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A compilation of news articles about charter schools which have been charged with, or are highly suspected of, tampering with admissions, grades, attendance and testing; misuse of funds and embezzlement; engaging in nepotism and conflicts of interest; engaging in complicated and shady real estate deals; and/or have been engaging in other questionable, unethical, borderline-legal, or illegal activities. This is also a record of charter school instability and other unsavory tidbits.
It's been a turbulent period for charter schools in the United States, with financial analysts raising concerns about their stability and regulators in several states shutting down schools for poor performance.
Wealthy individuals from as far away as China, Nigeria, Russia and Australia are spending tens of millions of dollars to build classrooms, libraries, basketball courts and science labs for American charter schools...
And in Florida, state business development officials say foreign investment in charter schools is poised to triple next year, to $90 million.
The reason? Under a federal program known as EB-5, wealthy foreigners can in effect buy U.S. immigration visas for themselves and their families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects. In the past two decades, much of the investment has gone into commercial real-estate projects, like luxury hotels, ski resorts and even gas stations.
Lately, however, enterprising brokers have seen a golden opportunity to match cash-starved charter schools with cash-flush foreigners in investment deals that benefit both...
... Last month, Fitch Ratings warned it was likely to downgrade bonds backed by charter schools because the sector is volatile and the schools are highly leveraged. Such risks mean charter-school debt is typically considered speculative, rather than investment grade, said Eric Kim, a director at Fitch Ratings.
Meanwhile, the IRS has signaled it plans closer scrutiny of charter schools' tax-exempt status if they rely on for-profit management companies to provide their classroom space and run their academic programs, Hall said. He sent his clients a long memo this summer warning that the stepped-up IRS oversight could put some at "significant risk."
If that weren't enough to make investors wary, several well-known charter schools have run into significant legal and fiscal hurdles in recent months...
All told, about 15 percent of the 6,700 charter schools that have been launched in the United States in the past two decades have since closed, primarily because of financial troubles, according to the Center for Education Reform, which supports charter schools...
An investor forum in China last spring, for instance, touted U.S. charter schools as a nearly fool-proof investment because they can count on a steady stream of government funding to stay afloat, according to a transcript posted on a Chinese website...
Be sure to watch this feature-length documentary by Mark Hall about charter schools, corruption and the rise of the Gülen Movement in America.
1. WATCH KILLING ED, Mark Hall's feature-length documentary about charter schools, corruption and the rise of the Gulen Movement in America
4. WATCH the 60 Minutes segment "U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam" broadcast. (5/13/2012)
As one observer tweeted, "U.S. media have focused too much on the Islamic nature of the Gulen movement. Real concern is its shady dealings and improprieties."
Please be aware that Gulenists have created a large number of anonymously-operated damage control websites. They started to appear a few months after publication of Greg Toppo's article in USA Today (August 2010).
NOTE: I make every effort for the info on this site to be independently verifiable, so if you encounter a broken link, please let me know @ perimeterprimate@yahoo.com. Thanks.
Sharon Higgins writes about schools, neighborhoods, parents, society, class, education, children, crime, race, reality, and change.
“But charters have now become a stand-in for vouchers because they accomplish the same goal of getting the government out of public education and turning public dollars over to private control with minimal regulation and minimal oversight.”
3. What reporters covering charter schools need to know about miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam (i.e. be skeptical and always follow the money).
4. As of May 2013, only eight states do not have a charter school law: Alabama, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia.
5. Balkanize: "to break up (as a region or group) into smaller and often hostile units" (Merriam-Webster dictionary)
7. "A system that allows school operators to donate to the officials that regulate them is pretty sorry." h/t "X"
8. Re the Gulen movement. Two important psychological principals of which to be aware: the Backfire Effect and the Black Swan Theory.
…The president of one influential charter group told the House Education and Labor Committee that the federal government had spent $2 billion since the mid-1990s to finance new charter schools but less than $2 million, about one-tenth of 1 percent, to ensure that they were held to high standards.
“It’s as if the federal government had spent billions for new highway construction, but nothing to put up guardrails along the sides of those highways,” said Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers…
A leading school-choice supporter says the sweeping changes proposed by House Republicans would weaken oversight of charter schools severely and threaten to turn Ohio into a "laughingstock of the nation's charter-school programs.
