Compilation of charter school scandals over the past year.

Courtesy of the blogger called The Perimeter Primate.

It is important to keep up with such things as this because these schools get public money while being privately run and mostly deregulated. Tax money is taken from the traditional public schools and sent to the charter school with no expectation it will ever be returned.

The post is quite long, so here are just a few.

COMPILATION OF CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS April 2009 to April 2010

Some of the more egregious:



And more and more we are finding that real estate transactions and profits are involved.



And another from New York City:



More landlord/tenant real estate profiteering:



Long post, much more there. The Perimeter Primate blogger summarizes some the main problems with charters at this time.

It's important to know these since our Secretary of Education is paying districts who allow more and more of these schools.



Then there are the 13 Philly charter schools which are being investigated there...many of them for profiteering. Not what should be happening with taxpayer money.



There is a need for some high level Democratic politicians with clout to speak out on this practice and its use of public money.

Thanks for compiling these!

madfloridian for Education Secretary!

It's like you're documenting an epidemic.

vbabout problems with schools in NY State.

The privatization of public schools is resulting in the problems always found when public funds find their way into private hands.

First there are the middlemen, 'management companies' who are taking their share of the funds which otherwise would have gone directly to education. And in some cases, they are very resistent to any kind of scrutiny. Considering they are handling public funds, it's hard to understand how they could not be subjected to the same rules as public schools.

Lifting the Rock on Pennsylania Charter Schools

In 2005, Matthew Zager, a reporter for the Delaware County Daily Times, filed a Right-to-Know law request with Vahan Gureghian, head of the management company that operates the Chester Community Charter School. Zager asked for an auditor's report, financial statements, and the school's management agreement with the corporation that had managed the charter before 2002.

The request was denied by Danielle Gureghian, Vahan Gureghian's wife and a lawyer for his management company. She said the management firm was a private company and not subject to the Right-to-Know law.

Delaware County Common Pleas Court, Commonwealth Court, and the Supreme Court all rejected that argument. "Charter schools are not exempt from the statutes that are applicable to public schools," the Supreme Court said in its ruling. . . .

Management companies are for profit first. Just like health insurance companies. It is just ripe for corruption and from the number of charter

Interesting article. Do you know if they appealed the ruling higher?

But I did find this. Delaware seems to have a number of problems with charter schools. I'd like to find other sources for this, but it seems they have closed three so far, and are considering closing a fourth. It seems there are about 20 Charter schools in Delaware, but that was from a quick search so I'm not absolutely sure of that number:

Moyer Would be the Fourth Charter School to Close in Delaware

“Two schools experienced publicized disruptions of service a few years after they opened. The Richard T. Milburn Academy closed in 2000 because of low academic performance and disagreements within its board, and the Georgetown Charter School closed in March 2002 for financial reasons “

Charter schools. The source I found wasn't far off on the number of Charters they have in Delaware, but this is more detailed as I think it is an official report:

Charter School Disruption of Service in Delaware: Report and Recommendations

In Delaware, both the State and school districts can authorize charter schools. Between 1994, when Delaware’s charter school law was passed, and November 2004, 24 schools have received charters from the state Department of Education (DOE), and two have received charters from the Red Clay Consolidated School District. However, only thirteen are operating. Eleven of those 26 schools failed to open after receiving their charter, and two closed after beginning operations.

Few charter school proponents foresaw the number of disruptions of services that would occur because of failure at the business-operations, rather than at the academic, level. The Center for Education Reform, a national charter school support organization, found that 66 percent of charter school disruptions of service nationwide were due to financial problems or mismanagement. Since 1999, the interpretation of the charter school code has evolved so that regulations controlling the learning environment may be waived, but regulations that control the business environment cannot.

I don't know why they did not foresee those problems. Whenever there is money to be made, and the management companies are purely about business, did they really think they would be looking out for the children's interests? Especially with so little oversight?

It would be interesting to do a study state by state including how many Charters each state has, how many have failed and for what reasons, academic and/or business management. Also, compare to the regular Public Schools. I did notice in the list of Delaware's Charters, that there were Military Academies eg. Is that allowed with public funds? Specialized schools, and if so, what's to stop religions from getting funding to start schools?

