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Texas and Florida Tell Schools to Reopen Fully, Despite Surge in Virus Cases

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2020 //
27

Two states—Texas and Florida—are moving forward to open their schools for five-day, in-person instruction, even though the rate of coronavirus infections in both states is rising.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has demanded that schools across the nation restart and become fully operational, although she has no power to force schools to reopen when local officials believe it is unwise and unsafe. She and Trump are trying to force schools to open as if there were no pandemic and no risks to students and staff. They think that opening schools will be good for the economy and help his re-election. It’s hard to see how it will help his standing in the polls if the pandemic continues to spread and claims more victims.

DeVos made a point of praising Florida Commissioner Richard Corcoran (former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who has no background or qualifications in education and has expressed his desire to totally voucherize every school in the state) for ordering every school to reopen fully in mid-August.

As reported in Education Week, Corcoran left a loophole:

Corcoran’s Monday order says that, when they reopen in August, “all school boards and charter school governing boards must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students.” But those decisions are “subject to advice and orders of the Florida Department of Health, local departments of health” and other state orders.

Calling on schools to open “at least five days per week for all students” seems to eliminate the possibility of hybrid remote learning plans that have been among the most popular models for districts around the country. While the Trump administration has not clarified what exactly it expects from schools, DeVos has criticized hybrid plans as inadequate.

The school boards in Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade have announced that they will seek exemptions and continue remote or hybrid programs rather than reopen fully.

Texas has been promoting reopening, but local boards and teachers in hard-hit areas of the state are resisting.

The Trump administration has been citing the American Academy of Pediatrics as its justification for forcing schools to open, but AAP President Sally Goza pushed back and said that schools should not reopen without the financial resources to do so safely.

She told NPR that the AAP does not support rigid state mandates:

“We will be sticking to what our guidelines say —that if it does not look safe in your community to open schools, that we need to really have that looked at. We also need to make sure that schools have the needed resources to reopen safely so that a lack of funding is not a reason to keep students home, which we’re hearing in a lot of communities—to do what we’re asking people to do to make schools safe is not really financially feasible in some of these communities.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Florida, Health, Safety, Texas, Trump

Bonnie Lesley: We Have Lost a Champion for Children in Texas

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2020 //
5

It is with great sadness that I inform you that our dear friend Bonnie Lesley, leader of Texas Kids Can’t Wait, died of pneumonia.

She was a champion for children, and we will miss her friendship and her guidance. She was beloved by everyone who had the good fortune to know her.

Her son Bruce posted this notice today on Facebook:

Our family is devastated and heartbroken that my mother, Bonnie Lesley, who has loved, inspired, and impacted the lives of so many, has passed away this morning from complications related to pneumonia in Waco, Texas.

Our family is immensely grateful for all the love, support, prayers, and best wishes her various communities have provided to her, us, and to each other through this terribly difficult time.

My mother loved you all (“y’all” from our Texas friends). Her boundless love for family, students, colleagues, neighbors, and those dedicated to improving the lives of others is so apparent in the outpouring support she received in return.

Although not normally one who liked people reading to her, she loved to hear each and every post that I read to her via texts, email, Facebook, and Caring Bridge. She was so pleased to hear the kind words she got from people all over this country. It give her some much needed peace and happiness through this crisis.

We are going to have a graveside burial service for her in Her hometown of Hedley, Texas, this coming Friday. More information on this is forthcoming as arrangements are finalized. In lieu of flowers, we would ask that people consider donating to the The Network for Public Education Action, Planned Parenthood, or the Alzheimer’s Association.

Recognizing this will be very difficult if not impossible for people to attend, we are planning an on-line “Celebration of Bonnie’s Life” in the coming weeks. We will let people know when and how to participate in the near future.

Thanks again to all of you for your love, kindness, and support of my mother and our Thanks again to all of you for your love, kindness, and support of my mother and our family.

-Bruce Lesley

I share this quote (slightly modified) that my Mom loves from Gabriela Mistral:

“Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his or her bones are formed, his or her mind developed. To them, we cannot say tomorrow, their name is today.”

