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Arizona: At Charter Schools, No One Responds to Parent Complaints, Part 1

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2019 //
14

 

The Arizona Republic recently won a Polk Award for its outstanding coverage of charter corruption.

Craig Harris, a member of the investigative team, writes here about how charters ignore parents’ complaints.

When a student is mistreated, there is no re ourse. The boarddoesnt care. It protects the school,not the student.

Students in charter schools have no rights.  The parents of the student in the incident described herewithdrew him from the school.

Harris writes:

“Evan George had finished his classes for the day and was hanging out with friends at American Leadership Academy’s Queen Creek campus, when two staff members approached and accused him of vaping.

“Evan, 16, says he was doing a trick with his mouth that produces a plume of moist air that resembles vapor from an electronic cigarette.

“His explanation didn’t convince the charter school’s staffers.

“Evan was ordered to the administration office, where Athletic Director Rich Edwards took him into a room and searched him, looking for a vape pen, which would have been a violation of school policy.

“He told me to take my pants down, and he put his fingers in my underwear,” said Evan, who is a junior. “I felt scared.”

“The search didn’t turn up a vaping device, according to records the school provided to the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.

“ALA still suspended Evan from school for eight days.

“His parents, Chris and Kimberlie George, said both the Dec. 11 search and the suspension were wrong.

“The athletic director inappropriately touched their son, they said. And the school suspended Evan without proof he’d had been vaping, even though their son’s only prior disciplinary issues were for wearing torn jeans and chewing gum, they said.

“But when the Georges sought an independent review of Evan’s suspension, they found they had nowhere to turn.

“Arizona’s charter schools are primarily run by private companies. They must have a governing board, but school owners get to pick who’s on the board, so many are stocked with relatives, friends and even the charter’s owner. In some instances, boards have just one member — the charter operator.

“American Leadership Academy Queen Creek student says he was strip searched over vape trick
16-year-old Evan George says he was strip searched in December 2018 after performing a trick that made it appear vapor was coming from his mouth.

“Beyond the school, parents can only turn to the state Charter Board. And regulators there, because of limited resources and limited authority, rarely investigate such complaints against schools, an Arizona Republic investigation shows.

“The result is a lack of independent oversight that leaves students and families at some charter schools, in disagreements big and small, with no recourse to challenge school officials’ actions — even if they think those moves inhibit their students’ academic progress or personal safety.

“ALA Queen Creek officials denied the Georges’ request for an appeal hearing before ALA’s Board of Directors, which is composed of friends of ALA founder Glenn Way.

“Evan was never afforded due process,” Chris George said. “He wasn’t able to speak to his accusers, and the dismissal hearing was a farce. There was no interest in what the truth was.”

The Arizona Republic has previously written about Glenn Way, the founder of this charter chain.

On July 11, 2018, the Arizona Republic described how Way has made millions of dollars through hischarter chain.

“When Glenn Way moved to the East Valley at the end of the Great Recession, he might have been looking for a fresh start.

“The charter school operator was deep in debt to the IRS, had sought bankruptcy protection, and recently resigned from the Utah Legislature after his wife filed a protective order against him, public records show.

“Arizona offered other opportunities for someone in his line of work: A more lightly regulated charter school industry that’s well-funded.

“At his American Leadership Academy, which he launched in June 2009, he promised students would find “the best educational experience … in a moral and wholesome environment.”

“Thanks partly to Arizona’s favorable charter school laws and lucrative no-bid contracts with ALA, Way would find new wealth.

“The schools, which have made patriotism central to their brand, including red, white or blue student apparel, have been a hit in the conservative East Valley. American Leadership — which bears the same name as a charter school Way and his wife, Shelina, operated in Spanish Fork, Utah — has over nine years grown to a dozen campuses with 8,354 students in Florence, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek and San Tan Valley.

“Way’s own development and finance companies bought the land and then built most of the school buildings. Then, they sold or leased them to American Leadership Academy, where Way, until last year, was board chairman.

“An Arizona Republic review of property records shows that during ALA’s nine-year expansion, businesses owned by or tied to Way made about $37 million on real estate deals associated with the schools — funded largely by the Arizona tax dollars allocated to his charter schools.

“Way disputes the profit figure, saying undisclosed capital costs tied to the campuses, such as street improvements, trimmed profits to $18.4 million. He did not provide documents to show a lower profit.

“But building and selling the schools weren’t the only ways he has profited. Another one of Way’s firms is paid at least $6 million a year to operate them under a contract with American Leadership, records show.

