Category Archives: Charter Schools

Classical Academy in Trouble Again

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Collier County’s Classical Academy is facing financial mismanagement charges by its former treasurer. He claims that the principal has created an environment “where fraud can occur without detection”. This is just one more crisis at this charter school founded by Kelly Lichter and Erika Donalds. Donalds was the sponsor for Amendment 8 to create a separate charter system.

The treasurer and Erika Donalds have pulled their children from the school. Donalds has filed paper work to open her own Classical Academy. Her husband, Representative Byron Donalds is reportedly ‘mulling’ legislation to increase charter school accountability. According to the Naples Daily News, Donalds is considering requirements that charters post student and teacher turnover rates as well as a minimum of five board members. Erika and Byron Donalds were former board members of this charter school.

Parents are finding out the hard way that they have no voice in charter school management. The charter boards are hand picked. Elected public school boards can do nothing until the charter can no longer pay its bills or students are in danger. Representative Donalds says that reform of the charter system depends upon the November election. Be sure you know where your representatives stand on charter school management reform.

Here are stories of other complaints about this charter school. It is quite a history. Yet, the school remains open.

Story 1. Inflated loans
Story 2. Underware searches
Story 3. Sexual Assault

Could it happen here, No Doubt About It? Consider Arizona

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Arizona Superintendent of Schools Diane Douglas announced she will recommend the curriculum standards for Classical Academy charter schools. They are sponsored by Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian college in Michigan that has gone into the charter business. It had to do something a few years ago because it was scandal ridden due to the sexual exploits of its president resulting in his son’s wife’s suicide. It is also the charter chain that Erika Donalds, a Collier County Florida school board member, personally supports. She has filed a proposal to open another one in Martin County. It’s the same chain that won its appeal to Florida’s State Board of Education to open a Classical Academy in Tallahassee this past week.

Florida’s State Board of Education Chair is no supporter of public schools. Marva Johnson advocated that Florida’s constitution be changed to allow public funds to support private, religious schools. Johnson was voted by SBE members to succeed Gary Chartrand. He is one of the financial supporters of KIPP charters in Jacksonville. He is also one of the major contributors to school board races. His candidates support charter schools.

There is a lot of money to be made from Florida’s charter schools. Almost half of the 650 charters are run by for-profit management companies that are subcontractors with the charter boards they help to create. Want to know about the inside dealings of Academica, Florida’s richest charter firm? Read the Miami Herald report. This story ran before Erik Fresen, Zulueta’s brother-in-law and former Florida legislator was arrested for forgetting for eight years to file his income tax returns. He already had been cited for conflict of interest in his role at Academica.

Large non-profit charter management chains have their own way of making money. Eva Moskowitz, head of the NY based Success Academies, made over $782,000 in 2016 to run 46 schools. The Superintendent of Orange County, Florida public schools runs 191 schools, but her salary is less than half of what Moskowitz earns.

Until Florida citizens demand change, too many charters will syphon off public tax dollars for private gain. When the money goes to charters, it comes from your children’s schools.

Florida State School Board Overturns Leon County’s Vote on Classical Academy

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The expansion of Classical Academies in Florida is part of the push by Senator Negron, Representative Corcoran and the pro Amendment 8 coalition. These are the charters sponsored by Hillsdale College, the conservative Christian college backed by the DeVos family. They do not call their curriculum religious. They call it the development of ‘moral character and civic virtue’. This is the same group behind the Classical Academies with which Erika Donalds is associated.

It is no surprise that Leon County’s rejection of this new charter school was overturned. At times school districts have had to resort to the courts when the State Board refused to support local school district decisions. In 2017, the Court of Appeals rejected the SBE decision to overturn the Indian River school board’s decision to block two for-profit charters that had shaky a financial management plan.

The Governor appoints State Board of Education members. There is no mechanism to balance its membership. School policy simply becomes political.

Integrity Florida Nails the For-Profit Charter Industry

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A newly released report by Integrity Florida underscores the Florida League of Women Voters concerns about charter school policy and its negative impact on public schools. Remember that charters are funded by public tax dollars but run by private companies. The report focuses on the abuse and negative impact of for-profit charters in Florida.

It’s all here.

KEY EXCERPTS

  1. Page 17-18. For-profit charters like Academica, CSUSA, Imagine and S.M.A.R.T. perform less well than similar students in traditional public schools.
  2. Page 19: For-profit charters hurt public schools…substantial share of public expenditure…extracted for personal or business financial gain.
  3. Page 21: Lease and management fees are largest income source of for-profit charters.
  4. Page 22: 373 charters have closed.
  5. Page 24: Corruption continues even after 2016 legislative reforms.
  6. Page 25: Charters cherry pick students to reduce costs and services for struggling students.
  7. Page 26: Charters use money and influence to affect policy outcomes. $2,651,639 was spent on committee and campaign contributions in 2016 alone. John Kirtley, who heads many of these committees also is chair of Step Up for Students which distributes a billion dollars in corporate tax credit scholarships to private schools. All Children Matters, run by Betsy DeVos, gave over $4 million to Florida political committees between 2004 and 2010. The Walton family gave over $7 million between 2008 and 2016 to Florida’s All Children Matter. Large contributions by the Waltons, John Kirtley, CSUSA, Academica, Gary Chartrand, and others were also made to the Florida Federation for Children. For profit charters have spent over $8 million in lobbying in Tallahassee.
  8. Page 35: Conflict of interest claims in the Florida legislature have been made against current and former legislators including Richard Corcoran, Manny Diaz, Anitere Flores, Michael Bileca, Eric Fresen, John Legg, Seth McKeel, Kelli Stargel, Ralph Arza, and Will Weatherford.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

There are a number of management practices recommended including the publication of charter contracts, prohibition of advertising for students, and increasing local school district oversight authority. Other specific recommendations include:

  1. Limit charter expansion.
  2. Report for-profit charter expenditures and profits by school.
  3. Fund public schools sufficiently to remove competition.
  4. Limit the amount of public funds for leases.
  5. Report number of charter student drop outs, withdrawals, and expulsions.

California has gone a step further. Last week the governor signed a bill to prohibit further expansion of for-profit charters.

Will Money Decide Jacksonville School Board Races?

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All three Jacksonville school board races are in runoffs on the November ballot. The Jacksonville Times Union followed the money. Three ‘reformers’ have raised buckets of money compared to the other candidates. The largest fund raiser was lawyer David Chauncey who raised over $75,000. His wife is a KIPP recruiter. The head of Teach for America, Darryl Willie, is a candidate. Duval County cut the TFA program due to its expense and high teacher turnover rate. Wait!! Is there a potential conflict of interest here? Nick Howland, a prominent businessman, also raised over $55,000 Read the article.

Money doesn’t decide everything. As one candidate said, “He (my opponent) may outspend me, but he won’t outwork me.”

California Bans For-Profit Charter Schools

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Governor Brown signed legislation banning for-profit charters. A few states, e.g. New York, banned for-profits long ago. The impetus for the legislation was the manipulation of student enrollment by K12 online management company. The suit was settled for a $168.5 million claim.

California has relatively few for-profit charters compared to Florida. Over forty percent of Florida charters are run by for-profit management companies like Academica and CSUSA and Newpoint. Florida law requires charters to be non-profit, but the law is circumvented. The management companies create a separate limited liability company (llc) with its own governing board which they appoint. This llc contracts with local school boards to open a charter. Then, the llc company subcontracts almost 100% of its public funding from the state to the for-profit management firm. These management companies are protected from public scrutiny.

Banning for-profit charter management does not stop all financial abuse at the expense of the public. It does, however, help to limit the excessive corruption and exploitation that plagues the charter industry.

Florida Supreme Court Tosses Amendment 8

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The League of Women Voters case against Amendment 8 wins in the Florida Supreme Court. It will be removed from the November 6th ballot. The vagueness of the amendment language and its misleading title: “School Board Term Limits and Duties; Public Schools” was the basis for the justices’ 3 to 4 ruling. This is significant in many ways.

The decision puts a roadblock in the effort to create an alternative charter school system. This is a basic goal of the school privatization effort. No doubt some legislators will continue to push proposals to remove any local school board control of charter schools. In reality, local public schools have little ability now to oversee these charters, but they must authorize new charters. Removing this power to authorize charters is seen as limiting the expansion of charters.

The amendment included three unrelated proposals. In addition to the proposed removal of local school board authority to authorize charter schools were two additional proposals. The first one was to impose term limits on school board members. The second proposal was to require civics in K12 curriculum. Civics is already required in the Florida curriculum; it just was not in the constitution. All three proposals are now removed from the ballot.

This is just another step in the long journey to reaffirm the importance of our public school system.

Supreme Court Hearing on Amendment 8

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It is anticipated that the Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments about Amendment 8 today at 2p.m. This is the bucket education amendment that combines school board term limits, civics education and an independent authority to run public schools not created by public school boards….i.e. charters. The League filed suit claiming the amendment combined unrelated proposals and intended to confuse voters. The circuit court ruled that the Amendment 8 be removed from the ballot. The State appealed, and the case was referred to the Florida Supreme Court.

The Florida Channel broadcasts these hearings. Here is the link to the schedule.

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Amendment 8 Case

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Amendment 8 was ruled off the ballot on Monday but the State appealed the decision. The Appellate Court immediately referred the case to the Florida Supreme Court saying “The case involves a question of great public importance and requires immediate resolution by the Supreme Court”. Briefs are to be filed next week. Read the background here. This is the Florida League of Women Voters lawsuit.

What Happens With Too Many Charters?

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In the Public Interest published this mini video on the costs to neighborhood schools when charters drain available funds. This video was done in California which leads the nation in the number of charters. The problems are like those in Florida. Take a minute and watch here.