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Sue M. Legg Sends an Even Better Post about Erik Fresen and His Likelihood of Going to to Jail

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2017 //
4

Well, this is a new one for me. After I posted Sue Legg’s piece about Erik Fresen, Sue contacted me and told me she had mistakenly sent me her notes, not the finished post.

So, here is the finished post. I must admit. It reads better. And there is a picture of Erik Fresen.

It begins like this:

Remember Representative Fresen, whose sister Magdalena Fresen is Vice President of Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit charter management company? He term limited out of the legislature this year. His next step is to go to jail?

Ethics Florida Style: Go Directly to Jail

The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state. Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida was rated an ‘F’ on ethics enforcement agencies. It appears there are rules that are easy to bend and break.

Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub-committee on Appropriations, and a former property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.

Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period, his House financial record disclosures do not match the IRS income reports. This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.

I just noticed that the words “For-Profit,” “Florida,” and “Fraud” are consecutive in my list of categories. Kind of like “Testing” and “Texas.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Sue M. Legg: Will Erik Fresen Go to Jail? Is Charter Corruption in Florida Out of Control?

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2017 //
10

Sue M. Legg, education director of the Florida League of Women Voters, wrote the following post about the current situation in Florida, which is reaching a critical point. The legislature just passed a bill that showers favors and funding on the state’s charter industry, which has a poor academic and financial record. Scandal and profiteering are commonplace in the charter sector of Florida, yet there is never any accountability demanded by the legislature or the governor.

Legg writes:

Not a surprise that Erik Fresen removed the charter reform measures that Senator Gaetz included in SB 7029. Instead there is a hodge podge of new proposals attacking public schools. It all should finish today. Hopefully, the Senate will stand firm. Perhaps the best outcome is that nothing will pass.

Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida received a total grade of ‘C-‘ which was better than that of many states. Internal auditing rules received an ‘A’, but ethics enforcement agencies rated an ‘F’. It sounds like we have rules but we bend and break them.

The legislature must address the problems and dispel the perception expressed in the media that its members are “too cozy with charter schools.” We know where that concern originates:

• Senator Legg, Chair of the Education Committee operates a charter school with his wife.

• Representative Marlene O’Toole is a representative from The Villages whose charter school just dismissed 140 students. While she does not appear to be a board member, she is employed by a private educational foundation Take Stock in Children, and is cited for conflict of interest in voting for millions of dollars in funding for it.

• Rep. Erik Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, a for-profit charter management firm. He is Chair of the House subcommittee for Education Appropriations.

• Representative Manny Diaz and Senator Anitere Flores run Doral College, an online dual enrollment school that is operated by Academica and funded by its charter high schools student enrollments and a transfer of $400,000 from Doral Academy, a charter school.

One of the worst stories involves a $400,000 ‘loan’ from Doral Academy to Doral College, a non accredited college started on the grounds of Doral Academy charter high school. The idea is to enroll high school students in dual enrollment courses at the college, taught by the charter high school teachers. Evidently, only students from these Academica run charters can enroll. Academica is under federal investigation. The students earn credit that cannot be transferred to any accredited school. The college earns money. Who is involved?

• Manny Diaz, Chair Florida House Sub Committee on Choice and Innovation. Representative Diaz is the dean of Doral College in Miami. Bob Sykes alleges there are other conflicts of interest.

• Senator Anitere Flores, Chair Senate Fiscal Policy Committee, member Senate Appropriations Committee, CEO of Academica affiliated Doral College

• Representative Erik Fresen. Chair of the House Education sub committee on Appropriations. Employee of Civica, a real estate company associated with Academica.
Rep. Fresen was named in the federal investigation due to a potential conflict of interest. He served on the board of an Academica charter school and approved a contract to his real estate firm. He currently has added an amendment to the House version of the charter school bill that would allocate part of local taxes for public school capital outlay funds to charter school facilities. No charges have been filed on that measure.

Fresen earns $150,000 from Civica that specializes in charter school construction. Sponsored a bill to share capital outlay with charters

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article60512891.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1963142.html US DOE found that 3 Mater charter schools signed lease payments with Academica while Zulueta was on the Mater Board.

USDOE audit found at least 4 related party transactions while Fresen was employed at Civica between 2007-2012.