“An Arizona charter schools watchdog said regardless of the precise size of the multimillion-dollar profit, it’s clear that Way has profited handsomely — like other charter operators — using Arizona’s loose charter school laws.

RELATED: Basis attributes much of its success to Arizona’s laws

“Meanwhile, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools is investigating allegations of financial mismanagement at ALA.

“Way said there has been no wrongdoing.

“Charter schools were not designed for people to make a profit,” said Chuck Essigs, government relations director of the Arizona School Association of Business Officials.

“Way disagrees.

“The (charter school) law is silent on the question of profit, and for good reason. Arizona families will only benefit if more operators of quality charter schools are enticed to expand their offerings in our state,” said Way, who is building a home in Queen Creek valued at nearly $1 million.”

It must be the height of patriotism to get rich from public funding intended for schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Another For-Profit ”College” Chain Collapses, Students Left with Debt

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2019 //
6

 

Another for-profit chain of colleges has gone into bankruptcy and its students ar3 left holding the bag, loaded with debt and worthless degrees. Policing these institutions is the job of the Education Department. For years, the for-profit colllege Industry has hiredlobbyists from both parties to protect them.

 

The New York Times reports:

“When the Education Department approved a proposal by Dream Center, a Christian nonprofit with no experience in higher education, to buy a troubled chain of for-profit colleges, skeptics warned that the charity was unlikely to pull off the turnaround it promised.

“What they didn’t foresee was just how quickly and catastrophically it would fail.

“Barely a year after the takeover, dozens of Dream Center campuses are nearly out of money and may close as soon as Friday. More than a dozen others have been sold in the hope they can survive.

“The affected schools — Argosy University, South University and the Art Institutes — have about 26,000 students in programs spanning associate degrees in dental hygiene and doctoral programs in law and psychology. Fourteen campuses, mostly Art Institute locations, have a new owner after a hastily arranged transfer involving private equity executives. More than 40 others are under the control of a court-appointed receiver who has accused school officials of trying to keep the doors open by taking millions of dollars earmarked for students.

“The problems, arising amid the Trump administration’s broad efforts to deregulate the for-profit college industry, began almost immediately after Dream Center acquired the schools in 2017. The charity, started 25 years ago and affiliated with a Pentecostal megachurch in Los Angeles, has a nationwide network of outreach programs for problems like homelessness and domestic violence and said it planned to use the schools to fund its expansion.

“Now its students — many with credits that cannot be easily transferred — are stuck in a meltdown. On Wednesday, members of the faculty at Argosy’s Chicago and Northern Virginia campuses told students that they had been fired and instructed to remove their belongings. In Phoenix, an unpaid landlord locked students out of their classrooms. In California, a dean advised students two months away from graduation not to invite family to attend from out of town.

“In less than a month, everything I have worked for the past three years has been taken from me,” said Jayne Kenney, who is pursuing her doctorate in clinical psychology at Argosy’s Chicago campus. “I am also conscious of the fact that what seems like the swift fall of an ax in less than one month has in reality been festering for years.”

“The fall accelerated last week when the Education Department cut off federal student loan funds to Argosy after the court-appointed receiver said school officials had taken about $13 million owed to students at 22 campuses and used it for expenses like payroll. The students, who had borrowed extra money to cover things like rent and groceries, were forced to use food banks or skip classes for lack of bus fare.

“Lauren Jackson, a single mother seeking a doctorate at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, an Argosy school in Chicago, did not receive the roughly $10,000 she was due in January. She has been paying expenses for her and her 6-year-old daughter with borrowed money and GoFundMe donations.

“On Tuesday, after three months of not paying her rent, she received an eviction notice.

“I didn’t want to go home and tell my baby that Mommy may not be a doctor,” said Ms. Jackson, whose school could close Friday. “Now I don’t want to go home and tell her that we don’t have a home.”

‘Bad for Everyone’

“Led by Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Education Department has reversed an Obama-era crackdown on troubled vocational and career schools and allowed new and less experienced entrants into the field.

“The industry was on its heels, but they’ve been given new life by the department under DeVos,” said Eileen Connor, the director of litigation at Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending.

“Ms. DeVos, who invested in companies with ties to for-profit colleges before taking office, has made it an agency priority to unfetter for-profit schools by eliminating restrictions on them. She also allowed several for-profit schools to evade even those loosened rules by converting to nonprofits.

“That’s what Dream Center wanted to do when it asked to buy the remains of Education Management Corporation.

