Lots of money easily available can lead to abuse, and it did–over and over again in Miami. It is so much money that it may be time to follow New York’s lead and ban for-profit education management companies. In this post we look at Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit education management firm.
Its schools are consolidated into at least four non-profit entities that allow Academica to operate legally as a contractor to its own schools. Their 100 schools are organized into the Mater, Somerset, Pinecrest and Doral networks. They also manage several Ben Gamla schools as well as others. Academica operates in five states plus D.C. including Florida, Utah, Texas, Nevada, California.
The Doral and Mater charter governing boards keep appearing in the Miami Dade Inspector General reports. There is a lot of money involved and continued poor governance citations. You can follow the money. Do these schools do more with less?