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Wendy Lecker: Connecticut Charter Schools Are Double Dipping

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2020 //
3

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights attorney who writes often for the Stamford (Ct.) Advicate. she writes here about the disgraceful double dipping of charter schools in Connecticut, taking funds designated for public schools, then seeking and getting federal funds intended for small businesses.

Are charter schools to be defined as public schools or private businesses? When it’s time to get public money, they insist they are public schools, even though they are controlled by private boards. But when the money is for private businesses only, they line up to get the money. They are shape-shifters.

Lecker writes that the charters got their share of money intended for public schools:

With the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act, Congress provided federal aid to public schools, and specifically directed that charter schools receive aid as public schools. Connecticut public school districts and charter schools are receive comparable aid under the CARES Act’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (“ESSERF”). For example, New Haven will receive about $8 million, so a little more than $400 per student, and Amistad and Elm City charters, part of the Achievement First chain, will get similar per-pupil amounts. Bridgeport will receive about $9 million, or about $450 per student and Achievement First Bridgeport will be allocated a similar per-pupil amount. Hartford will get a little more than $10 million, or about $547 per student, and Achievement First Hartford will receive about the same per pupil. The per pupil amounts in Stamford’s public schools and charter school are similar as well. Stamford will receive $2.74 million for its approximately 16,600 students and Stamford Charter School for Excellence will receive a little more than $100 per pupil for its approximately 395 students — about the same as Stamford’s per-pupil allocation.

But that was not enough for the charters. They went for the federal Paycheck Protection Program to claim more money.

Lecker writes:

These charter schools, however, decided that when it comes to going after more federal dollars, it pays to be private entities as well. So each of these charters applied for and received significant forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans offered to small businesses in dire need as a result of the crisis.

Amistad Academy was approved for a loan of $2.7 million. So Amistad, a charter with a little more than 1,000 students, will receive a forgivable loan for more than the entire ESSERF allocation for Stamford Public Schools’ more than 16,000 students. Elm City’s loan is for $1.24 million; Achievement First Bridgeport’s loan totals $1.4 million, Achievement First Hartford’s loan is for $2.36 million and Stamford Charter School for Excellence’s loan is for $520,648. All these loans are forgivable, thus unlikely to be repaid.

In total, these loans total more than $8.2 million, covering 4,544 students. To compare, New Haven’s $8.5 million in ESSERF aid has to spread over 20,6675 students.

Public schools are in dire financial straits. Charters are not.

Lecker writes:

Are these charter schools really private small businesses in dire need? Last year, claiming charter schools were public schools, Dacia Toll, CEO of the Achievement First charter chain, complained that her schools were “starving” without more state funding. Looking at the most recent publicly available federal tax documents, Amistad has more than $30 million in net assets and reserves. Elm City, another Achievement First school, has more than $34 million in net assets and reserves, Achievement First Bridgeport has more than $6 million and Achievement First Hartford has almost $2 million. Stamford Charter School for Excellence has more than $2 million in net assets and reserves.

Meanwhile, public school districts across the state are facing massive funding cuts — some predicting cuts as high as 30 percent of their budgets. They also face steep increases in costs associated with reopening — from ensuring a clean and safe environment, to addressing the increased academic, social and health needs of their students. And now, with Gov. Ned. Lamont’s order that public schools reopen fully, in person, in the fall — without any promises to increase state aid — public school districts are in an even more precarious financial position. Public school districts are funded by local, state and, to a small extent, federal dollars. They have no options to tap into money intended for private businesses. Because public schools are public.

When charter schools are allowed to act as both private businesses and public schools, taxpayers end up paying twice. In these dire financial times, there are surely better uses for public funds than to double pay to pad the reserve funds of well-resourced charter schools.

The greed of the charter industry is shameful.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Scandals

Mitchell Robinson: Let’s Talk About Reopening Schools

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2020 //
28

Mitchell Robinson is a professor at Michigan State University.

In this post, he reviews the issues involved in reopening schools in the fall.

Teachers should not be expected to return unless conditions are safe for both students and adults.