Categories Personal, Texas

Texas: IDEA Charter Chain Promises to Curb Its Big Spending

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
8

The IDEA charter chain has ambitious plans to expand, with the help of more than $200 million from Betsy DeVos’s charter slush fund (also known as the federal Charter Schools Program, which was created to help start-ups, not to expand corporate empires).

The IDEA profile is a business model, not a public school model. It pushes into new markets aggressively and spends lavishly on executive perks, like leasing a private jet, first class travel, self-dealing, and season tickets for sports events. And paying huge salaries to leaders. Betsy DeVos loves the model, but it didn’t play well to the public.

When the news broke about its free-spending ways, public reaction was swift and negative.

The chain, which currently operates 92 charters and is set to expand in Houston and elsewhere, funded by taxpayers with a mission of “disrupting” and replacing public schools, was co-founded by Tom Torkelsen and JoAnn Gama.

The board rewarded them handsomely. In 2018-19: Torkelsen was paid $817,395, CFO Wyatt Truscheit received $507,887, Gama collected $482,930 for Gama, and six others earned at least $250,000. When Torkelsen recently stepped down as CEO, he was promised severance pay of $900,000. Not exactly the kinds of salaries paid in the public sector. IDEA gets high test scores the usual charter way: by recruiting the students it wants and setting standards high enough to push out those it doesn’t want.

The Houston Chronicle wrote:
When the leaders of IDEA Public Schools gathered last December to vote on an eight-year lease for a private jet, the charter network’s then-board chair, David Guerra, thought of the nearly $15-million deal in business terms.

As president and CEO of International Bank of Commerce, Guerra and his team had used six corporate jets to grow the multibillion-dollar company’s business beyond its Laredo-area headquarters. The same premise would hold true for IDEA, he reasoned, as the charter school network based in the Rio Grande Valley rapidly expanded across Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

“We cannot fulfill our commitment to such a large geographic area without having this type of transportation,” the retired banking chief told IDEA’s governing board in December.

IDEA board members unanimously approved the lease, but reversed the decision two weeks later after charter school opponents and some of the network’s supporters denounced the aircraft as an irresponsible extravagance.

The episode triggered a wave of headlines, oversight changes and soul-searching at the state’s largest charter school, which now is grappling with how to maintain its corporate-like culture while abiding by some more-traditional expectations about how public school districts should be run, IDEA leaders said last week…

Beyond the charter jet lease, IDEA has drawn scrutiny in the past several months for multiple financial practices: spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on tickets and luxury boxes at San Antonio’s AT&T Center; making business deals with members of IDEA’s leadership and their relatives; and reaching a separation agreement with co-founder and CEO Tom Torkelson that will net him $900,000 following his resignation in May.

IDEA officials do not appear to have violated any laws, and the charter’s leaders have defended each practice at various points.

Still, IDEA’s governing board announced several reforms last month. They include banning private air travel, curbing executive benefits, ending business deals with leaders and family members, and requiring additional spending approvals from the governing board and chief financial officer.

“We don’t want to have execution that’s just like a traditional school district, because we want to have innovation and take some risks and be more aggressive,” IDEA Board Chair Al Lopez said. “But after 20 years of policies and practices helped us get to the point we’re at, we felt like we were at an inflection point.”

The stakes are high not just for IDEA, but the entire charter school movement.

Advocates for traditional public schools have seized on IDEA’s spending as an example of lax oversight of charters, which largely are funded by taxpayers. Texas American Federation of Teachers leaders blasted IDEA officials for the jet lease, accusing them of “flying adults around the state” instead of directly funding classroom programs. State Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, deemed IDEA’s practices “nonsense” that “absolutely underscores the problem…”

“IDEA has operated outside the public eye with little transparency while still receiving taxpayer dollars — and it shows,” said Patti Everitt, an education policy and research consultant who monitors Texas charter school operations. “IDEA can’t have it both ways…”

The charter’s leaders credit IDEA’s success, in part, to a culture that borrows from the business, nonprofit and higher education worlds. The organization employs a regimented, highly centralized model that emphasizes student and employee performance data.

Critics, however, argue the network indirectly screens out children with greater academic and behavioral needs by emphasizing advanced-level courses, inflating the organization’s results. As an example, they note IDEA’s enrollment of students with disabilities totaled 5.4 percent in 2018-19, compared to 9.6 percent in other Texas public schools.

