Florida charter schools

CHARTER SCHOOLS: MISSING THE GRADE (four-part series), March 25-28, 2007, The Orlando (FL) Sentinel

--- PART 1: ACADEMIC TROUBLES ---

Risky choices: Many charters prove poor options

Pat and Tammy Rasmussen had no idea they'd sent their son Daniel to one of the lowest-performing schools in Florida [Richard Milburn Academy in New Port Richey] -- until he came home one day and said he was helping teach math class…

…Administrators offered to pay their son $50 for each friend he persuaded to join…

More than 300 charters teaching about 92,000 students have sprung up, funded by $1.5 billion in local, state and federal taxes in the past three years alone. Eighty schools are operating in Central Florida.

But a statewide investigation by the Orlando Sentinel found that while many charters serve children well, scores of others offer a poor choice…

But Jim Warford, Florida's former chancellor of public schools, said state officials were so busy promoting an alternative to conventional schools that they looked the other way when problems arose…

What the Sentinel found is a state system that encouraged the schools to grow but made it difficult to curb bad ones. Many charters have academic and financial problems that state and local officials do not have under control.

The rapid growth of the system alarms Panhandle state Sen. Don Gaetz, a former school superintendent who chairs the Education Committee.

"Charter schools were a movement," said Gaetz, a Republican from Niceville, "but now charter schools are an industry. They have lobbyists -- they walk around in thousand-dollar suits, some of them. Some are still struggling, idealistic, mom-and-pop shops, and they need assistance. But the big boys and the mature organizations should be held accountable for how they use public money and how they educate children."…

Districts shut down Richard Milburn's Tampa and Sarasota schools last year for low student achievement.

In Tampa, nearly half of the 42 graduates Richard Milburn reported last year did not earn a diploma or a certificate of completion, district officials found. As for New Port Richey, district officials said they discovered that more children were eligible to graduate than the school identified because transcripts were in disarray…

As for paying students $50 for each friend who enrolled, Crosby called that a "reasonable incentive" and part of the company's "overall recruiting strategy." Doing crossword puzzles can be valuable because they make students think, and having students help teach classes improves their confidence, he said.

The Pasco principal in 2004 was not available for comment. But Crosby said his school administrators all know the importance of the head count to state funding.

"A charter school is an entrepreneurial activity," he said...

Pasco officials put the Milburn school that Daniel Rasmussen attended on probation last May. They reported finding, among other things, that the campus had no curriculum, no professional guidance counselor and a Spanish teacher who could not speak the language…

--- PART 2: FINANCIAL TROUBLES ---

Deals and debts: Nearly half of Florida's charters had operating deficits

…A decade after Florida launched charter schools to give students more choice in where they attend public school, nearly half of the 300-plus charters have operating deficits.

At the same time, more than $200 million of the $492 million Florida spent on these privately operated schools in 2005 went to charters that had business relationships with school officials: renting buildings to the charters, selling services to them, hiring relatives as employees.

Then there are the odd expenditures.

Palm Beach County's Survivors Charter Schools had a 10-year, $100,000 contract for eight season tickets to Miami Dolphins games, which it distributed to the principal and others.

One of the two Survivors campuses also gave the principal $600 a month to lease a BMW car and paid him $163,412 a year, according to 2006-07 audits by the Palm Beach County School District…

One of the biggest differences between charter and regular schools is also the source of many charter money woes: the need to find a school building…

Funding challenges have opened the door for charter directors, employees and managers to lease buildings they own to their schools. Of the more than $40 million Florida gave to charter schools for facilities in 2005, about $4 million went to charters with such arrangements, charter audits show.

More than 60 charters studied by the Sentinel had such financial ties, underscoring the interconnected relationships of some charters and their officers. By contrast, members of a county school board are barred by state law from leasing buildings to their districts…

Loans are another business tie between some charter directors and their schools. Six charters collectively owed their board members more than a half-million dollars in 2005, the audits showed…

Charters that go into debt either have to cut services, such as teacher pay, or they have to shift funds from education of children to interest payments, a state auditor general's 2005 report stated…

--- PART 3: OVERSIGHT TROUBLES ---

Cashing in on the kids: Even after pleading no contest to grand theft, school remains open

For nearly half a decade, Escambia Charter School hired out a group of students to cut roadside grass and weeds during class time for about 32 hours per week.

The privately run high school made about $200,000 by paying the children less than required under a state Department of Transportation contract. Meanwhile, it continued accepting tax money from the state Department of Education to teach the children five hours a day.

Until state prosecutors investigated complaints from teachers at the campus north of Pensacola, the falsifying of attendance records, course schedules and grade reports went unchecked.

Even after pleading no contest to grand theft, the school remains open. No more than 12 percent of its students have ever been able to read at grade level, test scores show…

Each week, however, Escambia sent false attendance records to the school district showing students were in class, investigators found. Report cards falsely showed that the work-crew members completed the courses…

State investigators amassed enough evidence to charge Escambia with one count of organized fraud, a felony, in April 2004.

Thomas said the criminal charge helped him negotiate an end to the student-labor abuses. The road crews were restructured into proper on-the-job training programs. Students attended class the required five hours per day. Grade and attendance reports were no longer falsified.

But Callender, whom state investigators identified as the mastermind of the scheme, remained in charge at the school. Thomas said there was little he could do, because charter governing boards have authority over staff matters…

Warford, the former public-schools chancellor, said the lack of will to improve oversight of charters came from the Governor's Office down through his appointees. Two Education Department workers who proposed more accountability for charters and other school-choice programs were removed from their posts during his tenure, he said.

A climate was created, he said, where "no one stood up and said anything" to improve monitoring or address the problems in charter schools…

--- PART 4: TROUBLING TIMES ---

Losing local say: State panel can supersede districts on charters

After a decade of chafing under the supervision of county school districts, Florida charter-school operators left Tallahassee in 2006 with a law that could allow looser oversight.

Advocates for these taxpayer-supported schools persuaded legislators and Gov. Jeb Bush to create a new agency that charters could choose as their monitor instead.

Now, the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission is on the verge of becoming a school district without borders, based in Tallahassee. Charters it approves are not required by law to meet some of the standards that local school officials must enforce in the name of accountability to taxpayers. The commission also can delegate its role as primary overseer to others, such as cities or charter advocacy groups, two of which have already applied to approve start-up schools.

A majority of the new commissioners have backgrounds in real estate, banking or charter management, all industries with an interest in making sure Florida has plenty of the independently run schools…
Campuses sponsored by the charter commission are exempt from the list of guiding principles and statutory purposes required of charters monitored by districts, such as to improve learning, teacher development and the performance of low-achieving students…

John Lewis, a real-estate-company president who chairs the charter commission, said the National Association of Charter School Authorizers had been hired to help the commission develop application criteria…

State Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, said it makes no sense for the state to allow the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools to get into the business of authorizing charters.

"That would be kind of like the fox watching the henhouse, now, wouldn't it?" said Schwartz, who filed a bill to disband the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission…

Lack of oversight, resistance to regulation

FAILURES RAISE QUESTIONS FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS, April 5, 2002, The New York Times

FRESNO, Calif.— After investigators for this fast-growing school district went in search of the 67 students who were, on paper, being educated at one of the experimental public schools known as charters, they found only 23 desks in the building. In Texas, an investigation turned up similar discrepancies and also found that tax money intended for charters was being used to buy Victoria's Secret lingerie. In Arizona, a charter opened its doors to students but did not have a sewer line for its restroom.

Texas, California and Arizona account for nearly 40 percent of the nation's charter schools, the publicly financed, tuition-free schools that operate independently of existing schools and school districts. Now, a decade after helping pioneer the charter concept, the three states are leading efforts to rein in their experimental schools.

''Most charters were started for the wrong reason -- to make money -- and most of them are mediocre,'' said Ron Caya, founder of the New School for the Arts in Scottsdale, Ariz., a charter that educators have praised as a model. ''Now we've got all these problem charters.''

Supporters say failures among the country's 2,400 charter schools are to be expected, as the schools try to find their footing 10 years after they started to take hold.