"It's hard for me to say that," said Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio programs and policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which sponsors seven charter schools in the state, including two in Columbus...
"The idea of regulating charter schools makes no sense because deregulation is the justification for the policy." -- Jim M., retired teacher
Perhaps it's finally dawning on some charter school supporters that the whole business is a huge can of worms.
Charters schools that are closed for fiscal problems and debt rarely repay their districts, also leaving vendors and staff members unpaid. Charter school funds that are misused or stolen are rarely recovered.*
Read more about unmentioned consequences at "When charters close, public schools foot the bill" (Voice of San Diego, December 4, 2007).
"New Jersey’s charter school law is alone in allowing the State’s Department of Education to authorize an unlimited number of new charter schools, regardless of the wishes of the host communities, while expecting those communities to pay for the operations of the charter schools out of their existing public school budgets." --- Julia Sass Rubin
With the systematic privatization of public education being conducted via the rapid expansion of charter schools, I regularly receive messages from teachers and parents who have charter school horror stories they want to share, and/or are in need of advice about a charter school situation in their community (e.g., "The charter school I attended has been closed. Do you know how I can get a copy of my transcript?). I also hear from journalists who are seeking information.
Just so you know, this site is a one-woman volunteer operation. Sorry folks, I'm DEFINITELY NOT union-sponsored.
Charter School Scandals (CSS) was launched on May 14, 2010 to provide the public with a source of independently collected information about U.S. charter schools.
For instance, compare what you learn from my entry for the 3,500 student CATO School of Reason to the information provided by the pro-charter Center for Education Reform in their compilation: "Closed Charter Schools by State: National Data 2009" (63 page pdf). In the CER's document, the closure reason is "Management" explained as "Inadequate record keeping, suspect relations with private and sectarian schools," but the true story is much bigger and dirtier than that.
CSS is a non-billionaire funded (and un-bought off!), non-union affiliated (!), one-person operation in the name of transparency and public service to our democracy. I post the information as quickly as I can, but have a massive backlog due to the sheer number of stories. Please check back periodically for new additions.
And as you scroll through these stories, be sure to keep a running tally of the estimated legal costs.
Under the radar of the American public, the Gulen movement has been quietly advancing its presence in the U.S. via the establishment of charter schools, "cultural centers", and "interfaith dialogue" centers. Politicians, reporters, academics, community leaders, and charter school families have been strategically targeted, influenced, and given gifts, as the Gulenists have steadily built up their political cover. But how many of these Americans have an understanding of the controversies which surround this secretive movement and its worldwide political ambitions? And how would the public respond to finding out that such a movement is opening more and more charter schools, supported by their tax dollars as part of the GM's primary global project, without being willing to admit the connection?
8. "Turkey's survival of the fittest: The Islamic anti-Darwinism movement in Turkey is being helped by an unlikely source - US Christian conservatives," 12 March 2008, ISN Security Watch)
10. "First Class Revolution: From Medina to Mecca" and "Fethullah Gulen's Missionary Charter Schools Coming under Increasing Scrutiny in the United States and around the World," 24 January 2011 & 26 February 2011, Kurdish Aspect
12. "Turkey's pivotal role in the international drug trade," July 1998, Le Monde diplomatique (more background info)
13. EXTRA CREDIT: Check out the animated Imperial History of the Middle East and this Middle East geography game.
Examine the nature of their U.S. activities, and you will see that the Gulen movement is addicted to propaganda. As an example of their tactics, read how Gulen's followers propelled him to the top of a poll in "How Gulen triumphed." Prospect, 7/26/2008.
“Gülen’s crushing win tells us little about what the world thinks about its intellectuals; it merely exhibits the organisational ability of one movement’s followers.”
"Private actors who simply take state services over by profiting off of taxpayer money are no different than the government, after all, they’re just for-profit government." -- E.D. Kain
If you are a concerned citizen with information about a yet-to-be-revealed charter school scandal, please consider writing to me at perimeterprimate@yahoo.com. Your name will be kept confidential.
• For Google - Enclose your search item in quotations, such as "John Doe." If searching for two connected items, use a + sign between them.