That means more resources, not budget cuts.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Health, Safety, Students, Teachers

Randi’s Take on the Supreme Court Decision in Espinoza Case

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2020 //
5

Randi Weingarten is not only president of the AFT, she is a lawyer. Below is her reaction to the Supreme Court ruling. She calls it a “seismic shock.” She sees the decision as one more step in the relentless rightwing effort to defund and privatize public schools. She thinks the decision set the stage for an even more radical decision, one that requires states to fund religious school tuition as some states (think Florida, Indiana, Ohio) currently do.

Randi is right, but I was actually relieved that the decision was not far worse. I was afraid that the current Supreme Court, with Trump’s addition of two super-religious justices (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh), would overturn all Blaine amendments and require states to pay religious school tuitions in full. But the decision was far narrower. It said that any state that has a program to fund private schools must admit religious schools to the same program. So Montana, which has a private scholarship program, must include religious schools on the same footing as other private schools. That means that the Espinoza family has won $150 per year for all their troubles.

People like Betsy DeVos and her American Federation for Children, Jeanne Allen and her Center for Education Reform must be terribly disappointed that the decision did not tear down Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between state and church,” thus compelling states to pay full tuition for students at religious schools, regardless of their ideology, their quality, or their lack of certified teachers. That didn’t happen, thank God!

The public schools, the schools that nearly 90% of all American families choose, the schools that educated the overwhelming majority of the American people, have survived a close call. If Biden wins in November and Ruth Bader Ginsburg remains healthy until Biden’s inauguration, we will in time have a Supreme Court that supports public schools.

Randi warns:

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue:

“This ruling in the Espinoza case is a seismic shock that threatens both public education and religious liberty. It is a radical departure from our Constitution, American history and our values. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent, this ruling is ‘perverse.’

“Never in more than two centuries of American history has the free exercise clause of the First Amendment been wielded as a weapon to defund and dismantle public education. It will hurt both the 90 percent of students who attend neighborhood public schools, by siphoning off needed funds, and, in the long term, those who attend religious schools by curtailing their freedom with the accountability that comes with tax dollars.

“The court’s narrow conservative majority joined with Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and other wealthy donors and special interests to attack public education and turn the First Amendment on its head. What’s even more disturbing is that some justices wanted to go even further.

“While the court didn’t invalidate the 38 state constitutional provisions that preclude public money from going to religious schools, it came very close. The financial backers of this case will now use it to open the floodgates to litigation across the country.

“I hope the court and the plaintiffs understand that by enabling this encroachment on religious liberty, they are also opening up religion to state control and state interference. With public funding comes public accountability. Upending the carefully constructed balance of free exercise and separation of church and state not only undermines public education, it is a grave threat to religious institutions and organizations.

“In this time of national crisis, we have seen the importance of our public schools. Children across the country rely on public education for far more than just academics: Thirty million kids eat lunch in school, 12 million eat breakfast in school, and schools provide millions more with their healthcare. We should be prioritizing additional resources for public education and other vital social programs, not diverting them to private purposes.

“We are not going to give up. In fact, we are only going to fight harder. Parents, teachers and their unions stood up and fought back—and we will continue to do so each and every day, whether in court, in Congress, in state legislatures or at the ballot box.

“When it comes to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos’ attacks on public education, we will see them in November.”

Categories Biden, Education Reform, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Trump, Vouchers

Biden Calls for Massive Federal Response to Pandemic

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2020 //
7

Joe Biden seems to be waging a vigorous front-porch campaign.

The Washington Post reports:

WILMINGTON, Del. – Joe Biden doesn’t just want to ensure that every person in this country gets free testing for the novel coronavirus. He wants their treatment covered, too, no matter whether or how they are insured.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also calls for adding $200 per month to the checks of everyone who collects Social Security, temporarily increasing Medicaid funding by 12 percent and expanding food stamp benefits by 15 percent.

Biden, who has mostly stayed in his house here for nearly four months, will venture out Tuesday afternoon to deliver a speech at a local school on his vision for fighting the coronavirus crisis.

As infections and hospitalizations surge, and with the United States poised to surpass 125,000 confirmed covid-19 deaths as soon as today, Biden will recall how President Trump described himself as a “wartime” leader at the start of the pandemic and then accuse him of “surrendering to the virus.”

“Americans social distanced and did their part to bend the curve, but Trump didn’t lead,” Biden plans to say, according to a preview shared by aides.

Biden will argue that the need for federal outlays to contain the worst public health crisis since 1918 and the worst economic crisis since 1933 is only growing – and he wants to guarantee emergency paid leave not just for everyone who gets covid-19 but also those who care for them – “for as long as they need to recover.”

Categories Biden, Funding, Health

California Charter Schools Collect Millions Intended for Small Businesses

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2020 //
5

The Network for Public Education has been tracking the charter schools that collected from the federal Paycheck Protectiin Program intended to help small businesses struggling to survive. The charter schools have not had any budget cuts, have lost no money, have not been struggling to pay employees, but their lobbyists get them included as eligible for the PPP funding, although public schools are not eligible.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a story about some of the charters in California that have applied for and received PPP money. You will not be surprised to see V that the Michelle Rhee-Kevin Johnson charter chain in Sacramento is among them.


WASHINGTON — Charter schools in the Bay Area received tens of millions of dollars from a federal coronavirus relief program intended for small businesses, money they say is necessary to stay afloat amid the pandemic.

The schools are alternatives to traditional public schools and are exempt from many state regulations related to class size, curriculum and teacher tenure, yet still receive state funding. Some of the Bay Area charters that got federal bailout money are also backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, and the board chairman of one school conceded that taking the aid could be an “optics issue.”

It’s the latest instance of the federal Paycheck Protection Program coming under scrutiny for giving money to businesses that fit the letter of the law, but which don’t fit the traditional notion of a small business. Among aid recipients were Shake Shack, the owner of Ruth’s Chris Steak House and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, all of which gave back the money after it was reported that they were beneficiaries.

But some Bay Area charters say they are well within the spirit of the program. Many teach students from low-income or lesser-served communities, and they say they will accept any resource that keeps their teachers paid and schools open amid uncertainty about state education budgets.

The federal aid is in the form of low-interest loans that recipients don’t have to repay if they meet certain requirements, including keeping all their employees on the payroll. During the initial window for loan applications in May, Bay Area charter schools received funds from the program in amounts ranging from a few hundred thousand to several million dollars.

How we reported the story.

The Chronicle was approached by Parents United for Public Schools and In the Public Interest, which oppose charter schools and the privatization of education, with research they had done on schools that had received aid under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. The Chronicle then independently verified the information and conducted further research, including contacting policy makers.

The Chronicle was able to review charter boards’ meeting videos, audio recordings, minutes, documents and agendas to identify loan amounts and recipients. The Chronicle then contacted high-dollar recipients and schools named in the story to verify the information and to give them an opportunity to share their perspective on taking the low-interest federal loans.

Fourteen charter schools or chains in Oakland combined to receive roughly $20 million from the program. They included Education for Change, which runs six schools in the city and received $5.25 million, and Lighthouse Community Public Schools, which has two campuses and got $2.3 million.

Eight charter schools or chains in Santa Clara County combined to receive roughly $20 million. All but one received at least $1.5 million. Summit Public Schools, which has three schools in the county and a total of eight in the Bay Area, received $6.8 million.

At least two schools in San Francisco received loans. San Francisco Creative Arts Charter School got nearly $600,000. Envision Education’s City Arts and Tech High School also received a loan, but says the money will go to its consulting business — not the school that is supported by public funds. It did not divulge the amount it received.

And the St. Hope charter schools in Sacramento, whose board is chaired by school choice advocate Michelle Rhee and which was founded by her husband, former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, received more than $1.5 million.

Some of the loans were first publicized by Parents United for Public Schools and In the Public Interest, which oppose charter schools and the privatization of education. The Chronicle independently verified their research and conducted its own.

Traditional public schools are not eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program, and state-funded charter schools’ access to the loans raises questions among their critics about fairness.

“Because charter schools are currently receiving full funding as public schools intended to maintain employees, while at the same time receiving funding as private entities that are also intended to maintain employees, taxpayers are left covering what appears to be the same bill twice,” the groups said in a report questioning whether Oakland schools were “double dipping” on funds.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Denver: Charter Schools Collected $16 Million in Federal Aid for Small Businesses

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2020 //
5

Chalkbeat reports that charter schools in Denver collected $16 million from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, intended to help small businesses.

Across the country, charters are collecting federal money intended to save small businesses faced with economic collapse. Public schools are not eligible to get money from this program. Charter schools also receive state and local funding earmarked for public schools.