Ethics complaint filed against Fresen in 2011 because of a voting conflict on HB 7195 that prohibited cities and counties from imposing stricter building and zoning rules on charters than on public schools

Affect all charter schools not just him. Change in ethics laws ‘class’

2013 refused to pay a fine for failingto file financial disclosure in 2003
http://wlrn.org/post/ethics-commission-refuses-close-complaints-against-miami-lawmaker

2014 Neighborhood Strategies put out of business in 2009, but Fresen reported on his financial disclosure form that he collected $10,000 per year since 2010

In 2012, Ethics Commission found that From 2008 to 2011 Fresen failed to properly disclose his net worth assets and liabilities

2017 Plead guilty to failure to file income tax return for eight years. Was in office 2008-2016. Faces up to a year in prison. Owes $100,000 in back taxes. Financial disclosure forms and income tax owed do not match

Paid a $10,000 fine for failure to report campaign reports in 2008-9

Ethel Fresen was an ESE teacher at Somerset until 2008.

Magdalena Fresen is Academica vice president

George Levesque House General Counsel cleared Fresen of conflict of interest even though he filed the notification form nine days after he voted. HP 7195 http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2011/10/ethics-commission-clears-miami-rep-erik-fresen-of-alleged-voting-conflict.html

Academica lease costs were 16.9% compared to 12.2% of total expenses for other charters. Nine schools’ leases exceeded 20% of revenue of schools in 2010.

Mater Academy Inc. tutoring company received $380,000 from Miami Dade and Broward Counties. Fresen amended a bill in 2012 to protect private tutoring companies and then in 2013 was embarrassed by the fraud exposed and opposed the continuation of funding.
****
The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state.

Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Ethics enforcement agencies rated Florida an ‘F’. It sounds like there are rules, but we bend and break them.

Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub committee on Appropriations, and a property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.
Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period his financial record disclosures required by the House do not match the IRS income reports.

This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.

For example:

• In 2003, he failed to file a financial disclosure form and was cited in 2013 for non payment of the fee.

• In 2009, he paid a $10,000 fine for failure to report campaign reports.

• In 2011, an ethics complaint was filed in 2011 because of a voting conflict on a bill benefitting charter school building and zoning requirements. The complaint was dismissed by the House attorney, George Levesque. He is married to Patricia Levesque who is the C.E.O. of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education that promotes school choice nationwide.

• In 2012, the Ethics Commission found that from 2008 to 2011 Fresen failed to properly disclose his net worth assets and liabilities.

• In 2012, Fresen was criticized for a last minute amendment to protect private tutoring companies that included one owned by Academica, and then in 2013 was embarrassed by the fraud exposed and told by House leadership to oppose the continuation of funding.

• In 2014, Fresen reported large income amounts annually from Neighborhood Strategies, Fresen’s business. The State had closed the company in 2009.

• In 2014, he was named as part of a federal investigation of Academica. A USDOE audit found at least 4 related party transactions while Fresen was employed at Civica between 2007-2012. Academica made a $400,000 ‘loan’ from Doral Academy to Doral College, a non accredited college started on the grounds of Doral Academy charter high school. High school students were dual enrolled in the college and taught by their charter high school teachers.

This year, House Speaker Corcoran made a promise to improve ethics. Curbing profiteering in charters is not among his priorities. Bills from the Senate do not make it out of House committees.

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

Florida: The Great Hijacking of Taxpayer Money Escalates!

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2017 //
4

From Sandy Stenoff of Opt Out Florida:


We are “all hands on deck” in Florida and would greatly appreciate all the help we can get. Please feel free to share this e-mail.

Dear Public Education allies,

Florida’s 2.8 million public school children need your help now.

Both the Budget and HB 7069, the Conforming bill, which contains an inappropriate number of policies and barely vetted concepts, will face an up/down vote in both the House and the Senate Monday afternoon.

We are fighting a monumental disaster of a bill in Florida. Please help in any way that you can. It is a dire situation. We are not exaggerating. There have been any number of bills in Florida this session purporting to mandate “fewer better tests.” A lot of dirty strategic and technical maneuverings on the part of the reformers has finally resulted in HB7069 a massive charter bill, the worst we have ever seen.

