Mercedes Schneider knows that Democratic candidates righteously day they oppose “for-profit” charters. Carol Burris explained that there is little or no difference between for-profit charters and nonprofit charters.
Archives for category: For-Profit
Tom Ultican writes here about the biggest charter fraud in history (to this date).
This fraud was not one of those one-day wonders that people read about and forget the next day.
This one should wake up state legislators and produce genuine reforms of the state’s super-permissive charter law.
Ultican writes about the indictment of 11 people for the theft of $50 million. Other writers, however, peg the loss to the state and its students at $80 million.
Whether it’s $50 million or $80 million, it should catch the attention of those who are devoted to ethical behavior.
Ultican explains that charter advocates designed the law so that it would NOT regulate who got the money or how it was spent. The California charter law is an open invitation to graft and corruption.
And they walked through an open door, reaping millions from the state’s lax law. Deregulation and lack of oversight was supposed to spur innovation. But it mostly spurred theft.
He writes:
The state of California puts more than $80 billion annually into k12 education. Because that money is a natural target for profiteers and scammers, extra vigilance is needed. However, California’s charter school law was developed to provide minimum vigilance.
During its early stages, several billionaires like Carry Walton Penner, Reed Hastings and Arthur Rock made sure the California charter school law was designed to limit governmental rules and oversight. For example, charter schools are not required to meet the earthquake standards prescribed in the 1933 Field Act, which hold public schools to higher building code requirements. Since its enactment no public schools have collapsed in an earthquake. The picture of the Education Collaborative School above is evidence that students in a known earthquake zone are now at increased risk of injury and death.
A few weeks ago Louis Freedberg observedthat a key weakness in California’s chartering law is that there are no standards for authorizers and a lack of expertise. He also wrote about the number of charter authorizers saying, “unlike many states, California has hundreds of them: 294 local school districts, 41 county offices of education, along with the State Board of Education.” Among these 336 authorizers, several are school districts of less than 1,000 students which have neither the capacity nor training to supervise charter schools. Some of these small districts look more like charter school grafters than public school districts.
The California law is deeply defective. It assumes that the market will produce better schools. We now know that isn’t right.
Angie Sullivan teaches children in a Title 1 elementary school in Las Vegas. Many of her children are poor and don’t speak English. Her school is underfunded. Angie frequently sends blast emails to every legislator in the state, as well as journalists. She refuses to allow them to ignore her students, while they cater to the whims of billionaire casino owners, like the chair of the state board of education.
Angie wrote these posts recently:
Ironically as many scream for transparency of public schools – they also seem intent on making it as difficult as possible to find information on Nevada Charters. I’m looking at you “fiscal conservatives”.
Finding information on Nevada’s charters is like finding a needle in a haystack.
You can find it if you have 100 years. Or have time to puzzle it together. It took me hundreds of hours to develop just a list of Nevada charter campuses a few years ago.
I might come across the name. Or not.
Currently the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority (SPCSA) is the only sponsor accepting applications for new charter schools
The main source of information I have found is the Nevada Charter Authority.
You could look there for the names charters use. As you know, charters can change their names and I have found up to 15 names for the same address. Multiple campuses with different names are stacked under one charter.
The Nevada Secretary of State website can be searched.
I do know that business licenses with multiple names often come up as a topic in the Las Vegas City Council. Mainly because charters open many businesses under different names and/or expand without permission (like open an on-line in a brick and mortar). They forget to get licenses for all their “businesses”.
Charters are a nuisance. They do not consider traffic at pick up and drop off. They do not monitor kids and often do not have a playground. The public regularly complains about charter “business practice” in Las Vegas City council meetings. Sometimes I find information about them because they are a pain and citizens complain in public forums.
There should also be a way to follow the money since the receiverships are so plentiful. But there is not a easy way that I have found.
Aaron Ford who got a PHD in charters before becoming our Attorney General is not likely to ask for accountability anytime soon.
It is for all these reasons – lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and poor business practice: Nevada Assembly considered a moratorium on charters. It did not pass but it should have.
