Charter schools use non-profit shells run by for-profit McSchools

[yurbud]

I've heard the ''non-profit'' talking point thrown around almost as often as the even more dishonest one that charter schools are public schools (they are but the same way that Blackwater is our nation's army).

This Washington Post op-ed explains the Enron like sleight of hand they use to be able to call them non-profits:

Charter legislation often stipulates that only local, non-profit groups are eligible. So what do developers do? They create a non-profit organization to get the charter, then the organization hires a for-profit company to run the school.

During the years of my peak interest in and enthusiasm for charters, three out of four newly approved ones in Florida http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/charter-schools-is-this-the-wa.html">were being run by companies with practices so standardized they were using the same glossy promotional brochures in other states. They were "McCharters," and they were in the school business not to experiment and innovate but to make money. I don’t see any evidence that such isn’t still the case.

It's ironic: Legislation originally intended to strengthen public schools is now being used as a sneaky way to privatize them.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/are-charter-schools-really-inn.html

In an earlier article, the author tells how they run a real estate scam through this too:

For example, a story last year in the Dallas Morning News said that when Imagine-managed charter schools open in the state, the company’s real estate affiliate, Schoolhouse Finance, buys a campus and then charges the school rent. In one case, a school spent nearly 40 percent of its budget--all from public money--to two for-profit companies.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/charter-schools-is-this-the-wa.html

We have to fight for the Democrats to win in November, but then we have to kick their fucking asses till they get out of the pocket of these billionaires and Wall Street sociopaths who want to do public education what they just finished doing mortgages, and did a couple of decades ago to our manufacturing base.

If we wanted the shittiest K-12 policy possible, we could just vote for Republicans who don't even make a pretense of wanting equal access to a good education for everyone.

[madfloridian]

1. Thanks, I have been trying to figure out all the "non-profits"

and all the profit they are making. Interesting.

[Luminous Animal]

2. People get all fuzzy when they hear non-profit. Non-profit does not mean that no money is being made

It just means that all the money is being spent. Republican's set up non-profits and then pad the payroll with relatives and rent out their personal property to the non-profit.

[readmoreoften]

3. +1. Non-profit is often just a novel way of hiding profit.

[yurbud]

6. shirley, you jest!

you probably already knew this, but thanks for the kick.

[readmoreoften]

4. How do you pressure Democrats while simultaneously agreeing to vote for them

no matter what? This is the real question. I don't think there is a way to pressure them. In fact, I think the Tea Party is the best thing that ever happened to them. If everyone is in a Popular Front against the Tea Party Extremists they can be come as close to being Republicans as they want and no one can do anything about it.

[yurbud]

5. good point. what's your plan?

[tomm2thumbs]

7. sad, because if there was ever a sign that idiots always find ways around the rules

this is one of them - and it only serves to hurt kids while putting money into the worst peoples' pockets

thanks for posting

[yurbud]

9. de nada

[txlibdem]

8. Just another part of the plan

Privatize everything that the government has traditionally done.

[yurbud]

10. so the only ''welfare'' is for the already rich.

[txlibdem]

11. Sad but true

Maybe it's my own fault for believing that President Obama was going to be a second FDR. When he was sworn into office on Jan 19,2009 we were on the brink of total disaster. The country could easily have gone into a full blown Depression or even into total chaos. It was that bad. Thanks for the terrible conditions go entirely to the Republicons and their buddies (corporations and the rich).

Obama had a mandate from the people to take us away from the trickle down policies of the Repukes that destroyed our economy. Instead, he has been the greatest proponent of trickle down I've ever seen in a Democrat. Instead of bringing back Glass Stiegel and the WPA, he bailed out the banks with no control over how they spent the money (so they used it to take over smaller banks and invest in foreign markets). He enacted the stimulus plan that gave money to construction companies. He enacted health care legislation that has rightly been called a giveaway to the insurance industry. In short, he has been the best center-right Republican president we've had in decades.

I blame myself because I thought I was voting for a Democrat who wanted single payer universal healthcare (which Obama said he did in 2003). I had no idea I was actually voting for a center-right Republican.

[yurbud]

12. because Bush was so bad, we expected someone equally good.

[yurbud]

13. the best that can be said of Dems and Obama, the are cushioning some of the death throe thrashes of

the oligarchy from taking too many of us down with them.

Maybe the Dems see that the oligarchs days are numbered, that all the wealth they've accumulated the last few decades has been based on more and more fraud and less and less productivity, and when they run out of ponzi schemes, their fortunes and therefore power will dry up. But until they do, they are still dangerous, can still call down wars, and assassinations, and bring countries, and even the whole world to its knees. And since neither the Democrats nor anyone else can stop their thrashing, they can at most put a mattress between their blows and potential victims, but not even that too often or they will be the object of their wrath too.

But that is the absolute most charitable interpretation.

[txlibdem]

14. So eloquent but far, far too charitable

I loved your post. May I make a single substitution and exchange the words "oligarchy" and "oligarchs" with "The Middle Class."

You would be exactly correct if you had stated that the Obama administration is focused on protecting the wealthy and the corporations from the death throes of the middle class. We might, after all, splatter some blood onto their expensive shoes.

[yurbud]

16. that is the other extreme option and at least as likely if not more so

[pscot]

17. Some of their own

as recomended by Mr.Jefferson.

[Jakes Progress]

15. Kick for truth.

[KoKo]

18. K&R.....Arne Duncan seems to have the upper hand in education reform...Should He?

:shrug: For his Position, Yeah...but what about THE PARENTS?

[HuckleB]

19. kick.

[Doctor_J]

20. Uh-oh. The "I-hate-public-schools" DU faction are going to need some

major contortion to splain this one. "What? Charter schools are not private, for-profit!"