Would you put more money into a failing business?
If you were in charge of the charter industry, the answer is yes.
The charter industry in Ohio is lobbying for a 22% increase in tuition, even though 2/3 of the state’s charter schools are rated either D or F.
If they were public schools, most would have been closed by now.
Back when charters started, their advocates claimed they would get better results with less money. They don’t get better results and they don’t save money. Broken promises.
Recently Education Week posted a column claiming that charters and vouchers do not threaten public schools and that concern about privatization is vastly overblown.
Anthony Cody refutes that argument for complacency in this post.
The writer of the article, Arianna Prothero, is a staff writer for Education Week.
Cody writes:
Prothero apparently only consulted one side of this contentious issue, as all the statistics she cites are from the National Alliance for Public (sic) Charter Schools.
When she refers to “most parts of America,” she apparently means rural areas, he says.
She wondered why West Virginia teachers were willing to strike to block charter schools, when, she claims, they are no big deal in a state like West Virginia. After all, legislators only want to start small, with one itty-bitty program with only a few charters.
Cody responds:
Wow. That is quite a conclusion! It would be reassuring if this were not the way that almost every charter school and voucher program began – with just a few schools, or only targeting a limited group of students. And then within a few years, the programs are expanded to include nearly everyone. Reporters covering education should know this history.
Indiana’s voucher program started for limited income students who had attended public schools for at least a year. It expanded to the point that today many students are eligible. Take a look at all the student eligibility pathways. This year, taxpayers will spend $153 million on vouchers for students attending private and parochial schools. Families earning as much as $91,000 a year are eligible.
Voucher programs such as “Education Savings Accounts” almost always start with one group, such as students with disabilities, and then more groups are added every year. That is what happened in Arizona. The program in Arizona started small, and by last year had expanded to make 20% of students eligible. State lawmakers tried to make 90% of students eligible, but last year voters overturned the law. The proposal in West Virginia, for seven charter schools and vouchers for a thousand students this year, would have been a platform for further growth.
Cody shows how charters are undermining the very existence of public schools in some cities.
And he notes:
Mainstream media coverage for the past decade has, similar to this EdWeek blog post, generally downplayed the potential and real harms inflicted by the expansion of charter schools and voucher programs. The experiences of those in places like Oakland, Los Angeles and Pennsylvania serve as a warning to others — whether they are in urban, suburban or rural areas. Charter schools are a costly experiment that so far, has failed to yield much. Those in states fortunate enough to have avoided charters thus far do not need to repeat these failed experiments to learn the same lessons the hard way. Teachers in West Virginia were wise to ward off this danger.
Readers might be interested to know that blog posts in EdWeek bearing the K12 Parent Engagement logo are partly funded by contributions by the Walton Family Foundation, though EdWeek retains editorial control.
The Walton Family Foundation is anti-union, anti-public school, and pro-privatization. They expect a return on investment.
Starlee Coleman, CEO of the Texas Charter Schools Association, insists that charter schools should have the right to exclude students they don’t want.
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who represents Austin, has introduced a bill proposing that charters act like public schools if they want to be public schools and serve all kinds of students, not just those who are easiest and cheapest to educate.
Of course, the charter lobby wants public money without acting like a public school.
Thank you, Rep. Hinojosa, for standing up for what is right!
If charter schools take public money, as they do, they should be subject to the same admissions procedures, discipline standards, transparency and accountability as real public schools.
But no, they want to get public money while acting like private schools.
This is an important article by three scholars. Derek Black of the University of South Carolina, Bruce Baker of Rutgers University, and Preston Green of the University of Connecticut. Please open the link to read it all.
While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.
Charter school supporters are reluctant to acknowledge, much less stop, these practices.
Given that charter schools are growing rapidly – from 1 million students in 2006 to more than 3.1 million students attending approximately 7,000 charter schools now – shining a light on these practices can’t come too soon. The first challenge, however, is simply understanding the complex space in which charters operate – somewhere between public and private.
Charters were founded on the theory that market forces and competition would benefit public education. But policy reports and local government studies increasingly reveal that the charter school industry is engaging in the type of business practices that have led to the downfall of other huge industries and companies.
Charter schools regularly sign contracts with little oversight, shuffle money between subsidiaries and cut corners that would never fly in the real world of business or traditional public schools – at least not if the business wanted to stay out of bankruptcy and school officials out of jail. The problem has gotten so bad that a nationwide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education warned in a 2016 audit report that the charter school operations pose a serious “risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and lack “accountability.”
The biggest problem in charter school operations involves facility leases and land purchases. Like any other business, charters need to pay for space. But unlike other businesses, charters too often pay unreasonably high rates – rates that no one else in the community would pay.
One of the latest examples can be found in a January 2019 report from the Ohio auditor-general, which revealed that in 2016 a Cincinnati charter school paid $867,000 to lease its facilities. This was far more than the going rate for comparable facilities in the area. The year before, a Cleveland charter was paying half a million above market rate, according to the same report.
Why would a charter school do this? Most states require charter schools to be nonprofit. To make money, some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that they also own. These companies do make money off students.
In other words, some “nonprofit” charter schools take public money and pay their owners with it. When this happens, it creates an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.
The Cincinnati and Cleveland charters are prime examples of this perverse incentive structure. In both cases, the Ohio report showed, the charters were leasing property from the subsidiaries of the charter school operators.
In fact, these and other similar subsidiaries were leasing facilities to several other charters in the state. These charters spent twice as much on rent as others in the state.
Thomas Kelley, a law professor specializing in nonprofit law, unearthed similar problems in North Carolina, where charter school management companies obtain “ownership of valuable properties using public funds” and then charge the nonprofit charter schools rent far in excess of what is necessary to cover the cost of acquiring and maintaining the facilities. Because of the self-dealing, he questioned whether the charters actually qualify for nonprofit status under federal law.
The windfalls from these self-dealing practices can be sizable. In Arizona, Glenn Way, a former state legislator, has made about $37 million selling and leasing real estate to a chain of charter schools that he founded and, until recently, directed as chairman of the board, according to local reporting.
The New Vision Academy in Nashville is in trouble for violating the fire code andquestionable financial practices.
“The Nashville charter school New Vision Academy has been violating city fire code by enrolling more students than the capacity allowed at the south Nashville church building where it rents space.
“Because of the overcrowding issue, Metro Nashville Public Schools is forced to remove at least 64 students from the school in the coming weeks, according to a letter from the district’s charter school chief.
“It’s the latest development for a school that has been embroiled in turmoil. New Vision Academy remains under federal and state investigations related to financial irregularities, special education requirements and compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
“In a letter to school board members on Friday, MNPS Executive Officer of Charter Schools Dennis Queen said the school has been cramming 18 to 20 students into classrooms that are only allowed to hold eight to 10 students….
”Last year, a group of teachers sent the district a whistleblower’s report detailing an array of concerns at the school, including students with disabilities and English-learning students not receiving the specialized classroom time required by federal law.
“The teachers also criticized the school for financial issues, complaining they sometimes were denied requests to buy books and other classroom supplies.
“New Vision CEO Tim Malone makes $312,971 annually, and his wife LaKesha Malone makes $250,000 per year, according to New Vision’s most recent public tax documents. For context, Tim Malone’s salary is $27,000 more than MNPS Director Shawn Joseph’s salary.
“The Malones said through an attorney last year that they both worked two jobs under a single nonprofit umbrella. In addition to the school, the Malones run a social work nonprofit.
“Several of the teachers who raised the concerns about New Vision were fired on the same day The Tennessean published an investigative story detailing issues at the school. The teachers subsequently were hired for this school year by other schools.”
In Rhode Island, Governor Gina Raimondo is Charter-mad. This makes sense since she used to be a hedge fund manager and most HFMs are Charter zealots.
What was not so well known is that Jonathan Sackler has contributed large sums to support more charters in RI and to help Raimondo’s political career.
Sackler’s billions are derived from the marketing and sale of opioids, which have killed more than 200,000 people.
The Massachusetts Attorney General is suing the Sackler Family, not just Purdue Pharmaceuticals.
