Eric Mahmoud charter schools

“Georgia file connects Twin Cities charter school, fraud scheme.” Star Tribune (MN), 3/22/2013

When the news broke last summer that charter school entrepreneur Eric Mahmoud had entered a guilty plea to a mortgage fraud charge in Georgia, Mahmoud had a ready comeback for the Minneapolis school district, under whose authorization he was opening another charter school.

“I assure you that this was a personal, residential matter in Georgia and had nothing to do with Seed Daycare, Harvest Prep or any other educational institution,” Mahmoud told Sara Paul, the district’s liaison with charter schools, in an Aug. 16 e-mail.

In that case, Mahmoud has some explaining to do.

According to an investigative file compiled by Georgia authorities, there are at least two connections involving the school with the deal...

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“High Performing Charter Schools: Beating the Odds, or Beating theTest?” National Education Policy Center blog, 8/30/2012

...In Minnesota, birthplace of the charter school movement, one charter school operator labeled an “odds beater” has put a new twist on the concept. Eric Mahmoud, a former engineer and convicted mortgage fraudster, operates a group of segregated charter schools targeted at black, inner-city poor children that employs longer school days and years, strict discipline, and an unabashed strategy of beating state achievement tests.

For his success in raising math and reading scores, Mahmoud has been given rock-star status among charter proponents and recently was inducted into the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools hall of fame. In return, the Minneapolis school board recently awarded him the right to open four more charter schools sponsored by the city's school district, all presumably to be run in what a local conservative columnist laudingly called his “drill and kill” style. News stories and opinion pieces from traditional to the alternative press have nonetheless sung his praises, so desperate is the reform community to raise test scores. Meanwhile, almost no one has questioned the efficacy or morality of deliberately segregated schools, nor ones so focused on improving specific test scores. It seemed that, until very recently, Mahmoud could do no wrong.

Three weeks ago that might all have changed with a series of investigative stories in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by veteran reporter Steve Brandt highlighting fiscal and management questions that, given the lax controls on charter schools and Mahmoud's previous mortgage crime are unsurprising. Among Brandt's cumulative reporting is the following:

• Mahmoud's combined salary for his duties running charter schools (which total 900 enrollment) and their parent organization amounted to $273,000, more than any other superintendent in the state. In addition his wife, whose occupation is listed as “secretary,” took home $105,000, and his daughter got $28,000 as an “administrative aide.”

• Three of the four board members of the schools' parent organization, called “Seed Daycare,” which leases property to the school and provides administrative services, are Mahmoud family members.

• A letter from the charter school's authorizer “asserts that teachers whom Harvest (one of Mahmoud's charter schools) paid as contractors clearly fall under the IRS definition of employees.”

• The school's authorizer, Audubon Center of the North Woods, sent a “letter of deficiency” to Mahmoud asking for clarification of the organization's finances and for an explanation of “frequent payments among Mahmoud's organizations and Mahmoud himself,” and that “it's unclear what they are for and whether state money that supports Harvest and related entities is being used appropriately.”

• The Minnesota Department of Education is seeking to recoup money it granted to Mahmoud for an earlier, failed charter school used for its construction and to equip it. The MNDOE turned this issue over to the state auditor.

• Mahmoud, who operates deliberately segregated schools, is claiming racial discrimination, a claim disputed by the state, in the revocation of a $300,000 grant to one of his schools. The grant was to be used for a federally funded program called Reading First, which required the school to hire a full-time literacy coordinator and to use licensed teachers in the program, neither of which Mahmoud did.

But more important than the financial and management problems at Seed schools is the nature and structure of the educational pedagogy. The schools teach to the tests. Not just teach to them, but engineer high test scores with frequent testing, 100 minute blocks of reading and math each day and other methods...

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“Mahmoud, MDE clashed over pulling grant.” Star Tribune (MN), 8/20/2012

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“State inquiry focuses on failed north Minneapolis school.” Star Tribune (MN), 8/15/2012

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“Mahmoud's 273K salary raises eyebrows.” Star Tribune (MN), 8/15/2012

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"State examining finances of charter founder's schools.” Star Tribune (MN), 8/10/2012

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Charter school expansion has led to more segregation

“New report provides solutions to reverse disturbing trend of segregation in charter schools; Expansion of charter schools has led to schools being more segregated today than 30 years ago.” Press release from Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice, 2/21/2012  

EAST LANSING, Mich. (Feb. 21, 2012) — The expansion of charter schools has led to classrooms being more segregated today than they were 30 years ago, according to a new report released today that provides policymakers with detailed recommendations on how to ensure all students have access to a quality education.