Still, IDEA schools remain in high demand, helping fuel the network’s ambitious approach to expansion. IDEA added more more students in the past five years than any other Texas charter operators, and it plans to hit 100,000 students across the southern United States by 2022-23.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Texas

Andrea Gabor Asks for Your Help to Elect a Texan

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2020 //
9

Andrea Gabor is a friend and a wise writer about education.

She sent the following appeal:

Dear Friends,

First and foremost, I hope this note finds you safe and healthy.

As many of you know, I was supposed to lead another student, political-reporting trip this spring, this time to the Texas border; Covid19 foiled our travel plans and, instead, my students produced a fabulous pack of articles on life and politics on the Texas border amid the pandemic, reporting remotely from NYC. (I’ve included a link below.) Among other things, my students found that gerrymandering and voter suppression have turned Texas into one of the nation’s leading “no-vote” states.

During this time of national crisis, changing leadership in Washington alone is not enough. Fixing our political system requires change at every level of government, especially state government. Given what I learned about Texas as a result of my students’ reporting, I’ve decided to support the vigorous grassroots efforts to flip the Texas State House and hope you will help.

Please join me in supporting Elizabeth Beck for Texas State House District 97.

Elizabeth is a mother, veteran, and lawyer, who is running to represent Tarrant County, near Fort Worth. Her roots in the area go all the way to elementary school. She remains an active member of the local community, serving on boards for Congregation Beth-El and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Fort Worth. She works to get women elected across the state through organizations like Annie’s List, and regularly lends her time to voter protection efforts for local, state, and national elections.

Join us and Elizabeth via Zoom on Wednesday, June 24, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM (EDT)

Elizabeth will be joined by two exciting special guests to share what is at stake in these elections:
· Beto O’Rourke, former United States Representative (TX-16)
· Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos, NY4US alum and Member of the Texas House of Representatives (TX-102)

Click here to donate and RSVP. The first $15,000 we raise will be matched by supporters on the ground in Fort Worth! Those who donate will receive a link to join the video call.

Even if you cannot attend, please consider donating to help support Elizabeth and give her the resources she needs to spread her message and reach voters.

FYI, here’s a link to my students’ fabulous Border package: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/border2020/

Thanks,

Andrea

Andrea Gabor
Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism
Baruch College/CUNY
After the Education Wars (The New Press, June 2018)
http://www.andreagabor.com
917 685 7666

Categories Politics, Texas

Texas: Faith-Based Charter School Hopes to Open in Dallas Area

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2020 //
6

Parent advocates in Dallas are concerned about the fiscal impact of new charter schools at a time when the budget of the public schools are stretched thin.

Lori Kirkpatrick wrote here about the dangers of introducing new and unwanted charters.

Public education advocates don’t understand how it makes sense to introduce new charters when existing public schools are in fiscal trouble.

They expressed concern that all available state funds should be focused on helping existing district and charter schools meet the challenges of COVID-19, not on opening new charter schools. Public funds for education should be targeted where they are needed the most.

Trustee Joyce Foreman stated, “DISD is experiencing unbudgeted and unanticipated costs to ensure that DISD students have equal access to technology for virtual learning, and meals for continued health and wellness. This is not the time for reduced resources to our public school district that serves the vast majority of students who also have the greatest needs.”

Advocates also raised specific issues about the proposed new campuses including:

Waxahachie Faith Family Academy (FFA) – an alternative education accountability campus (AEA) with significantly lower accountability standards than most Dallas ISD schools and the district. For example, 4th graders at FFA scored significantly lower that 4th grade students at a Dallas Elementary school that is only 2.2 miles (4 minutes) from the FFA campus but has similar student demographics:

– 27% on state tests for reading (23 points lower) and 26% for math (32 points lower) than the Dallas ISD elementary school.

Uplift Education Wisdom Prep – the proposed Uplift campuses would result in an estimated revenue loss of up to $100 million to Dallas ISD over 10 years, using projected estimates of full enrollment.