Raimondo won’t return the bloody Sackler money.
“A GoLocal review of federal tax documents has found that Jonathan Sackler — who is now being personally sued by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Suffolk County New York for his role in the illegal marketing of opioids which is tied to the deaths of tens of thousands overdoses — has funneled millions of dollars to charter school company Achievement First. The company runs three schools in Rhode Island.
“As GoLocal has previously reported, Jonathan Sackler and his wife Mary Corson are significant donors to Governor Gina Raimondo and the Governor has repeatedly refused to donate or return the donations.
“Sackler has served as a board member for years for Achievement First, but disappeared from the list of Board member in mid-2018 — about the time that hundreds of lawsuits were filed by states and municipalities against Sackler’s company Purdue Pharma. Purdue Pharma is controlled by the Sacklers and Jonathan has served on the Purdue board for years. The State of Rhode Island and a number of municipalities have filed suit against Sackler’s company Purdue — and other firms.”
Is it “for the kids”?
The Achievement First charter chain is committed to re-examining the value and purpose of its harsh disciplinary policies after a white principal was videotaped shoving a black student, and a behavioral specialist resigned and blasted the oppressive climate at one of the charters.
No-excuses charters claim that their draconian policies produce high test scores but critics have long criticized the inhumanity of their rules, which smack of colonialism.
Turmoil at an Achievement First high school has escalated into a larger reckoning for the charter school network spanning three states.
The spark was two videos released in January. In the first, the former principal of Achievement First Amistad High School in New Haven, who is white, is seen shoving a student. In the second, a former staff member, who is black and who released the first video, described the school as “oppressive.”
The ensuing backlash — including over the fact that the principal was not immediately fired — has pushed the network’s leaders to accelerate planned changes. Now, they say they’re open to reconsidering things big and small, from how students are expected to sit in class to even the network’s leadership.
The two CEOs have recently sent a series of candid emails to the network’s staff, who work across 36 schools in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York. Those emails, obtained by Chalkbeat, illustrate how the events at Amistad raised significant questions about the network’s approach to racism, discipline, and leadership.
“The last 3 weeks have been the hardest weeks we’ve ever had leading our network,” CEOs Dacia Toll and Doug McCurry wrote. “What happened at AF Amistad High School is a failure of our leadership.”
Many of those questions connect the controversy to a long-standing debate about so-called “no excuses” charter schools, which emphasize strict discipline, high expectations, and an academic focus. Research has found that these school networks, including Achievement First, substantially increase students’ test scores and, in some cases, help more of them attend college. But critics and some scholars argue that the discipline-heavy approach amounts to a racist, even abusive form of control over mostly students of color, while failing to prepare them to lead independent lives.
In the last two months, more Achievement First teachers and parents have called for change. The network’s leaders say they are committed to improving students’ experiences — and everything is on the table as its principals gather this week.
“We’re going to remain a high-expectations organization. The provocative question is, what does high expectations actually look like?” Toll told Chalkbeat in a lengthy interview. “Is it high expectations or low expectations to insist that kids fold their hands?”
The controversy broke into public view because of Steven Cotton, a behavioral specialist with Achievement First who worked for the network for five years.
Cotton says he saw the security footage in October showing principal Morgan Barth grabbing and shoving a student emerging from a classroom. By January, Cotton had resigned and posted a lengthy Facebook video criticizing Amistad’s treatment of teachers and students, including its merit and demerit discipline system.
“There’s not a place in that building at this point where a kid can be a kid,” he said. “Yes, we’re here for education, but we’re not here to be robots.”
The New Haven Independent published a story featuring the security camera footage and Cotton’s video. In the piece, the brother of another student said that Barth had shoved his sibling at a Bridgeport Achievement First school Barth led in 2013. (Toll told Chalkbeat that, because it was a personnel matter, she could not comment on whether she or the network had known about that allegation.)
Barth resigned that day, hours after the Independent story.
In this article, a writer for the libertarian Reason magazine–which supports free-market solutions to all government problems–praises Cory Booker for his advocacy on behalf of charters and vouchers, and even dares to mention that he worked closely with Betsy DeVos, his ideological ally on education issues.