Some of the nation's most segregated schools are charter schools, where students are often isolated by race, income, language and special education status, according to the report, authored by Julie F. Mead of the University of Wisconsin and Preston C. Green III of Penn State University. For example, 43 percent of black charter school students attend schools that are 99 percent minority, according to Mead and Green's report. Meanwhile, less than 15 percent of black students in traditional public schools attend such highly segregated schools, according to the report.

"Growth in the charter school sector for the mere sake of growth neglects the central justification for their existence: to improve the current public educational landscape for children and their families," Mead and Green wrote in their report. Improving education means serving "all children regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, language, disability and gender," Mead and Green wrote.

Mead and Green's report provides numerous detailed recommendations to improve access for all students. Among Mead and Green's recommendations:

Charter schools should be required to submit detailed recruitment plans to ensure they are targeting a diverse student applicant pool representative of the broader community.

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, states should be required to submit written equal opportunity plans prior to receiving federal funding for charter schools.

Require states to collect data regarding charter school recruitment, retention and discipline.

Released in tandem with this report is a companion report which offers model legislation to carry out those recommendations.

Both reports, Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Equal Educational Opportunity and Model Policy Language for Charter School Equity were produced by the National Education Policy Center with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. In addition, the Ford Foundation provided funding for Chartering Equity.

Both reports are available at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.

They are also available on the NEPC website at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/chartering-equity

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KKK endorses charter schools because they increase segregation

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) responds to “Segregated Charter Schools Evoke Separate but Equal Era in U.S.”, 12/28/2011  

The kids in the article below seem to be happy.  Parents have been given a choice as to where to send their children and without government interference, many have selected schools with a student population that reflects the race of those children.  In addition, many of these schools  satisfy the children’s longing to identify with their racial history by incorporating cultural studies relating to their ethnicity.  There is nothing wrong with this, yet some think it is terrible. In fact, the majority of people prefer to be around others who are like them.  Even those who enjoy international travel and experiencing other cultures still, for the most part, live the rest of their life among those of similar racial background.  Why does this make some social engineers so angry? It is only natural. Each race should have the right to determine their own affairs without interference.  This is why homogeneous nations are good for world peace. Everyone needs their own space.  And parents who choose charter schools for their children based upon this fact are doing so instinctually and its healthy for their families.

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Minnesota charter schools (increasing segregation)

"Segregated Charter Schools Evoke Separate But Equal Era in U.S.” Bloomberg News, 12/22/2011 

At Dugsi Academy, a public school in St. Paul, Minnesota, girls wearing traditional Muslim headscarves and flowing ankle-length skirts study Arabic and Somali. The charter school educates “East African children in the Twin Cities,” its website says. Every student is black.

At Twin Cities German Immersion School, another St. Paul charter, children gather under a map of “Deutschland,” study with interns from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and learn to dance the waltz. Ninety percent of its students are white.

Six decades after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites, segregation is growing because of charter schools, privately run public schools that educate 1.8 million U.S. children. While charter-school leaders say programs targeting ethnic groups enrich education, they are isolating low-achievers and damaging diversity, said Myron Orfield, a lawyer and demographer.

“It feels like the Deep South in the days of Jim Crow segregation,” said Orfield, who directs the University of Minnesota Law School’s Institute on Race & Poverty. “When you see an all-white school and an all-black school in the same neighborhood in this day and age, it’s shocking.”

Charter schools are more segregated than traditional public schools, according to a 2010 report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. Researchers studied 40 states, the District of Columbia, and 39 metropolitan areas. In particular, higher percentages of charter-school students attend what the report called “racially isolated” schools, where 90 percent or more students are from disadvantaged minority groups...

The atomization of charter schools coincides with growing U.S. diversity. Americans of other races will outnumber whites by 2042, the Census Bureau projects...

Charter schools may specialize in serving a single culture as long as they have open admissions, and there’s no evidence of discrimination, said Russlynn Ali, assistant education secretary for civil rights...

Instead, in the 2009-2010 school year, three quarters of the Minneapolis and St. Paul region’s 127 charter schools were “highly segregated,” according to the University of Minnesota Law School’s race institute. Forty-four percent of schools were 80 percent or more non-white, and 32 percent, mostly white.

“It’s been a great failure that the most segregated schools in Minnesota are charter schools,” said Mindy Greiling, a state representative who lobbied for the charter-school law when she was a member of a suburban school board in the 1980s. “It breaks my heart.”

Segregation is typical nationwide. Seventy percent of black charter-school students across the country attended “racially isolated” schools, twice as many as the share in traditional public schools, according to the report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA...

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Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy

This is an extensive article which is packed with information. Be sure to read the whole thing.

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CHARTER’SCONSERVATIVE BACKERS RAISE QUESTIONS. North Carolina Policy Watch 20 Apr 2011 

The Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, a public charter school in Rutherford County, is quick to promote the school’s high SAT test scores and international field trips to China, Europe and South America.

But not as widely advertised is the Western North Carolina public school’s connection to John Bryan, a retired Oregon business executive and significant funder of the conservative school choice movement.

Nor is the school’s annual diaper drive for a local anti-abortion religious group, an activity that an expert says violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.

Bryan’s $37 million family trust, the Challenge Foundation, contributes heavily and regularly to conservative causes like challenging global warming research and scaling back government in addition to lending its name to public schools like the Thomas Jefferson charter school.

He’s a national figure in libertarian circles when it comes to charter schools, and spoke last June about the push to expand charter schools at an annual retreat held by the billionaire Koch brothers, according to a copy of the retreat’s agenda obtained by the Center for American Progress…

Out-of-state organizations like Bryan’s Challenge Foundation stand to play bigger roles in North Carolina’s public education system with the state on the verge of lifting a 100-school cap on public charter schools. The contentious GOP-sponsored Senate Bill 8, which would give charters more access to education funding in addition to lifting the cap, is expected to land on Gov. Bev Perdue’s desk shortly. She’ll then have to decide if it will become law or be vetoed…

…If it passes, the state would allow up to 50 more charter schools to open each year and oversight of public charters would continue to be slim..

Some of the new slots will likely be filled by schools affiliated with philanthropist-backed groups like Bryan’s Team CFA (the charter school arm of the Challenge Foundation), for-profit companies like the National Heritage Academies (which already manage five charters in the state) and “virtual charters” similar to K12, Inc., a publicly-traded Virginia company paying a lobbyist this year to go to the N.C. General Assembly on its behalf…

The extent and influence of Bryan’s trust on the Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy and the three other Challenge Foundation Academy charter schools in North Carolina isn’t clear, with only limited tax records available in the public record to examine the connections.

But two members of the Challenge Foundation, Bryan’s daughter Cheryl Reinstadler and the foundation’s national school director Joan Lange, sit on the board of Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, flying in for meetings and make decisions with the eight other members of the board about the school’s curriculum and management, as well as the $7.6 million in public funds the school runs on…

Faunce, the school board member who worked at the school as a dean of students in its first years, says the charter school and TeamCFA have no political agenda that makes its way into classrooms…

That may not be the case, however.

An NC Policy Watch investigation found that the school’s activities include only one political club — a Young Republican’s Club – that has a mission to “shape the future of Republican politics in North Carolina by recruiting, engaging, training and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders,” according to the school’s website.

More contentious is the school’s annual diaper drive for a Hands of Hope for Life, a pro-life ministry in nearby Forest City that provides services to low-income women with children under the age of three and “has a general concern for sharing the love of Jesus Christ through both actions and words” by providing information about prenatal development, abortion and abstinence education.

Joel Medley, the acting director of the N.C. State Board of Education’s charter school office, said that because charter schools are independent non-profits, separate from the state education agency, there’s nothing to prevent the public schools from taking part in activities like a diaper drive that benefits religious anti-abortion groups.

But others feel differently, including Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State as well as an ordained minister with the Church of Christ.

“This is clearly an unconstitutional program,” Lynn said. “This charter school is connecting itself to a religious ministry.

“They can’t do things like that,” he said…

An often cited 2009 national study of standardized test results by Stanford University scholars, found that for every charter performing better than the traditional public schools in its area, there are two charters either at or below or the performance of their public school counterparts.

The study found things were slightly better in North Carolina where charter school students’ reading skills were higher overall than students in traditional schools, but that their math skills were significantly worse off than their peers in traditional schools. Black students in the state tested significantly below their peers in math, and there was no difference in reading, according to the Stanford report.

When it comes to racial makeup of charters, Duke professor Helen Ladd recently surveyed the state’s charter schools and found schools tended to be either primarily white or black. Out of the 99 charter schools in North Carolina, 37 had populations comprised of more than 80 percent white students while 26 schools have populations that are less than 20 percent white, she said.

