two.

 

But no matter what they’re suggesting, it’s a duplication of services.

 

And it’s a huge waste of money.

 

Read the rest.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Bill Phillis: State Audit Finds Possible Fraud at Dayton Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2019 //
2

Bill Phillis, former State Deputy Superintendent, watches over school spending and misspending in Ohio, in hopes that one day there will be equitable and adequate funding of public schools, instead of the current regime of school choice, waste, fraud, and abuse.

 

School Bus
Richard Allen Academy charter school audit cites fraud
The state audit cited illegal payments to board members and the treasurer, nepotism, failure to withdraw students, discrepancy between employee contributions to the pension systems and the amount the charter school paid to the pension systems. In addition, the audit indicates school and management company funds were comingled by which the company benefited at the expense of the charter schools. The charter school seems to benefit adults, not students.
The practice of charter companies benefiting at the expense of the charter school students is commonplace in the charter industry. Hopefully, in future audits, the State Auditor will take on the big boys in the charter industry.
Charter chains typically establish companies that provide consultant services, facilities and other services that charge the charter school outrageous rates. These schemes, of course, enrich the charter functionaries resulting in less educational opportunities for students.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
School Bus
Ohio E & A | 50 S. Young Street, Suite M102, Columbus, OH 43215
Sent by ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net in collaboration with
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

California: Online Charter Scam Cost Taxpayers More Than $50 Million, Says Indictment

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
16

 

With the encouragement of the super lobbyists of the California CharterSchoolAssociation, the California Legislature continues to block any meaningful reform of its lax charter law, even as the news breaks that online charter operators were charged with scamming more than $50 million from taxpayers.

Peter Greene calls this one “a spectacular charter scam.” He is right. We have seen plenty of garden-variety scams and multi-Million dollar charter frauds, but this one is the biggest yet!

Morgan Cook and Kristin Taketa report in the San Diego Union-Tribune (a newspaper that supports charters):

Using in-depth knowledge of California education funding, charter school regulations and deceptive business disclosures, an Australian citizen and his partner in Long Beach orchestrated a multi-year conspiracy to fleece taxpayers out of more than $50 million, prosecutors say.

Sean McManus, 46, an Australian who operated charter schools in California, and another charter school operator, Jason Schrock, 44, and nine others were named as defendants in a 67-count indictment announced this past week by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say McManus, Schrock and others enrolled thousands of students into online charter schools, often without their knowledge, and collected millions in state funds using student information obtained from private schools and youth athletic groups.

This criminal enterprise funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into private bank accounts of the defendants,” said District Attorney Summer Stephan.

Eight of the 11 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations. Two more are expected to be arraigned June 6….McManus is at large, possibly in Australia, prosecutors said. A San Diego Superior Court judge issued a $5-million bench warrant for his arrest and froze the accounts of charter schools, related companies and individuals related to the alleged conspiracy.

A reader who calls himself “Francisco” has commented recently that there are just as many frauds in public schools as in charter schools. Hey, Francisco, can you top this?

Peter Greene responds:

The twitterverse rebuttal has been, “Oh, yeah. You’re just focusing on charters. I’ll bet we could public school scams just as bad.” Maybe. But the oversight provided by a locally-elected board and mandated transparency of financial dealings would make it pretty damn hard. To pull off a scam of this magnitude, you need to wide-open barely-regulated low-oversight world of charters.

As Greene points out, in what world is it possible to buy and sell schools like franchises other than Charter World?

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Virtual Charter Schools

Jack Schneider: Why Are Americans Turning Against Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
22

 

Jack Schneider, a historian of education who often collaborates with Jennifer Berkshire, analyzes the fading allure of charter schools. After years of claims that they would “save” public schools and poor children, the public has given up on them. Why? They have not delivered, and the public gets it.

For most of the past thirty years, charters seemed unstoppable, especially because their expansion was backed by billions from people like the Waltons, Gates, and Broad, as well as the federal government. But they have not kept their promises.

Today, however, the grand promises of the charter movement remain unfulfilled, and so the costs of charters are being evaluated in a new light.

After three decades, charters enroll six percent of students. Despite bold predictions by their advocates that this number will grow fivefold, charters are increasingly in disrepute.