So long story short.
I would not surprise me if you found a someone running a charter in Nevada using a sham company. Who doesn’t? Throw a rock and hit a charter scam.
The bottom dwellers have all attempted to come here too. Sometimes as the FBI is chasing them out of other places.
I can hunt and peck around. The name does not ring a bell but these shady characters come and go and change their name so often in my corporation friendly state – they could be right under my nose and I see nothing.
You are welcome any time to come and I will find a venue for a movie showing. I’m just a teacher and have no money – we pulled together enough to have a viewing of the Matt Damon Film last year with Congresswoman Dina Titus and Candidate for Governor turned Governor Steve Sisolak. They did not watch the film but spoke at the beginning of the event.
You have a true champion in Congresswoman Dina Titus if you ever need one.
You need to avoid anyone from Team Harry Reid – he attended the Gulen Coral opening at the Air Force Base and supports Gulen charters fully. May even be key to bringing them to Nevada.
Teachers are most likely going to strike in the fall – so no union resources. The union actually owes me one because VP Theo Small held a union event with a charter expert as a headliner.
Gulen is a problem.
Academica is the charter monster in Nevada. It’s a real estate grab.
Along with the Agassi-Turner Hedgefund. It’s also a real estate grab.
We need money so badly – all of this is worse than a shame. Robs all the kids I love. All of them. Robs kids. Hurts kids.
Angie Sullivan
I would love to hear what new appointment Rebeca Feiden thinks of all of the above. Lack of information or accessible information is long running. And she knows it.
TFA creates data monsters who then are well paid to ignore data.
Then Angie wrote this post:
The Nevada Department of Education has been very pro-Charter under the direction of Casino Billionaire Elaine Wynn, Nevada State School Board President.
The other Nevada Gulens which are named Corals – even displaced the Air Force Teachers by offering to build a new school for the base. They forced the military wives off the base because the charters could not match salary. Gulen Corals clumped their data by north and south. Their administrators came to some meetings I held and became verbally irate telling folks about how great they are. How would anyone know? The Gulen Corals have not shown three years of data for their campuses yet. Opened for decade plus and zero data by campus.
Now I suspect they will just manipulate the data. There have been limited campus visits so no one makes sure there are testing protocols in place.
How do you keep a Nevada Charter from opening?
If someone can figure that out – I will employ that technique non-stop. It is difficult to even find a place to voice opposition.
They have agenda here:
Meetings are held during the day when teachers work. The person in charge of the 100+ charter campuses is a very young former TFA without a curriculum vitae to manage one charter let alone a $350+ million money distribution.
Most of the agendas are charter expansion.
And talking about charter problems without ever doing anything.
I would love to know how to actually prevent Nevada from being scammed by these corporations that other states are kicking out.
Please. Let me know.
Reason does not work.
Logic does not work.
Data does not work.
Nevada insists on pouring money into the charter toilet.
Crazy folks go nuts for choice – even as it is explained to them it the worst choice in the nation.
There is zero accountability. Nevada does not close charters for financial corruption/receivership. Nevada does not close charters for lack of data or lack of graduation. One charter might have closed because it literally had only one student.
Basically I keep pointing out to all the elected legislators, these businesses are failing to educate children. I try to shame folks taking money $350+ million and not providing anything to the tax payer.
Shaming.
Put them in the local newspaper. That is about the best tool I have.
Failing charters that are bottom
dwelling scum are what Nevada attracts because our per pupil spending is last in the nation.
So of course Gulen wants to open more.
What a scam.
Angie Sullivan
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about the efforts by most Democratic candidates to avoid confronting the dangers of privatization:
When Democratic candidates are questioned about charter schools, many typically reply, “I am against for-profit charter schools.” Everyone cheers. Politicians have created a convenient (and false) dichotomy that says nonprofit charter schools are good, and for-profit charter schools are bad.
Don’t be fooled. There are now only 2 states that allow for-profit charter schools—Arizona and Wisconsin. California changed its laws.
However, 35 states allow for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOS) to run their nonprofit charter schools.