From two Florida superintendents on the direction of these mandates:

http://livesite-prd-2.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/pasco-school-superintendent-the-legislatures-spending-plan-will/2322920

Sup. Vitti to Senate: Reject HB 5105 “Schools of Hope”

URGENT ACTION

Kathleen Oropeza of Fund Education Now has prepared these action alerts for easy sharing – explaining the meat of the bills. These links are critical to share as they will take folks to the action to reach the legislators.
http://bit.ly/2pSGNEZ

Tell the Senate to Vote NO on HB 7069 – The Worst List of Education Policies Ever

If you are writing your own message about HB 7069, here’s a link directly to the Take Action portion so they can send personalized letters http://bit.ly/2qDZIo0: Senators; Vote NO on the Conforming Bill/HB 7069

We will be tweeting with hashtags

#StopHB7069
#Vote4PublicEd
#forthechildren

Legislator contacts:
http://m.flsenate.gov/about/contact
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/myrepresentative.aspx

Public schools won’t win this fight without you.

Thank you for your help and support.

Sincerely,

Sandy Stenoff
The Opt Out Florida Network
#OptOut for a PublicEdRevolution

“…standardized tests are not like the weather, something to which we must resign ourselves. . . .
They are not a force of nature, but a force of politics- and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed.

Teachers, parents, and students can turn their frustration into action and successfully turn back the testing juggernaut in order to create classrooms that focus on learning.”
Alfie Kohn – The Case Against Standardized Testing, 2000

On Apr 24, 2017, at 1:34 PM, Monty Neill wrote:

Hi everyone.
Testing season is well under way or ended in many places. So, how goes opting out? Are there other local efforts that you are involved in that you can share with us?
Thanks,
Monty
—
Monty Neill, Ed.D.; Executive Director, FairTest; P.O. Box 300204, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; 617-477-9792; http://www.fairtest.org; Donate to FairTest: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/fairtest

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Florida: Get Ready for Another Jeb Bush Charter Hoax

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2017 //
8

In the 2012 and 2013 legislative sessions, Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee and allies in the privatization movement tried to get a parent trigger law through the Florida legislature but met a solid wall of parent resistance. Now the same forces are gathering for another run at privatizing the Sunshine State’s public schools. The method is to declare not just F schools eligible for charter takeover, but D and F schools; to get more such “failing” schools by raising the bar on the testing. Voila! A bigger market for the charter industry!

Does it sound familiar: legislating the privatization of “failing” public schools? This time, it seems like they have merely removed the parents from the “parent trigger.” And, by removing the option of a district managed turnaround option, this bill will force persistently low performing schools to close or become privatized. Like the previous “parent trigger”, this bill is about pushing a political agenda and little else. And the House has set aside $200 million education tax dollars to further this agenda.

Should it matter that when the House Education Committeeworkshopped strategies to “Close the Opportunity Gap”, the only invited speakers were from charter networks (KIPP, Uncommon and GreatHearts)? Should it matter that the House PreK-12 Innovation Subcommittee only scheduled charter chains to speak during its workshop addressing “innovative” ways to close the achievement gap (Basis, Achievement First,IDEA, SEED)? Why not hear about successful district managed turnaround plans?

Should it matter that House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who has made this bill a House priority, is married to a lawyer who founded a successful Pasco County’ Classical Preparatory (charter) School which is planning an expansion?

Should it matter that Rep. Manny Diaz Jr, who has been an outspoken proponent of this legislation (claiming “it is our moral responsibility to make this move and provide this option for our kids”), is employed by Florida’s largest charter chain, Academica?

Should it matter that the Florida Department of Education has repeated raised the bar and changed the School Grades calculations, which has potentially masked improvements and/or achievement of students in these so-called “failing” schools? In 2015, Commissioner Pam Stewart celebrated Florida ranking 7th in the nation in student achievement and reported that students in Florida who receive free and reduced lunches outperform those who receive free and reduced lunches in all other states. Is it possible these schools may have made significant gains that are unappreciated by the current accountability system?

Should it matter that school grades can be shown to be a reflection of the socioeconomic status of the student body? Researchers have been able to predict school grades based on US census data alone…

Should it matter that the FSA was never evaluated for fairness, reliability or validity for at risk sub populations of students, including low socioeconomic level, minorities and English Language Learners, the very kinds of students overrepresented in these chronically underperforming schools?

