REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

How charter schools fleece the public and why they don't work

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, November 26, 2012 12:04
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 760
PAGE 1 of 1

Friday, November 23, 2012 6:57 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


This comes as no surprise to me; virtually every time something public is privatized, it's not good news:
Quote:

In government, if I help myself to taxpayer dollars, we call that embezzlement and I go to jail. In the private sector, if I help myself to taxpayer dollars, we call that innovation and I get hailed as a visionary exponent of public-private partnership. That’s the lesson of a Nov. 17 investigation by Anne Ryman of the Arizona Republic into the state’s charter schools.

In her examination of Arizona’s 50 largest nonprofit charter schools and all of Arizona's nonprofit charter schools with assets exceeding $10 million, Ryman found “at least 17 contracts or arrangements, totaling more than $70 million over five years and involving about 40 school sites, in which money from the non-profit charter school went to for-profit or non-profit companies run by board members, executives or their relatives.” That says to me that in Arizona, at least, charter-school corruption isn’t the exception. It’s the rule. And that’s just in the nonprofit charter schools. Documentation for the for-profit schools is not publicly available. What are the odds that charter-school proprietors operating in the dark are less inclined to enrich themselves at public expense?

The self-dealing is entirely legal. All you have to do is get yourself an exemption from state laws requiring that goods and services be bid competitively. Clearly these exemptions aren’t difficult to acquire, because 90 percent of Arizona’s charter holders—not 90 percent of the charter schools surveyed by the Arizona Republic, but 90 percent of all the state's charter schools—have acquired permanent exemptions from state competitive bidding requirements. No exemption has ever been withdrawn by the state. If you are a charter-school officer and you stand to benefit personally from some financial transaction with the school, you may not vote on whether to make the purchase. But that’s about the only rule.

The result? “The schools’ purchases from their own officials,” Ryman writes, “range from curriculum and business consulting to land leases and transportation services. A handful of non-profit schools outsource most of their operations to a board member’s for-profit company.”

It's happening in other states, too. In 2011 Christopher Magan and Margo Rutledge Kissell told a strikingly similar story about Dayton’s Richard Allen Schools in the Dayton Daily News. That article led to an investigation by Ohio’s state auditor and, in this instance, the recovery of some funds. This past May, a San Bernardino County school district shut down the Adalanto Charter Academy because (according to the San Bernardino County Sentinal) “much of the academy’s academic imperative was suborned to the mercenary intent of those involved at the school.” (Details here.) A 2008 Washington Post investigation by David S. Fallis and April Witt “found conflicts of interest involving almost $200 million worth of business deals, typically real estate transactions, at more than a third of the District's 60 charter schools.”More at http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110355/its-easy-fleece-charter-schools#]
Along with that:
Quote:

Why Charter Schools Don't Work

- Numerous national and state studies have shown that charters on average don’t get better results than regular public schools. A small percentage get high scores, more get very low scores, most are about average in terms of test scores. Why kill off a community’s public school to replace it with a privately managed school that is no better and possibly worse?

- Charter schools weaken the regular public schools. They take money away from neighborhood public schools and from the district budget. As charter schools open, regular public schools must cut teachers and close down programs to pay for them.

- Many of the “high-performing” charter schools succeed by skimming off the best students, even in poor districts. The more they draw away the best students, the worse it is for the regular public schools, who are left with the weakest students.

- Many charter schools succeed by excluding or limiting the number of students they accept who have disabilities or who are English language learners. They are also free to push out low-scoring students and send them back to the local public school. This improves their results, but it leaves the regular public schools with disproportionate numbers of the most challenging students.

- Many charter operators are for-profit, and the district winds up paying them tax revenue that should be invested in students. Many of the nonprofits pay exorbitant executive compensation that wouldn’t be acceptable in a regular public school district.

- Charters fragment communities. Instead of everyone working together to support the children and schools of their communities, charters and regular public schools fight over resources and space. This is not good for education or for children.

- Charters cannot help the large numbers of children who live in rural and semi-rural communities in Alabama. These communities barely manage to support their own local public school. Replacing a community institution with one that is managed by private operators with no local ties would do harm to the community.

Transferring control of public dollars to private hands is not reform. It is privatization. This strikes at the very heart of public education. It is a mirage. http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-charter-schools-dont-work.h
tml


Our educational system has serious difficulties, but I don't see these as the answer, but rather as worsening the problem.

When I went through the California educational system, it was one of the best in the world. Now look at it. I don't see this as anything like the answer. What do you think?

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, November 23, 2012 3:25 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Welcome to my world, where the government subsidized (yeah you heard it right) private schools are undermining the viability of public schools, which are becoming funding deprived ghettos for the underprivledged.

And so more of us look to options other than public schools, to private often religiously affiliated schools because the public option is so crap.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, November 23, 2012 4:17 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Well, we're pretty lucky here, school board officials are pretty damn ruthless (with a little help, one might say) and tend to view such doubledealing quite poorly.

A couple charter schools down the road here have had their charters revoked due to financial and other irregularities and other misbehavior or shenanigans amongst those running them, and all the while the Freeschools and the now-infamous "Commie High" are packed up with waiting lists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_High_School_%28Ann_Arbor,_Michi
gan%29


Mind you the unstructured, participatory model doesn't work for all kids, some need a rigid structure to cling to as a baseline so they feel secure in their forays into individualism, but for those who see such structure as oppressive/abusive, the schools around here, even some of the public ones, are a balm unto their souls.

-Frem

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:58 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


My sympathies, Magons...that's some of what's happening here, too, in that public monies are being given to charter schools, thereby depriving public education with some of the same results.

Yeah, Frem...while looking into this I ran across numerous articles about fraud and charters being revoked, etc. Seems as if this might have started out as a good idea--and of course all good ideas eventually get prostituted in one way or another.

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, November 25, 2012 8:34 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


I've known people who have had good experiences with charter schools in my area. I think if they're held financially accountable they should be allowed. Of course I think various types of schools lack financial accountability, so nothing new there. I think our public school admins are paid too much for instance, another problem we have is that instead of maintainance to keep on top of buildings those tasks get deferred, meaning they cost five times as much later when the roof is caving in and you could have fixed the problem when it first started instead of waiting until it was way more expensive.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, November 26, 2012 5:15 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Yah, pennies now instead of dollars later.
There's also WHAT they spend the money on - like how my nieces horrible public school blew the whole damned budget on crap like security cameras everywhere, which resulted in one assistant admin leaving in a quietly covered up cloud of disgrace and the removal of one of those cameras....
And they're now wailing for the removal of ALL of them after the system was hacked and the PARENTS have been using said cameras to monitor the conduct of the STAFF, oh what a terribly delicious irony!

Meanwhile the budget was sucking wind so hard the students had to provide their own damned textbooks ?
Seriously, that whole pouring cash on top of a problem NEVER solves it.

-Frem

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, November 26, 2012 12:04 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


That's funny about the cameras Frem, :)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Salon: NBC's Ronna blunder: A failed attempt to appeal to MAGA voters — except they hate her too
Thu, March 28, 2024 07:04 - 1 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Thu, March 28, 2024 05:27 - 6154 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Thu, March 28, 2024 02:07 - 3408 posts
Russian losses in Ukraine
Wed, March 27, 2024 23:21 - 987 posts
Elections; 2024
Wed, March 27, 2024 22:19 - 2069 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Wed, March 27, 2024 15:03 - 824 posts
NBC News: Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re-election effort
Wed, March 27, 2024 14:58 - 2 posts
BUILD BACK BETTER!
Wed, March 27, 2024 14:45 - 5 posts
RFK Jr. Destroys His Candidacy With VP Pick?
Wed, March 27, 2024 11:59 - 16 posts
Russia says 60 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility
Wed, March 27, 2024 10:57 - 49 posts
Ha. Haha! HAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!
Tue, March 26, 2024 21:26 - 1 posts
You can't take the sky from me, a tribute to Firefly
Tue, March 26, 2024 16:26 - 293 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL