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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMore than 1000 pages about a charter school's failures in Florida. Mavericks has problems.
School was started five years ago, troubles still happening. Investigations still going on. They have received 70 million dollars in money from taxpayers, have repeated failed to meet standards.
This means money and resources taken from public school systems throughout the state.
Mavericks in Education: Failing to make the grade
Here are some of the problems listed:
Overcharging taxpayers $2 million by overstating attendance and hours taught. The involved schools have appealed the findings.
Submitting questionable low-income school meal applications to improperly collect $350,000 in state dollars at two now-closed Pinellas County schools.
Frequent academic errors that include skipping state tests for special-needs students, failing to provide textbooks and using outdated materials.
Those are serious problems, some bordering on fraud.
When in doubt blame the management companies, over which Florida seems to have no control.
Pegg, who oversees charter schools for the Palm Beach County school district, said problems with Mavericks in Education have frustrated district officials. State charter-school laws do not address the performance of management companies.
"The statute doesn't give any kind of authority to hold those management companies accountable; we can only hold the schools accountable," Pegg said. "We need to be able to have some authority with (management companies). They are the ones taking the tax dollars."
If the management companies are to blame, then I heartily suggest the state get some kind of control over them.
The lack of regulation and control over public money and resources is appalling and dangerous.
And guess what? There's a rule in Florida that if a charter school applies to open.....the district are not allowed to consider their past history. They have to rely on the present application only.
Florida: Charter Operators with Troubled Histories Request Another Chance
The story in the Sun-Sentinel by Karen Yi and Amy Shipley says:
At least seven groups of applicants with ties to failed or floundering charter schools are seeking second chances and public money to open 18 more.
Odds are, most will prevail.
School districts say that they cant deny applicants solely because of past problems running charter schools. State laws tell them to evaluate what they see on paper academic plans, budget proposals, student services not previous school collapses or controversial professional histories.
Incidentally this school included Frank Biden when it was founded. The article mentions him only as a lobbyist for the school now.
madfloridian
(88,117 posts)Teachers are held accountable. Charter schools get away with so much.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Just awful.
madfloridian
(88,117 posts)Or don't care enough to support or oppose.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)I know the parents here who were sold a line about how their child would get to go to a better, safer school. But when the charter started kicking kids out for test scores or even minor behavior issues, the students returned to the public school. Some of the stories the parents told were quite different than the advertising. It's all a sham.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)MONEY & POLITICS
Charter School Power Broker Turns Public Education Into Private Profits
October 16, 2014
by Marian Wang
Columbus Charter School in Whiteville, North Carolina, uses a rigid instructional approach in which teachers stick to a script and drill students, like the kindergarteners above, through call and response. (Travis Dove for ProPublica)
This post first appeared at ProPublica and versions of this story were co-published with The Daily Beast and the Raleigh News & Observer.
In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the groups education agenda. The first and it turns out, only stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington.
Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the states minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the schools operations.
But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group. The schools founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Kochs free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits.
In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchells chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.
MORE
madfloridian
(88,117 posts)Ain't it amazing how our political leaders hold teachers so strongly to accountability....putting all the blame for all problems in their laps. Meanwhile the same political leaders of both parties are turning a blind eye to such fraud.
I mean look at how internet charter school K12 is constantly being investigated for fraud.
Yet they are spending taxpayer money on expensive ads that I see on TV on major outlets almost daily.
It sickens me.