Both proposed charter campuses are located in close proximity to academically acceptable Dallas ISD schools. The new FFA site at 200 W. Wheatland Road is located only 2.1 miles (5 minutes) from DISD’s academically acceptable David W. Carter High School (C rated). The expansion of Uplift Wisdom Prep at 301 W. Camp Wisdom Road is located 1.4 miles (< 5 minutes) from B rated DISD campus Umphrey Lee Elementary School, 0.4 miles (1 minute) from DISD’s Terry Elementary School (C rated), and 2.7 miles from DISD’s David W. Carter High School. Wisdom Prep is C rated and was Improvement Required the prior year under the name Pinnacle.

These new campuses are proposed through the charter amendment process which allows an existing charter to open a new campus anywhere in Texas once they meet certain TEA requirements. The approval is at the sole discretion of the TEA Commissioner of Education. There is no public notice about the amendment requests to open new campuses, and little opportunity for public input. Most parents and community members are unaware that these charters are proposed to open new campuses in their neighborhoods.

Foreman stated, “This lack of public notice and input in the charter expansion process goes against our need for more not less transparency in how decisions are made about the use of public funds. Parents spoke out against the FFA expansion in 2018 – and they are still against any such expansions.”

Lori Kirkpatrick issued the following alert for parent advocates for public schools in Dallas:

CHARTER ACTION ALERT: DALLAS

QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS: NEW CHARTER CAMPUS – WAXAHACHIE FAITH FAMILY ACADEMY

Waxahachie Faith Family Academy (FFA) has asked the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for approval to open a new charter campus in Dallas at 200 W. Wheatland Road to serve grades 9 – 12. FFA currently operates charter campuses in Dallas (Oak Cliff) and Ellis counties.

Please send an email to Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education, if you are concerned about the expansion of Faith Family Academy in Dallas. If possible, please post this information on social media to inform other parents and community members. The TEA decision had not been made as of May 5, 2020, but it is expected soon, so please act now.(mike.morath@tea.texas.gov)

Here are critical concerns about Waxahachie Faith Family Academy:

• All available state funds should be used to help existing public schools respond to the on-going challenges of COVID-19. Districts are facing unbudgeted and unanticipated expenses needed to support students and their families. In this dire budget situation, we should focus state funds where they are needed most.

• The proposed Waxahachie FFA campus will be located in close proximity to a Dallas ISD High School rated academically acceptable. The new FFA site at 200 W. Wheatland Road is located only 2.1 miles (5-minute drive) from DISD’s David W. Carter High School which is rated academically acceptable for the last three years.

• Waxahachie FFA does not inform parents on its website that it is evaluated under alternative education accountability (AEA) provisions. Campuses and districts registered under AEA provisions meet significantly lower accountability standards than most Dallas ISD schools and the district. Yet FFA does not include this critical information on its website to fully inform parents about FFA’s accountability standards. In fact, FFA states that: “Faith Family Academy is an A-rated district by the Texas Education Agency – higher than every public school district in our service area!”

• Waxahachie Faith Family Academy does not budget to adequately meet critical needs of its students. FFA spends zero dollars on guidance and counseling services, compared to a per student expenditure of $436 by Dallas ISD for counseling. Students in grades 9 – 12 especially require counseling services to help them with class schedules, academic advising, and college access.

• Waxahachie Faith Family Academy spends less on instruction and more on administration. FFA is an alternative education accountability school with lower accountability standards than most Dallas ISD schools and serves students at risk of dropping out. Yet, it spends $563 less per student on instruction than Dallas ISD schools, and more than double per student on general administration expenses.

• Waxahachie underserves students with special needs, enrolling only 5.7 percent compared to the state average of 9.6 percent. It’s a serious concern that a charter school should be allowed to expand unless it serves close to the state average of students with special needs. In addition, Waxahachie’s 2019 Special Education Determination Status is “Needs Intervention” which raises additional concerns about the services it delivers to this student population.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas

Texas: Parent Complains to State Superintendent About Approval of Unwanted Charter School

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2020 //
5

Dr. Theresa Trevino, a public school parent in Austin, wrote to Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath to complain about the insertion of a BASIS charter school into a community where the school is neither wanted nor needed. BASIS is owned by a couple who pay themselves $10 million a year. Their charter schools require students to pass multiple AP exams, which effectively winnows out low-performing students, who no longer bother to apply. Most of their charters are in Arizona, where they are celebrated for their high scores. Their high scores are achieved by excluding students who might get low scores.

