Another excellent article from Denis Smith. He hits the inherent conflict of interest between operating a business and doing what is right for the students.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2015/10/27/are-public-charter-schools-also-considered-businesses-mind-the-quotation-marks/
These charter schools are operated as personal fiefdoms. This is another great example
"If people consider a school to be a business enterprise, inevitably the profit motive gets confused with the educational mission, which is what schools are supposed to be all about. The proliferation of for-profit national charter school chains has been a chief contributor toward the blurring of pedagogy and profit. And entities like Imagine and K12, a publicly traded company that is a big player in the virtual school field, only add to the growing perception that charter schools are first and foremost businesses and thus are all about money and privatization."
"Likewise, the nation is indebted to the Washington Supreme Court for its ability to teach us a civics lesson and, in the process, highlight a problem of democracy. When a board that is hand-picked by a private corporation and spends public funds to run what is called a “public” charter school that is a problem of democracy due to the absence of voter input – a violation of the democratic process.
We also should extend our thanks to the League of Women Voters for helping the Washington Supreme Court to understand that a school is not a business, but it nevertheless must be our business to ensure that schools are learning communities, not profit-centered enterprises, governed by citizens chosen in elections by qualified voters, not by corporations."
Showing posts with label Denis Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denis Smith. Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2015
Monday, August 17, 2015
Top ten List by Denis Smith
A nice list from Denis Smith.
In the hope (snicker) of getting some action from our legislators in September, our citizen panel decided to channel the spirit of David Letterman and compile a list of the Top 10 Needed Charter School Reforms. Here are the results of our deliberative body.
#10: Cut legal exemptions
Charter schools are exempt from 150 sections of the Ohio Revised Code.
The legislature needs to eliminate at least half of these exemptions by the end of the current session. After all, if proponents like to call them “publiccharter schools,” they should be more aligned to our system of public education and therefore not need so many exemptions from laws which public schools must comply with due to their public nature. If the charter industry objects, we should not let them have it both ways. Charter proponents should stop using the term public charter schools due to their resistance to increased regulation and fewer legal exemptions. In turn, the public should start using the term corporate charter schools to better define their nature.
Agree, it is taxpayer money. We should be able to see where it goes.
#9: Management companies subject to full review by state auditor
Here’s another classic example of the charter industry having it both ways. If you receive public funds, the public has a right to see how their money is spent or misspent. Add to that the requirement that any furniture, equipment, and real estate purchased with public funds is public property, subject to liquidation at auction upon closure of the school, with the proceeds returned to the state treasury. Recall that White Hat Management took the position that such assets were corporate and not public property. JobsOhio is another example of the principle of having it both ways. Public money and the assets purchased with such funds should not be convertible to private assets through a management arrangement.
Agree, the system is set up to guarantee that the school will not show a profit. It is pretty easy for the management company to suck out the taxpayer money and spend it however they want including high salaries for the management companies.
#8: Eliminate Non-Profit Sponsors
The charter industry is replete with example after example of someone or some entity having it both ways. Non-Profit charter school sponsors follow that tradition. They accept public funds for serving as charter school sponsors or authorizers but tell individuals and organizations seeking information that as non-profits, they are exempt from public records requests. As with Nos. 10 and 9, if a non-profit organization accepts public funds, it should be responsive to such requests and the same scrutiny that other types of sponsors (school district, educational service center, vocational school district, university) accept as a player in the charter industry. The public is tired of the charter world having it both ways.
3% is a pretty nice cut from these multimillion dollar budgets the taxpayers are funding. More than a potential conflict of interest in this arrangement. Taxpayers would not accept a 3% fee to their local school boards.
#7: Celebrity endorsements and cap on advertising
This charter school reform measure is tied in with Nos. 9 and 8. Public funds should not be used to pay for endorsements to promote charter schools. Worse yet, we’ll probably never find out how much ECOT endorser Jack Hanna or anyone else might have been paid because the management companies maintain they are private entities and resist audits and requests for financial information from state regulators.
Agree and you will never see the state report cards mentioned in that advertising.
#6: Accuracy in advertising
If a rose is a rose, a charter school should be called just that. Ohio is the only one of forty states authorizing charter schools that uses the term community school rather than charter. That term by itself – used in the original legislation – is purposefully misleading. My recent article on charter names pointed out that only a handful have the word charter or community school in their official title. The same is true for television ads, where the name charter isn’t used. As the school year begins and you see and hear ads for charters, listen carefully for what you might not hear in the commercial.