And finally, should it matter that charter schools do not get better academic results than public schools and often perform worse? Sometime, charters appear to do better because they can control the types of students they choose to serve. And THIS may explain why, even when Speaker Corcoran is dangling $200 million under their noses, successful charter networks appear to be uninterested in becoming Florida’s “Schools of Hope”.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Parent trigger, Privatization, Resistance

Ohio: Do You Want to See a Politician Blasting Charter Fraud? Watch Here

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2017 //
7

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy forwarded links to Dennis Kucinich’s town hall meetings, where he blasted charter school fraud. Watch and enjoy!

Is he running for governor? Let’s hope so.

https://youtu.be/bbgnZ9LorEk

https://youtu.be/UHHaKdAuGJg

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Carol Burris: Three Problems with School Choice That Advocates Won’t Talk About

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
19

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote an analysis of the major problems with school choice that advocates refuse to address.

She begins by writing that privatized school choice directly threatens public education:

Privatized school choice is the public financing of private alternatives to public schools. Examples include charters run by corporate boards, private schools funded by vouchers, online learning charters and publicly subsidized home schooling. Then there are the disguised voucher plans such as Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs, which give taxpayer money on debit cards to parents with little oversight as to how it is spent.

Privatized school choice, in its various forms, has been rapidly gaining ground in many of our states. The thinly veiled agenda of privatized choice is the destruction of public schools, which Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her allies refer to as “government schools.”

What the privatizers never talk about is that every dollar that goes to school choice is taken away from public schools. To adjust for the loss of revenue, public schools have to lay off teachers and close down programs. So the great majority of students are injured so a few can attend a charter or use a voucher.

Voucher programs almost always begin small–targeted at poor children, or children with disabilities, or foster children, or military children–but then expand to apply to all students. Sometimes the privatizers admit that they are pursuing a camel’s nose-under-the-tent strategy, but usually they claim to want “only this small program.”

Unaccountable, unsupervised privately-managed schools waste taxpayers’ dollars with bloated administrative salaries and overhead. In these conditions, without public oversight, fraud and corruption go undetected, and when a whistleblower complains, we learn that hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars were squandered or stolen.

She writes:

When we turn our backs on our public schools, we turn our backs on our most profound American values. We are not embracing conservatism; we are embracing consumerism. It is as simple and sad as that.

I would put it somewhat differently. I would say that the privatizers’ goal is not only to destroy public education but to encourage us to think as consumers, not as citizens. As citizens, we support public services that are for everyone, even if we don’t use those services. Thus, childless people pay taxes for public schools, even though they don’t use them, as do people whose children are grown. But consumers take care of themselves only. In the future, if this movement for privatization prevails, taxpayers may well reject bond issues because they don’t want to pay taxes for private choices. If we think only of ourselves, we lose the sense of civic responsibility that a democracy requires in order to protect and serve the interests of all its citizens.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Citizenship, Democracy, Deregulation, Fraud, Privatization, School Choice

Ohio: Kucinich Blasts Charter Frauds and Scams

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2017 //
10

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who may be thinking of a run for Governor of Ohio, launched a four-city speaking tour across the state, castigating the corruption in the charter industry at every stop.

Kucinich understands that every dollar that goes to a charter is taken away from a public school. He is the first politician who understands the shell game. Defund public schools while funding a dual system.


“Former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich launched a four-city, anti-charter school tour in Columbus, Ohio on Monday, telling attendees at a press conference that “public education’s financial base is being destroyed by private, for-profit corporate interests.”

Kucinich, who served 16 years in Congress, was Cleveland mayor in the late 1970s, and ran for president in 2004 and 2008, plans to hold town hall-style forums across the state in Centerville, Columbus, Parma, and Elyria Monday through Thursday. He kicked it off by talking to reporters at the Ohio statehouse.

“When state revenue for public schools decreases because of money which goes to private for-profit charters, public school officials must make up the difference by asking local property taxpayers for more money,” Kucinich said. “It represents a deliberate, destructive undermining of the public education of Ohio’s children. What is our educational philosophy today? Let for-profit corporations exploit the mass of children by controlling the state government?”

“With that last line, he was referring to state legislators “who have accepted millions of dollars in campaign contributions from charter-school operators, notably William Lager of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow and David Brennan of White Hat Management,” according to the Columbus Dispatch….

According to a report released in advance of DeVos’ visit, since the 2012-2013 school year, $3,744,988 in state funding originally meant for children attending Van Wert County’s local public schools “has instead gone to privately run brick-and-mortar and online charter schools.” In turn, said the report from Innovation Ohio, “local taxpayers in Van Wert…have had to subsidize these larger state payments to charter schools to the tune of $1.4 million—money that should have supplemented the larger state aid amount but is now being used to subsidize poorer performing, privately run charter schools.”

Supporting Kucinich’s criticism, the report pointed out that indeed, “local property taxpayers in Van Wert County schools are paying $3 million more in property taxes in 2015 (the most recent available data from the Ohio Department of Taxation) than they did in 2013, which is increasing those communities’ reliance on property taxes to pay for education—a result deemed unconstitutional four times by the Ohio Supreme Court.”

According to a report released in advance of DeVos’ visit, since the 2012-2013 school year, $3,744,988 in state funding originally meant for children attending Van Wert County’s local public schools “has instead gone to privately run brick-and-mortar and online charter schools.” In turn, said the report from Innovation Ohio, “local taxpayers in Van Wert…have had to subsidize these larger state payments to charter schools to the tune of $1.4 million—money that should have supplemented the larger state aid amount but is now being used to subsidize poorer performing, privately run charter schools.”

Supporting Kucinich’s criticism, the report pointed out that indeed, “local property taxpayers in Van Wert County schools are paying $3 million more in property taxes in 2015 (the most recent available data from the Ohio Department of Taxation) than they did in 2013, which is increasing those communities’ reliance on property taxes to pay for education—a result deemed unconstitutional four times by the Ohio Supreme Court.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Preston Green: Will Charter School Fraud Be the New Enron?

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2017 //
18

Preston Green III is a scholar at the University of Connecticut who studies the legal and political issues associated with school choice. He fears that school choice, unregulated and unaccountable, will be the new Enron, a financial scandal of massive proportions.

Professor Green says:

“As school choice champions like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos push to make charter schools a larger part of the educational landscape, it’s important to understand the Enron scandal and how charter schools are vulnerable to similar schemes.

Enron’s downfall was caused largely by something called “related-party transactions.” Understanding this concept is crucial for grasping how charter schools may also be in danger.

Related-party transactions are business arrangements between companies with close associations: It could be between two companies owned or managed by the same group or it could be between one large company and a smaller company that it owns. Although related-party transactions are legal, they can create severe conflicts of interest, allowing those in power to profit from employees, investors and even taxpayers.

This is what happened at Enron. Because Enron wanted to look good to investors, the company created thousands of “special purpose entities” to hide its debt. Because of these off-the-books partnerships, Enron was able to artificially boost its profits, thus tricking investors.

Enron’s Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow managed several of these special purpose entities, benefiting from his position of power at the expense of the company’s shareholders. For instance, these companies paid him US$30 million in management fees – far more than his Enron salary.

Fastow also conspired with other Enron employees to pocket another $30 million from one of these entities, and he moved $4.5 million from this scheme into his family foundation.

Enron’s collapse revealed the weaknesses of the gatekeepers – including boards of directors and the Securities and Exchange Commission – that are responsible for protecting the markets. Because of lax accountability and federal deregulation, these watchdogs failed to detect the dangers posed by Fastow’s conflict of interest until it was too late. Congress responded by passing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which tightened the requirements for oversight.

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have legislation that allows for charter schools. Just like public schools, charter schools receive public funding. However, unlike public schools, charter schools are exempt from many laws governing financial transparency.

Without strict regulation, some bad actors have been able to take advantage of charter schools as an opportunity for private investment. In the worst cases, individuals have been able to use related-party transactions to fraudulently funnel public money intended for charter schools into other business ventures that they control.

Such was the case with Ivy Academia, a Los Angeles-area charter school. The co-founders, Yevgeny Selivanov and Tatayana Berkovich, also owned a private preschool that shared facilities with the charter school. The preschool entered into a sublease for the facilities at a monthly rent of $18,390 – the fair-market value. The preschool then assigned the sublease to the charter school at a monthly rent of $43,870.

The Los Angeles district attorney’s office charged the husband-and-wife team with multiple counts of fraud. Selivanov was sentenced to nearly five years in jail in 2013.

Fraudulent related-party transactions can also occur between education management organizations (EMOs) and their affiliates. EMOs are for-profit or nonprofit entities that sometimes manage charter schools, and might also own smaller companies that could provide services to those schools.

For example, Imagine Schools is a nonprofit EMO that runs 63 charter schools enrolling 33,000 students across the country. It also owns SchoolHouse Finance, a for-profit company that, among other things, handles real estate for many of Imagine’s charter schools. Though charter schools typically spend around 14 percent of their funding on rent, some of the Imagine Schools were paying SchoolHouse Finance up to 40 percent of their funding for rent.

One of the charter schools operated by Imagine Schools, Renaissance Academy in Kansas City, sued the company for charging it excessive rent. In 2015, a federal judge agreed, ordering Imagine Schools to pay almost $1 million in damages to Renaissance. The court’s ruling suggested that Imagine Schools was essentially taking advantage of the charter school: The EMO profited from the excessive rent and failed to tell the school’s board of directors how the cost might disrupt the school’s ability to pay for textbooks and teacher salaries.

Because of insufficient oversight, Fastow’s fraudulent use of related-party transactions at Enron was not stopped until it was too late. Similarly, the Ivy Academia and Renaissance Academy examples reveal insufficient checks and balances in the charter school sector. In both cases, the monitors responsible for protecting charter schools found nothing wrong with the rental agreements.

Green says these cases are not isolated. The risks grow as degulation grows. It is already obvious that DeVos and Trump will prevent regulation to the greatest extent possible. The conditions will be right for massive fraud.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization, Trump

Gary Rubinstein: The 4th Best High School in New York State Doesn’t Exist

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2017 //
11

Gary Rubinstein wrote a post about the curiosity of the KIPP high school in New York City that was ranked one of the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, even though it had only 58 students and the three other KIPP high schools had zero students who took and passed AP exams. The name of the school is KIPP Academy Charter School. Were they trying to game the system, he wondered? But some comments on his blog alerted him to the fact, if fact it is, that the only KIPP high school is KIPP NYC College Prep High School.

Gary untangles the puzzle here.

“The reader informed me that there are not four KIPP high schools in New York City, but just one, KIPP NYC College Prep High School. This was puzzling to me since the school that was ranked 29th in the country and 4th in New York was not called KIPP NYC College Prep High School, but called KIPP Academy Charter School.

“When I went to look at the data at the public data site for school report cards, there was no report card for a KIPP NYC College Prep High School, however. But there were report cards for the four MIDDLE schools, KIPP Academy, KIPP AMP, KIPP Infinity, and KIPP STAR. On these report cards, it shows that 5-8 middle schools also have students in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, in small numbers.

“One of those four middle schools is the KIPP Academy with its 58 12th graders, and this is the ‘school’ that was rated so highly on the U.S. News ranking.

“But the reality is that there is just one high school and it does not have just 58 students, but around 150 students, basically the four 12th grade classes from the four middle schools are actually not attending that middle school but all attending the KIPP high school.

“Why the students are still ‘officially’ in their middle schools is a mystery to me and why there is not report card for the KIPP high school is also pretty baffling.

“The non-existent KIPP Academy Charter High School that was ranked 29th in the country and 4th in New York claimed to have 58 students with a 100% AP participation rate and a 98% passing rate. We now know that these 58 students are only a subset, around a fourth, of an existing school KIPP NYC College Prep. Though there is no state report card for KIPP NYC College Prep, the school has one on their website for the 2014-2015 school year on which the U.S. News ratings were based.”

Read Gary’s analysis.

One thing is clear: the U.S. News & World Report ranking of high schools is phony. A fraud. Meaningless. They rank high schools to sell magazines. They don’t fact-check. They set themselves up as the arbiters of which are the best high schools in the nation, based on flawed data, and they are not qualified to do this work. Of what value is their product?

Categories Charter Schools, Fraud, Hoax, KIPP Charter Schools, New York

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Former Chicago Leader, Sentenced to 4 1/2 Years in Prison

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2017 //
13

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, once Rahm Emanuel’s choice to lead the Chicago Public Schools, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for her role in a kickback scheme intended to gain her hundreds of thousands of dollars. She has lost her job, her career, her reputation, and now, her freedom.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-barbara-byrd-bennett-sentence-met-20170428-story.html

One of her co-conspirators received a sentence of seven years, another got 18 months.

MORE BREAKING NEWS: Cook County judge rejects CPS lawsuit seeking more money from the state. The district may close schools June 1 because of lack of funding.

Judge rejects CPS’ state funding lawsuit, gives district option to refile
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-schools-funding-lawsuit-ruling-met-20170428-story.html

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Education Reform, Equity, Fraud, Funding
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