The state Department of Public Instruction doesn’t keep track of the household income levels of charter school students, something it does track for traditional public students…

Giving rise to tension in the larger community about charters was a lawsuit filed in 2009 by Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy against the Rutherford County School System seeking more funding the charter schools says it’s entitled to. An appeals court is expected to weigh in soon on the suit, in a decision that charters across the state are watching to increase the funds they get from public school system…

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Florida charter schools (segregation concerns)

FLORIDA CHARTERS LESS DIVERSE THAN OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS /Sentinel analysis shows growth in charters with concentrations of single race orethnicity; April 30, 2011; Orlando Sentinel (FL) 

Segregation is making a comeback in Florida's public schools with the new wave of charter schools springing up across the state.

One out of eight charter schools has a student body with 90 percent or more of a single race or ethnicity, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of the state's 456 taxpayer-financed charters shows. That compares with one out of 12 traditional public schools.

Those top heavy charters are adding to the list of out-of-balance public schools that have perplexed educators since integration 40 years ago. Educators have worked for decades to reduce the imbalance through rezoning, school-transfer options, magnet schools and other devices to shift students and make schools more diverse.

But the charter trend is toward segregation, and more of the charters with skewed enrollments may be on the way…

Today, many of the new Florida charters are targeting black or Hispanic students. There are charters for Jewish, Greek, Puerto Rican and Native American students, too…

Equally troubling, civil-rights advocates say, is the rise in charters with largely white student populations, evoking memories of "white flight" from public to private schools across the South during integration…

The Sentinel's analysis shows that more than half of the state's charters — 54 percent — have two-thirds or more of a single race or ethnicity, compared with 44 percent for traditional public schools.

"I don't know what the solution is, but we need to slow up on all of this charter stuff until we see what the consequences are," [Christine Moore, an Orange County School Board member] said…

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Twin Cities (MN) region charter schools (poor performance, segregation issues)

FAILED PROMISES: ASSESSING CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE TWIN CITIES; November 2008; Institute on Race and Poverty, University of Minnesota Law School 

SECTION IV: CONCLUSION

This report finds that charter schools in the Twin Cities metro have not served the students of the Twin Cities metro well. Charter schools in the region are performing worse than the traditional public schools academically (measured by test scores) and socially (measured by segregation rates). Other choice programs—the Choice is Yours in particular—offer students of color and low-income students access to better-performing, less segregated schools. In some areas where the schools are more racially diverse than their neighborhoods, charter schools segregate white students as well in white-segregated charter schools, acting as an avenue for white flight. Finally, charter school competition hurts the traditional public school system because it has led to ethnic-based niche competition. Traditional public schools in the Twin Cities metro have responded to charter competition either by creating district-sponsored ethno-centric charter schools or by initiating ethno-centric programs and magnet schools within their school districts. Overall, charter school competition in ethnic niches has been particularly detrimental for students of color and low-income students because this type of competition deepens the level of racial and economic segregation in the traditional public school system.

Many of the problems associated with charter schools result from the fact that there is no legal mandate to socially and economically integrate charter schools. Charter schools do not have to be segregated; on the contrary, they should more proactively integrate the region’s students across social and economic fault lines. Currently, in Minnesota charter schools are exempt from the state’s desegregation rule that applies to other public schools. As a result, they do not participate in the state’s School District Integration Revenue Program, which distributed around $79 million in integration revenue funds to 80 school districts in 2005. At a bare minimum, charter schools, which are much more segregated than the region’s traditional public schools, should be subject to the same desegregation and integration standards as traditional public schools. Charters are, after all, public schools and receive tax-payer funding.

However, simply subjecting charter schools to Minnesota’s existing desegregation rule is unlikely to reduce social and economic segregation in these schools because in its current form the rule does not effectively promote integration in the traditional public school system. The main problem with the existing rule is that it is simply intended to increase “racial contact” among students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, rather than to actually decrease the extent of racial segregation in schools. 

In the name of promoting “racial contact,” school districts have used integration revenue funds to do a wide array of things ranging from one-day multicultural events to interdistrict magnet schools and cross-district transportation. The majority of these activities have achieved very little to encourage the physical integration of school districts, schools, and classrooms. The purpose of the rule should be changed from merely promoting “racial contact” to unambiguously and proactively supporting the actual integration of school districts, schools, and classrooms.

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California charter schools (segregation concerns)

"Charter schools raise question of new segregation." The Sacramento Bee (CA), 2/17/2011 

For more than 50 years, the notion that racially mixed schools are in the best interests of all students has been a basic underpinning of America's educational landscape.

But increasingly across the nation, publicly funded charter schools are popping up that call out their intent to cater to specific racial or ethnic groups – African American, Latino or Hmong students, for example, who on average have far lower test scores and far higher dropout rates than whites and some other Asian groups.