Why Not Religious Charter Schools? (Chester E. Finn Jr.), December 10, 2003, Education Week Commentary
"A few bad apples shouldn't sour the public on the promising charter school movement, but when a bad apple does turn up, critics of charter schools pounce on it. Charter opponents are quick to claim that "more than a few" schools have closed and even quicker to characterize the movement as one that invites unscrupulous, fly-by-night operators to set up shop.Those mean ol' charter opponents. Isn't it curious how the reformers don't have any problem at all with building up a few negative public school stories into an anti-public teacher-bashing movement of national proportions in order to destroy teacher unions and public schools as a whole?"
- In 2009, 83 percent of 145 Minnesota charter schools were found to have at least one financial irregularity in their audit.
- In February 2009, a New Mexico state audit found financial problems with 36 of the 44 charter schools in Albuquerque.
- Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz (April 2010): "The fact that there were significant issues at 13 out of 13 [schools] raises the likelihood you would see many of these same issues found in a much larger sampling of the schools.By May 2010, his probe had widened to 18 charter schools."
Charter school promoters live in an abstract world where it's perfectly fine to shutter a school when the "need" arises. This reveals a profound detachment and utter disregard for the emotional lives of the children and families who, as a result, end up being subjected to tremendous disruption, stress, termination of meaningful relationships, loss and grief. Kids need security and dependability.
A school going "out of business" takes a very different emotional toll on families and children than when their local gas station or Denny's restaurant does.
"It comes down to what ultimately is in the best public interest here -- supporting the growth of charters or not. Does that support ultimately weaken the rest of the school district? You bet it does." (Fred LeBrun, Albany, NY)
There is no doubt but that an increasing number of inspectors, auditors, investigators, prosecutors and court rooms (and a lot of time and money) will be needed as more state charter caps are lifted.
Part of the problem is that too many people running charter schools see them as their own little fiefdoms. After all the effort and money put into setting up their schools -- and with political leaders and the mainstream media shining their bright spotlights on charter schools -- the stakes are inordinately high for them to be able to show "success."
Another problem I've discovered by doing this research is that the unmonitored access to millions of public education dollars is drawing unscrupulous people into the "business." At other times, new-found access to funds is proving to be too tempting for some people who were perhaps less criminally-minded.
Additionally, I've now discovered that, in this era of high-stakes testing, the education security business is booming. As one company put it, "Cheating on tests isn't the exception anymore; it has almost become the rule."
From "Deregulation and Charter School Swindles" by Gary Clabaugh (Educational Horizons, Winter 2009):
Two main ideas inform the charter school movement. The first is that competition is an essential ingredient in school improvement. Charters are said to provide that.
The trouble with this argument is that competition doesn't select the best, only the most popular. McDonald's doesn't produce the best-tasting or most-nutritious food, for instance, but its heart attack specials certainly are popular. A second-rate school might prove similarly competitive if it provides a tawdry but reassuring education to the children of the low-information crowd. Fearful your kids will discover you are an ignoramus? Send them to Alpha Charter where they will never learn to doubt.
3. Damage to reputation or character caused by public disclosure of immoral or grossly improper behavior; disgrace.
This Web site is dedicated to Eli Broad, Bill Gates, the Walton family, Arne Duncan, Whitney Tilson, Joe Williams, Reed Hastings, Ted Mitchell, Jack O'Connell, Tom Vander Ark, George Miller, Joanne Weiss, Randy Ward, Arnold Swarzenegger, all Milton Friedman-lovers, and any other free-market, pro-school choice, minimally-regulate-what-goes-on-in-charter school supporters who are also proud self-stated "DISRUPTORS" of public school communities, who have almost never, EVER been part of a public school community or local neighborhood, or who rejected being part of any public school community or local neighborhood long, long ago -- but have ended up deciding to help tear apart the tapestry of basic local human connections anyway.
A variety of people have been looking at my blog, probably because of the great Gulen charter school information I've posted. This site is regularly visited by readers from Turkey. I get periodic visits from dhs.gov, doj.gov and ed.gov. I've had visits from house.gov and ed.gov, and at least one visit from someone at eop.gov (? Executive Office of the President). I've had a few visits from a couple of mystery IPs that are supposedly associated with the State Department, specifically the CIA. Hmmmmm...