“Education Management, once the nation’s second-largest for-profit college operator, was struggling for survival after an investigation into its recruiting tactics resulted in a $200 million settlement in 2015. Despite those troubles, it had 65,000 students, and some of its schools maintained strong reputations.

“Dream Center is connected to Angelus Temple, which was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist once portrayed by Faye Dunaway in a TV movie, “The Disappearance of Aimee.” It is affiliated with the Foursquare Church, an evangelical denomination with outposts in 146 countries.

“Buying a chain of schools “aligns perfectly with our mission, which views education as a primary means of life transformation,” Randall Barton, the foundation’s managing director, said when Dream Center announced its plan.

“But Dream Center had never run colleges. It hired a team including Brent Richardson, who worked on the conversion of Grand Canyon University to a nonprofit as its chairman, to lead the schools’ corporate parent, Dream Center Education Holdings. He stepped down in January.

“Alarms were ringing from the moment the takeover was proposed. Dream Center’s effort to buy the failing ITT Technical Institutes schools had fallen apart after resistance from the Obama administration. When it asked to buy Education Management’s schools, consumer groups, members of Congress and some regional accreditors raised concerns.

“But in late 2017, Ms. DeVos’s agency gave preliminary approval to Dream Center’s plan.

“Almost immediately, the organization discovered the schools were in worse shape than expected, with aging facilities and outdated technology. The universities “were, on the whole, failing without hope for redemption,” the receiver wrote in a court filing last month.

“Dream Center had anticipated a $30 million profit in its first year, Mr. Barton wrote in a recent legal filing. Instead, it was facing a $38 million loss.

“And Dream Center showed little inclination to curb the tactics that got Education Management in trouble, like misleading students about their employment prospects. The executives it installed cultivated a high-pressure culture in which profit surpassed all other concerns, according to a report filed last year by Thomas J. Perrelli, the court-appointed monitor overseeing the schools’ compliance with their state settlements.

“By the end of 2018, Dream Center was facing eviction on at least nine campuses and owed creditors more than $40 million, and Education Department officials scrambled to plan for what looked like an imminent implosion.

“We know all too well that precipitous school closures are bad for everyone involved and leave too many students high and dry,” said Liz Hill, an agency spokeswoman. “Teams of people at the department have been working tirelessly on behalf of students — caught up in this situation through no fault of their own — with the singular goal in mind to ensure as many students as possible had options to complete their education.”“The way they presented the receivership was that it would be beneficial to the students, but it’s actually been detrimental,” said Marina Awed, a student at an Argosy school in California, Western State College of Law, who was scheduled to graduate in two months. “It shouldn’t be this easy to defraud the Department of Education.”

Disgraceful.

Categories Accountability, For-Profit, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Utah: Expose of Legislators Who Are Cashing in on the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2019 //
21

This report from television station KUTV in Salt Lake City points out a bizarre contradiction in Charter World.

Plenty of legislators are cashing in on charter schools

In Utah:

State Sen. Lincoln Fillmore (Dist. 10) is one of the foremost experts on charter schools in the state legislature. That makes sense given that he runs Charter Solutions, a company that from 2015 to 2018 has collected $5.7 million in fees from charter schools.

That is taxpayer money given to those charter schools. As many as 23 different charter schools have hired Fillmore’s company to help them administer their curriculum and take care of back office activities like payroll and human resources.

Fillmore says although he does field questions from lawmakers regarding charter schools, he never sponsors legislation that affects them.

He told 2News:

I’m fully transparent, my job, (as a lawmaker) the law requires all citizen legislators to fill out a conflict of interest disclosure. But I take the additional step of telling my constituents that I don’t run charter school bills

Critics say Fillmore doesn’t need to run legislation. He is the “go-to” voice in the legislature when it comes to charter schools.

In a Beyond the Books investigation, video of Fillmore was found during the second to last day of the legislature last year with him speaking on charter school legislation.

He wasn’t the sponsor of House Bill 231, or even the co-sponsor, but when lawmakers had questions about the bill, he was the one providing the answers.

Beyond the Books wanted to find out if lawmakers’ affiliations with charter schools affects their votes on legislation. A lengthy list of former and current lawmakers who currently sit, or used to sit, on the boards of individual charter schools was discovered.

