http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/09/the_95_fees_that_charter_schools_pay_white_hat_go_before_the_ohio_supreme_court_today.html
Interesting article on how to convert public funds to private property and profit. It also makes it very difficult for a school board to act independently from the entity that created it.
This case is currently in the Ohio Supreme Court.
OHDELA paid 75 percent of its $14 million budget to White Hat as a management fee.
Outside of White Hat, audits for online charter school Ohio Virtual Academy showed a similar pattern. About two-thirds of the $68 million the school spent in 2010-11-- $43 million -- went toward purchasing services from K12 Inc., the company that runs it.
The profit margins are a closely guarded secret. My understanding, is that the profit margin for Ohio Connections Academy (owned by Pearson) is 30%. Yet that school hired a part time treasurer. No need for detailed disclosure. No need for an elected board.
The money make millionaires out of some. The money provides many separate districts which then create high paying principals, superintendants, treasurers and managers. The sponsors take their piece of the action. Unfortunately the students and teachers are not beneficiaries of this system.
Better education results are a worthy goal. Unfortunately, this is a failed billion dollar experiment. The results speak for themselves. Check the report cards. A few individuals profit greatly, obtain fancy titles, money and perks and promise that someday they will produce results. What a scam.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Charter School Analysis
Lots of marketing going on. Radio ads, TV ads, internet ads. Yet the results are never mentioned. I wonder why?
Failing than Public Schools
Failing than Public Schools
13
Stephen Dyer, education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio, has analyzed the latest state report cards. The state’s Governor, John Kasich, is pro-charter, pro-voucher, and pro-market forces. He is no friend to public education. The legislature is the same. They want more schools that are privately managed. As we saw in a post yesterday, Ohio has a parent trigger law, and (as I posted yesterday) the State Education Department has hired StudentsFirst (founded by Michelle Rhee) to inform parents in Columbus about their right to convert their low-performing public school to a charter or hand it over to a charter management organization. Given the statistics in this post, the odds are that the parents will turn their low-performing public school into an even lower-performing charter school, with no hope of escape.
Yet when the state report cards came out, public schools overwhelmingly received higher grades than charter schools. Dyer explains in this post that “The Ohio Report Cards are now all out, and the news is worse for Ohio’s embattled Charter Schools than it was last year. Charter Schools received more Fs than As, Bs and Cs combined. Their percentage of Fs went up from about 41% last year to nearly 44% this year.” Think of it, nearly half the charters in the state earned an F grade, yet the state wants MORE of them.
Dyer also found that the public schools in the Big 8–Ohio’s urban districts–face more challenges than charters, yet still outperform the urban charters. He writes:
In further analyzing the Ohio Report Card data released today, schools in Ohio’s Big 8 urban centers (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) scored higher on their performance index score (the closest thing Ohio has to an overall performance assessment at this point) than Charter Schools, despite having substantially higher percentages of children who were economically disadvantaged. A staggering 51% of Big 8 urban buildings have more than 95% of their students designated as economically disadvantaged (the Ohio Department of Education only says buildings have “>95.0″ if their economic disadvantaged number is higher than 95%).
So, despite having more than half their buildings with, for all intents and purposes, all their kids economically disadvantaged, Ohio’s Big 8 urban buildings actually perform better, on average, than Ohio’s Charter Schools, which were originally intended to “save” children from “failing” urban buildings.
Dyer also notes that “Of the top 200 PI [Performance Index] scores, 10 are Charters, 190 are districts. Of the bottom 200 PI scores, 21 are districts and 179 are Charters.”
When Dyer looked at Value-Added Measures for districts, the public school districts still outperformed charters, showing more test score growth than charters.
The puzzle in these results is why Ohio policymakers–the Governor and the Legislature–want more charters. The answer, as we have observed again and again, is that sponsors and advocates for charters make large political contributions to elected officials. They have become a potent special interest group. This is a case where results don’t matter.
The question is, who will save poor children from failing charter schools? Or will Ohio recklessly continue to authorize more charter schools without regard to the performance of the charter sector?
I should point out here, as I have in the past, that I think school report cards with a single letter grade, is one of the stupidest public policy ideas in the “reform” bag of tricks. There is no way that a letter grade can accurately reflect the work of a complex institution or the many people in it. Think of a single child coming home from school with a report card that contained only one letter, and it gives some notion of what a simplistic idea it is to grade an entire school in this way. Nonetheless, this is the system now in use in many states (pioneered by the master of ersatz reform, Jeb Bush), so I report what the state reports.
Yet when the state report cards came out, public schools overwhelmingly received higher grades than charter schools. Dyer explains in this post that “The Ohio Report Cards are now all out, and the news is worse for Ohio’s embattled Charter Schools than it was last year. Charter Schools received more Fs than As, Bs and Cs combined. Their percentage of Fs went up from about 41% last year to nearly 44% this year.” Think of it, nearly half the charters in the state earned an F grade, yet the state wants MORE of them.