And get millions of dollars from the DOE.

Hard to know the criteria.

Thanks for the links.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5917

Do you know if that money will go to Charter or Public Schools or both? I don't know much about Delaware's educational system, but the conversation on the Delaware Blog on their education system is interesting. I don't know what party affiliation the blogger has but he did say he crossed party lines to vote for Markell for Governor because he thought he cared about the education of poor children. Now, he says he's having 'buyers remorse'.

He and the commenters do mention (in the above link), which was a couple of months ago, the connection between Arne Duncan and Markell. He seems to think that Duncan is in control, not Obama. The blogger is also concerned about these charters being a way to privatize the public schools and how big foundations, like the Gates Foundation, eg, are involved in the Charter Schools programs in Delaware.

From the report I linked to though, if Duncan is basing his opinion on their Charter Schools, what must the state of the rest of the country's charter schools be in?

It looks like there will have to be a real fight to save the Public School system, since now it looks like both political parties are determined to privatize them.

Been looking for it.

thread. This is one of them. It's from NY where at least three Charter schools are likely to be closed down ~

New Covenant Charter School: The Failure of For Profit Management of Charter Schools

New Covenant is the second of the first three schools chartered in New York to be closed.<1> There are two important lessons to be learned from this experience.

First, over New Covenant’s eleven years of existence, it was managed by three different for profit educational management organizations – Advantage Schools, Edison Schools and Victory Schools – each of which dismally failed, in turn, at having the school meet its performance benchmarks. The students who attended New Covenant and the educators who taught in the school were exploited by these EMOs, which profited as the school floundered academically. Now the students and educators are paying the price for the failures of the EMOs.

It was precisely because of the performance at New Covenant and other charter schools that the UFT included the prohibition of for profit EMOs in the package of reforms to charter school legislation we proposed in January.

Second, the final denouement of New Covenant’s troubled history was long and drawn out because of the posture of the office of then Governor George Pataki, the elected official most responsible for the passage of New York’s charter legislation. New Covenant was a high profile charter school in the state capitol of Albany, and its closure was considered a political liability

George Pataki was a Republican Governor of NYS. I don't understand why schools need these management firms, and I don't know how much profit they make. But this is a failed business model as we saw in the Health Insurance Industry and has so much potential for corruption, as well as other obvious problems. Profit driven businesses are going to put profits first.

I've read of other problems with these schools where test results were tampered with eg, to keep up the funding. It's like the deregulated market. With less oversight, there is far more room for corruption.

Exactly right.

will be added to shortly. Investigations are ongoing in my state. The laws governing charters and other types of alternative schools are not remotely adequate and need to be changed before more public funds are thrown away.

There are more investigations going on elsewhere as well.

Now if we could just find a Democratic leader to speak out and stop the turnovers and turnarounds and give aways to private management companies.

My head is swimming.

...but a list like this implies on its face that there are fewer "scandals" at public schools. There are a lot of public schools, and hence a lot of scandals.

I would think the effectiveness of such a list would be enhanced with some explanation that there are more scandals with charters percentage-wise. :hi:

And few scandals.

But then public schools are so old-fashioned and on the way out.

:shrug:

The charters will centralize curricula at a national, corporate office. The teachers will be no more than "customer service" reps and be planning (and reading) from a corporate script.

discriminating against children with learning disabilities, eg, in order to make their test scores look better, or in some cases, turning such schools into religious schools, while no one denies problems in the public schools, at least there is oversight that Charter Schools are not subjected to. They are using public funds, yet are not accountable to the public in the same way Public Schools are.

One example of how profit driven schools can operate as I said above, without oversight and leave out the children most at risk in order not to bring down their test scores:

The Failure of For-Profit Management of Public Schools

Charter management and NYCSA publicist Thomas Carroll, head of the Brighter Choice charter school chain in Albany which recently was the subject of a withering Charter School Institute report for illegally denying admission to students with special needs, took to the pages of the Albany Times-Union to offer his excuses for the closure. Carroll served in high positions in the Pataki administration, but he is silent on the role of the Governor’s office in the renewal of the New Covenant charter for so many years despite its academic performance.