They include:

  • Former House Speaker Greg Hughes, who is on the board of Summit Academy.
  • Senate President Stuart Adams, who is on the board of Assent Academies.
  • Rep. Kim Coleman is founder and director of Monticello Academy.
  • Former lawmakers Curt Oda, Chris Herrod, Matt Throckmorton, and Merlynn Newbold all sit or sat on the board of Utah Military Academy.
  • Former lawmaker Rob Muhlestein runs Harmony Education Services.
  • Former State Sen. Mark Madsen sat on the board of American Leadership Academy.
  • Howard Stephenson, who is considered the father of Utah Charter Schools because he sponsored the bill allowing for charter schools, says he does sit on a charter school board but resisted all offers until this year.
  • Sen. Jerry Stevenson, is on the board of Career Path High. His son, Jed Stevenson, is also part owner of Academica West with former state Sen. Sheldon Killpack, who resigned from the senate after he was arrested for DUI 8 years ago. Academica West has helped to build, design and manage 17 Utah charter schools. Stevenson says he never talks to his son, or his friend, Killpack, about business, even though the board of Career Path High meets at the Academica West offices. He said: “The only thing we do hold our board meetings (Career Path High) in their office building (Academica West), but they’re (Killpack, Jed Stevenson) not in attendance.”

Beyond the Books also compiled a list of lawmakers dating back to the early 2000’s who made millions off of charter schools while they were members of the legislature.

Former Reps. Glenn Way, Jim Ferrin and Mike Morley where in business together helping to build and run charter schools. The wife of Rep. Eric Hutchings, Stacey, runs Career Path High.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Utah

How Charter Operators Exploit Legal Loopholes to Rake in Profits

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2019 //
7

 

This is an important article by three scholars. Derek Black of the University of South Carolina, Bruce Baker of Rutgers University, and Preston Green of the University of Connecticut. Please open the link to read it all.

 

https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-exploit-lucrative-loophole-that-would-be-easy-to-close-111792

 

While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.

Charter school supporters are reluctant to acknowledge, much less stop, these practices.

Given that charter schools are growing rapidly – from 1 million students in 2006 to more than 3.1 million students attending approximately 7,000 charter schools now – shining a light on these practices can’t come too soon. The first challenge, however, is simply understanding the complex space in which charters operate – somewhere between public and private.

Unregulated competition

Charters were founded on the theory that market forces and competition would benefit public education. But policy reports and local government studies increasingly reveal that the charter school industry is engaging in the type of business practices that have led to the downfall of other huge industries and companies.

Charter schools regularly sign contracts with little oversight, shuffle money between subsidiaries and cut corners that would never fly in the real world of business or traditional public schools – at least not if the business wanted to stay out of bankruptcy and school officials out of jail. The problem has gotten so bad that a nationwide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education warned in a 2016 audit report that the charter school operations pose a serious “risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and lack “accountability.”

Self-dealing

The biggest problem in charter school operations involves facility leases and land purchases. Like any other business, charters need to pay for space. But unlike other businesses, charters too often pay unreasonably high rates – rates that no one else in the community would pay.

One of the latest examples can be found in a January 2019 report from the Ohio auditor-general, which revealed that in 2016 a Cincinnati charter school paid $867,000 to lease its facilities. This was far more than the going rate for comparable facilities in the area. The year before, a Cleveland charter was paying half a million above market rate, according to the same report.

Why would a charter school do this? Most states require charter schools to be nonprofit. To make money, some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that they also own. These companies do make money off students.

In other words, some “nonprofit” charter schools take public money and pay their owners with it. When this happens, it creates an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.

Millions of public dollars at stake

The Cincinnati and Cleveland charters are prime examples of this perverse incentive structure. In both cases, the Ohio report showed, the charters were leasing property from the subsidiaries of the charter school operators.

In fact, these and other similar subsidiaries were leasing facilities to several other charters in the state. These charters spent twice as much on rent as others in the state.

Thomas Kelley, a law professor specializing in nonprofit law, unearthed similar problems in North Carolina, where charter school management companies obtain “ownership of valuable properties using public funds” and then charge the nonprofit charter schools rent far in excess of what is necessary to cover the cost of acquiring and maintaining the facilities. Because of the self-dealing, he questioned whether the charters actually qualify for nonprofit status under federal law.

The windfalls from these self-dealing practices can be sizable. In Arizona, Glenn Way, a former state legislator, has made about $37 million selling and leasing real estate to a chain of charter schools that he founded and, until recently, directed as chairman of the board, according to local reporting.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Hoax, Privatization

Peter Greene: Republicans Plan to Eliminate Public Schools in Florida

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2019 //
35

Peter Greene paints an ugly picture of the dominant forces of privatization in Florida and their plans to destroy public education and share the spoils.

