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Indiana: State Tries to Recover $40 Million from Virtual Charter Frauds

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2019 //
15

 

Indiana is one of the state’s that has been all in for choice. One of the choices pushed by former governors Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence is Virtual Charter Schools. These are online schools that allegedly enroll home-schoolers or students who prefer not to attend a Brick-and-mortar school.

Study after study has found that these online schools have high attrition, low test scores, and low graduation rates. However they are very profitable since their operators are paid far more than their actual costs.

The name of their game is enrollment, since their costs decline as enrollment grows, and they must constantly replace those who drop out.

Unfortunately, the incidence of fraud is high since the online schools are seldom auidited.

Indiana is currently trying to recover $40 million from two online charter corporations and their authorizer, which was stolen by inflating enrollments.

Indiana will try to claw back around $40 million from two virtual charter schools and the public school district charged with overseeing them after an investigation found the charters inflated student enrollment counts and defrauded the state for the last three years.

Daleville Community Schools is the charter authorizer, charged with oversight, for Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy. A state audit found that the schools inflated their enrollment counts, which are used to determine how much money the schools receive from the state.

A report, provided by Daleville, showed that hundreds of students counted in the online schools rolls were never assigned a single class. In the 2016-17 school year, 740 students took no classes in the first semester and 1,048 took no classes in the second semester. 

Many students were re-enrolled by the school, even after they had left. In at least one case, the school re-enrolled a deceased student, said State Examiner Paul Joyce.

Joyce told the State Board of Education at its meeting Wednesday that the schools’ action could be considered criminal.

Is it a novel idea to treat the theft of millions of dollars as “criminal?” That certainly did not happen in Ohio, where the operator of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) closed his doors rather than repay the state some $60 million in inflated charges. Over the years, ECOT collected nearly $1 billion, and there were no audits or efforts to recapture public funds until the past year. No criminal charges either.

You know the old saying: If you steal a fortune, you are treated as a gentleman, if you steal a loaf of bread, you go to jail.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Indiana, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

BREAKING NEWS: Former Secretary of Education for Puerto Rico Arrested!

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2019 //
13

 

In a major corruption investigation, the FBI arrested former Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher in DC. 

Keleher was brought to the Island to cut costs, impose charters and vouchers, and break the union. She was paid $250,000 a year while preaching austerity and budget cuts.

Puerto Rican educators did not like her, to put it mildly. They referred to her with the hashtag #JuliaGoHome.

Puerto Rican journalist #RimaBrusi tweeted that the new hashtag is #JuliaGoToJail

The charges include wire fraud, money laundering, and theft.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Education Reform, Fraud, Privatization, Puerto Rico

Tom Ultican: How Charter Operators Scammed $50 Million (or More) from California

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2019 //
11

 

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.

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

G.F. Brandenburg on the Strange Case of the D.C. Editorialist Who Still Loves Michelle Rhee

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2019 //
21

 

G.F. Brandenburg cannot understand the Washington Post editorial writer Jo-Anne Armao. When Michelle Rhee started her job as chancellor of the D.C. schools in 2007, Armao interviewed her and decided that she was the greatest educator ever. Nothing that has happened in the past dozen years has changed her views. To this day, she still writes lovingly, respectfully about the Miracle that was Michelle Rhee. All her initiatives have failed. A huge cheating scandal was covered up and forgotten. Charter scandals have come and gone. A high school boasted of its 100% graduation rate, but it was a fake.

No matter. The Washington Post editorial board has Rhee’s back, almost a decade after she left.

For a fun trip down memory lane, read the comments on the John Merrow post from 2013 that is included.

Categories Accountability, Cheating, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Disruption, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Fraud, Rhee, Michelle

Angie Sullivan: The Great Charter Scam in Nevada

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2019 //
8

 

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

Red Queen in LA: Deciphering the Charter Chaos and Shape-Shifting

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2019 //
6

 

This is another brilliant post by Sara Roos, known as Red Queen in LA.

She read the report of the leaked emails among charter advocates. She notes their double talk, their rhetorical legerdemain, their organizations that pop up like mushrooms, then morph into new organizations.

Behind this seeming chaos is a steady purpose: to disrupt and destroy public education.

Behind the chaos is the steady flow of millions from the billionaires who despise the commons.

The connect between the chaos and the billionaires are outstretched hands for hire.

She begins:

Charter schools in California band together as an embattled group, agitating for hostile takeover of the Public Commons. They serially convene, dissolve and reform a plethora of working groups to bombard public schools with “messaging” and disinformation.  The groups as well as charters themselves of course, drain resources from schools, necessitating capital (monetary and human) defending what should be protected by the people, for the people.

One of these itinerant ideologues is Ben Austin, founder of the “Parent Trigger”, who in 2014 resigned from his astroturf group to foment a new one, Kids Coalition. A collection of emailsmade public by the municipal-transparency site michaelkolhaas.org uncovered a set of strategies developed among this cabal, reported by Howard Blume at the LATimes hereand here.

The collusion, as one of them explains elsewhere, is “all about the messaging”. And the message revealed in aggregate over 5000+ emails, lays out a very stark code-shift. The catchy phrase, “kids first”, is a logical fallacy. Iterated unceasingly by charter advocates, it simultaneously casts aspersions on a presumed alternative (‘a time or place when kids were not first’) even while kids in schools have always been “first”. But consistent with the ideology of long-standing and now charter-mega-fundersKoch and Walton (among others), that term “kids first” effectively codes for “anti-union”. Because if formerly it were true that kids were not first, it would be the fault of the system that transposed their status, their teacher’s union. ‘If the proper order of kids is not upheld, it must be the fault of their teachers’ is the sly message.

Likewise there is a constant drum-beat against “bureaucracy” and “adult issues” but that too is simply code for “anti-regulation”. Charter schools aren’t really about finding a better way around bureaucracy. It is reviled incessantly, but the rules they denounce are precepts of democratic transparency, safety, efficiency, equity – cumbersome perhaps but the tenets of our republic. Instead the path they forge is of non-accountability: government funding without regulation. And this, even while the maxim “another day another charter school scandal” has been commonplace for decadesnow.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization

Peter Greene: DeVos Puts Profits Over Students (Are You Surprised?)

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2019 //
10

 

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.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Corruption, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education

Carol Burris: Federal Charter School Program is a Slush Fund

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2019 //
12

 

Back in March 2019, Carol Burris and Jeff Bryant released a study of the federal Charter Schools Program on behalf of the Network for Public Education.. That study, “Asleep at the Wheel,” found that about a third of the charters that received federal grants in the $440 million program either never opened or closed soon after opening. The amount of money wasted was about $1 billion over several years. The Department of Education failed to monitor wherevthe Money was going and how it was spent.

Burris has been analyzing states that received federal charter money and has concluded that the initial estimates were understated. In the states she has reviewed, 40% of the charters were failures. Some had no name. Some were not even charters.

The extent of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal CSP is appalling, as is the ED department’s failure to pay attention to where the money goes.

The initial impulse for the CSP, created during the Clinton administration, was to jumpstart innovation. Now, it is a slush fund for Friends of Betsy and a ready supplier of millions to big corporate charter chains like KIPP (which recently got a federal check for $86 million) and IDEA (which has collected $225 million in two years). Neither of these corporate behemoths are start-ups. Neither is needy.

Congress should eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program. It feels no need, other than greed.

Next time you meet a candidate at a town hall, ask him or her if they will pledge to eliminate this wasteful slush fund.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Ohio: More Charter Scandals Running on STEAM

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2019 //
4

Bill Phillis writes about Ohio’s connection to the biggest charter school heist in history (so far):

 

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More about the STEAM charters that have connections with the individuals indicted in California for an $80 million charter fraud
Five STEAM charters were “licensed” to operate in Ohio. Two of them, sponsored by Ohio Council of Community Schools, closed after a short period (2 years for one and 4 years for the other.)
Three STEAM charters are still in business as follows:
·       STEAM Academy of Warrensville Heights sponsored by Ohio Council of Community Schools
·       STEAM Academy of Akron sponsored by the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation
·       STEAM Academy of Warren sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education
Three of 11 individuals indicted in California for an $80 million charter fraud case have direct connections to the STEAM charter business enterprise in Ohio.
Other Ohio charter operations have been connected to charter operators indicted in other states. Several months ago some charter operators indicted for charter fraud in Florida had Ohio charter connections. The deregulated charter environment attracts people that relish the possibility of a quick buck.
The Ohio Department of Education and the two other sponsors should initiate an investigation into the operation of STEAM charters in Ohio.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
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Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Bill Phillis: Stop Online Theft of Public Funds

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2019 //
3

Ohio experienced the collapse of ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) earlier this year, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars meant for instruction.

California recently indicted 11 people in the theft of more than $50 million connected to online charter schools, padding their enrollments with ghost students.

Bill Phillis of Ohio has a suggestion.

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No reason for online charters to be paid as much per student as brick and mortar schools
The charter industry is replete with concepts, conditions and practices that defy logic. A really bizarre practice in Ohio is funding online charters on the same basis as brick and mortar schools.
Online charters are cash cows for companies like the defunct ECOT, K12 Inc., etc. Online charters don’t typically provide such programs and services as:
·       Transportation
·       Facilities
·       Food service
·       Athletics and co-curricular activities
·   Variety of school personnel such as librarians, nurses, social workers, etc.
There are no state standards regarding teacher/student ratios for online charters. Reports from former online charter employees indicate some online teachers have up to 200 students.
Some Ohio public officials have expressed serious concerns about the funding formula for online charters, but efforts to address the matter have been ignored and/or delayed. Until Ohio officials figure out how to fund online charters, the amount paid to these charters should be cut in half. School expenditure data collected by the Ohio Department of Education could be analyzed to demonstrate the need to reduce per student funding to online charters.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
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Categories California, Education Reform, Fraud, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools
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