Pennsylvania charter schools (re difficulty with oversight and closing schools)

“Closing a charter school is a long, costly process"; Allentown board expected to start process against Vitalistic this week.” The Morning Call, 4/22/2012   

...Charter school revocation hearings are costly, rare and time-consuming in Pennsylvania, which has 167 charter schools. Only eight charters have been revoked and those decisions were appealed to the state Charter School Appeal Board, state Department of Education records show...

While the law's directions for how a charter can open are precise, its oversight provisions are not. The law states school districts are to oversee a charter's academic and financial performance while the state oversees cyber charter schools.

The law does not explain how school districts or the state are supposed to conduct the oversight since school districts have no authority over charters' day-to-day operations or annual budgets. Nor does the law spell out how districts are supposed to force charters to correct problems they may find...

Even the state Department of Education has had trouble overseeing charters.

For example, the Philadelphia Daily News recently reported that cyber school Frontier Virtual Charter High School has a mountain of unpaid bills and laid off its principal and all its full-time teachers despite receiving $435,000 in tax money this school year. The state Department of Education, however, has had little luck getting Frontier's administrators to turn over records so the state can investigate, according to the newspaper...

The Legislature and state Department of Education have known since 2002 that oversight of charters was lacking. That year, research from Western Michigan University found some Pennsylvania districts make "compliance visits" while others visit for "ceremonial purposes." Researchers found oversight picks up when charters come up for renewal...

Charter oversight is also the responsibility of the state auditor general's office, which is having trouble conducting cyclical audits or special investigations to make sure tax money is spent appropriately in the state's charter schools.

"There's no doubt … it creates challenges for us," Auditor General Jack Wagner said.

That means there are few eyes on the $4 billion taxpayers have spent toward charter schools in the last decade. That total, according to Department of Education data, includes per pupil expenditures, salaries, building and rental costs, and grants...

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“State legislator files ethics complaint against school board member over charter school ad.”

“State legislator files ethics complaint against school board member over charter school ad.” Marietta Daily Journal (GA), 4/21/2012  

AUSTELL — State Rep. David Wilkerson (D-Austell) filed an ethics complaint against David Morgan this week, alleging that the Cobb school board vice chair didn’t report the cost of an ad attacking him for voting against the proposed charter school constitutional amendment.

Morgan, who is a lobbyist for American Federation for Children [see below], a political action committee advocating school choice, is also a Democrat who lives in Austell.

In his complaint with the state ethics commission, Wilkerson points to a March 24 ad Morgan ran in the Journal that attacks Wilkerson for voting against House Resolution 1162, which would give the state power to create charter schools over the objection of local school boards.

Morgan’s PAC advocated in favor of the amendment, which voters will decide upon in November. When Wilkerson voted against it, Morgan’s PAC ran an ad claiming Wilkerson had turned his back on children and voted against restoring charter schools...

“Mr. Morgan is in violation of reporting lobbying expenditures intended to both influence pending legislation as well as the election of a candidate,” Wilkerson writes...

From SourceWatch:

The American Federation for Children is a committee of mostly right-wing groups who want to advance the privatization of public schools and the expansion of voucher programs and charter schools... The American Federation for Children was a "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Conference, which in 2010, equated to $5,000. "The American Federation for Children was launched in January 2010, when America’s leading private school choice organizations worked together to create a lasting and sustainable structure for the advancement of school choice through the creation of the Federation. This organization traces its roots to the founders of the modern school choice movement, most notably the late John T. Walton, a visionary philanthropist and education reformer. Led by national education reform pioneer Betsy DeVos, the American Federation for Children works at the national, state, and local levels to advance our mission..." AFC works alongside the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to draft and support model legislation promoting "school choice" and tax reform for schools.

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New Heights Academy

“Fired exec: Charter-school chief fudged books.” New York Post (NY), 3/21/2012

The founder of one of the city’s largest charters schools falsified financial records and okayed illegal construction work while serving as its principal, according to a whistleblower suit filed by a former school exec.

Stacy Winitt, executive director of the New Heights Academy in upper Manhattan, allegedly justified her shady practices by claiming her school was “too small to get caught,” court papers charge.

Former COO Gene Fisch Jr. says he was fired after warning two members of the board of directors “that submitting false numbers to the government based on fabricated and forged documents amounted to misappropriation of funds and that ‘someone could go to jail.’”

New Heights, which has about 760 students in grades 5 through 12, budgeted $888,000 in federal grants and $11.7 million in state grants last year, according to its annual report.

Fisch’s Manhattan federal court suit seeks unspecified damages, including twice his lost wages, for retaliation and breach of contract.

Fisch says he uncovered “serious financial misconduct” after being hired by New Heights in July 2008, and refused to sign off on its annual audit because “the numbers used for the audit were not credible.”

He also says Winitt ordered demolition work inside the building at 1818 Amsterdam Ave. without a permit, “with the intention not only to deliberately violate the law, but to do so deceitfully.”...

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Better Research Needed on the Impact of Charter Schools

“Better Research Needed on the Impact of Charter Schools.” Science, 1/13/2012

View pdf of article @ http://sandera.ucsd.edu/news-and-events/Science-2012-Betts-171-2.pdf

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“Report: We still don’t know much about charter schools.” The Answer Sheet, The Washington Post, 1/14/2012

A new study on the effectiveness of public charter schools concludes that most of the research on the subject has been conducted with methods that “tell us little about causal effects.”