He begins by asking these questions:

Here are two not-entirely-academic questions:

Is it possible to end public education in an entire state?

Can Florida become any more hostile to public education than it already is?

Newly-minted Governor Ron DeSantis and a wild cast of privatization cronies seem to answer a resounding “yes” to both questions.

The trick they play is to say that anything funded by the public, no matter who owns it, runs it, or uses it, is “public,” by definition.

Florida has become a playground for for-profit entrepreneurs and religious zealots, and the new governor Ron DeSantis is on their team.

He describes the leaders of a group that calls itself the “School Choice Movement,” and they are people who never give a moment’s thought to the public interest or the common good.

There is a lot of dirty politics in the Sunshine State, and a good deal of money to line someone’s pockets. Up until now, the courts have blocked the goals of the privatizers, which directly violate the state constitution. But Governor DeSantis just replaced some of those pesky judges to get the courts out of his way.

Greene writes:

Calling charter schools public creates a nice batch of smoke and mirrors, allowing DeSantis and his cronies to privatize giant chunks of Florida’s school system while still proclaiming, “No need to worry. You still have public schools!” You could completely shift the education system to privately owned and operated schools while still reassuring parents, taxpayers, and, perhaps, courts, that you haven’t done a thing because it’s still all public schools.

It’s not just marketing. It’s stealing the Mona Lisa and hanging up a Polaroid picture of the painting in its place. It’s kidnapping your spouse and replacing them with an inflatable doll. It is a gaslighting of epic proportions.

In the meantime, Florida taxpayers, you probably should not try to just stroll into the public governor’s mansion you paid for or borrow one of those public vehicles that you bought for officials to drive around in (especially don’t try to commandeer a public army tank). Instead, I would keep a close eye on your public schools while you’ve still got them. And if it’s already too late in your county, don’t be sad– your loss of public education has at least made some of your leaders really wealthy.

And the rest of us need to pay attention, too. Remember– Betsy DeVos is among the many people who think Florida is an educational exemplar.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: The Real Reason DeVos Tried to Fire the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2019 //
11

The Inspector General in every federal department is supposed to be an independent watchdog, a maintainer of high ethical standards and legal propriety.

Betsy DeVos tried to fire the ED Inspector General, and it didn’t go well.

Jan Resseger explains what happened here.

Now, however, it turns out that DeVos’s motive for trying to fire Sandra Bruce was far more suspicious than just an attempt to hire someone who would protect the pet projects of the Department. It looks as though DeVos tried to fire Sandra Bruce because, as part of her job as Inspector General, Bruce was investigating DeVos’s reinstatement last November of Departmental approval for a shady accrediting agency of for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Late in 2015, The Obama Department of Education had removed approval of ACICS as a federal accreditor of for-profit colleges.

As usual, Resseger gets to the heart of the matter.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Ethics, For-Profit, U.S. Department of Education

Denis Smith Warns West Virginia: Avoid Charter Schools!

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2019 //
2

 

Teachers across the state of West Virginia walked out last spring. Every school in the state was closed until the teachers got a 5% pay raise and other concessions. Among them, the governor promised to block charter legislation.

Now the Republican dominated legislature is moving forward with legislation for charters, vouchers, and cybercharters. One assumes this is punishment for last year’s actions.

Denis Smith warns the legislators and people of West Virginia that the legislation is an invitation to waste, fraud, abuse, theft, and grifters. 

He writes:

In the last several days, I took some time to examine Senate Bill 451 and its provisions for establishing charter schools in West Virginia. My interest in doing so was based on my previous service as a school administrator in the state, as well as 11 years of experience in Ohio as an administrator for a charter school authorizer and as a consultant in the charter school office of the Ohio Department of Education.

It is this experience in both public education and the charter school environment that allows me to urge West Virginia citizens to do everything possible to halt this odious legislation.

After more than 20 years of growth nationally, it is noteworthy that some of the trend lines for charters are on the decline. This experiment with deregulation has resulted in massive corruption, fraud and diminished learning opportunities for young people.

As a state monitor, I observed a number of incompetent people serve as charter school administrators because Ohio state law has no minimum educational requirements nor any professional licensing prerequisites for school leaders.

In addition, numerous conflicts-of-interest, including a board member serving as landlord and management companies charging exorbitant rents for properties conveniently used for charter schools, are only part of the problem of the charter experiment.

