Does charter school funding leave taxpayers holding the bag?
Regular Get Schooled blog readers know Cherokee businessman John Konop as an astute commenter on the economics of education. He’s also a great debater as he focuses on the facts and does not get carried away with politics or ideology.
And he posts under his name, which signals that he stands behind his comments.
Konop has sparked debate in Cherokee County over questions on the funding of a charter school there and who gets stuck with the bill. Konop raised these issues with the Cherokee County School Board at a recent meeting.
Here is a followup letter he sent board member Michael Geist:
Dear Mr. Geist,
According to a recent newspaper article, it seems you are still very confused about why you’re getting so much negative feedback about the lack of fiscal controls in the charter school amendment that you support. I will once again clarify the issues by explaining how the Cherokee Charter Academy (CCA) was funded and how the current charter school amendment fails protect tax payers.
• CCA’s owner/operators (a private company) were given over $1million of taxpayer money as start-up capital.
• CCA’s owner/operators receive a management contract that pays them close to $1 million a year (a rate that is higher on a percentage basis than what Cherokee County currently spends on our public schools). These funds are above and beyond the additional, regular operating money that charter schools receive from the school district.
• CCA’s owner/operators were not required to purchase a guaranteed bond (a form of insurance) that pays the school district in the event the CCA closes midyear (and dumps over 1,000 students back into the system).
If the CCA goes out of business — which looks increasingly likely — its owner/operators get to keep the $1 million start-up capital (and/or whatever assets they bought with it) and have no liabilities. You supported giving a private company over a million dollars, guaranteed profit, and NO downside risk.
This is a terrible deal for taxpayers. You should NOT support forcing taxpayers to capitalize private companies or give them no-obligation government contracts. As a public school board member, your duty is to protect the school’s assets, not look for creative ways to squander them.
The taxpayers of Cherokee County have already been burned with similar deals. For example, we may lose $50 million that went to fund a private recycler that went bust (leaving taxpayers again holding the bag). As you well know, taxpayers across the country have already lost massive amounts of money in poorly structured charter schools deals. For the record, I support charter schools and believe they play an important and positive role in our education system. What I do not support is officeholders like you that make foolish and emotional decisions with taxpayer money.
In closing, Mr. Geist, here are some questions that the taxpayers of Cherokee County would like your answers to:
•Please list all the other school district services that a vendor can perform where taxpayers provide free start-up capital and guaranteed revenue, all with no penalty for failure to perform. Assuming you can’t provide such a list, why did you support the private owner/operators of the Cherokee Charter Academy receiving such a deal?
• Why do you support a charter amendment that does not include the taxpayer protections needed to prevent CCA-like deals from happening again?
Regards,
John Konop
–From Maureen Downey for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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305 comments Add your comment
Ron F.
September 16th, 2012
11:39 am
Here’s an interesting tidbit on schools run by the Cosmos Foundation in Texas from March of last year from USA Today:
“In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of “pushing out” underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an “extraordinarily high” student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight.”
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20100817/turkishfinal17_cv.art.htm
While buried in an article examining the number of H1-B visa applicants hired by charter schools, which is an issue unto itself, this fact makes me raise an eyebrow about comparing performance of these schools to their local traditional public counterparts. If a school has an attrition rate that high, then any statistical comparison becomes void.
In Georgia, Pataula Charter in Baker county has been used as an example. It’s population is 75% white while serving districts that have student populations of less than 40% percent white students. Fair comparison of progress in that situation is questionable at best. While there are charter schools in the metro area that more accurately match demographics of the general population, I’d be interested to see attrition rates for those schools as well. It would seem that in those whose populations resemble that of the district schools, results are not significantly better over all. There are exceptions, but those same exceptions are also notable in district schools who manage to succeed with their populations. In total, charter schools provide more parental influence/involvement and a focus on professional development that should significantly improve outcomes. But questions exist and need to be answered with more than rhetoric about those companies that offer management of various levels within the schools they partner with and serve.
Ron F.
September 16th, 2012
12:30 pm
To add to the interest in the charter schools amendment, head over to Jim Galloway’s blog and view this powerpoint put out by supporters of the amendment:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dE4ga23jIgbFa_7mxE7JcvmSCyflhct5l_Kd1FJsL6k/edit?pli=1#slide=id.p14
If that link doesn’t work, Jim has a link posted on his blog. Of interest is the last slide, which reads:
“We will email each of you a copy of this powerpoint for your use with board, staff, and parents. Please do not give out the ppt to members of the public because of information we don’t want our opponents to have.”
Well, I think that little OOPS has already happened. Now, after reading the powerpoint, I don’t see anything there that “opponents” don’t already know, but I find that statement especially troubling. Why wouldn’t you want everyone, supporter or not, to know any facts? What is gained by some type of cloak and dagger routine? That only serves to further the questions that many of us have about the true motivations of this movement and adds to the adversarial nature of this amendment. While I have little doubt it will pass, considering the divisive nature of politics these days, it just creates yet another reason for concern as to what this issue is really all about in the long run.
Mary Elizabeth
September 16th, 2012
1:04 pm
“While I have little doubt it will pass, considering the divisive nature of politics these days, it just creates yet another reason for concern as to what this issue is really all about in the long run.”
==========================================
This amendment may not pass, Ron F. Be sure to check out Jay Bookman’s column, today, in the AJC for more information regarding those who are not in support of this amendment, and why they are not.
Lance
September 16th, 2012
6:52 pm
You are losing the debate Charter Starter, Too. You should admit your advocacy of charters is about pulling your elite kids away from the perceived riff-raff of public schools. I bet you are from north Fulton. You are probbaly the same type of person that wants to reprise Milton County so you do not have to share with the people you perceive a low-life in south Fulton.
Dr. Monica Henson
September 18th, 2012
11:09 pm
Provost Academy Georgia is not “managed” by EdisonLearning. It is managed by me, along with two other administrators, all of whom are public employees, as is the entire staff. We do not “make money” for EL–for that matter, we don’t “make money” for anyone, other than drawing salaries for the work we do. And the work we do is not being done in the same way in district public schools, or there’d be no reason for the State Board of Education to have chartered us.
I’ll say it again: ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, both district and charter, do business with private, for-profit companies, and lots of it, and ALWAYS HAVE. I have yet to run across a technology vendor, textbook publisher, or seller of custodial supplies who isn’t incorporated privately and in business to turn a profit.
All the naysayers just keep right on screaming, loud as you can. Progress continues to happen, and you are unable to stop it, hence the shouting and fuss. Check the polling numbers if you think it’s not going to be a “yes” vote in November.
There’s a Chinese proverb I have framed on my desk, given to me by a teacher who used to work with me: “Those who say it cannot be done need to get out of the way of the one who is doing it.”