Charter schools in TX receive $19 million from state, red flags raised in audit.

[madfloridian]

When a student goes to a charter school a percentage (usually most) of the money allotted for that pupil by the state goes with them. If they leave the charter school or are dismissed for not producing....the money may or may not return with them to the public schools.

Since charter schools, even public ones, are not tied by the same regulations as traditional public schools...they often run into funding and other problems.

These schools are experiments, yet unproven, being done with public taxpayer money and facing few regulations.

The charter school group mentioned in the article is the School of Excellence in Education.

Here is more about the charter school from My San Antonio.

Red flags raised in charter system audit

A routine financial audit of Bexar County's largest charter school system, the School of Excellence in Education, turned out to be anything but routine, the board of directors learned Wednesday night. During a special board meeting, auditors from Padgett Stratemann & Co. laid out for the governing board a report that details the financial quagmire the 2,300-student charter district faced during the 2007-08 school year, when it experienced significant turnover in its business department.

Auditors said sloppy bookkeeping put the district in a precarious situation — the Texas Education Agency threatened to withhold its funding last summer and lead auditor Santos Fraga described the school as being in a “very low-level cash position” — that school officials say they have begun to turn around.

“We cannot be here a year from now,” Fraga warned the four directors. “Management has made some good changes these past few months that we believe will help the school go forward.”

The School of Excellence operates eight charter schools that are open to students from throughout the city. Last year, the district received about $19 million in state funding.

The Department of Education under Arne Duncan continues to push for more of these schools. Problems are arising in many states, and these problems should be addressed before more tax money is given for experimentation.

Florida is in the process of cracking down on charter schools for nepotism and lax financial control.

This is my tax money.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, would no longer be able to hire and do business with relatives, and they would be forced to communicate students' academic performance even when the state does not give the schools a letter grade. The bill (SB 278) would also authorize school districts and other charter sponsors to terminate a school's contract if its administrators do not correct financial deficiencies.

..."..The series of articles found a disproportionate number of charter operations were among the worst-performing schools in the state. More than half of all charters reported operating at a loss, and nearly half had financial arrangements with insiders that would not be allowed in regular schools. Some of the schools performed dismally year after year without raising any alarm or any push for change. The state's controls were so few that a Pensacola-area charter rented out its teens for road work for five years.

I believe the bill passed, but not sure what changes were made to it.

There are more problems in Texas schools, the Imagine Schools in McKinney are causing some controversy.

From Schools Matter Blog:

Questions persist over contract for McKinney charter school

The board of a charter school planned for McKinney has been in turmoil over questions about the school's financial arrangement with a controversial school management company.
Four of the school's original five trustees quit in August, saying in their resignation letter that they were concerned about the school's proposed contract with Virginia-based Imagine Schools Inc.

They wanted Imagine to give the board more control and lower what they said were excessive fees that Imagine planned to charge the school. The school, Imagine International Academy of North Texas, is expected to open next school year.

Imagine Schools are run by Dennis and Eileen Bakke, and they have run into problems in other states...currently having problems in Florida as well.

Charter school principals fired for questioning real estate arm involvment

..But it is not only in Florida that there have been objections to, and problems with, Imagine Schools. In Texas and Nevada, concerns have been raised about Imagine Schools' finances and complex real estate deals that have led to the charters spending up to 40% of their entire publicly funded budget on rent to for-profit companies, including Imagine's real estate arm, Schoolhouse Finance, leaving them with tight budgets for necessary materials like textbooks. In the interest of comparison, many other charter schools spend in the neighborhood of 14% of their public funding on building rent. The real estate deals, where the charter run by Imagine leases the building from Schoolhouse Finance, who then sells the property to a real estate investment trust who then leases it back to Schoolhouse at a lower rate than what the charter pays, have proven very lucrative for owners and investors in the two companies. Former Imagine School principals who inquired into the real estate expenditures were subsequently fired. But, naturally, they have also drawn sharp criticism from boards of education.

Could it be that Imagine Schools is applying for nonprofit tax-exempt status by shuffling the profits (from public funding, of course) into its real estate business? Given what has already transpired in Nevada and Texas, this seems very likely.

There are good charter schools, there are good private schools. There are good private religious schools. But if they are going to get public money through allotment per student and through vouchers, they must be held just as accountable as county school boards are for the traditional public schools.

[madfloridian]

1. Broward County, FL problems with charters.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2009/04/three_broward_charter_schools_1.html

"Three Broward Charter Schools told to clean up their act

It is contract renewal time for four Broward County charter schools, but three of the new agreements come with this stipulation: you have one year to get your act together or close.

Charter School Institute and Training Center and Imagine at North Lauderdale’s elementary and middle schools have academic as well as financial problems, according to school district documents. They’ve got a June 30, 2010 deadline to fix them.

The School Board approved the three schools and Imagine at Weston between 1999 and 2002. Charter schools are privately-run public schools that sign contracts with school districts and are funded by the state.

Imagine at Weston is the only one Superintendent James Notter recommended be renewed for five years without conditions."

[D-Lee]

5. Too much enthusiasm and optimism, ignoring heavy start up costs

A number of these schools fold not very long after start up ... which is a serious concern because there are usually heavy construction costs to make space suitable for schoolroom use (extra fire protection, fire exits, etc., all safety related issues).

I would like to see figures on this problem, and how much money ends up being poured down a rabbit hole ...

[madfloridian]

9. Too often...

parents don't care about the financial burdens of public schools since charters and vouchers started getting the tax money.

A good public school system is vital to a nation. Ours is being systematically dismantled...dollar by dollar.

[pnorman]

2. Am Google bookmarking this thread, for careful study and web-searching..

Thanks!

pnorman

[pattmarty]

3. This is just ANOTHER example of private sector greed fucking up.............

...............the public sector. I am tired of it. There are things the government can do very well and there are things the public sector can do. "Public" education, healthcare, police & fire, Social Security, military and public use infrastructure are SOME areas the greedy private sector should stay out of. This is like of the old right wing canard of privatization saving the taxpayers money because ALL government is wasteful. The real wasteful part is PROFIT. When anything is privatized there end up being all sorts of "entrepreneurs" that have to get a piece of the public money action which ends up being waste and fraud. It's not like having a business where you have to struggle everyday for customers and when the customer doesn't like your product they go elsewhere. When water, roads, or schools for example get "privatized" you're fucked, you have nowhere else to go. It's almost like Communism in reverse, wasteful, corrupt and most importantly taking OUR tax dollars.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. +1

[Jakes Progress]

6. Another nice reporting job.

People are so easily sold a bill of goods when it comes to their children. Just call it an academy or put the words "excellence" or "international" in the school name and everybody wants to throw tax money at it. If the parents really cared, (and not just about their children) they would look deeper.

We've got snake oil salesmen that pander to every fear.

Recced. Thank you.

[madfloridian]

7. Imagine Schools at South Vero in FL denied...$800,000 goes to corporate office yearly.

Plus other problems.

Imagine School at South Vero's application for middle school is denied

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY - Imagine School at South Vero’s parents groaned in disappointment as their application for a middle school was denied Tuesday in a split vote. Some stormed out of the meeting. The board voted 3 to 2 to deny Imagine Schools at South Vero’s application for a middle school on its Fourth Street campus.

But Chairman Carol Johnson said there were too many financial issues to ignore. She also said the school’s parent company was an issue because more than $800,000 a year is sent to Imagine’s corporate office.

Well, that sends any claim by Imagine Schools that they are non-profit charter schools right out the window.

Other problems.

Among the main concerns of the committee are the liens filed against the charter school’s finance company, School House Finance, by unpaid subcontractors. Subcontractors have called the district claiming they have not been paid for work done at the current Imagine Schools campus. Brown said one lien was filed against Imagine for $5.2 million by the school’s contractor.

Other issues included questions about how the school would handle special needs and gifted students and dismissal procedures for misbehaving students.

[madfloridian]

8. Two unrecs in the last few minutes.

Just got online a few minutes ago. Kind of obvious when they go down that fast.

[Bozita]

12. I'm cancelling one of them now.

[ironrooster]

10. They can't be accountable like public schools for the mere

fact that they would have to play by the same rules (and since they are experimental - in your own words) they don't.

I have 3 kids in traditional public schools and one in a charter school that resides within a community college. My child will complete
the last two years of HS and get the first two years of college at the same time.

We left the traditional HS b/c even the AP courses were not challenging enough. So far the experience has been a good one.
The school cuts the kids no slack; e.g., if they are late, they are counted absent (the professors shut the doors).

This can be difficult for many teenagers who come from homes with lax discipline, and there is a lot of "weeding out".

IMO a child only performs as well as what their home environment encourages - Oh flame away!

Most of my child's former peers were big time wasters and waited until the last minute to do a project and consequently delivered a very substandard
product to the teachers. Whose fault is that? The parents. Also, many lacked any depth of imagination or intellectual curiosity.

While I agree that we need strong public schools, unfortunately teachers are saddled with a curriculum that sucks. You can't possibly have
traditional public schools here up to say, Finnish standards:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120425355065601997.html
"
Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon, Mich., where strict rules didn't translate into tougher lessons or dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether they did their homework. They would reply: " 'Nah. So what'd you do last night?'" she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice. The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which to write. In-class projects were largely "glue this to the poster for an hour," she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.

At the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, school principal Helena Muilu
Lloyd Kirby, superintendent of Colon Community Schools in southern Michigan, says foreign students are told to ask for extra work if they find classes too easy. He says he is trying to make his schools more rigorous by asking parents to demand more from their children.

Despite the apparent simplicity of Finnish education, it would be tough to replicate in the U.S. With a largely homogeneous population, teachers have few students who don't speak Finnish. In the U.S., about 8% of students are learning English, according to the Education Department. There are fewer disparities in education and income levels among Finns. Finland separates students for the last three years of high school based on grades; 53% go to high school and the rest enter vocational school. (All 15-year-old students took the PISA test.) Finland has a high-school dropout rate of about 4% -- or 10% at vocational schools -- compared with roughly 25% in the U.S., according to their respective education departments."

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120425355065601997.html

I hate to say this, but a lot of American teenagers are just friggin lazy - (maybe not their fault - but no time management skills nonetheless) and they simply won't put in the time to master the material. A ignorant culture gets what gets.

If Americans were wise, we pay teachers much more so that there would be more competition in the field. and we would reinstate a two track curriculum; one for college bound students and the other a variety of vocational studies. So sad that we aren't a wise people and force students who aren't the "studying" types to take courses of which they have no interest to the detriment of other children who are there to learn.

As a parent, all my children are facing an increasingly competitive job market and they aren't in school to make the school's standardized test results look good - they are there to master the material. They are also there to further develop their critical thinking skills. Can traditional public schools deliver? Not in my area from what I have experienced.

[LWolf]

11. And if all public schools were given

the level of local control that charter schools are, along with the regulatory oversight to ensure safety, legality, and equal opportunity to learn, we could put away the charter school movement that pushes for privatization and union-busting.

[goclark]

13. You are so right ~ please someone do a R for me

I made a mistake and hit the wrong button.

If anyone would like to do a google at DU for goclark and charters you will see why I am not a fan.

They are in a BUSINESS to make MONEY and they are not accountable and don't even try to be ~ it will turn out to be a stain on the Education System of America.

Don't get me wrong, there are many fine students that will do well in Charters -- why not--- their parents will be supportive because the environment is smaller and it has been publicized as "better" than the Public Schools.

I am not going negative on the parents or the children.

Anyone that reads my posts will know that I am a solid Obama Fan -- on this issue we disagree.

Perhaps the Charters in Chicago have some type of magic that I have not witnessed in the 10 years that I visited Charters in the Midwest and the West in an administrative capacity for two major universities.

All I can tell you is there is much work to be done if the USA goes the way of Charters.

Note that Los Angeles School District, under our slick Mayor, who worked to get 6/7 votes on the Board of education, WON. He has now issued in a wave of Charter Schools and let the Public Schools bite the dust.

It is shameful ~

[LWolf]

16. It IS shameful.

I am a product of LAUSD, in a previous generation. I graduated from high school in 1977.

LAUSD has had many problems, some directly related to the district, and the schools, being too large to effectively serve the population, and some related to the struggle to provide adequate physical, intellectual, and social environments in all schools, but charters aren't the answer.

Providing every student with a clean, well-maintained, physically, intellectually, and socially safe campus, AND doing away with over-crowding and under-staffing...those are two big parts of the answer.

[goclark]

17. Dorsey High here and I totally agree with you

It makes me want to cry because Antonio should know better and the Board should know better but there may have been some $$'s to sweeten the vote.
Just saying ~ no knowledge

[Catshrink]

14. Lax oversight in Arizona also

Education at charters is spotty, oversight lax
15-year report card: Problems can persist for years with no action

By Rhonda Bodfield and Enric Volante
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.16.2009


One couple made more than $337,000 last year to operate their charter schools, even though the schools don't rank among top academic performers.

Instructors at another charter school failed to keep students in class long enough and couldn't prove they'd met graduation requirements or that the staff was qualified to teach.

<snip>

... an Arizona Daily Star investigation has found that state regulators rarely visit charter schools, that sporadic oversight sometimes allows academic and financial issues to continue for years, and that information about charter schools is difficult for parents to come by.
Among the Star's findings:

• Students in charter schools score slightly higher than traditional public school counterparts overall in the AIMS test in lower grades. But there is a 30 percentage point gap in how many of their students pass the high school AIMS test compared with district schools.

• While it's clear that some charter schools do excellent work, problems at others can persist for years. The state has revoked charter licenses only 14 times — and poor academic performance was specifically identified in only one case.

• The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools has only seven staff positions — and only five are filled — to oversee 502 charter schools. Regulators visit a school once in each of its first two years and may never go back.

• Information about how schools spend public dollars and about complaints and other problems is difficult to obtain. Instead of going to your local school district office, you must drive to Phoenix to look at records. In Arizona, you can go online to check whether gas stations pass inspection, but not charter schools.

• Some administrators make salaries that don't seem on par with academic performance, and some have salaries that rival superintendents of much-larger districts. Taxpayers are in the dark about how much some operators make because budget information submitted to the state Education Department is sparse. And 12 percent of the schools are for-profit ventures that don't file federal forms required of nonprofits that would provide more details on their operations.

• The charter board isn't required to weigh in on complaints to determine their validity in the same way that, say, the boards that oversee doctors or lawyers are. The board does investigate if it gets a complaint that a school is charging tuition, for example, or if the school is endangering the health and safety of students. But, generally, complaints and the school's response just get put in the file for public review.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/mailstory-clickthru/305160.php

Originally posted in the Education forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=219x14113

[madfloridian]

15. Good info....this is an alarming part.

From your post.

"Taxpayers are in the dark about how much some operators make because budget information submitted to the state Education Department is sparse. And 12 percent of the schools are for-profit ventures that don't file federal forms required of nonprofits that would provide more details on their operations."

Lack of accountability with public taxpayer money...it is really alarming.

[madfloridian]

18. It angers me to have my taxpayer money going to charter and private schools.

And to vouchers.

People are so willing to destroy public education in the vain hope that they will find a panacea for all their kids' problems.

Easy to blame the teachers and public schools. They have no way to fight back.

[alp227]

19. That's why we need regulation and accountability for the private sector.

After getting bailed out, the banks used most of our money to overpay their executives.

And charter schools are wasting what could be used to improve public schools on all sorts of garbage.

[madfloridian]

20. You are exactly right. Giving taxpayer money for deregulated schools...

is just wrong.

And the financial sector problems are proof of that.

[Blue_Tires]

21. ttt