40% of the charter schools in Florida are run by for-profit charter management companies. While the individual charter is a nonprofit, it can turn over everything from hiring, to curriculum, to financial management to a for-profit corporation. In Michigan, 80% of the so-called nonprofit charter schools are run by for-profit companies.
To understand how this arrangement works, read this blog I wrote for the Answer Sheet on Florida’s charter schools. You will read about the Zulueta brothers who were on the board of an Academica charter school even while their for-profit real estate companies, including one in Panama, were leasing property to the schools.
Let me shock you a bit more. The National Alliance for (so-called) Public Charter Schools recently gave the controversial profiteer, Fernando Zulueta, an award at its national conference!
You probably know the names and reputations of the other big for-profit CMOs—BASIS, National Heritage, Academica, K12 and more.
The question candidates need to answer then are:
“Do you support for-profit Charter Management Organizations, and if you do not, what are you going to do about them?”
The most important questions to ask, however (and don’t let them off the hook), are whether they support the NAACP moratorium on new charter schools and “Will you stop the the federal funding of new charter schools?”
There is a reason the charter lobby never complains when a candidate says that he/she is against for-profit charter schools. It means nothing will change.
From the Keystone State Coalition, administered by Lawrence Feinberg:
Started in November 2010, daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 4050 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor’s staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition team members, superintendents, school solicitors, principals, charter school leaders, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations, education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Visit us on Facebook at KeystoneStateEducationCoalition
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Reprise Aug. 2017: Pa. charter schools spend millions of public dollars in advertising to attract students
Public Source By Stephanie Hacke and Mary Niederberger AUG. 29, 2017
PART OF THE SERIES The Charter Effect|
If you’re a parent, it’s likely Facebook knows it.
If you’re not happy with your child’s current school, Facebook probably knows that, too. And you are likely to be hit with paid, highly targeted ads offering alternatives. That’s why when you scroll through your news feed on Facebook you may see a sponsored photo of a wide-eyed child and parent thrilled about their tuition-free, personalized education at a Pennsylvania cyber charter school. If you pay property taxes, you likely paid for this ad campaign. See the ad on the side of the Port Authority bus that shows happy students and a message that Propel Montour High School has spaces available in grades 9 and 10. Your property taxes paid for that, too. Television ads, radio promotions, social media ads and billboards promoting cyber and brick-and-mortar charter schools are everywhere. Some charter operators pay for online keyword searches that prompt their school’s websites to show up first when a parent searches for certain terms related to charter schools or a student’s need for an alternative education setting. In the last three school years, 12 of the state’s 14 cyber charter schools spent more than $21 million combined in taxpayer dollars promoting their schools, PublicSource found through Right-to-Know requests. The Commonwealth Charter Academy spent the most of the cyber charters on advertising; it spent $3.2 million in 2015-16 and $4.4 million in 2016-17.
Blogger note: Total cyber charter tuition paid by PA taxpayers from 500 school districts for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 was over $1.6 billion; $393.5 million, $398.8 million, $436.1 million and $454.7 million respectively.
In 2016-17, taxpayers in Senate Education Cmte Majority Chairman .@SenLangerholc’s districts had to send over $10.5.3 million to chronically underperforming cybers that their locally elected school boards never authorized. . #SB34 (Schwank) or #HB526 (Sonney) could change that.