Booker is proud of his record as an advocate of privatization and a supporter of non-union schools.
Real Democrats don’t support charters and vouchers. These are Republican issues.
Public schools belong to the public, not to entrepreneurs or privatizers or profiteers or corporate chains or foreign entities.
What exquisite timing! The teachers in Oakland went out on strike to demand a decent living wage and to protest the destruction of their schools by privatizers, and guess who is planning to come to town?
On May 8-9, the NewSchools Venture Fund will hold its annual summit in Oakland, California, to review its plans for additional privatization of public schools.
The summit is sponsored by the usual suspects: The Walton Family Foundation (anti-union, anti-public schools, pro-privatization), The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (ditto), The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (selling computers and depersonalized learning), and The Carnegie Foundation of New York (once a friend to public schools, but no longer).
Make plans to be in Oakland to send your greetings to the Robber Barons of our day.
Who knows? Maybe Betsy DeVos will be their keynote speaker.
They are planning to disrupt your public schools, destroy your unions, and continue marauding where they are uninvited and unwelcome.
During Governor Jerry Brown’s tenure in office, he vetoed all efforts to hold charter schools accountable, to consider their fiscal impact, or to limit their numbers. Those days are over under Governor Gavin Newsom.
Edsource reports:
“The chairman of the Assembly Education Committee and several Democratic colleagues introduced a package of bills Monday that would impose severe restrictions on the growth of charter schools.
“Three of the bills would eliminate the ability of charter schools to appeal rejected applications to the county and state, place an unspecified cap on charter school growth and enable school districts to consider the financial impact of charter schools when deciding whether to approve them. A fourth bill would abolish the right of a charter school that can’t find a facility in its authorizing district to locate a school in an adjoining district.
“Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the Education Committee, said the bills collectively would enable school districts “to make responsible and informed decisions” that are “critical for student success and taxpayer accountability.” Eric Premack, a veteran charter school adviser and advocate, called the legislation a “full-frontal” assault and “scorched earth” approach to charter schools.”
”Scorched earth”=accountability, ethics, transparency.
At the heart of the strikes in Los Angeles and Oakland was the fiscal drain caused by runaway charter schools, which have operated and proliferated in the state without accountability for years.
The power of the charters was guaranteed by their lobby, the California Charter School Association, which spends $20 million a year to defeat accountability measures.
It’s a new day in California!
Elections have consequences. The charter lobby backed Antonio Villaraigosa for governor and Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent.Both lost.
Both houses of the legislature swiftly approved a bill to impose accountability and transparency on charter schools and Governor Gavin Newsom has promised to sign it.
In the future, charters will be subject to the same open meetings laws and conflicts of interest laws as public schools.
More stringent regulation may be on the way, for example, one bill would no longer allow charter operators who were rejected by their district to appeal to the county, and if rejected by the county, appeal to the state board.
At present, charters may open without consideration of their fiscal impact on the public schools.
Also, a charter may be authorized by a district to operate in another district hundreds of miles away.
John Fensterwald writes in Edsource:
“Capitalizing on the momentum, this week O’Donnell and three other legislators announced four more bills that would restrict charter schools. They would eliminate the right of appeals to the county and the state, cap the number of schools to what’s operating now, let school districts reject charter schools based on their financial impact and prevent charter schools approved in one district from setting up in another.
“This week, the West Contra Costa Unified School District board followed the lead of boards in Los Angeles and Oakland to endorse some form of a moratorium on charter schools. Newsom has not indicated his position on the latest bills or on a moratorium, now that the bill on transparency has passed.”
Are the “days of wine and roses” coming to an end for the richly funded charter lobby?
This NPE report explains why charters in California need regulation and accountability.
Click to access NPE-Report-Charters-and-Consequences.pdf
Imagine a charter school in a shopping mall where students see a teacher once every 21 days. Imagine charter schools with graduation rates of 10% or less.
Imagine rampant fraud that goes unchecked for years.
Could these excesses finally be subject to oversight?