Is it a return to segregation? Is it legal?

Those are the questions being debated after Margaret Fortune, a former adviser to two California governors and a leader in education reform circles, successfully petitioned the Sacramento County Board of Education for five publicly funded charter schools aimed at closing the achievement gap for African American students.

Fortune said her objective is to serve the lowest-performing student subgroup in the region, and that group happens to be African American. Addressing their needs isn't segregation, she said, because parents can choose whether to send their children to her charter schools…

Both supporters and opponents of Fortune's vision came out in force this month when the county Board of Education debated her petition to open 10 charter schools. After an eight-hour meeting, Fortune was awarded five schools countywide over the next five years, with the possibility for five more.

While some critics opposed the proliferation of charters in general, others expressed discomfort at an educational mission defined by race. Board President Harold Fong, the lone trustee to vote against the proposal, said he couldn't get past the feeling that Fortune was essentially creating segregated schools…

A key question for critics of the model is whether a school aimed at one race or ethnicity feels accessible to students from other groups.

UCLA education professor Gary Orfield contends Fortune's charters and others like it are instituting a new form of segregation…

"To isolate these kids from other races isn't preparing them for the future," Orfield said. "I can understand the frustration that leads to (the creation of these charters). African American kids aren't doing what their parents want them to accomplish. But this doesn't cure that problem."

Orfield's argument falls flat with Fortune's supporters, who argue African American students are already isolated at the bottom rungs of American achievement…

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Charter schools movement a civil rights failure: UCLA Civil Rights Project study

CHOICE WITHOUT EQUITY: CHARTER SCHOOL SEGREGATION AND THE NEED FOR CIVIL RIGHTS STANDARDS; January 2010; The Civil Rights Project of UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies 

The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure. As the country continues moving steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth of charter schools has been expanding a sector that is even more segregated than the public schools. The Civil Rights Project has been issuing annual reports on the spread of segregation in public schools and its impact on educational opportunity for 14 years. We know that choice programs can either offer quality educational options with racially and economically diverse schooling to children who otherwise have few opportunities, or choice programs can actually increase stratification and inequality depending on how they are designed. The charter effort, which has largely ignored the segregation issue, has been justified by claims about superior educational performance, which simply are not sustained by the research. Though there are some remarkable and diverse charter schools, most are neither. The lessons of what is needed to make choice work have usually been ignored in charter school policy. Magnet schools are the striking example of and offer a great deal of experience in how to create educationally successful and integrated choice options.

Executive Summary

Seven years after the Civil Rights Project first documented extensive patterns of charter school segregation, the charter sector continues to stratify students by race, class and possibly language.  This study is released at a time of mounting federal pressure to expand charter schools, despite on-going and accumulating evidence of charter school segregation.

Our analysis of the 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students reveals that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation. While examples of truly diverse charter schools exist, our data show that these schools are not reflective of broader charter trends.

Four major themes emerge from this analysis of federal data.  First, while charter schools are increasing in number and size, charter school enrollment presently accounts for only 2.5% of all public school students.  Despite federal pressure to increase charter schools--based on the notion that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools, in spite of no conclusive evidence in support of that claim--charter school enrollment remains concentrated in just five states.

Second, we show that charter schools, in many ways, have more extensive segregation than other public schools.  Charter schools attract a higher percentage of black students than traditional public schools, in part because they tend to be located in urban areas.  As a result, charter school enrollment patterns display high levels of minority segregation, trends that are particularly severe for black students…

Third, charter school trends vary substantially across different regions of the country.  Latinos are under-enrolled in charter schools in some Western states where they comprise the largest share of students.  At the same time, a dozen states (including those with high concentrations of Latino students like Arizona and Texas) report that a majority of Latino charter students attend intensely segregated minority schools.  Patterns in the West and in a few areas in the South, the two most racially diverse regions of the country, also suggest that charters serve as havens for white flight from public schools.  Finally, in the industrial Midwest, more students enroll in charter schools compared to other regions, and midwestern charter programs display high concentrations of black students.

Fourth, major gaps in multiple federal data sources make it difficult to answer basic, fundamental questions about the extent to which charter schools enroll and concentrate low- income students and English Language Learners (ELLs).  Charter schools receive public funding and therefore should be equally available to all students regardless of background.  Approximately one in four charter schools does not report data on low-income students.  Since eligibility for receiving free lunch is proof that families cannot afford to provide it, the lack of a free lunch program at school would impose a severe economic barrier to attending a charter school. There is a similar lack of information on ELLs…

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