The study, just published in the journal Science, was conducted by two well-known researchers: Julian Betts, an educational economist at the University of California at San Diego and executive director of the San Diego Education Research Alliance, and Richard Atkinson, president emeritus of the University of California, former director of the National Science Foundation and professor emeritus of cognitive science and psychology at UC San Diego.

They wrote in their study, “Better Research Needed on the Impact of Charter Schools,” that charter schools have been embraced by the Obama administration — and by the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations before it — as “the saviors of a broken educational system.” But, they said, researchers still can’t answer the question: Does attendance at a charter school improve student outcomes?

“Which charter schools, or even types of charter schools, are more effective than others? We don’t really know,” they wrote.

Researchers (one of them was Betts) conducting a recent meta-analysis of charter research studies ended up throwing out about 75 percent of them because they didn’t take into account differences between the backgrounds and academic histories of students attending charter schools and those attending traditional public schools...

They argue that more lottery-based studies are needed as well as more longitudinal work, which means that researchers should be able to routinely access student data — and obtain lottery data from charter schools.

Until better research is done, policymakers simply won’t have the appropriate data to make decisions about which charters to replicate and which to shut down, Betts said in a university press release.

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Regis Academy

“Parish seeks to evict group.” CourierPostOnline (NJ), 3/16/2012

CHERRY HILL — A Catholic parish here wants a judge to allow eviction proceedings against Solid Rock Worship Center, a church that plans to host a controversial charter school at its Ashland complex.

Holy Eucharist Parish said Solid Rock continues to owe back rent under a lease-purchase agreement and that it has missed a deadline to buy the compound at Burnt Mill and Evesham roads. The parish says those actions violate an agreement the parties reached in June, about a month after Holy Eucharist sued for Solid Rock’s removal.

But Pastor Amir Khan, who leads Solid Rock’s 1,000-member congregation, says his church has received verbal approval for a mortgage that will satisfy its financial obligations. He said Solid Rock hopes to receive a written commitment for the loan shortly...

Khan has received state approval to operate a charter school, Regis Academy, in a former parochial school building at the site. Regis Academy, on track to open in September, hopes to draw students from Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Somerdale and Lawnside. It faces sharp opposition from school administrators and residents in those towns, who say Regis Academy would divert badly needed tax dollars from the local districts...

[Khan] said the site is more than the charter school. “We’re a church,” he said, noting about 85 youngsters also attend a private Christian school and day-care center. “We’re just excited that we’re finally going to get our mortgage.”

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More information about Regis Academy and Amir Khan at:

• The Tangled Web Behind Regis Academy's Approval 
• Three Strikes For Regis Academy Charter School; Separation Of Church And State,Enrollment Discrepancies And Skimming Students

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Ohio charter schools (mishandled finances not uncommon)

“Mishandled finances not uncommon in charter schools.” The Columbus Dispatch (OH), 4/2/2012

Spend first, ask permission later, and don’t bother with receipts.

The loose financial systems at some of Ohio’s charter schools have led to questionable spending in recent years. Some schools hired treasurers with spotty track records; others hired qualified treasurers but disregarded their advice when they insisted on better checks and balances.

The recent case of a charter-school treasurer who misspent more than $600,000 in public money over a decade at several schools has highlighted how common fiscal missteps have been in charters. Fifteen of the 20 entities with the most charges of misspending by the state auditor are charter schools...

State Auditor Dave Yost said he’s pushing for a law that would strengthen accountability for school treasurers and require more training about how to manage public dollars.

Officials at the Ohio Department of Education, which licenses school treasurers, said they plan to get tough on charter-school treasurers with a history of fiscal mismanagement...

A treasurer from Gahanna — Ed Dudley Sr. of LED Consulting — has 46 findings for recovery from the state auditor. The findings stem from work at seven charter schools and total more than $440,000.

Dudley says he worked tirelessly to try to persuade charter-school boards to follow the rules of spending public money, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Few were willing to rein in the school leader, often the founder, too, even when he or she was spending money without any oversight...

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Smith Leadership Academy

“Charters chool’s layoffs raise ire.” The Boston Globe (MA), 3/12/2012

Several parents at a Dorchester charter school are calling for the ouster of the executive director and the chairman of the school’s trustees, following a firestorm over the layoffs of the principal and five other employees...

“We don’t want Smith Leadership Academy to close,’’ said Ayesha Moore, whose son is in the eighth grade. “We want the people who are ruining it to leave.’’

But Karmala Sherwood, the academy’s executive director, said the school had to lay off the employees, mostly administrators, to remedy an unexpected budget shortfall of more than $100,000. Fewer students enrolled than anticipated, cutting into per-pupil aid, which averages about $10,000 per student...

But the turmoil at Smith Leadership Academy shows that charter schools are not immune to the same kinds of budgetary problems and academic challenges that can afflict traditional public schools.

Students at Smith Leadership Academy, where math and science are taught in single-gender classes, often score lower than Boston public school students on the MCAS, and the state has labeled the academy for restructuring to fix persistently low scores. For instance, fewer than half the students scored proficient or higher on last spring’s MCAS exams.

In May 2011, a state review revealed a number of problems with instruction, saying that too many teachers failed to challenge students - relying too heavily on lectures and worksheets - and that the school lacks a coherent curriculum.

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