Aren’t they lucky to be both small businesses and public schools!

Denver charters knew this looked bad, so they suggested they might share future funding with the public schools.

Charter school critics nationally have balked at charters receiving federal Paycheck Protection Program funding, which is not available to traditional public schools.

But Denver charter leaders have committed to reckoning with any inequity created by the funding — a move the memo identifies as unique to Denver. Leaders said that could mean charters taking less than their share of other federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for Denver schools, leaving more money for district-run schools.

Many charters have been unwilling to acknowledge that they have applied and received PPP money. In Denver, the charters released their federal funding at the request of a board member, Scott Baldermann.

Categories Accountability, Denver, Funding

Peter Greene: Charter School in Plush California Neighborhood Picks Up a Federal PPP Loan

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2020 //
14

Peter Greene tells the story of the Pacific Charter School, located in the Los Angeles District. When PCS got news that they were eligible to get millions of dollars from the federal Paycheck Protection Program—whose purpose was to save small businesses at risk of closing forever—they saw an opportunity, and they took it.

PCHS is a charter school, and like many other such outfits, they have heard the siren song of the Paycheck Protection Program, the loan program designed to help small businesses stay afloat during the current pandemic mess (the second one, meant to clean up after the first one that ran out of money almost instantly). They are not alone–many charter schools are deciding that, for purposes of grabbing some money, they will go ahead and admit they are small private businesses and not public schools. Two thirds of the charter school businesses in New Orleans have put in for the loans.

What makes Palisades special is that we have video of their board discussing the issues of accepting the loan. (A hat tip to Carl Peterson, who has been watching these folks for a while.)

The discussion of the loan starts in the video about six minutes into the May 12 meeting. Chief Business Officer Greg Wood brings the news to the board that they’ve found a bank (in Utah) and landed approval for a $4.6 million loan.

If you’re wondering if they agonized over issues like tying up four and a half million dollars that might otherwise have been used by an actual small bus9iness that is currently struggling to stay afloat, the answer is, not so much. Wood acknowledges that there could be some rough press with such a move; nobody much cares. A member also mentions that he has friends with small businesses who were not able to be approved. The group gets a little confused about whether or not they’re eligible for the loan, and one member says “Well, the answer is, let’s get it anyway.” Wood says that they could be seen as “double dipping.”

They are eligible, and Wood has already applied and been approved pending board approval. Wood doesn’t know if the loan will be forgivable. In particular he dances around the idea that in order for the loan to be forgivable, they might lose the freedom to fire staff as they wish.

Payback is steep– they get two years, with six months before repayment has to start and a big balloon payment at the end. This does not seem to bother the board because they are mostly considering to grab this money in the off chance that they might need it, and if they don’t need it, they can just give it back in two years– basically a line of credit just in case, which I’m sure would be a big comfort to a business that goes under because there is no money for them in the PPP. But this meeting is marked by phrases like “get the money while the getting’s good” and “get the loan first…worry about that part later.” No payback plan was raised.

A bitter coda to all this. There is just one public comment submitted to the meeting, from a woman who is a Pali High grad and who taught there for thirty years and who is retiring. She’s speaking up because the rest of the staff is afraid of retribution. The teachers worked 2019-2020 without a contract, and while the praise and attaboy’s they’ve gotten for making the pandemic-pushed jump to distance crisis schooling are swell, the board could put their money where their mouths are by offering the teachers a decent raise– particularly since it looks like PCHS is finishing the year with a $2 million surplus. Her comments are read into the record, and then the board just moves on to authorizing the bank that will manage the loan.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization

New Orleans: Most Charters Are Double-Dipping into Federal Funds

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2020 //
5

Della Hasselle of the New Orleans Times-Picayune describes how charter schools in New Orleans have collected coronavirus relief funds from money meant for public schools as well as federal funds meant for small private businesses. Most received money from the Payroll Protection Program, up to $5.1 million for a single school, even though they have suffered no loss of revenues.


More than two-thirds of New Orleans’ charter school organizations have applied for federal loans through the congressional act to help keep businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, garnering criticism from some groups for tapping into a program that hasn’t been available to traditional public schools.

Dozens of New Orleans schools have applied for Payroll Protection Program loans, aimed at shielding small businesses from closure due to COVID-19, according to interviews and a review of documents from over 40 boards operating schools in New Orleans.

At least a third of the charters had received loans, with officials from those organizations saying they got anywhere from about $97,000 to more than $5.1 million in funds, based on their payroll.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the city of New Orleans and created great economic uncertainty for our schools about how we can continue to operate, employ all of our employees, and not dramatically cut services for students, many of whom will return to school with learning gaps and needing additional social and emotional supports,” said Kate Mehok, CEO of Crescent City Schools, which received $3 million.

The money, which comes from a $349 billion stimulus established by the $2 trillion federal CARES Act, can be forgiven if all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and if the money is used for salary, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, which along with the Treasury Department is implementing the program.

Critics had already lambasted charter schools around the country for the applications, accusing the non-profits of abusing their status and double-dipping, and were miffed to learn about the dozens of applications to come out of New Orleans, which this year became the first major American city to have no traditional schools.

Like traditional schools, local charters have already received some CARES Act funding through the Louisiana Department of Education. But unlike the charters, district-run schools weren’t eligible for the extra payroll loans.

The charter organizations each got hundreds of thousands of dollars from the $260 million doled out to districts and charters in late April as part of the Elementary and Secondary School Relief Fund, another part of the CARES Act, mostly for technology and distance learning.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Indiana: Can the State Afford Vouchers?

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2020 //
7

Karen Francisco, editor of the editorial page of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, is grateful that Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will not cut the budget of the state’s schools, but wonders whether the state can afford to maintain more than one system of publicly-funded schools. She might well have also asked whether the state can afford a third system of privately-managed charter schools.

Currently, there are 326 private and religious schools in the state receiving $172.7 million annually. Taxpayers have paid more than $1 billion to non-public schools since the choice program began nine years ago. Researchers have found that voucher schools do not provide better education than public schools; typically the students in voucher schools perform worse than their peers in public schools or at best, keep up with them.

When the fall campaign season gets underway, Statehouse candidates should be prepared to share their views on the growing cost of funding two Indiana school systems. In a struggling economy, can we afford it?

As the cost of the voucher program increased by 7%, the number of students participating increased by just over 1%. Voucher enrollment actually declined in the fall, the first time in the program’s nine-year history, according to the report. But voucher eligibility was expanded to add a second enrollment period from Nov. 1 to Jan. 15, so that 459 more students enrolled for spring.

Coincidentally, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence chose this week to tout school choice as an answer to racial injustice.

“We’re fighting for school choice, which really is the civil rights of all time in this country,” Trump said in remarks in a White House Rose Garden news conference. “Frankly, school choice is the civil rights statement of the year, of the decade and probably beyond because all children have to have access to quality education.”

But Indiana’s school choice program is not a civil rights program.

Indiana’s Choice Scholarship program hasn’t seen a stampede of minority students to private and parochial schools. Fewer black students received vouchers this past year than in the previous school year. While the percentage of Indiana children younger than 18 who are black is 14%, the percentage of black students participating in the voucher program is 11.79%. Hispanic youth make up 25% of Indiana youth 18 and under but 22% receive vouchers. White youth make up 50% of Hoosiers under 18 but nearly 57% of voucher recipients.

Meanwhile, the costs of reopening the schools safely will be substantial. Last year’s budget will be I sifficient to ensure that schools can reopen safely. It is time to ask whether the state can afford two separate publicly-funded school systems.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Indiana, Privatization, Vouchers

Newsweek: Betsy DeVos Steals from the Poor and Gives to the Rich

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2020 //
18

Readers of this blog know that Betsy DeVos decoded, against federal law and precedent, that CARES coronavirus funding should be divided among all students, rich, middle-income, and poor. She stuck to this decision even after her fellow Republican, Senator Lamar Alexander, pointed out that the money was for the neediest students, not all students. Betsy ignored him.

It’s heartening to see that Newsweek referred to this brazen action as “looting.”

If DeVos knew anything about the history of the federal role in education, she would know that the Elementary and a Secondary Education Act of 1965 was passed specifically to fund the schools of the poorest children.

While we chastise looting, let’s chastise billionaire Betsy for looting millions from poor kids in defiance of Congressional intent.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Education Reform, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Funding
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