In Ohio, where charters have operated for 20 years, the trend line is down significantly. From a high point of more than 400 schools, 340 are operating today. Moreover, there is a junk pile of failed charters that have closed. The Ohio Department of Education website lists 292 schools that are shuttered, with some closing in mid-year, disrupting the lives of students and their families. Moreover, total charter school enrollment in the state is down by more than 16,000 students since 2013, the peak year of charter operations in the Buckeye State.

The West Virginia omnibus measure allows online schools to operate, as does Ohio and other states. But last year, Ohio’s Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, one of the largest e-schools in the country, closed amid scandal, where the owner and his administrators funneled millions of dollars in donations to friendly state legislators while padding enrollment numbers to gain state education payments.

In my home state of Pennsylvania, there is also a growing scandal involving an online school. The West Virginia Legislature has not heeded these lessons to be learned from its neighboring states that have been in the troubled charter school business for decades.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools, West Virginia

Despite Charter Failure in Michigan, DeVos Awards $47 Million to Her State for More

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2019 //
24

Over the past decade, Michigan has become a national symbol of charter failure. As choice expanded, public school funding declined. Michigan’s NAEP scores fell from the middle of the pack to the bottom 10. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters operate for profit. Most charters are concentrated inDetroit, which is the lowest performing urban district in The nation.

Betsy DeVos Just awarded $47 million to Michigan to open more charters.

Why does she stay Ina job when she has become a laughing stock? Because Congress gives her more than $400 million to hand out to charters.

 

Help Guide the Launch, Expansion & Replication of Great Charters!


The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) was recently awarded a $47 million Charter Schools Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The main goal of the grant is to award subgrants up to $1,250,000 to applicants that are prepared and ready to successfully launch, expand or replicate innovative and effective schools that will provide quality options for underserved populations.

To help accomplish this goal, the MDE has engaged the National Charter Schools Institute to assemble and coordinate a team of experienced and highly skilled professionals to serve on three-person application review teams. 


Each reviewer will be responsible for analyzing up to four applications and calibrating their individual assessment with those of their three-person review team, so a consensus report containing constructive feedback can be provided to each applicant prior to submitting their official grant application to MDE. 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Funding, Michigan, Privatization

Chicago: Dollars for Teachers, Milliions for Charter Operator

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2019 //
6

 

News from Chicago Teachers Union:

 

Charter operator CICS would rather spend public dollars on scabs than on student needs.
That’s wrong – and we can do something about it.

We learned this weekend that the management of CICS – Chicago International Charter Schools – has made arrangements to hire in scabs to break a planned Tuesday strike for smaller classes and no cuts to student programs, social workers or counselors. CICS bosses are currently sitting on $36 million in hoarded public dollars – more than half ‘invested’ with a company owned by its co-founder. Yet it says it doesn’t have a penny to provide to classrooms or student needs.

This is wrong, and you can help stop it!

This is wrong, and you can help stop it!

We’ve been bargaining for months with this greedy operator for living wages for our paraprofessionals – some of whom have masters degrees yet earn barely $30,000/year. Management has offered low-wage teachers an 8% raise for the first year of a new contract, but only if we agree to cuts in social workers, counselors and student programs – and throw paras under the bus by agreeing to a 1% ‘raise’ that doesn’t even keep pace with the inflation rate.

CICS siphons off close to 30% of public dollars it collects for top management costs and ‘reserve’ funds. CICS’ CEO Elizabeth Shaw earns more than $230,000 a year to run 14 schools – almost as much as CPS CEO Janice Jackson earns to run more than 500 schools. This is naked management greed, and it comes at the expense of students, their families and our school communities. Take action, join us and say no to CICS’ scheme to put management greed ahead of student needs.
Chicago Teachers Union • 1901 W. Carroll Ave.• Chicago, IL 60612 • 312-329-9100
www.ctulocal1.org
for the schools Chicago’s students deserve

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Florida: Legislator Introduces Bill to Ban For-Profit Charters

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2019 //
14

 

State Senator Janet Cruz introduced a bill to ban for-profit charters in Florida. Nearly half the charters in the state operate for profit. They give campaign contributions to key legislators. They are related to legislators. Senator Cruz is a brave woman.

The League of Women Voters supports her bill.

So does government watchdog Integrity Florida.

Itwill beipposed by Academica, Charter Schools USA, and Imagine, the big for-profit chains. It will be opposed by Jeb Bush, Governor DeSantis, and Betsy DeVos. It will beopposed by profiteers and grifters.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit
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