Data source: PDE via PSBA
| Bedford Area SD | $195,903.70 |
| Blacklick Valley SD | $172,928.49 |
| Cambria Heights SD | $171,102.13 |
| Central Cambria SD | $147,481.76 |
| Chestnut Ridge SD | $334,862.00 |
| Claysburg-Kimmel SD | $108,164.64 |
| Clearfield Area SD | $847,317.65 |
| Conemaugh Valley SD | $277,810.82 |
| Curwensville Area SD | $165,465.87 |
| Dubois Area SD | $781,498.59 |
| Everett Area SD | $352,172.57 |
| Ferndale Area SD | $231,971.23 |
| Forest Hills SD | $248,609.94 |
| Glendale SD | $157,426.86 |
| Greater Johnstown SD | $2,532,971.00 |
| Harmony Area SD | $127,540.41 |
| Moshannon Valley SD | $200,674.93 |
| Northern Bedford County SD | $225,181.66 |
| Northern Cambria SD | $251,658.09 |
| Penn Cambria SD | $428,637.20 |
| Philipsburg-Osceola Area SD | $697,580.57 |
| Portage Area SD | $182,599.03 |
| Purchase Line SD | $358,211.18 |
| Richland SD | $264,415.85 |
| Tussey Mountain SD | $253,595.93 |
| West Branch Area SD | $323,061.45 |
| Westmont Hilltop SD | $0.00 |
| Windber Area SD | $467,326.78 |
| $10,506,170.33 |
Has your state senator cosponsored bipartisan SB34?
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Is your state representative one of the over 70 bipartisan cosponsors of HB526?
WHYY Radio Times: Cyber charter schools
Air Date: Friday June 21, 2019 10:00 am; Runtime 49:15
Guests: Margaret Raymond, Susan Spicka, David Hardy
A new study shows that many students enrolled in Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are not getting a quality education. A quarter of Pennsylvania’s charter school students use these virtual learning programs as an alternative to attending brick-and-mortar schools. Today, we’ll hear about the damning report, the pros and cons of digital classrooms, and what the future holds for these types of programs. Joining us will be MARGARET RAYMOND, founding director of the organization, CREDO, that released the report, as well as SUSAN SPICKA of Education Voters of PA, and DAVID HARDY, executive director of Excellent Schools Pa, a school choice advocacy organization.
https://whyy.org/episodes/cyber-charter-schools-are-they-working/
Peter Greene read and loved Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
So did I, which is why it is on my short list of books I recommend for summer reading.
Peter writes:
Every so often you come across a book that unpacks and reframes a part of the universe in a way that you can never unsee. Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas has been a book like that for me.
Giridharadas is writing about “the elite charade of changing the world,” and while he is taking a broad look at the way the Betters are trying to influence our country and our world, the connections to education reform are unmistakable. I’m about to go ahead and give my grossly oversimplified take on his work and its intersection with public education; as a general guide, assume everything smart came from his book and everything wrong is my fault. There’s a lot to pack into a blog post, and I will cut corners like crazy; there are so many pull quotes from this book that I have put up an entire supplemental blog post just of quotes from the work. My best recommendation if you find any of this striking is to buy the book…
The elite assumption is that the system that put them on top, the game that they are the winners of, is fair and just and unrigged and not in need of being changed in any major ways. They are not part of the problem, and they are hurt that you would even suggest that was true; they are simply the just winners in a meritocratic system.
So the solutions they will propose meet a couple of standards:
1) It will include no challenge to the fundamentals of the current system.
2) The elites will be in charge (because their eliteness is proof of their fitness to run the show).
3) It will harness entrepreneurial energy (i.e. someone’s going to make money from it).
4) It will hand most of the blame responsibility to the people on the bottom who are being “rescued….”
The fingerprints of this mindset are all over education reform.
* The very notion, popular and bipartisan among the Betters, that education is the fix for everything. All the socio-economic inequity in the country can be solved, not by looking at the system that created that inequity– in fact, we’re not even going to admit that the system had any hand in creating inequity. No the system is swell, and the winners are people who are at the top got there by hard work and wisdom and meritocratic excellence. So, no, we don’t need to look at that system– we just need these people on the bottom to get themselves better educations (including things like grit) so that they can win at the game, too.
* Think Bill Gates, deciding that he needs to rewrite and standardize public education, and will have to circumvent, subvert and co-op the actual government to do it. Nobody elected him Grand Poobah of US Education, but he is perfectly comfortable appointing himself to the job.
* Think the deification of business standards in ed reform, and the notion that the free market will fix the system, that we will know which ideas are working best because they will succeed in the market. Think Eli Broad’s assertion that schools don’t have an education problem, but a business management problem.