First, the promise of innovation was not met. Iron discipline is not exactly innovative.

Second, the promise that charters would be significantly better than public schools did not happen. In large part, that is because the introduction of charters simply creates an opportunity for choice; it does not ensure the quality of schools. Rigorous research, from groups like Mathematica Policy Research and Stanford University, has found that average charter performance is roughly equivalent to that of traditional public schools. A recent study in Ohio, for instance, concluded that some of the state’s charters perform worse than the state’s public schools, some perform better, and roughly half do not significantly differ.

Finally, charters have not produced the systemic improvement promised by their boosters.

Competition did not lift all boats. In fact, competition has weakened the public schools that enroll most students at the same time that charters do not necessarily provide a better alternative.

Schneider does not mention one other important reason for the diminishing reputation of charters: scandals, frauds, embezzlement, and other scams that appear daily in local and state media. A significant number of charters are launched and operated by non-educators and by entrepreneurs, which amplifies the reasons for charter instability and failure.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Competition, Corruption, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Innovation, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

San Diego: Eleven People Indicted in Connection to Online Charter Fraud

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
7

 

The California Legislature is considering four bills to reform the state’s massive charter school industry (1,300 schools, mostly unregulated and unsupervised). One of the bills would prohibit school districts from authorizing charters in other districts. The following story is a classic example of rural school districts authorizing online charters in San Diego and Los Angeles, solely to get the commission attached to each student. In this case, the online charters were cash cows for their owners. [A personal aside: Last February, I was in Newport Beach, California, having breakfast at a hotel. The man at the next table was loudly discussing his schools with someone who was selling athletic services, $5 a student. When he got up to leave, I asked him if he was “in the charter school business.” He said, “Yes,” and said he owned 40 schools under six different corporate names. I asked him his name. He said, “Sean McManus.” I should have asked him to join us. He is one of the key figures in the following article.]

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that eleven people connected to online charter schools have been indicted for “criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.“

The online charters operate in San Diego and Los Angeles, but were authorized by other districts that get a slice of the revenues. This is one of the corrupt practices that have been rampant in California, where lax state law allows sharp operators to get public money and cheat students with no consequences. The Legislature is currently debating a proposal to stop allowing District A to authorize a charter in District B, a practice that is mercenary and predatory. Until now, the powerful California Charter Schools Association—enriched by billionaires like Reed Hastings and Eli Broad—has fought all accountability for charter schools.

At the center of the allegations are leaders of the charter school management corporation A3 Education, a Newport Beach corporation whose leaders control 13 charter schools across California, according to an indictment filed May 17.

A3’s chairman, Sean McManus, and president, Jason Schrock, essentially owned and operated the charter schools throughout California at the same time that A3 contracted with those schools, according to the indictment.

McManus and Schrock operated multiple businesses that charged their own charter schools millions of dollars for services. Then they channeled money from those businesses into their own charitable trust and personal bank accounts, according to the indictment.

A3 Education and the businesses affiliated with McManus and Schrock together have invoiced at least $83.3 million from the 13 charter schools, according to the indictment.

From the affiliated businesses, at least $8.18 million went into personal bank accounts, some in Australia, and into charitable trust accounts for McManus, Schrock and their wives, and $500,000 went to a family member of McManus, according to the indictment.

McManus and Schrock also used $1.6 million of A3 Education’s funds to buy a private residence for McManus in San Juan Capistrano, the indictment states.

Also according to the indictment, six people, including McManus and Schrock, conspired to collect state money for students who were listed as being enrolled in Valiant Charter Schools but were not receiving services.

The two Valiant schools will close permanently on June 30. Several thousand students will need to find new schools. The San Diego online charter was authorized by the Dehesa School District, and the one in Los Angeles was authorized by the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District.

The children were not assigned to teachers who have state-required professional certificates, the indictment said. The students were not in contact with the schools or provided with educational services during the summer months, as some of the co-conspirators claimed, according to the indictment…

Also indicted is Nancy Hauer, who is superintendent of Dehesa School District, which authorized several charter schools, including Valiant Academy of Southern California. The Dehesa district office did not immediately provide a comment Tuesday.

Also among the indicted is Steve Van Zant, a former Mountain Empire Unified superintendent who three years ago pleaded guilty to violating conflict-of-interest laws, after he brokered deals with charter schools to operate in other school districts, prosecutors said at the time.

Valiant Academy had 43 students two years ago, 726 last year, and 2,250 this year. It’s academic performance was so poor that even the California Charter School Association recommended that it be closed.

Betsy DeVos says that parents always know what’s best. Why were they enrolling their children in these failing “schools.”?

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, For-Profit, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization, San Diego, Virtual Charter Schools

My New Book Was Just Announced!

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
67

I am very excited!

My new book was just announced!

The title is: SLAYING GOLIATH: The Impassioned Fight to Defeat the Privatization Movement and to Save America’s Public Schools. 

It will be published on January 14, 2020, by Knopf, the most prestigious publisher in America. The editor is the brilliant Victoria Wilson, who is also an author, having written the definitive biography of Barbara Stanwyck.

In Slaying Goliath, you will read about the heroes of the Resistance, those who stood up to Big Money and defeated disruption in their schools, their communities, their cities, their states.

It is a book of inspiration and hope.

It shows how determined citizens—parents, students, teachers, everyone—can stand up for democracy, can stand up to the billionaires, and win.

Please consider pre-ordering your copy so you can be sure to get the first edition.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Resistance, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Testing, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Teachers in West Virginia Forego a Pay Raise to Block Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2019 //
5

 

Teachers in West Virginia stunned the nation in February 2018 by going out on strike and staying out while demanding a pay raise and a commitment from the Governor and Legislature not to support charter schools and privatization. Theywon a pay raise and they had a commitment from Governor Jim Justice to veto charter legislation. Justice is a billionaire, the richest man in the state.

A year later, the Legislature was ready to abandon its promise not to introduce privatization. The teachers struck again.

Jan Resseger has the story here. 

The Legislature wants to put the camel’s nose under the tent. Just the nose. Promise. Cross my heart.

Don’t believe them. They are lying. Once the privatization starts, the camel gets into the tent. The tiny voucher program becomes a massive voucher program. The experimental charter becomes a major lobbying industry.

Fight for public education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Teachers, Vouchers, West Virginia

XPRIZE: $10 Million Prize for Teaching Without Teachers!

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2019 //
33

You knew this was coming, didn’t you?

The XPRIZE awarded $10 million in awards to programs that teach children basic skills without a human teacher! One of the funders of the award was our very own Betsy DeVos, who loves teachers so much that she wants to get rid of them. They cost too much, and they tend to want unions. They even think for themselves, which is dangerous.

The XPRIZE Foundation has announced KitKit School and onebillion as the winners of the $10 million Global Learning XPRIZE.

Launched in 2014 with support from the Merkin Family, Dick & Betsy DeVos Family, and Tony Robbins foundations, Elon Musk, and other funders, the Global Learning XPRIZE challenged innovators to develop scalable solutions that enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing, and math skills within fifteen months. Each of the five finalists received $1 million to field test their solutions in Tanzania, where three thousand children learned on tablets donated by Google that were preloaded with one of the five solutions. The two winning organizations will share the $10 million grand prize for enabling the greatest proficiency gains in reading, writing, and math. 

According to XPRIZE, two hundred million children globally cannot read or write, while one in five school-age children are not in school. Based in Seoul, South Korea, and Berkeley, California, KitKit School developed a program featuring a game-based core and flexible learning architecture designed to help children learn independently, irrespective of their knowledge, skill, or environment. London- and Nairobi-based onebillion’s software solution merged numeracy content with literacy material to offer directed learning and creative activities alongside continuous monitoring that enables the software to respond to children’s individual needs. 

Selected from among nearly two hundred teams from forty countries, the other three finalists were CCI (United States), Chimple (India), and RoboTutor (U.S.). All five finalists’ solutions are open source and available in both Swahili and English on GitHub. XPRIZE will work to deliver tablets preloaded with localized versions of the finalists’ software. 

The really cool thing about the scripted curriculum is that the designer can not only program skillsbut control content and determine what children learn.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Teachers
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