Ohio Charter Schools' Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week (and it's not even over yet)

Talk about a rough week. Take a look at the news stories coming out about charter schools this week.

On Saturday, the Akron Beacon Journal (again) led the way on enterprise reporting on this topic by publishing an analysis of 4,263 audits done last year by the Auditor of State revealed that "No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio."
Yikes.

Among the findings:

While charters only accounted for 400 of 5,800 audits, they accounted for 70% of the misspent money
$25 million in misspent money remains unpaid
For every $1 misspent found by private auditors, public auditors found $102
The misspending is probably worse than what the audits turned up because so many charters were next to impossible to audit, according to the Beacon Journal.

Then came a Columbus Dispatch editorial (historically, no friend of the charter critic) that called out charter school sponsors for wanting to hide their expenditures to oversee the sector, except in limited cases -- an argument not much different from one I made about the same time.

Later that same day, the Dispatch revealed that the troubled North Side Imagine charter school might be shut down because its board just up and quit. This is the same school that was found last year toy be spending an exorbitant amount of money leasing the property from a subsidiary of Imagine Schools -- a practice that was found to be illegal in Missouri. Imagine Schools, Inc. run schools in 11 states and are no stranger to controversy.

Meanwhile, the same day, the Dayton Daily News reported that three former Dayton-area charter school officials were convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges in connection with their operation of the Arise! Academy.

They all face at least 15 years in federal prison for steering lucrative contracts to each other.

(Read more at 10th Period)

State Suspends Four Northeast Ohio Charter Schools

The Ohio Department of Education sent letters to administrators from Cleveland’s Villaview Community School, Imagine Cleveland Academy, and Cleveland Community School, along with Canton’s Imagine on Superior Academy, letting them know the decision came down after state officials determined the schools weren’t meeting the required level of student performance.

“We did our own evaluations of each of those schools and determined that these four schools were not meeting student performance standards that they set down in their own contracts,” ODE spokesperson John Charlton told our partners at WKSU. “And also that there were some violations of state and federal law regarding services provided to special education students.”

The schools were each sponsored by the now-defunct Portage County Educational Service Center.

(Read more at NPR)

State puts three charter schools on notice to close -- Imagine Cleveland, Villaview and Cleveland Community

The state has put three charter schools in the city on notice that they could be shut down for poor academic performance -- Imagine Cleveland and the Villaview and Cleveland Community School partnership.

"The School's performance has generally been a failure," the Ohio Department of Education said in letters to each of the schools. "The school has completely failed to meet the student performance requirements of the contract and generally has a long history of poor academic performance."

All three are failing to manage their budgets properly, ODE also said in the letters, and the Villaview and Cleveland Community School partnership could face ethics charges.

"The Governing Authority and (Superintendent Lillian) Brown may have also violated state ethic and criminal laws related to Ms. Brown moving from the Board chairperson to the Superintendent's position at a salary," the letter to those two schools reads.

Read more at Cleveland.com

North Side charter school board quits amid concerns

Following the mass exodus of the board of a North Side charter school, the sponsor of Imagine Columbus Primary Academy says it might close the school.

The North Central Ohio Educational Service Center said Tuesday it is considering “remedial action” against the school’s Virginia-based management company, Imagine Schools Inc., because the school board failed “to hold a meeting since January.”

In a letter sent Tuesday to Imagine, Educational Service Center Superintendent James Lahoski gave operators five days to respond to concerns, warning that the school could be put on probation, have operations suspended or its contract terminated.

Charter schools are privately operated with public tax dollars. Under Ohio law, the schools must have a board that meets at least six times a year.

The action comes less than 24 hours after Imagine appointed five new board members to the Columbus Primary school board on Monday night. They replaced six members who resigned in recent weeks amid ongoing concerns about a high-cost building lease, teacher turnover and adequate services for students.

(Read more that the Dispatch)

Trio found guilty in bribery scheme involving charter school

A federal jury found three defendants guilty on Tuesday in a bribery and kickback scheme at a now-defunct Ohio charter school.

Government prosecutors had charged that two board members, the superintendent and an outside contractor for Arise! Academy in Dayton had shared nearly $500,000 and other perks as part of the scam.

Testimony in the two-week trial ended on Friday in U.S. District Court in Columbus. The jury began deliberating on Monday.

Shane K. Floyd, 42, the school’s superintendent and chief operating officer and a resident of Strongsville, near Cleveland, and board member Christopher D. Martin, 44, of Springfield, were found guilty of bribery, conspiracy to illegally use federal money and lying to the FBI.

Consultant Carl L. Robinson, 47, of Durham, N.C., was found guilty of bribery and conspiracy to illegal use of federal money.

A fourth defendant, board member Kristal N. Screven, 39, of Dayton, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge on May 8.

(Read more that the Dispatch)

Charter schools misspend millions of Ohio tax dollars as efforts to police them are privatized

No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.

A Beacon Journal review of 4,263 audits released last year by State Auditor Dave Yost’s office indicates charter schools misspend public money nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.

Since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival .

And the extent of the misspending could be far higher.

That’s because Yost and his predecessors, unable to audit all charter schools with limited staffing and overwhelmed by the dramatic growth in the schools, have farmed out most charter-school audits to private accounting firms.

Last year, these private firms found misspending in one of the 200 audits of charter schools they conducted, or half of 1 percent, while the state’s own police force of auditors found misspending in one of six audits, or 17 percent of the time.

“You don’t even have to understand audits to know that something is broken there,” said Kyle Serrette, director of Education at the Center for Popular Democracy.

(Read more at the Akron Beacon Journal)