In this case it was political, as it has been elsewhere, Florida eg. Schools should be free of this kind of political influence. This is a Republican idea, and like all Republican ideas, it was a bad one.

I would like to ask them how come their usual philosophy of 'the market will take care of it' doesn't apply when it comes to dipping into tax payer funds? If they want private schools, or religious schools, let them do it the old fashioned way, or better yet the Republican way. Stay away from those commie dollars which they are so against anyhow, and let Charity take care of it, as they always claim is the way to deal with every problem.

"On March 23, the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York brought the long saga of New Covenant Charter School in Albany to an end, voting to close at the end of this school year one of the first charter schools to be opened in New York. This decision was the final act in what SUNY called a “difficult history,” which included two consecutive non-renewal recommendations by SUNY’s Charter School Institute and a 2007 vote by New Covenant’s own trustees to close the school due to financial problems."


"First, over New Covenant’s eleven years of existence, it was managed by three different for profit educational management organizations (EMOs) – Advantage Schools, Edison Schools (now Edison Learning) and Victory Schools – each of which dismally failed, in turn, at having the school meet its performance benchmarks. The students who attended New Covenant and the educators who taught in the school were exploited by these EMOs, which profited as the school floundered academically. Now the students and educators are paying the price for the failures of the EMOs."

And closed as a failure.

Or perhaps these weren't the favored corporations and others were. Remember, some of them are now exempt from benchmarks and testing results.

in the country. It is managed by billionaire Dennis Bakke, an ex-energy CEO who played a substantial role in legislation deregulating energy that led to the Enron scandal. Even though his schools have not received non-profit status, he collects many, many millions from the DOE. According to the Imagine School annual report, in only five years, Bakke, or Imagine Schools, has acquired assets of over $400,000,000. His real estate dealings have been under investigation for some time. Even more disturbing is his connection to "the Family" of C-Street renown and his "Joy at Work" Christ-based curriculum. You can read more about it here. It's scary!

http://greatschoolsforamerica.org/wordpress/?p=12

Imagine Charter Schools sells 5 schools for 44 million...will have them leased back to them.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5586

Charter school principals fired after questioning taxpayer money spent on school's real estate arm.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/4784

Imagine Charters facing discrimination lawsuit from former employee.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5714

Two Florida charter schools in financial crisis. Taxpayer money is paying their debt.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5801

Imagine Charter School in Florida to give pay cuts to teachers.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5295

.

Can you please set up your own website where those of us who care can come back to this? Or at least double post it somewhere else where it won't fall into the abyss?

and they run them like businesses. Oh wait, I guess that isn't so good. Well, um, uh, no guvmint in my back pocket, or something.

and mail it to the Department of Education. MULTIPLE people should do this, to get Duncan Donuts aware of chartorruption.

They are not into what we think about it I fear.

.

Just in case: :sarcasm:

We have a current charter issue going on in my district.

The district dissolved the charter for the IB school this year, bringing it in as a district alternative school. I'm all for that.

The newer charter school, only 2 years old, though...

When the charter was presented, they claimed that they would never have more than 50 high school students. It's basically an independent study program. The doors are open for long hours. Students show up when they want, do whatever, decide what kind of class to take, and are given some initial instruction by one of the 4 teachers who, btw, make about 20K more per year than our district's average. After that, they are on their own. They set their own schedules, show up when they want, turn stuff in when they want, and there is very little oversight of what they are doing. It was originally envisioned for students who have activities or family schedules or other issues that kept them from regular attendance.

They currently have almost 100 students, and are pushing to increase enrollment next year to 500. It's costing us a fortune. What 14 yo wouldn't want to attend a school with no schedule, lots of couches to lounge around on, and no deadlines? A very tiny percentage of students will actually be successful without any structure, but hundreds are racing to sign up. Our district is denying the school's request to expand, and the local paper is outraged, taking the school's side.

Meanwhile, we're losing money, and there's no evidence that the majority of these students will earn a diploma.

"February 2010: In Albany, New York, Albany Preparatory Charter School has been accused of screening potential pupils to weed out those with academic challenges according to an investigation and scathing report released by the State University of New York's Charter Schools Institute."

Another great find on your part

It's appaling. More so that it is bring pushed by a Democratic Administration

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:thumbsup: