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Bombshell! California Charter Report: Hundreds of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Wasted

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2017 //
10

The nonpartisan group In the Public Interest has released a major new report on wasteful spending on charter schools in California. It is called Spending Blind: The Failure of Policy Planning in California’s Charter School Facility Funding.

The bottom line is that California spends on charter schools without planning, without supervision, and without accountability. Vast sums of public money have disappeared, as charters close or mismanage funds. Every attempt to impose accountability on the charter industry has been vetoed by Governor Brown. The State Board of Education, which the governor appoints, does not demand accountability. California thinks of itself as a blue state, but when it comes to education funding, it is a Trump/DeVos state.

The key findings:

The report’s key findings include:

Over the past 15 years, California charter schools have received more than $2.5 billion in tax dollars or taxpayer subsidized funds to lease, build, or buy school buildings.

Nearly 450 charter schools have opened in places that already had enough classroom space for all students—and this overproduction of schools was made possible by generous public support, including $111 million in rent, lease, or mortgage payments picked up by taxpayers, $135 million in general obligation bonds, and $425 million in private investments subsidized with tax credits or tax exemptions.

For three-quarters of California charter schools, the quality of education on offer—based on state and charter industry standards—is worse than that of a nearby traditional public school that serves a demographically similar population. Taxpayers have provided these schools with an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars in direct funding and an additional $1.1 billion in taxpayer-subsidized financing.

Even by the charter industry’s standards, the worst charter schools receive generous facility funding. The California Charter Schools Association identified 161 charter schools that ranked in the bottom 10% of schools serving comparable populations last year, but even these schools received more than $200 million in tax dollars and tax-subsidized funding.

At least 30% of charter schools were both opened in places that had no need for additional seats and also failed to provide an education superior to that available in nearby public schools. This number is almost certainly underestimated, but even at this rate, Californians provided these schools combined facilities funding of more than $750 million, at a net cost to taxpayers of nearly $400 million.

Public facilities funding has been disproportionately concentrated among the less than one-third of schools that are owned by Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) that operate chains of between three and 30 schools. An even more disproportionate share of funding has been taken by just four large CMO chains—Aspire, KIPP, Alliance, and Animo/Green Dot.

Since 2009, the 253 schools found by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to maintain discriminatory enrollment policies have been awarded a collective $75 million under the SB740 program, $120 million in general obligation bonds, and $150 million in conduit bond financing.

CMOs have used public tax dollars to buy private property. The Alliance College-Ready Public Schools network of charter schools, for instance, has benefited from more than $110 million in federal and state taxpayer support for its facilities, which are not owned by the public, but are part of a growing empire of privately owned Los Angeles-area real estate now worth in excess of $200 million.

This squandering of public funds is outrageous. Will the Legislature and the Governor demand accountability?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Arizona: Legislators Welcome Profiteers to Scam Taxpayer Money to Subsidize Private Schools for the Affluent

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2017 //
23

Carol Burris spent time in Arizona to find out what happens with the state’s school choices. What she discovered was unbridled profiteering on the taxpayers’ dime.

She wrote in the Arizona Capitol Times that Arizona taxpayers are being hoaxed by the education industry.

It is time for Arizonans to take a hard look at who really benefits from school choice. While some families may want tax-payer funded options, the dizzying array of choices, combined with lax oversight and weak laws, make Arizona’s taxpayers easy marks for profiteering on the taxpayers’ dime.

Arizona is the Mecca of School Choice – for-profit charters, non-profit “fronts” for for-profit charters, Empowerment Scholarships Accounts (ESAs), and tax credits all compete with little regulation and oversight.

Let’s begin with charters. Arizona’s charter laws are some of the worst in the nation when it comes to protecting taxpayer money. For example, the Arizona State Office of the Auditor General is not allowed to monitor charter school spending.

Only the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools (AZCB), whose members (with one exception) are appointed by the charter-friendly Governor, can keep an eye on charter school finances.

Does that lack of thorough, objective oversight matter? You bet. Sound oversight produces fiscally responsible charter schools that can afford to stay open. Without it, scams, bad real estate deals and old-fashioned mismanagement abound.

When charters close, millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted and students are left stranded. In a five-year period (2009-2013), 111 Arizona charters shut down. According to former superintendent and charter school administrator, Curt Cardine, in 2013-2014, 138 charter schools “did not meet the AZCB Financial Performance Recommendation. This is fully 33.91% of the charter groups in the state that were financially rated by AZCB.”

