Some things I learned while living with a charter school administrator, Part 2

Some more things I learned while living with a charter school administrator.

Procuring Federal title money and grants is profitable.

That the management company wants and expects every dime from the grants and title money.  It is the administrator’s job to get all the money.  If you do not get it, the company will be less profitable.  That may not be a wise career move.

Justifying title money is hard, it takes creative writing and accounting.

You can allocate and reallocate teacher hours and roles to maximize the amount.  You assign teacher hours to maximize the title money.  You can do this after the fact, even  while sitting in your home watching TV.  An observer might think this is fraudulent. 

That you can pay teachers less than at a public school.  That the teaching market is very weak.
That you can go somewhere warm in the winter for meetings and be dined and wined.  That these expenses , normally not allowed to the school, are paid by the management company.  You can go on a similar excursion in the summer.

That the management company picks the board.

That you can handpick a board and include some parents which can be “easily led around by the nose.”
That you can put your neighbor on the board.

That you can put some parents on the board who do not need to understand anything about finances or board operations.  It is a learning position and the school leaders will feed you what you the information they deem that you need to hear.  It is an ego boost for some.

That lobbying is an important part of the business plan.  That politicians love the idea and the political contributions.

That they have hired their own lobbyist.  A lobbyist can throw a good party.

That marketing is a key element in securing enrollment.  You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on slick TV ads, slick radio ads and the internet.  Your competitors will do the same.   That you can quote a result from 2010, but ignore subsequent results.  That you will never see the state report card mentioned in any marketing materials.

Freedom of choice, even if it is a foolish decision, is a strong marketing point.

Lobbying and marketing expenses ultimately come from the taxpayers of Ohio via the management company.

A great grasp of the obvious

StudentsFirst Ohio's Executive Director Greg Harris has made some pretty important statements. Last year, he said in the Akron Beacon Journal that "a lot of times it has to do not with how well your school is performing, but how well your lobbyist is paid."

To hear a pro-charter organization say we need to get politics out of the argument and implore the legislature to stop pouring more money into bad charters was unheard of before last year.

Harris was at it again this morning in the Columbus Dispatch. Here's what he said:

But the group will also warn parents against the slick advertising campaigns of bad charter operators.

“We think a lot of them (charters) need to be closed, because they’re not doing a good job,” Harris said. “We think charters have a role in the education base, but we also think most of the charters in Ohio stink.”

Now, StudentsFirst has been on the quality bandwagon for a while. But to hear that Ohio's charters have serious quality issues is unheard of from Ohio's charter school advocacy community, until now.

The profit motive in virtual schools

After digging deeper, the independent folks in Maine came to the right decision.

http://www.pressherald.com/2012/09/01/virtual-schools-in-maine_2012-09-02/