Probably later than sooner the American public will come to learn of the great waste of tax dollars for the unproven experiment of unmonitored charter schools, which are more often than not worse than the public schools they were intended to replace. In the meantime, how many billions will be soaked up by crooks of all political and religious persuasions? And when school boards are giving it away, why should the thieves bother to call it stealing?
Charter-school teachers have been banking bonuses while also collecting other bonus checks under the criticized Merit Award Program, School board members learned Monday.Conversion-charter schools have spent more than $1 million of the Lake County School District's general funds since 2005 to award bonuses that other district employees can't receive, district chief financial officer Carol MacLeod told School Board members at a workshop.They've also been reaping the benefits as the district pays for new computers and chips in for the schools' transportation costs. All these things as the schools maintain "significant" unrestricted fund balances, MacLeod said.
...The district also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to help pay for Spring Creek's transportation costs.
"We're just eating this," (district chief financial officer Carol) MacLeod said.
The observations were part of a follow-up report of a recent charter-school audit and a presentation on charter-school inequities.According to the May 2007 audit prepared by RSM McGladrey, the monthly financial reports from charter schools were not formally tracked or monitored properly.
District officials have since worked to fix the problem, but they don't have any authority to make sure charter schools turn in their reports on time, MacLeod said. . . .
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Florida Charter School Corruption
Jim Horn has an unsettling post over at SchoolsMatter on Charter School corruption in Florida:
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5 comments:
I have been reading your blog for some time now and am so surprised at the tone and content of this one. Ordinarily you are insightful and accurate. However, your observations here are inaccurate, biased and disingenuous for someone who has shown genuine concern for how Kentucky kids are being educated.
It's well known that the great waste you cite comes not from charter schools but from public ones. If your focus is on bringing attention to waste, why don't you have the courage to criticize the Covington Independent District where almost half the money spent in the district is for non-classroom purposes. It employs four public relations people to counter the continuous stream of bad publicity from the media.
While you might persuade Kentucky teachers to your "logic" by using such inflammatory adjectives as "unproven" and "unmonitored" when describing charter schools, you don't fool parents at charter schools in forty other states that are so popular lotteries determine who gets to attend and who are turned back to the public school system.
Certainly you have read about the Amistad and KIPP Academies whose academic results are stupendous.
And you don't have to look beyond Kentucky's borders to read about public school administrators who are caught diverting school funding into their own pockets. Why aren't you citicizing real thieves right here in Kentucky instead of alluding to parents and teachers in charter schools trying to produce academic improvements in areas where public schools have failed dismally.
All you do in a blog like this is reveal your "public school or bust" attitude that places failing Kentucky schools above the needs of parents and their children...and lose respect from your readers.
Hummm. I may be receiving a little too much "credit" here.
What I said was, "Jim Horn has an unsettling post over at SchoolsMatter on Charter School corruption in Florida:"
Horn, and then the Sun-Sentinel, said the rest.
Every now and again I read Horn (anti) and Rotherham @ Eduwonk (pro) for opposing perspectives of the charter school issue.
For myself...
So far as I know, I was the first Kentucky principal to approach the state seeking permission to create a charter school. I say that only to show that I don't harbor any animosity toward charters as a concept.
However, my focus at that time was highly localized. That is to say, I wasn't seeking a change that would benefit the state as a whole - only my little corner of the world.
I would get upset whenever I thought the state (or district) was actually hampering us from reaching out goals. I thought the primary program did this while driving away our most active public school supporters (the parents of primary children) in the process. I was looking to jump ship, but only for the benefit of one school.
But now focused on the state as a whole - as the state constitution requires the legislature to be - charters are not the way to assure a high quality school in every Kentucky neighborhood.
As I have told Martin Cothran and others, find me a way to do that with charter schools, and I'll sign on.
There are a number of public and private schools that defy the odds. Like KIPP, they show us what it takes to close gaps and maintain high achievement in high poverty neighborhoods. It takes an extremely dedicated and motivated, high quality faculty, that works long hours building relationships within the larger community. It takes a ton of hard work.
Will kentuckians muster up the foresight and support to make that happen state-wide?
There are also examples of corruption in both public and private spheres that ought to be eliminated. I'll take Penney Sanders on horseback over today's comparatively milquetoast OEA, or the unmitigated disaster that was Ken Henry.
The way to accomplish charters for you in Kentucky is to follow the lead of Western Kentucky University. It established the Academy for Science and Math there. The governing authority for it is not a school district but WKU. The teachers are professors who don't have to be certified by KDE nor work for a teachers' union. Public money follows the child from their school district to the WKU Academy. (The "losing" district can't count the students for ADA purposes and the legislature is funding the Academy with public money.) Thus, the three primary requisites for a charter school are in place at this Academy.
Wouldn't you like to be a principal at a public school. Why can't Murray, EKU, KY State, Morehead follow WKU's lead?
And why don't you harpoon Jack Moreland's lack of performance at Covington Independent? You didn't comment on that. It is easy for parents to see how much money this District is getting and how poorly its remaining students (its graduation rate is embarrassing) are scoring. Imagine if KIPP got a contract to turn around Holmes High.
Thanks for the comments.
The WKU program sounds interesting, based on the little bit I know of it from news reports. Even if it were to be replicated at every state university it would amount to a magnet-type program for elite students. So we should not fool ourselves into thinking that this provides a solution to "an efficient system of schools throughout the state."
As for investigative reporting at the district level...that's going to be a rarity from me these days.
In the good old days of the Barbara Erwin investigation I was working about half-time and dedicated hundreds of hours to the effort. KSN&C doesn't have a paid staff. So I pick my pursuits based on my current interests and available time. And my students have first claim to my time.
Right now, I'm interested in learning more about how school districts and the state handle (or don't handle) serious testing allegations. And I don't mean to infer anything about the BTW Academy. The more I learn about that situation, the less I think a valid testing concern exists. The "investigation" continues, and so far, no official allegations have been brought by the district.
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