Are the citizens of Arizona indifferent to the waste and fraud that permeates the charter industry? Or is it that they just don’t care what they are paying for? Do they fall for every fraud that the hucksters sell? Would they buy snake oil to cure baldness?

There is no penalty for the owners if the school fails. In fact, it is an opportunity for enrichment. All property belongs to the charter owner by law. That means taxpayer-funded buildings, books, computers, and equipment go to the owner of the failed school, which he can sell.

Fiscal problems are not limited to “mom and pop” charter schools. Even well-established charter chains can run into fiscal difficulty. The most recent audit for the BASIS charter chain shows a huge deficit in assets of over $13 million, and a 2014-2015 net loss of $3,074,317. BASIS School Inc., which collects the taxpayers’ dollars, is a non-profit. However, it is managed by the for-profit, BASIS Educational Group, LLC. In 2014-15, just shy of $60 million went from the BASIS non-profit to the for-profit corporation to provide services to BASIS schools. When that happens, spending is blocked from public view.

Additional frauds are perpetrated with Arizona’s so-called Empowerment Savings Accounts, aka deregulated vouchers.

But charter schools are not Arizona’s only worry. Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), which some in the legislature want to expand, have been a “hot mess” of misspending and even fraud.

For those unfamiliar with the program, parents who participate are given a debit card to buy educational services for their child instead of sending them to a public school. Although it is touted as a program to help poor families escape “failing schools,” an analysis of the state’s ESA program found that most families using it are leaving high-performing public schools in wealthy districts to attend private schools. Students from schools with the fewest students receiving free or reduced-priced lunches received an average ESA benefit of $15,200 – more than twice the average ESA benefit of $7,350 given to students from schools with the highest share of children receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

Parents have used the debit card to purchase personal items for themselves instead of their kids. There was even an attempt made to use it for a dating service. There are cases of parents getting and using the debit card even though their children are enrolled in public school. The state has collected only a fraction of what has been misspent.

Other Arizona school privatization programs have been equally fraught with problems. The $140 million dollar a year tax-credit program is nothing more than a gift of public funds masquerading as a “good cause.” Contributors get a dollar for dollar credit with the money going to support private school tuition. Yes, you make a contribution, but it costs the taxpayers, not the donor.

When will the citizens and taxpayers of Arizona wake up and realize that their tax dollars are underwriting fraud, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and self-dealing?

Do they care?

No, they don’t care about waste and fraud. Yesterday the Arizona legislature voted by 16-13 to expand the voucher program, so that more students can use public money to go to private and religious schools.

Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, had originally sought universal vouchers. Her plan was built on the fact that the cap on enrollment, currently about 5,000 students, is scheduled to self-destruct after 2019, making vouchers available for every one of the 1.1 million students now in public schools.

But Lesko could not get the votes for her plan, with objections ranging from philosophical issues of state aid to private schools to the fact that her legislation would have increased the cost to the state by $25 million a year by 2021.

The stalemate was broken when Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, agreed to go along. But Worsley insisted on a series of changes, including the cap he said should keep the number of vouchers at probably no more than about 30,000 by 2021.

That proved little comfort to Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, who pointed out it would take only a simple majority of a future legislature to remove that cap and create universal vouchers.

Worsley conceded the point. “I think it’s the best deal we can get,” he said. Worsley also said that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and that the next six years will be an “experiment” to show whether vouchers result in better education.

Vouchers were first approved in 2011 to help parents whose children with special needs could not get the services they need in public schools.

Foes sued, charging that it violates a state constitutional provision barring public dollars from being used for religious worship or instruction.

But the state Court of Appeals said the money goes to the parents who decide how to spend the funds, making who ultimately gets the dollars irrelevant. And the judges said the vouchers do not result in the state encouraging the preference of one religion over another, or religion over atheism.

Since that time, proponents have repeatedly added to the list of who is eligible. It now includes everything from children of people in the military on active duty and foster children to all children in failing schools and those living on Indian reservations.

And supporters have made it clear from the beginning the ultimate goal always has been universal vouchers, which was precisely where Lesko was headed.

Worsley insisted he’s neither a supporter or foes of vouchers, formally called “empowerment scholarship accounts,” describing himself as a “pragmatic arbitrator” between supporters and foes.

Farley scoffed at that contention, saying this “compromise” does not acknowledge there are many lawmakers who believe public dollars should not be used to send children, in whatever numbers, to private and parochial schools.

“This is no compromise at all,” added Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs. “This is lipstick on a pig.”

Worsley said his amendment does more than cap the number of vouchers — at least unless and until future lawmakers decide otherwise.

He said the amount of the voucher given to a student will be based on the amount of state aid given to students in that district. Worsley estimated that average figure at $4,400 a year, versus the current $5,600.

What that also means, he said, is if the maximum number of children eligible can get vouchers in 2021 there will be a net savings to the state of $3.4 million, versus the $25 million cost.

Worsley said that’s nothing to be sneezed at, pointing out that $28.4 million swing is twice as much as Gov. Doug Ducey, who lobbied in support of this plan, put into this year’s budget for teacher raises.

That still leaves the question of who benefits.

There is some evidence that many of the 3,800 students who are now getting vouchers have moved from schools in affluent neighborhoods. That leads to charges that vouchers help defray what parents pay to have their youngsters attend private schools where tuition can top $15,000 a year.

“They’re just having the taxpayers of Arizona subsidize that tuition,” said Sen. Sean Bowie, D-Phoenix.

The $4,400 will be a nice subsidy for affluent parents. But it won’t be enough to put poor children into elite private schools, which has no space for them anyway.

The research on vouchers has pointed in one direction: It does not produce better education. It produces a lobby to keep the money flowing to private and religious schools without regard to the quality of education.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Vouchers

Kansas: Student Journalists Investigate New Principal with Dubious Diplomas, She Resigns

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2017 //
20

The students are our future. And the students give me hope.

When I hear “reformers” like DeVos and Gates and Klein and Rhee claim that our schools are “failure factories,” that they are “obsolete,” that they are a “deadend,” and that our students are woefully undereducated, I will think of the students at this typical high school in Kansas. They unmasked a fraud. They engaged in critical thinking. No one paid them to do it. They demonstrated initiative, intelligence, and persistence. They are far smarter than the “reformers” who run them and their generation down.

In Kansas, student journalists checked out the credentials of their newly hired principal. The “university” that she cited as the source of her MA and doctorate didn’t exist. They investigated further and broke the story. The new principal resigned without ever taking office.

Connor Balthazor, 17, was in the middle of study hall when he was called into a meeting with his high school newspaper adviser.

A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6.

The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university.

“There were some things that just didn’t quite add up,” Balthazor told The Washington Post.

The students began digging into a weeks-long investigation that would result in an article published Friday questioning the legitimacy of the principal’s degrees and of her work as an education consultant.

On Tuesday night, Robertson resigned.

This is a reminder why freedom of the press is so important to our democracy.

Categories Fraud, Freedom of the Press, Kansas, Students

DeVos is Visiting Pitbull’s Charter School Today, Which Was Investigated by Her Own Department Last Year

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2017 //
8

Jennifer Berkshire writes that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is visiting the Florida charter called SLAM started by misogynist rapper Pitbull. It is part of the controversial for-profit charter chain Academica, which was investigated last year by the UlS. Department of Education.

Berkshire interviews Preston Green about The problems of cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption that accompany deregulation.

Meanwhile, DeVos will bring the gospel of deregulation and choice without accountability to the converted.

A useful reminder: Join the Network for Public Education to fight DeVos’ efforts to destroy public education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education

Arizona: Legislators Want to Expand Vouchers, Despite Audit Showing Misspent Funds

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2017 //
5

Arizona Republicans are renewing a drive to expand that state voucher program, despite a recent state audit reporting misspent funds and despite a survey showing that most voucher students are leaving high-performing schools in wealthy districts. In last year’s legislative races, Betsy DeVos’s lobbying group spent heavily to elect pro-voucher candidates, more than any other independent political organization.

“Republican lawmakers are renewing their efforts to expand a program that allows parents to use public money to pay the educational expenses of children who attend private schools or are homeschooled.

“The push to expand Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program comes in the wake of a state audit that found officials had identified that more than $102,000 in ESA funds were misspent during a six-month period, from August 2015 to January 2016, in addition to other improper purchases, as well as spotty oversight.

“The examples cited by auditors include parents who kept the state’s money after enrolling their children in public school, parents who bought items that are not allowed under the program, such as snow globes and sock monkeys, and parents who didn’t submit required expense reports to the Arizona Department of Education…

“Empowerment Scholarship Accounts allow parents to take money that would otherwise go directly to their local public school, and put it toward private-school tuition, homeschooling, tutoring, therapy, and other education-related expenses. Critics of the program say it siphons money away from public district schools, and over time, could substantially erode school funding.

“Senate Bill 1281, sponsored by Smith, requires the Department of Education to contract with an outside firm to help administer the ESA program, and makes various changes to the program. Read the bill summary here.
Senate Bill 1431, sponsored by Lesko, would make all Arizona students eligible for the ESA program by the 2020-2021 school year. Read the bill as introduced here.

“The Legislature created the program in 2011, limiting it to disabled children. Since then, lawmakers have expanded the program to children in failing schools, children living on tribal lands, siblings of children who have participated in the ESA program, and others. There are currently about 3,200 children in the program in 2017, said Ross Begnoche, the Department of Education’s chief financial officer. The program is currently capped at about 5,000 students. The budget is about $40 million this year.

“Under legislation introduced by Republican Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, all students would qualify for the ESA program by the 2020-2021 school year.

“Senate Bill 1431 proposes phasing in eligibility, starting in the 2017-2018 school year with students in kindergarten, first grade, sixth grade and ninth grade. Within four years, all students would qualify. A separate bill, Senate Bill 1281, by Republican Sen. Steve Smith, would require the Department of Education to contract with a private firm to manage ESA accounts and require random, quarterly and annual audits of the program….

“Last year, she also sponsored legislation to allow all 1.1 million public schoolchildren to qualify for the ESA program by 2020. That expansion effort came as Gov. Doug Ducey was campaigning for a ballot initiative to put more money into public schools — a message seemingly at odds with legislation that would divert taxpayer money away from public schools. The bill died after an Arizona Republic investigation showed most children using the program were leaving high-performing public schools in wealthy districts.

“Some supportive lawmakers say an ESA expansion could have more momentum this year, given President Donald Trump’s nomination of school-choice advocate and billionaire Betsy DeVos for U.S. secretary of Education. A non-profit she chaired until recently, American Federation for Children, spent nearly $218,000 during the primary for legislative races last year, the most of any independent expenditure committee seeking to influence the outcome of such races.

“The group advocates for school-choice measures across the country and at the Arizona Capitol, where those efforts have included pressing for ESA expansion. On Monday, the group touted Lesko’s legislation, saying it would mean “no Arizona child will be trapped in a school that isn’t working for them.”

Arizona has the best legislature that DeVos money could buy.

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Fraud, Vouchers

Ex-Charter School Leader Charged with Fraud, Money Laundering: What Would DeVos Say?

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
18

Until 2012, the most celebrated figure in the charter school industry was Ben Chavis of the American Indian Model Schools, a group of charter schools in Oakland, California, that got phenomenal test scores and major national publicity. The networks came to gush over the schools, Governor Schwarzenegger praised them, George Will admired them, and David Whitman called them one of the best paternalistic “no excuses” charter schools in the nation in his book Sweating the Small Stuff (2008). (In 2009, Whitman became Arne Duncan’s speechwriter.)

Chavis was controversial for many reasons, including his outspoken contempt for unions, liberals, multiculturalism, and certain minorities. He also dished out harsh punishments. He was a pioneer of the “no excuses” charter movement. I have written many posts about the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of Chavis (see here and here and here, for example).

If you want to know why Chavis was so controversial, read this article in the Los Angeles Times, written in 2009, when he was at the height of his fame.

The story from 2009 begins like this:

Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: “We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.”

That, it turns out, is just the beginning of the ways in which American Indian Public Charter and its two sibling schools spit in the eye of mainstream education. These small, no-frills, independent public schools in the hardscrabble flats of Oakland sometimes seem like creations of television’s “Colbert Report.” They mock liberal orthodoxy with such zeal that it can seem like a parody.

School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded “self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort,” to quote the school’s website.

Students, almost all poor, wear uniforms and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school. One local school district official was horrified to learn that a girl was forced to clean the boys’ restroom as punishment.

When Chavis took over the schools, the enrollment was mostly American Indian. But over time, the American Indians disappeared and were replaced by Asian students. And the scores went up and up.

In 2012, a state audit reported that $3.8 million had been reallocated from the school accounts to Chavis’s business accounts. Chavis resigned the next year and moved to North Carolina to work as a motivational speaker.

There are new developments:

Ben Chavis, the controversial former director of three Oakland charter schools, collectively known as the American Indian Model Schools, was charged with mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the schools’ applications for federal grant funds, federal authorities announced Thursday.

Chavis was arrested Thursday morning in North Carolina and has been ordered to appear in federal court in Oakland. He is accused of requesting more than $2.5 million of federally funded grants in violation of conflict-of-interest rules.

This is not the first time Chavis has been targeted for financial impropriety. In 2012, an investigation by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team found that from 2007 to 2011, Chavis had directed $3.8 million from the school to companies he owned for contracts not approved by the school board. He stepped down from the school in 2013. The investigation’s findings prompted the county superintendent to refer the case to federal authorities.

According to the indictment announced Thursday, Chavis, 59, of Lumberton, N.C., and others devised and put into place a scheme from early 2006 through May 2012 to defraud the California School Finance Authority by requesting federally funded competitive grants for three charter schools in violation of federal conflict-of-interest regulations.

From 2000 to 2012, Chavis served off and on as the director and in various additional capacities for three Oakland charter schools — the American Indian Public Charter School, the American Indian Public High School II and the American Indian Public High School — as well as the schools’ umbrella organization, the American Indian Model Schools, referred to as AIMS.

The indictment, unsealed Thursday, alleges Chavis applied for grants to pay the costs of leasing facilities that he owned or controlled through his companies — American Delivery Systems and Lumbee Properties LLC. He is accused of concealing his interest in the facilities in the grant applications.

The indictment further alleges that the schools obtained more than $1.1 million in federal grants as a result of this fraud and that Chavis used fraud proceeds to promote the fraud scheme at each school.

What would Betsy DeVos say? She doesn’t believe in regulation or oversight of charter schools or voucher schools. Let the free market rule. Chavis no doubt agreed.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Fraud

Texas: Voucher Advocates Bombard Legislators with Fake Letters of Support

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2017 //
11

Texas legislators became suspicious when the letters began pouring advocating for vouchers. Some investigation revealed that they were fraudulent.

“Several members of the House have received hundreds of fraudulent letters addressed from constituents asking them to vote for education savings accounts.

“State Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, was suspicious when his office fielded 520 letters between mid-February and mid-March from constituents of his rural district, who are more likely to oppose private school choice than support it. All the letters were addressed from Austin and had the full names and addresses of each constituent at the bottom.

“Springer started making calls. “We talked to a couple of dozen constituents. No one knows where they’re coming from. None of them agree with the positions that they’re even taking,” he said. He knows of about 10 other representatives who got similar letters.

“One of Springer’s letters was addressed from former state Rep. Rick Hardcastle, who vacated the seat currently held by Springer about six years ago. “I don’t believe in vouchers of any kind,” Hardcastle said Monday. “It ought to be illegal…representing me for something I have no interest in supporting or helping.”

“Sue Dixon, a public school teacher in Gatesville for the last 20 years, got a call from state Rep. JD Sheffield’s office asking whether she had sent a letter lobbying her representative to vote for vouchers.

“I said, ‘Absolutely not!'” Dixon said. “I’m upset that someone would hijack my views.”

“Sheffield, a rural conservative from Gatesville, said he had received about 550 of those letters.”

Categories Fraud, Texas, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: Betsy DeVos Cherrypicks One Student Success in a Failing Virtual Charter School

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2017 //
16

You will note that all of Betsy DeVos’s stories are about struggling students who were rescued from failing public schools by choosing to go to a charter school, a religious school, a home school, or a virtual charter school. Apparently she has never in her life seen a successful public school.

Her latest story is about a young man from India who attended the usual horrible public school. But his life was turned around because he had the good fortune to attend a virtual charter school in Washington State. DeVos was speaking to the National Association of State Boards of Education.

Mercedes Schneider decided it was time for fact-checking.

Betsy DeVos Pitches Virtual School with 4-Yr Cohort Grad Rate Below 32 Percent

The young man to whom DeVos referred attended a virtual charter with a four-year graduation rate of 19.1%. After five years, the graduation rate was up to 23.6%.

Surely, someone on her staff knew this. Yet she chose to conceal that the young man succeeded in a failing school.

Like Trump, DeVos must be constantly fact-checked. Her stories are misleading and inaccurate and have no point other than to smear public schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Fraud, Graduation rates, Virtual Charter Schools, Washington State

Sara Stevenson Tells the Texas Legislature What’s Wrong with Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2017 //
13

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Senate Bill 3 Testimony

Good afternoon, Senators.

My name is Sara Stevenson, and I’ve been a librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin for 14 years. Previously, I taught English at St. Michael’s Catholic Academy for ten years, so I have a great respect for Catholic education.

I also write opinion pieces for The Austin American-Statesman, The Houston Chronicle, and The Texas Tribune. I have written against private school vouchers many times. Let’s be clear, ESAs are the same as vouchers.

What disturbs me most about Senate Bill 3 is its lack of accountability. With public money comes public accountability. As the bill is written, any private school or home school which accepts scholarship money does NOT have to administer state-mandated tests as do public schools and charter schools. These private schools DO NOT have to follow IDEA (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and they DO NOT have to change or open their admission policies. Furthermore, the amount of the scholarship is not enough to cover tuition at most private schools, especially when transportation, textbooks, and other materials are included.

This bill is NOT a path for uplifting children in poverty but a thinly veiled tax break for parents who already or were already going to send their children to private or home schools.

Secondly, we must consider the research. According to a Brookings Institute Report by Mark Dynarski in May 2016, studies concluded that both Louisiana and Indiana students who received private school vouchers scored LOWER on READING AND MATH tests compared to similar students who remained in public schools. As Mr. Dynarski wrote:

“In education as in medicine, ‘first, do no harm’ is a powerful guiding principle. A case to use taxpayer funds to send children of low-income parents to private schools is based on an expectation that the outcome will be positive. These recent findings point in the other direction. More needs to be known about long-term outcomes from these recently implemented voucher programs to make the case that they are a good investment of public funds.”

Let’s look at some longer-term studies. In 1989, Milwaukee began its Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. That’s over 25 years ago. According to a Public Policy Report, in the years 2012 – 2014, students in Milwaukee public schools were more proficient than their private school choice counterparts in statewide reading and math tests at every grade level (3 – 10).

Even the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, according to a recent NCEE report, shows no benefits in math, after three years, between students who applied and were selected for a voucher and those who applied but were not and instead continued at public schools.

But the bottom line is that Senate Bill 3 DOES DO GREAT HARM to our already woefully underfunded public schools. The money going to the voucher students is money taken from public school coffers, which will cause greater hardship to the over 5 million Texas schoolchildren who currently attend Texas public schools. We already have so many choices in public education. Senate Bill 3 is not about choice.

Senate Bill 3 is not only unnecessary. It is ineffective and even harmful.

Categories Failure, Fraud, Texas, Vouchers

Scholars Ask: Are Charter Schools the New Enron?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2017 //
17

Scholars Preston C. Green III, Bruce D. Baker, and Joseph Oluwole investigate whether the charter industry is repeating the errors of Enron.

Their peer-reviewed article appears in the Indiana Law Journal.

Here is the abstract:

“In 2001, Enron rocked the financial world by declaring bankruptcy due to the effects of an accounting scandal. Special purpose entities (SPEs) were instrumental to Enron’s demise. Enron parked assets in the SPEs to improve its credit rating.

“Enron violated accounting principles by not revealing that its SPE partnerships were related-party transactions. Andrew Fastow, who was Enron’s CFO, made millions of dollars by managing the SPEs. He also used these illegal proceeds to invest in other ventures. Enron’s gatekeepers failed to protect against this accounting fraud.

“Related-party transactions are now posing a threat to the charter school sector. Similar to Fastow, individuals are using their control over charter schools and their affiliates to obtain unreasonable management fees and funnel public funds into other business ventures.

“In this article, we discuss how some charter school officials have engaged in Enron-like related-party transactions. We also identify several measures that can be taken to strengthen the ability of charter school gatekeepers to protect against this danger.

“This article is divided into four parts. Part I describes how Fastow used his management of Enron and the SPEs to obtain illegal profits. Part II discusses why financial sector gatekeepers failed to stop these related-party transactions. Part III shows how charter school officials are benefitting from their control over charter schools and their affiliates in a manner similar to Fastow. Part IV analyzes pertinent statutory and regulatory provisions to identify steps that can be taken to increase the gatekeepers’ ability to protect against harmful related-party transactions.”

Categories Charter Schools, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding
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