A chronology of failure

Adding to my chronology




http://progressohio.org/an-incomplete-yet-totally-terrifying-ohio-charter-school-scandal-chronology/

Schools as a business

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."

Ohio Education Research Center Reviews E-Schools

An extensive report from the Ohio Education Research Center .  E-schools are not successful.  More dropouts, poor performance with similar demographics.  No magic bullet/solution or excuse was determined.  It is a failed one billion experiment.

A very thorough report.  The conclusion:

E-school students’ performance on standardized tests are dramatically lower, especially for

math, compared to those students who attend a brick-and-mortar school. Test scores

plummet the year a student transitions to an e-school. E-school students’ scores see

incremental increases in the subsequent years. However, it is important to note, that despite

subsequent increases their scores remain below the scores they received prior to entering an

e-school.

http://media.cleveland.com/plain_dealer_metro/other/Ohio's%20E-Schools%20report%20by%20OERC.pdf

What is the cost?


http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-06-12/one-year-with-a-bad-teacher-costs-each-student-50-000-in-lifetime-earnings

Dealing with e-schools: Kids in first year in online schools learn little, never catch up

Drilling down into the data.  The results for e-schools is not pretty.  The kids fall behind and never catch up.


Meanwhile the taxpayers pay millions and some corporations and sponsors make a lot of money.  $6000 per kid.


"Test scores plummet the year a student transitions to an e-school," that study found. "E-school students' scores see incremental increases in the subsequent years. However, it is important to note, that despite subsequent increases their scores remain below the scores they received prior to entering an e-school."


 Ohio Education Resource Center


An ugly graph.


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/09/dealing_with_e-schools_kids_in.html

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: 200 Failed Charters

Another take on the 200 failed charters in Ohio.  Curmudgucation is a very good blog



CURMUDGUCATION: OH: 200 Failed Charters: When the Washington State supreme court ruled charters unconstitutional just before the school year started, charter fans were outraged. &q...

200 Charter School Failures and Counting

A thorough article on the waste of taxpayers dollars in this community school experiment.

It points out the lack of appropriate supervision by sponsors.  They have a conflict as there fees depend on the existence of the school, not the results.

It points out the lack of qualified disinterested school boards.  Ohio lets the managment company pick the boards and then presents a contract with the terms the managment company writes in that contract. 

“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.”

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/news/ray_lambert_school_leader.aspx

"In Ohio, for-profit companies run most charter schools, according to a 2014 Beacon Journal analysis. Some of the largest are out of state. Contracts allow many of the operators to hire employees and negotiate vendor and landlord contracts without seeking approval of the school board. In many cases, contracts are with parties related to the for-profit operator."

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/blame-and-ignorance-follow-200th-charter-school-flop-in-ohio-1.625609#.VgAYW9DsFP0.mailto

No question the education education system needs help.  This points some of the many flaws.

Good summary of the Ohio Scam

Pretty good summary of the scam going on in Ohio.  This article focuses on the enormous rent.  There is even a more profitable business model.  Open a virtual school and pay no rent except to house some teachers.  You can further reduce this expense by having them work from home and hiring part-time teachers who only work from home.  Ohio Connections Academy, K-12, ECOT, OHVA have taken this to the next level.

I have previously posted about these hand picked boards with little school or business experience.  They will gladly sign off on a bad deal because they do not know better.  If they resist, find an even more clueless board.

Here is the article:

When Leon Sinoff was asked to sign off on a building lease for Imagine Columbus Primary Academy in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 2013, he had little reason to be skeptical. Before Imagine Schools, one of the nation's largest for-profit charter management companies, asked him to join the new charter school's board, Sinoff, a public defender, had no education background or experience. "I relied on their expertise and thought to myself, 'Well, who am I to say no to this proposal?'" Sinoff says.

But by the start of the second school year, he was having doubts. The school received an F grade for achievement on the 2013-14 state report card. Only three teachers had returned after the first summer break; within two years, two principals and one vice principal stepped down. The school—which serves a high-poverty, low-income community—lacked arts, music, and foreign language classes, and whenever the board inquired about adding them, Imagine said there wasn't enough money. Then Sinoff discovered that the $58,000-a-month lease—consuming nearly half the school's operating budget, compared with the national standard of 8 to 15 percent—was for a building owned by a subsidiary of Imagine, Schoolhouse Finance LLC.

"It clicked for me. Aha! This is self-dealing. That's why we are massively overpaying for the lease," says Sinoff, who resigned with the other board members this summer. He adds, "Imagine is perfectly happy cranking out low-quality schools and profiting off them. They don't care particularly about the quality of the kids' education."

Before Imagine Columbus Primary Academy opened, a different Imagine school operated in the building for eight years. Its story was nearly identical: The struggling school was paying enormous sums to Schoolhouse Finance while languishing on the state's "academic emergency" list—a designation reserved for F-rated schools—before its board voted to shut it down. One member of that board was David Hansen, who shortly after the school's closing was appointed by Gov. John Kasich to a newly created position: executive director of Ohio's Office of Quality School Choice and Funding. Kasich tasked Hansen with overseeing the expansion of the state's charter schools and virtual schools, which are online charter schools typically used by homeschoolers.

"Imagine is perfectly happy cranking out low-quality schools and profiting off of them."

In July, Hansen resigned after admitting he had rigged evaluations of the state's charter school sponsors—the nonprofits that authorize and oversee the schools in exchange for a fee—by not including the failing grades of certain F-rated schools in his assessment. Specifically, he omitted failing virtual schools operated by for-profit management companies that are owned by major Republican donors in the state.

The two central figures in Ohio's corporate charter movement, David Brennan and Bill Lager, have donated a combined $6.4 million to state legislators and committees, more than 90 percent of which went to Republicans, who have dominated the state House and Senate. Their donations have paid off. Since 1998, the state has given $1.76 billion to schools run by Brennan's White Hat Management and Lager's Electronic Classrooms of Tomorrow, accounting for one-quarter of all state charter funds.

"Why do we accept this for our kids? It's not good enough for kids in Missouri, but it's okay for kids in Ohio?"

 

The charter solution to the problem:  Get a new board who is even more clueless.

 

"I'm sure [Imagine's new board] is even more oblivious than we were, given that we caused a lot of trouble in the end," says Sinoff, who resigned after Imagine refused to re-negotiate the high-priced lease. "I think that they are not entirely happy that we squeaked through the filter to make life difficult. I'm sure they haven't made that mistake again, and they have folks even more oblivious than we were."

 

The complete article is here:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/ohio-charter-schools-john-kasich-imagine