The local public school is a community school and a charter is a charter.
And you will never hear about their test results. Only some private polls where nine out of ten parents are satisfied.
#5: School treasurers. There is a continuing concern about the ability of charter school treasurers to adequately perform their duties when many serve multiple schools. One former charter treasurer , sentenced to two years in prison, was said to have served as the chief financial officer of at least nine charter schools at the same time, though other treasurers have served more than that number in the past. New legislation is needed to cap the total number of schools a treasurer can serve simultaneously.
Agree, see what happened to the treasurer of Ohio Connections Academy and Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, How many other schools did Stephanie Millard serve?
#4: Governance reform. With more than a billion dollars in state education funds being diverted to charter schools, it’s time to require greater transparency and accountability for the use of scarce public dollars, and governance reform is one place to start. In a previous article, I wrote this statement: “The public school district that has the largest number of its resident students enrolled should be entitled to a seat on the board. Since state funds are deducted from the foundation payments for the district’s resident students and sent to the charter school where the student is enrolled, the district is entitled to monitor the performance and operation of the school, particularly when many of these students return to the district at some point.” In addition, lawmakers should require authorizer and parent representatives to be members of the board, with the parent seat filled by an individual selected at an annual meeting of the school parents. An additional part of governance reform would be to require all board members to be registered with the Office of Secretary of State, as is the case with other public school board members.
Agree, the appointment of rubber stamps. friends and collegues to the board is not in the best interests of the students. This is set up to benefit the management companies and not the students.
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) once had this to say about boards. “I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?” “ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”
#3: Administrative qualifications. Incredibly, there are no minimum educational or professional licensure requirements for charter school administrators. This situation needs to be addressed immediately if all charter reform efforts are to be viewed as substantive. After all, school is about education.
Agree, and I would add that promotion and leadership should not be tied with who you are sleeping with.
#2: Citizenship requirement. In traditional school districts, board members have to be qualified voters – citizens – in order to serve as overseers of public funds. News reports in the last year have focused on one charter school chain where some of the board members and administrators may not be American citizens. If charter proponents want to emphasize the word public in the term public charter school, they should also agree that requiring American citizenship for board members is a no-brainer for the charter industry.
Agree
And the Number One Needed Charter School Reform –
Get the money out!
The influence of charter moguls David Brennan an William Lager on the Ohio Republican party are well-known. Money talks, and in charter world, money speaks loudly. Public funds – the profits gained from running privately operated schools with public money – should not be allowed to unduly influence legislators. The fact that HB 2 stalled at the very time that another $91,726 arrived to replenish state Republican campaign coffers is no coincidence.
If Mark Twain was correct when he observed that “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session,” the absence of lawmakers at Broad and High compounds the inaction on charter reform. But if at least two of these Top 10 Needed Charter School Reforms wound up being included in this year’s reform package, that would be a small victory for the life, liberty and property of Ohioans.
Follow the money, ignore the results
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Chapter superintendents, not so super
From Denis Smith
Seriously? No wonder the results are often horrible. Only the best and brightest (or not)?
Set up your own board and get yourself elected superintendent. Title sounds good and the pay is whatever you can convince the board to pay you. Ohio has probably doubled the number of superintendent positions with the advent of charter schools.
Seriously? No wonder the results are often horrible. Only the best and brightest (or not)?
Set up your own board and get yourself elected superintendent. Title sounds good and the pay is whatever you can convince the board to pay you. Ohio has probably doubled the number of superintendent positions with the advent of charter schools.
"How then is it that when it comes to the subject of “public” charter schools, Kasich and his friends have different definitions and understandings for terms like educators and superintendents?
Under Ohio law, there are no education or professional requirements for an individual to serve as a public charter school superintendent or principal. None. As Woody Allen might have put it, if 80% of success in life is just showing up, you’ve got a good chance of becoming the top administrator of a charter school just by showing up, with a new start-up school proposal in hand, at the offices of a charter school sponsor.
And yes, governor, let’s say it again: there are absolutely no administrative licensure requirements in charterdom. You don’t even have to be an educator in order to open and become a superintendent of a “public” charter school."
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Analysis on outsourcing, Ohio included
Another article about outsourcing. Follow the money. Is this the best we can do for Ohio?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/c/c9/Outsourcing_Report_Oct_2014.pdf
Some analysis on school boards.
From a prior post: Traditional school districts, in most cases, employ qualified professionals to manage finances, develop curriculum and ensure that applicable laws are followed. Charter schools are, by philosophy, less traditionally structured.
Ohio could do a lot to head off charter-school problems by reforming the process by which they are created.
A key weakness has been the lack of any way to hold accountable those charter-school sponsors who don’t act as watchdogs over the schools they sponsor. Weak Ohio law allows blatant conflicts of interest — for example, nothing bars sponsors, the supposed watchdogs, from selling services to the schools they are supposed to be holding accountable"
“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.
The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.
In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) once had this to say about boards.
performance standards by the sponsoring organizations
Journal found. White Hat shares legal representation with
those same boards to operate the schools."
Combine a couple of hand-picked board members and combine that with a couple of well-meaning but unqualified parent board members and you have a serious but profitable governance situation. Again, where is the independence?
Keep in mind that a billion dollars has been transferred out of the public schools to charter schools in Ohio.
I note that the folks who set up Connections Academy board are former White Hat employees. I suspect that many of the same management people take what they learn to set up a new charter that primarily benefits their interests. I would submit that the boards are handpicked rubber stamps with little actual power.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/c/c9/Outsourcing_Report_Oct_2014.pdf
Some analysis on school boards.
From a prior post: Traditional school districts, in most cases, employ qualified professionals to manage finances, develop curriculum and ensure that applicable laws are followed. Charter schools are, by philosophy, less traditionally structured.
Ohio could do a lot to head off charter-school problems by reforming the process by which they are created.
A key weakness has been the lack of any way to hold accountable those charter-school sponsors who don’t act as watchdogs over the schools they sponsor. Weak Ohio law allows blatant conflicts of interest — for example, nothing bars sponsors, the supposed watchdogs, from selling services to the schools they are supposed to be holding accountable"
“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.
The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.
In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) once had this to say about boards.
“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”
“ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”
"Ohio’s charter schools, which are publicly funded, are
supposed to be subject to periodic state audits and held to
performance standards by the sponsoring organizations
that contract with operators.
But governing boards may not be as independent as they
ought to be, as a 2014 investigation by the Akron Beacon
Journal found. White Hat shares legal representation with
the boards of many of the charter schools it has contracts
with.
149 And a number of board members have admitted
that they were recruited by White Hat, a clear conflict of
interest.
In a revealing statement, Maggie Ford, chief academic
officer at White Hat, told the
Beacon Journal, “Sometimes
we have one or two people that would like to start a school,
and they don’t have enough for an entire board. So they
want to, they talk to, other board members or ask us to
help recruit board, um, recommend board members.”
In effect, the boards at many “nonprofit” charter schools
were hand-picked by White Hat, which contracted with
those same boards to operate the schools."
Combine a couple of hand-picked board members and combine that with a couple of well-meaning but unqualified parent board members and you have a serious but profitable governance situation. Again, where is the independence?
Keep in mind that a billion dollars has been transferred out of the public schools to charter schools in Ohio.
I note that the folks who set up Connections Academy board are former White Hat employees. I suspect that many of the same management people take what they learn to set up a new charter that primarily benefits their interests. I would submit that the boards are handpicked rubber stamps with little actual power.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Secret to a good school? School boards?
Cui Bono (who profits)
A recent article indicates that a good school board make the difference in performance.
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1350/The-secret-to-good-schools-might-surprise-you.html#kmFZI51zT3Df3rPj.03
"The report also found that when board members were professionalized, underwent professional training and in some cases even earned a salary, students performed better. "
It suggests that the timing of elections matter. "It matters, for example, when elections are held. Holding elections at the same time as state and national-level elections, the authors found, correlates to standardized student proficiency test scores 2.4 points higher than a comparable district that has off-cycle elections."
Compare this to the system now employed by Ohio charter schools. Who appoints the boards? The sponsor or the charter school. There are no elections! Simplifies your board selection and business model.
What is the main focus of the board? I would suggest that it is selected for self-preservation of the school management and the jobs and profits it generates for its management. It is an unpaid job. The charter schools can and do act like a personal, but funded by taxpayers, business.
SO how does this work in practice? A recent prime example of this in action. The Horizon and Noble academies were recently raided by the FBI. Who selected the board?
"A chain of 19 publicly funded Ohio charter schools, founded by Turkish immigrants, is taking the position that the United States lacks a qualified pool of math and science teachers and is importing perhaps hundreds of Turks to fill the void.
The schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens — a new twist in Ohio’s controversial charter-school movement.
In addition, the Horizon and Noble academies, run by Chicago-based Concept Schools, are related through membership, fundraisers and political giving to the nonprofit Niagara Foundation, which provides trips to Turkey for state, local and federal lawmakers.
Among those touring Turkey has been State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, a Clarksville Republican on the powerful finance and appropriations committee and considered to be a leading candidate for House speaker next year. He was joined on the trip by at least four other state legislators and local government leaders from his area in southwest Ohio.
There have been other trips from Ohio, and in Illinois, there are allegations that state officials who took trips showed favoritism in disbursing public dollars to Concept schools.
Public records show that since late 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor has allowed 19 of these schools in Ohio to hire 325 educators almost exclusively from Turkey.
However, as early as 2002, state audits found thousands of public dollars “illegally expended” to finance the U.S. citizenship process for Turkish employees — some fresh out of college with no classroom experience and broken English. Help with legal and immigration fees also extended to their children and families, including the spouses of directors.
The auditor also cited suspect wire transfers, totaling $36,000, and checks made out to “cash” to repay personal loans issued by individuals in Istanbul, Turkey."
Complete article here:
http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-taxpayers-provide-jobs-to-turkish-immigrants-through-charter-schools-1.501940?localLinksEnabled=false#.U7ngdZ1rYfM.facebook
Quote from Denis Smith from an earlier blog post.
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/25/denis-smith-of-ohio-who-governs-charter-schools/
“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.
The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.
In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) and now with Ohio Connections Academy, formerly with WhiteHat once had this to say about boards.
This is an expensive experiment.
A recent article indicates that a good school board make the difference in performance.
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1350/The-secret-to-good-schools-might-surprise-you.html#kmFZI51zT3Df3rPj.03
"The report also found that when board members were professionalized, underwent professional training and in some cases even earned a salary, students performed better. "
It suggests that the timing of elections matter. "It matters, for example, when elections are held. Holding elections at the same time as state and national-level elections, the authors found, correlates to standardized student proficiency test scores 2.4 points higher than a comparable district that has off-cycle elections."
Compare this to the system now employed by Ohio charter schools. Who appoints the boards? The sponsor or the charter school. There are no elections! Simplifies your board selection and business model.
What is the main focus of the board? I would suggest that it is selected for self-preservation of the school management and the jobs and profits it generates for its management. It is an unpaid job. The charter schools can and do act like a personal, but funded by taxpayers, business.
SO how does this work in practice? A recent prime example of this in action. The Horizon and Noble academies were recently raided by the FBI. Who selected the board?
"A chain of 19 publicly funded Ohio charter schools, founded by Turkish immigrants, is taking the position that the United States lacks a qualified pool of math and science teachers and is importing perhaps hundreds of Turks to fill the void.
The schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens — a new twist in Ohio’s controversial charter-school movement.
In addition, the Horizon and Noble academies, run by Chicago-based Concept Schools, are related through membership, fundraisers and political giving to the nonprofit Niagara Foundation, which provides trips to Turkey for state, local and federal lawmakers.
Among those touring Turkey has been State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, a Clarksville Republican on the powerful finance and appropriations committee and considered to be a leading candidate for House speaker next year. He was joined on the trip by at least four other state legislators and local government leaders from his area in southwest Ohio.
There have been other trips from Ohio, and in Illinois, there are allegations that state officials who took trips showed favoritism in disbursing public dollars to Concept schools.
Public records show that since late 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor has allowed 19 of these schools in Ohio to hire 325 educators almost exclusively from Turkey.
However, as early as 2002, state audits found thousands of public dollars “illegally expended” to finance the U.S. citizenship process for Turkish employees — some fresh out of college with no classroom experience and broken English. Help with legal and immigration fees also extended to their children and families, including the spouses of directors.
The auditor also cited suspect wire transfers, totaling $36,000, and checks made out to “cash” to repay personal loans issued by individuals in Istanbul, Turkey."
Complete article here:
http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-taxpayers-provide-jobs-to-turkish-immigrants-through-charter-schools-1.501940?localLinksEnabled=false#.U7ngdZ1rYfM.facebook
Quote from Denis Smith from an earlier blog post.
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/25/denis-smith-of-ohio-who-governs-charter-schools/
“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.
The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.
In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”
Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) and now with Ohio Connections Academy, formerly with WhiteHat once had this to say about boards.
“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”
“ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”
This is an expensive experiment.
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