Operating with minimal regulation, charter schools promise innovation and the hope that they can do for many students what failing public schools cannot. Charters sign contracts for 5, 10 or 15 years with states or local school districts, get about $5,000 a student and then are usually left alone, free to educate with little oversight.

The movement has received bipartisan support and the backing of President Bush, who allocated $200 million in his budget to support charters. Supporters cite successes in the 36 states with charters, like Central City Academy, an elementary school in Phoenix, and Watts Learning Center in Los Angeles, both of which have been highly praised by parents.

But the troubled schools in Texas and California, the nation's two most populous states, and their inconsistent test scores, have slowed the charter movement's momentum.

''We are at a critical stage,'' said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a research group that supports charters. ''Right now, there's a real war going on for the future of charters.''

In California, a ragged huddle of double-wide trailers in the gated community behind the ''Allah's City'' sign has become a prime exhibit for lawmakers pushing for major changes. The little school at Baladullah, the Muslim community 70 miles east of Fresno, has had its charter revoked and is the subject of a criminal investigation.

Officials say GateWay Academy, which ran schools at Baladullah and in 13 other California sites, was reimbursed by the state for students it could not document; hired felons; taught Islam, in violation of proscriptions against teaching any form of religion; and even charged tuition -- all while receiving more than $2 million in state money over the last two years.

School leaders say the accusations were part of anti-Muslim hysteria prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks. But officials said bias had nothing to do with its decision to revoke GateWay's charter two months ago.

GateWay was created by Khadijah Ghafur, an educator in the Fresno area, in the late 1990's. Charter supporters say its failure should not be used to tar other experimental schools.

''Look how many small businesses start up and don't succeed,'' said Susan Hollins, director of the Charter School Resource Center in Concord, N.H. ''And given that most charters work with kids that the public schools have failed, what they have done so far is remarkable.''

According to the Center for Education Reform, 4.5 percent of charter schools nationwide have folded or had their charters revoked. In Arizona, which has 422 charters -- more than any other state -- nearly 10 percent of the schools have failed. Nationwide, charters educate barely 1 percent of the 48 million children in public schools.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are open to charters, but the schools there tend to be much more tightly regulated and have yet to suffer the sorts of problems experienced here and in Texas.

After years of promoting charter schools, Texas legislators set a limit last year on the number of new charters at 215 and tightened regulations governing the 200 existing operators.

''As an institution, charters are not working in our state,'' said Representative Jim Dunnam, a Democrat from Waco who sponsored the overhaul last year. ''We treat them like road contractors -- give them the money and God knows what they do with it.''

The legislation came in response to scandals in the Texas schools. One charter in Houston operated classrooms without heat, desks or chairs, state officials said, while another was found to have employed 20 felons among its staff of 169.

Even more troubling to educators and politicians are the test scores. Barely half of charter students pass basic Texas performance tests, compared with an 82 percent pass rate for the rest of the state's public school students. The number of low-performing charter schools -- where fewer than 50 percent of the students pass basic achievement tests -- has tripled in three years, a state survey shows. At the same time, the dropout rate among students at Texas charters is more than three times the rate for other public school children.

Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, let the legisation limiting charters become law without his signature.

Here in California, the Legislature appears to be following Texas' lead. In recent days, hearings were held on bills intended to tighten the reins on the state's 406 charter operators.

Even before the GateWay scandal, California charters began generating headlines last year. At least four schools were accused of violating the law by teaching Christianity, state auditors said. Dozens of schools did not have credentialed teachers, officials said, and many more were charging the state about $5,000 per pupil for students who existed only on paper.

But the problems at the GateWay Academy here at Baladullah, which was chartered by the Fresno Unified School District in 1999, have done the most to spur the reform movement.

Officials for the school district say they had little control over the academy because the law governing charters is so flexible.

''We are a charter-friendly district,'' said Jill Marmolejo, a spokeswoman for the Fresno schools. ''It's clear now that GateWay was playing a bit of a shell game, but we could not deny them.''

Which may be why the state's charter schools are now beginning to welcome more regulation -- to a point.

''Many of these proposed reforms make a lot of sense,'' said Gary Larsen, spokesman for the California Network of Educational Charters. ''But our fear is that the big baby of charter schools will be thrown out with the bath water.”