Karen Francisco,  one of our nation’s best education writers, cares about the future of public education. Writing for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, she has closely watched the games that privatizers play.

In this article, she describes a startling decision by a state board to authorize Carpe Diem, an unproven charter school, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

As it happens, Fort Wayne has excellent community public schools. I visited some of them when I was there a year ago.

But Indiana is a red, red state and the legislature and governor are determined to introduce charters and vouchers wherever possible to undermine public schools.

So here is what happened:

That sound you heard Wednesday? That was the sound of the Indiana Charter School Board rubber-stamping a real estate deal to benefit a politically connected Fort Wayne business owner.

How else to explain a 5-1 vote to “replicate” an unproven school that has drawn few students in Indianapolis and met strong resistance from the Fort Wayne community during a public hearing held just 7 business days after local school officials and were notified? The application was approved less than 24 hours after the hearing.

Daryle Doden’s Ambassador Enterprises has been looking to draw a charter school tenant to The Summit, its education center at the former Taylor University campus, for more than a year. Another charter school applicant, Sun Academy, proposed leasing space there in a charter school application last year, but withdrew its bid. (Sun Academy has submitted a letter of intent to offer another application this spring, along with Global Village International Inc., so as many as three new charter schools could be opening in Fort Wayne next fall.)

Doden is the father of Eric Doden, a former GOP candidate for mayor and Gov. Mike Pence’s newly appointed director for statewide economic development. Daryle Doden and his wife contributed $15,500 to Pence’s campaign. Daryle Doden’s company will be paid $1,000 per student up to 550 students, plus “associated property costs”, for providing space for Carpe Diem charter school.

The school hasn’t been successful to date in Indianapolis: It attracted only 87 students and has no test scores yet, but the powers-that-be decided it has to be located in Fort Wayne, despite community opposition. The community understands the score: The property owner is in “the unique position of serving not only as landlord, but also in marketing the school. The more students it draws, the more it collects in rent, given the $1,000 per-head fee.” And every one of those dollars will be subtracted from an existing public school.

And what is Carpe Diem? It relies heavily on online instruction.

As it sucks dollars out of public schools, the loss of those dollars “reduces the ability of the existing schools to offer comprehensive programs – well-stocked libraries, guidance counselors, science labs, drama and music, sports programs and more. Carpe Diem’s computer instruction model includes none of those features. The Indianapolis school has only five teachers for grades 6-10. Its Arizona school at one time had one math teacher for 240 students in grades 6-12.”

This is reform?

There is an expression in Yiddish: What a shonda.