When Charter Schools Are Nonprofit in Name Only

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-name-only

A couple of years ago, auditors looked at the books of a charter school in Buffalo, New York, and were taken aback by what they found. Like all charter schools, Buffalo United Charter School is funded with taxpayer dollars. The school is also a nonprofit. But as the New York State auditors wrote, Buffalo United was sending “ virtually all of the School’s revenues” directly to a for-profit company hired to handle its day-to-day operations.

Charter schools often hire companies to handle their accounting and management functions. Sometimes the companies even take the lead in hiring teachers, finding a school building, and handling school finances.

In the case of Buffalo United, the auditors found that the school board had little idea about exactly how the company – a large management firm called National Heritage Academies – was spending the school’s money. The school’s board still had to approve overall budgets, but it appeared to accept the company’s numbers with few questions. The signoff was “essentially meaningless,” the auditors wrote.

In the charter-school sector, this arrangement is known as a “sweeps” contract because nearly all of a school’s public dollars – anywhere from 95 to 100 percent – is “swept” into a charter-management company.

[daleanime]

1. K&R....

[Frustratedlady]

2. These charters should all be audited on a regular basis...

and be self-sufficient. They never should have been given public money. Never!

[xchrom]

3. +1

[sendero]

4. Again, the term non-profit or not-for-profit are practically meaningless...

.... it simply means there are no shareholders to serve. But there are administrators, CEOs, CFOs, accountants, brothers, sisters, uncles, companies providing "services" owned by brothers, sisters and uncles and on and on and on. There are as many ways for a "non-profit" company to provide an exorbitant profit to a select cadre of insiders as there are trees in the forest.

The idea that a non-profit company is automatically more well run or fiscally careful is ludicrous, in fact without shareholders watching what is to stop it from paying the CEO 5 times the going rate? Nothing is, and so that happens a lot.

[Enthusiast]

5. It's the Enronization of the education system.

[LWolf]

6. And it has been enthusiastically supported

by mainstream Democratic politicians and by Democratic voters since the beginning.

[Enthusiast]

7. Yes. They betrayed they most reliable loyal supporters.

WTF?

This is why I hate Third Way. I guess Third Way will have to change their name again now that we understand their mission was to destroy the Democratic Party.

[Dustlawyer]

11. Big Money has corrupted every facit of America! Public schools wored great until the Reagan

Era. They made America #1 in all aspects of business and technology. The only glaring problem was the unequal distribution in poor and minority areas. The idiots that have bought into this Charter School scam are the ones that need to either go back to school or straight to prison!

[Thespian2]

8. Charter schools

are no better, and usually worse, than public schools. It has become simply another avenue for public money to speed to private companies. No accountability necessary. Who suffers from failed schools? Everyone.

[AngryAmish]

9. The largest network of charter sxhools is run by a Turkish cult.

That is horrible.

[Hoppy]

10. A charter school in Newark, N.J. was closed after its founder siphoned of a few hundred $$$.

It ain't always the corporations that are gaming the system.