* Think the repeated notion that democracy is a problem in education. We need to get rid of elected school boards and we need to give school leaders the kind of freedom that an all-powerful CEO has to create his vision. In ed reform, local control and the democratic process are to be avoided.
* Think the constant rejection of expertise. Reformsters don’t need to talk to teachers. What do teachers know? (If they are really such great shakes, why aren’t they rich?) I’ve succeeded at the game, and the same wisdom that made me a winner at that game will apply to fixing education. No other sorts of wisdom are necessary.
The huge irony of this book, which excoriates the elites and the billionaires who pretend to “save” the world by privatizing it, is that one of the blurbs was written by Bill Gates. He (or more likely, someone in his office) wrote:
In Anand’s thought-provoking book his fresh perspective on solving complex societal problems is admirable. I appreciate his commitment and dedication to spreading social justice.
This is a book that lambastes the likes of Gates. Why did he endorse it?
Carol Burris wrote this post on learning that the National Charter Schools Conference was honoring charter chain founder Ferdinand Zulueta.
I am dumfounded that Fernando Zulueta is being honored by the National Charter Schools Conference. He and his brother run one of the most notorious for-profit charter management companies in the country, Academica. The Office of Inspector General’s audit of three Academica schools — Excelsior, Mater High and Mater East found that the Board of the Excelsior charter school, which ended its relationship with Academica in 2013, allowed Academica to find, design and procure facilities, recommend staff, conduct the day-to-day running of the school, assume responsibilities for accounting, budgeting and produce its financial forecast. The for-profit CMO participated in all charter board meetings and made recommendations to the board.
OIG’s audit of the two Mater charter schools identified related party transactions between the for-profit Academica and a real estate company that leased both buildings and security services to the schools.
Although the audit is difficult to follow due to extensive redactions, it is clear that the investigation found inappropriate transactions among the CMO, School Development HG II, L.L.C., School Development East L.L.C., Duke School Properties, L.L.C. and the charter schools.
School Development Corporation HG II owned and leased a building to Mater High School while School Development East owned and leased a building to Mater East. School Development Corporation was owned by a Panamanian company, the Wolfson Hutton Development Company. The directors of the Wolfson Hutton Company were the Zulueta brothers, one of whom is being honored at the Charter Schools Conference. The brothers were the founders of both the Mater Academies and Academica. The details of the complex for-profit web can be found here in an earlier investigative report by the Miami-Dade Public Schools.
According to OIG, there was no evidence that the relationship between the CMO and the real estate company was disclosed to the charter school’s board of directors at the time of the original lease; nor was there any “evidence of a discussion regarding the renewal of the management agreement with Academica or the reasonableness of CMO services or fees.” The original real estate transactions took place while Fernando Zulueta served on the Mater Board.
By 2010, the Zulueta brothers controlled more than $115 million in Florida tax-exempt real estate with the companies collecting about $19 million in lease payments. Many of the charter schools paid rents well above expected rates. Academica not only benefited from renting real estate it owned, it also sold payroll, employer services, construction services, equipment leasing and school services to the schools.
Considering the complicated web of conflicts of interest and raw profiteering, one would think that Academica would have been scaled back. Not at all. Deep-pocket contributions to Florida lawmakers have shielded Academica and other for-profit CMOs from regulations that inhibit their ability to make a profit off taxpayer funds. And then there are the legislators who are profiting from charter schools.
Until 2016, Academica’s closest ally in the capital was Fernando Zulueta’s brother-in-law, [former Florida House Rep.] Erik Fresen. Fresen, a former lobbyist for Academica, served as chairman of the House Education Appropriations even while working as a consultant for a firm called Civica which had contracts with Academica schools.
During his eight years in the legislature, Fresen never bothered to file his taxes, resulting in a 60-day prison sentence after he left office.
One of our readers and frequent commenters—Joe Nathan— was elected to the Charter School Hall of Fame and will be honored at the National Charter Schools Conference. Joe helped to write the first charter law in the nation in Minnesota. He and Ted Kolderie ensured that charters would be deregulated and would not confirm to Albert Shanker’s template on unionized schools approved only by local school districts. Joe continues to insist that charters are “progressive,” even though their most important funders are the Walton Family Foundation (which funds Joe) and their biggest cheerleaders are the rightwing ALEC and Betsy DeVos.
Charters are in the midst of an existential crisis right now after years of boasting about unlimited growth. That growth has stalled, as Democrats distance themselves from charters. A backlash against charters and privatization is in full swing.
Part of that backlash stems from the daily drumbeat of charter scandals, especially the recent indictment of 11 people connected to an $80 million scam in California.
Here is the program of the National Charter Schools Conference.
NCSC will honor not only Joe, but Ferdinand Zulueta, who runs one of the largest for-profit charter chains in Florida, called Academica. The Zulueta Family has amassed a real estate fortune of more than $100 million, thanks to their business acumen and public funds.
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Peter Greene writes here about Betsy DeVos’s recent decision to roll back Obama-era regulations intended to protect students against predatory for-profit colleges.
Sadly, this is what we have come to expect from a Secretary of Education who is more interested in protecting the free market than protecting students against fraud.
Greene writes that DeVos rolled back
the Obama-era requirement that such schools either show that their graduates actually land jobs, or the school would lose access to all that sweet sweet federal money. That was a powerful piece of leverage, because the for-profit colleges focus on veterans and poor folks with the result that a great deal of the for profit college revenue stream comes from the feds, who loan to the students and pay off the schools, guaranteeing that the for-profits get paid and that the students are in hock to the feds.
Rolling back Obama-era protections is problematic because the Obama administration itself did a super-lousy job of riding herd on these predatory schools. At one point, having announced that they were now by golly going to clamp down those outfits, they turned around and bailed out one of the worst. Then, when that outfit collapsed anyway, the feds let them be sold off to a debt-collection agency.
It was after all that foolishness that the administration finally implemented a gainful employment rule. This was also followed by students scammed by the for-profit agitating to be released from their debts. The Department of Justice requested that the Department of Education simply release the portion of that debt that they held; they refused.
All of that happened before Trump ever descended the escalator to unleash havoc on US politics; it’s only fair to note that this is, in many ways, a mess that DeVos inherited and which the Obama administration never exactly showed signs of fixing.
Last week, DeVos was sued–again–by a boatload of students stranded in massive debt. The student position is that they were defrauded and their loans should be forgiven.
DeVos’s position about loan forgiveness has been to simply pretend to lose all the paperwork and never process any of the requests to have loans erased. Having ignored the rules for two years, DeVos last year tried to get rid of them, and this week she finally did it.
Hundreds of thousands of students who were defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges are on their own. Shameful.
In this post, Jan Resseger surveys the war against public schools in Florida.
Sue Legg summarized the abject failure of Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan here.
The drive to privatize public schools was masterminded by Jeb Bush, with the help of Betsy DeVos, a compliant Republican Legislature (including some who own or operate charter schools), and a zest to give public money to entrepreneurs and grifters.
Asshe points out, recent legislation requires school districts to share their tax levies with charter schools over which they have no control.
Privatization and school choice are rooted in the desire for profit and segregation.
Despite Jeb Bush’s propaganda campaign, his A+ Plan deserves an F-.
Bush, that educational genius, invented the idea of labeling schools with a single letter.
Floridians now treat school grades as normal, but only 15 states require them, mostly low-performing. states.
I have said it before and I was say it again: School grades are stupid. They are idiotic. Under Bloomberg as mayor, NYC had school grades for a few years. They were meaningless. The public school in my Brooklyn neighborhood was rated A one year; the Mayor and Joel Klein made a ceremonial visit to the school to congratulate the principal and staff. The next year it got a grade of F. Nothing had changed. Same principal, same staff.
If your child came home with a report card that had only one letter, you would be incensed. Why then should anyone accept a single letter grade for an institution with hundreds of staff and students and multiple programs?
School grades deserve an F. A truly dumb idea. No state should use them.
Education in Florida is a mess that is designed to benefit privateers and harm public schools.