See the letters here and here.

 

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

Corruption Watch: DeVos Awarded $72 Million to IDEA Charter Chain Despite Negative Staff Reviews!

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
5

Three whistleblowers in the U.S. Department of Education filed complaints that Betsy DeVos overruled internal reviews to award $72 million to the IDEA charter chain.

This is not the way federal grants are supposed to work. Funds are supposed to be awarded based on peer reviews and staff reviews, not awarded as plums by political appointees. This is political interference at the highest level. This award should be revoked.

I have often referred to the $440 million federal Charter Schools Program as DeVos’s private slush fund, and this grant proves that my hunch was right.

Valerie Strauss writes in the Washington Post:

A U.S. congressman is demanding answers from the U.S. Education Department, alleging department employees complained to his office about political interference in the awarding of a multimillion-dollar federal grant to the controversial IDEA charter school network.


Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sent a letter to the department Monday asking for details and records related to the awarding of the grant.

In an interview, Pocan said “three whistleblowers” told his office that professional staff evaluating applications for 2020 grants from the federal Charter School Program had rejected IDEA for new funding, deeming the network “high risk” because of how IDEA leaders previously spent federal funds.


But according to these whistleblowers, Pocan said, professional staff was overruled by political appointees who ordered the funding be awarded to IDEA. The identities of the whistleblowers were not revealed to The Post, nor were the names of the political appointees.


The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.


IDEA, a Texas-based charter school network with nearly 100 campuses in Texas and Louisiana serving nearly 53,000 students, said in a statement:
”Peer reviewers from education and other fields evaluate grant applications independently from Department of Education staff. In three of the last four Charter Schools Program competitions, spanning two administrations and including the most recent round of grants, the independent reviewers who evaluated applications gave IDEA Public Schools the highest scores of any applicant in the country. (In 2017, IDEA received the second-highest score.) All of the outside reviewers’ scores and comments are public on the Department’s website, and we encourage anyone doubting the strength of IDEA’s applications and our 20-year track record with students to read those reviews.”


Earlier this month, the Education Department announced it was awarding millions of dollars in new grants to charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. IDEA was the top recipient, receiving $72 million over five years.

IDEA had previously received more than $200 million in funding over the past decade through the program.



But the network has been dogged by controversy. This month, IDEA chief executive Tom Torkelson resigned after publicly apologizing for “really dumb and unhelpful” plans that included leasing a private jet for millions of dollars and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on San Antonio Spurs tickets.

The Texas Monitor reported last month that Torkelson had flown on a private jet to Tampa to meet with DeVos to discuss “education philanthropy,” records show. The Monitor reported he was the only passenger on a jet that can hold nine people.


Last November, the Education Department’s inspector general criticized IDEA in an audit of data IDEA included in annual performance reviews it submitted to the federal government, required as part of the grants received from the federal Charter Schools Program.
The inspector general concluded that IDEA Public Schools “did not provide complete and accurate information” for all performance measures on annual performance reports over three years and did not report any information for 84 percent of the performance measures on which it was required to report over two years.

Still, IDEA had certified its annual performance reports were “true, complete and accurate.”
The audit also found IDEA “did not always spend grant funds in accordance with federal cost principles and its approved grant applications.”
IDEA acknowledged some of the findings, took issue with others, and agreed with all the recommendations from the inspector general to improve internal procedures.


That inspector general report, together with the suggestion that political appointees pushed through more grant money, should spark an even deeper inspection of IDEA, Pocan said in an interview.
“There needs to be an investigation,” Pocan said. “This would be completely improper to take a program that has to have inspector general reports and a lot of media attention about bad decisions they’ve made, and then to get a grant that wasn’t approved by the professional staff and instead given for political reasons.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Scandal, Texas, U.S. Department of Education

Texas: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2020 //
7

William Gumbert relies on data from the Texas State Education Departmentvto demonstrate they the state’s woefully underfunded public schools outperform the well-funded overhyped charter schools.

The real puzzle in Texas and elsewhere is why billionaires and financiers continue to fund failure.

See the analysis here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Texas

Texas: Charter Schools Grow Rapidly Despite Inferior Performance Compared to Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2020 //
8

William Gumbert prepared a graphic portrayal of the dramatic growth of privately managed charter schools in Texas.

Two facts stand out from his presentation:

1) Charter schools are diverting billions of dollars from the state’s underfunded public schools.

2) Public schools perform better than charter schools.

Public officials are turning public money over to entrepreneurs at a furious pace without regard to the results.

Charter schools this year will take more than $3 Billion away from the state’s public schools, despite the poor performance of the charter schools. Since their inception, charters have diverted more than $23 Billion from the state’s public schools.

Public schools in Texas are underfunded and have been underfunded since 2011, when the state legislature recklessly cut $5.4 Billion from the schools’ budget. That cut was never fully restored.

Diverting money to charter schools adds more damage to the public schools that continue to enroll the vast majority of students in the state.

Texas has about 5.4 million students. More than half of all its students are Hispanic. About 12-13% are African American. About 28% are white. The majority (58.7%) are identified by the state as “economically disadvantaged.”

The legislature does not look like the people of Texas, most of whom are people of color. Almost two-thirds of the state legislature are white. More than three-quarters are men. Why does the legislature substitute charter schools for adequate funding?

Read the whole report here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Funding, Privatization, Texas

CEO of Scandal-Ridden IDEA Charter Chain Resigns

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2020 //
7

Tom Torkelson, c-founder of the IDEA charter chain, has stepped down as CEO and will be replaced by the other co-founder JoAnn Gama.

Based in Texas, IDEA is a favorite of Betsy DeVos, who has sent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the chain to help it expand. Less than two weeks ago, DeVos gave another $72 million to IDEA. The chain previously had received more than $200 million from DeVos. She sure likes IDEA.

Torkelson and Gama arrived in the Rio Grande Valley aspartame’s ofTeach for America and started IDEA in 2000. It has become a charter behemoth in the past two decades.

The chain attracted bad publicity for its free-spending ways. One of its worst ideas was leasing a private jet for nearly $2 million a year for exclusive use of its executives and their families. After getting negative press, the board canceled the lease, and now the executives fly first class.

Jacob Carpenter wrote in The Houston Chronicle:

Torkelson’s resignation caps a remarkable run for the charter pioneer, whose ambition, charisma and results-driven approach helped propel IDEA’s remarkable expansion over the past 20 years. In recent months, however, Torkelson’s push to lease a charter jet and the disclosure of questionable financial practices under his watch prompted scrutiny of the charter.

IDEA students, the vast majority of whom are Hispanic and come from low-income families, routinely score well-above average on state standardized tests and enroll in college at high rates compared to their peers. Skeptics argue IDEA’s success is inflated by high academic standards that deter families from enrolling students with more intensive academic and behavioral needs.

Torkelson and Gama started IDEA in the late 1990s while working as teachers in the Rio Grande Valley, opening a single school together in the border city of Donna. After meager growth in its first decade, IDEA rapidly expanded in the 2010s in the Valley, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso and Fort Worth.

The network operates 91 schools in Texas enrolling 49,500 students, along with five campuses in Louisiana. IDEA is scheduled to open its first four Houston-area schools this year on two sites in northern Harris County.
Torkelson served as a key figure in IDEA’s expansion, pushing to enroll 100,000 students across the country by 2022. Earlier this year, Torkelson told the Houston Chronicle that he wanted IDEA to become “the largest high-performing school system in the United States of America.”

Torkelson also played a significant role in fundraising for IDEA, which has received tens of millions of dollars from philanthropic groups to aid its expansion.

However, some of Torkelson’s financial and operational moves led to criticism over the past several months.
Torkelson’s desire to lease a charter jet as a method of reducing travel hassles between the network’s hubs drew sharp backlash in December 2019.

One month later, more scrutiny followed the disclosure that IDEA spent about $400,000 annually on luxury boxes and tickets for events at San Antonio’s AT&T Center. IDEA officials said more than 1,000 employees received tickets each season as a reward for performance, with the “lion’s share” allotted to campus-level staff and students

During Torkelson’s tenure, several relatives of IDEA executives and board members also engaged in business dealings with the charter, including a company co-owned by Chief Operating Officer Irma Muñoz’s husband that billed more than $600,000 for uniforms, other clothing and gear.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Scandals, Texas
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