Dyer also found that the public schools in the Big 8–Ohio’s urban districts–face more challenges than charters, yet still outperform the urban charters. He writes:
In further analyzing the Ohio Report Card data released today, schools in Ohio’s Big 8 urban centers (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) scored higher on their performance index score (the closest thing Ohio has to an overall performance assessment at this point) than Charter Schools, despite having substantially higher percentages of children who were economically disadvantaged. A staggering 51% of Big 8 urban buildings have more than 95% of their students designated as economically disadvantaged (the Ohio Department of Education only says buildings have “>95.0″ if their economic disadvantaged number is higher than 95%).
So, despite having more than half their buildings with, for all intents and purposes, all their kids economically disadvantaged, Ohio’s Big 8 urban buildings actually perform better, on average, than Ohio’s Charter Schools, which were originally intended to “save” children from “failing” urban buildings.
Dyer also notes that “Of the top 200 PI [Performance Index] scores, 10 are Charters, 190 are districts. Of the bottom 200 PI scores, 21 are districts and 179 are Charters.”
When Dyer looked at Value-Added Measures for districts, the public school districts still outperformed charters, showing more test score growth than charters.
The puzzle in these results is why Ohio policymakers–the Governor and the Legislature–want more charters. The answer, as we have observed again and again, is that sponsors and advocates for charters make large political contributions to elected officials. They have become a potent special interest group. This is a case where results don’t matter.
The question is, who will save poor children from failing charter schools? Or will Ohio recklessly continue to authorize more charter schools without regard to the performance of the charter sector?
I should point out here, as I have in the past, that I think school report cards with a single letter grade, is one of the stupidest public policy ideas in the “reform” bag of tricks. There is no way that a letter grade can accurately reflect the work of a complex institution or the many people in it. Think of a single child coming home from school with a report card that contained only one letter, and it gives some notion of what a simplistic idea it is to grade an entire school in this way. Nonetheless, this is the system now in use in many states (pioneered by the master of ersatz reform, Jeb Bush), so I report what the state reports.
A tangled web we weave. The British are coming maybe the Libyans too.
According to the “Financial Times” a publication owned by Pearson,The Sovereign fund of Libya initially took a 3.27 per cent stake in Pearson. 3.27% is a significant stake in what is the largest educational publishing company in the world. Pearson is a $9 Billion giant that dominates textbooks, testing, teacher evaluation, IT platforms for schools, and may have the largest investment in lobbying of any publishing company operating in the United States. Pearson is also a major supplier to states who have adopted the Common Core Standard. So why does it matter that Libya may have had or still has a stake in Pearson?
According to a February 2012 study by Citizens for National Security about Muslim Biased textbooks in Florida, four are published by Pearson. Act for America conducted a 2011 study of Muslim-biased textbooks in America and concluded that Pearson published 13 titles where significant Muslim Bias was uncovered. At the time of the stake, Qaddafi was leader in Libya, and promoted his radical brand of Islam. The Arab world, and the Muslim Brotherhood have shown great interest in using education in the United States to indoctrinate American students about Islam. This publication reviewed Pearson’s 2013 World History, a high school level textbook, as an example of strident Islamic Bias. According to Stanley Kurtz in the National Review the Saudis have made strong gains in penetrating American schools:
Pearson is a leading proponent of the common core standards. They own Connections Education which run the Connections Academies and Nexus Academies.
According to a February 2012 study by Citizens for National Security about Muslim Biased textbooks in Florida, four are published by Pearson. Act for America conducted a 2011 study of Muslim-biased textbooks in America and concluded that Pearson published 13 titles where significant Muslim Bias was uncovered. At the time of the stake, Qaddafi was leader in Libya, and promoted his radical brand of Islam. The Arab world, and the Muslim Brotherhood have shown great interest in using education in the United States to indoctrinate American students about Islam. This publication reviewed Pearson’s 2013 World History, a high school level textbook, as an example of strident Islamic Bias. According to Stanley Kurtz in the National Review the Saudis have made strong gains in penetrating American schools:
Pearson is a leading proponent of the common core standards. They own Connections Education which run the Connections Academies and Nexus Academies.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Another example of profits over students, what a profitable scam
Note the incestuous management team. My prediction, another failed school but profits for the Charter company. Not if, but when the failure will occur. Do they really expect more students based on their track record? Do they care? Self preservation is a powerful motivator.
New school board seeking lower lease payments, more money for kids
COLUMBUS — A scrappy new school board overseeing the Imagine Columbus Primary Academy wants to re-negotiate the school’s lease.And what a lease it is: The Imagine academy pays an Imagine subsidiary $700,000 per year to rent a school with just 155 students. The rent consumes more than half of the struggling school’s annual budget, leaving little for classroom instruction.
And when a plumbing problem sent sewage flowing though classrooms on the first day of school, the tenant—not the landlord—was responsible for the repair.
Board Chair Melonia Bennett said she knows the five-year lease is valid. “But I’m kind of hoping that if we point out some of the issues – like the school might not be viable in five years because of how high our costs are – that at least the parties would be willing to discuss the issue.’’
Bennett made her comments at last week’s school board meeting where she convinced her fellow board members to form a subcommittee charged with trying to lower the rental payments and free up more money for teachers and kids.
As expected, Imagine representatives who attended the meeting appeared hostile to the idea, repeatedly advising the school to bring in more money by enrolling more students.
ProgressOhio Executive Director Brian Rothenberg, whose organization secretly videotaped the meeting, showed part of the tape at a Columbus news conference Tuesday and said he hopes it inspires other charter school boards to fight back, too.
“It’s clear that Gov. Kasich and the lawmakers won’t fix the system so I am calling on charter school board members to fight from within,” he said. “Shine a spot light on these abusive financial arrangements. Work to get money in the classrooms where it matters the most.”
Board members made the same point, arguing that the school’s low test scores could be raised with more interventions and more experienced teachers but low salaries lead to high teacher turnover. The school received an F on the latest state report card.
The Imagine academy is a charter school paid for with public money and operated by Imagine Schools Inc., a Virginia-based company.
In a 2010 report on Imagine Schools, the think tank, Policy Matters Ohio, found it has a poor record of performance in Ohio and a business model that includes elaborate real estate transactions, high management fees, overlapping business relationships, low spending on classroom instruction, and tight control of school finances and board relationships.
Four years later, the same troubling pattern is evident at the Columbus academy, Rothenberg said.
Until last year, the school’s building off of Morse Road housed another Imagine school but it was forced to close after a nine-year run of poor academic results. So Imagine opened a new elementary school with a new principal in the same building under a new name.
The school can hold 500 students but competition from other schools and low test scores has today’s enrollment about 155.
In addition to paying $700,000 to lease the building, the school pays Imagine about $10,000 per month in “indirect costs” it pays to Imagine for sponsor services, according to its balance statement. The money is to pay for lawyers and salaries for corporate and regional staff such as Jennifer Keller, director of Imagine’s Ohio regional team.
Keller is the sister of Amy Butte, Imagine Executive Vice President for Ohio and Indiana. Amy’s husband, Chris, is business manager of the Ohio Regional Team.
Keller attended the board meeting and defended the $700,000 per year lease.
“Until we start to get our enrollment up the lease is going to be a substantial cost. So we have to figure out, 1: How do we increase enrollment.” The more students the school has the more state money it collects – and the more it must pay in those “indirect’’ fees to Imagine.
Despite high turnover from teachers and staff and a principal who joined the school last February, there has been some consistency: Keller and Amy Butte served as the regional leaders for several leaders, including years when Imagine operated the school that eventually was forced to close.
Also attending the board meeting, and defending the lease, was Imagine attorney Amy Borman.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Ohio Department of Education released the results for Charter Schools.
Complete article here:
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
League of Women Voters (NM) takes a look at E schools
http://www.lwvglc.org/documents/lwvglc_paper_for_profit_virtual_charter_schools.pdf
Not recommended in New Mexico. Good analysis.
Not recommended in New Mexico. Good analysis.
Charter School Oversight in Florida
Look what is happening in Florida.
Follow the money!
http://interactive.sun-sentinel.com/charter-schools-unsupervised/investigation.html
"Management companies, hired by two-thirds of South Florida’s charter schools, further complicate the school districts’ ability to monitor spending and discern who controls the purse strings, the newspaper found. These companies provide services ranging from targeted assignments to wholesale management of schools, and have received anywhere from 10 to 97 percent of a school’s budget, records show.
“They’re public schools in the front door; they’re for-profit closed entities in the back door,” said Kathleen Oropeza, who co-founded FundEducationNow.org, an education advocacy group based in Orlando. “There’s no transparency; the public has no ability to see where the profits are, how the money is spent.”
Great investigation
What could Ohio learn?
Follow the money!
http://interactive.sun-sentinel.com/charter-schools-unsupervised/investigation.html
"Management companies, hired by two-thirds of South Florida’s charter schools, further complicate the school districts’ ability to monitor spending and discern who controls the purse strings, the newspaper found. These companies provide services ranging from targeted assignments to wholesale management of schools, and have received anywhere from 10 to 97 percent of a school’s budget, records show.
“They’re public schools in the front door; they’re for-profit closed entities in the back door,” said Kathleen Oropeza, who co-founded FundEducationNow.org, an education advocacy group based in Orlando. “There’s no transparency; the public has no ability to see where the profits are, how the money is spent.”
Great investigation
What could Ohio learn?
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