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An earlier version of this article was published in
educational Horizons Vol87, 2
(Winter 2009)
Deregulation and Charter School Swindles
by Gary K. Clabaugh Ed. D.
 
Professor of Education, La Salle University
RETURN
 edited 1/26/09Minnesota passed the nation's first charter school law in 1991, Since then, forty states have passed charterschool legislation and some seven hundred thousand youngsters now attend more than three thousand suchschools.
[1]The Philadelphia Example
Charter schools also have become a central element of school "reform" in the School District of Philadelphia. This year the district is home to sixty-three charter schools enrolling more than thirty-fourthousand students at a total cost of $320 million.
[2]
I understand why these alternative schools are popular. I have spent years negotiating the bleak no man'sland of the School District of Philadelphia while supervising student teachers. And if that doesn't leave youwith a taste for change, nothing will. Too many traditional Philadelphia public schools are unsafe forteachers and students alike. They also routinely lack instructional resources such as textbooks. Physicalplants are often crumbling. And the central bureaucracy is so slow in hiring teachers that each year begins incrisis.That bureaucracy is also death on innovation. I learned the hard way not to even try to cooperate with thedistrict on innovative programming. I'vespent months painstakingly setting up cooperative arrangementsonly to learn that the wind had shifted at district headquarters, which was abandoning the effort. The bottomline on all this is that despite a yearly expenditure of some two billion dollars, about 50 percent of thedistrict's youngsters fail to graduate.
Hope and Doubt
You can see why I long to be a charter school enthusiast. But in my forty-six years in education I havelived through one half-baked "reform" after another—teaching machines, competency-based education,open education, No Child Left Behind—and these experiences have left me skeptical.Aspects of the charter school movement feed that skepticism. For one thing, the extreme claims made bycharter school evangelists would make a used car salesman blush. Proponents claim, for example, thatcharter schools:
*
"Increase opportunities for learning and access to quality education for all students"* "Encourage community and parent involvement in public education"* "Provide a system of accountability for results in public education"
[3]
The first promise is false on its face. Charter schools provide life rafts for parents and students who want toabandon sinking urban districts. Thus charters
decrease
the quality of education for students who staybehind by bleeding off caring parents and motivated students. Similarly, the second promise is false because
 
charters bleed off community and parent involvement from traditional public schools.I'm also put off by the politics involved in the charter school movement. One unacknowledged reason thatRepublicans have taken the lead in promoting charters is that they weaken teachers unions, which routinelysupport Democratic candidates.I also distrust the fervent free market evangelists who claim that competition will make everything better.But most important, I worry that charter schools operate with greater autonomy and less regulation thantraditional public schools. That means accountability is lessened, not increased as proponents promise, andthat is unwise.
The Triumph of Hope over Experience
Despite my misgivings, however, hope finally triumphed over experience when a trusted friend andcolleague enthusiastically described a new charter school in Philadelphia. It sounded so promising, I decidedto take a look.The school's founder and CEO, a highly regarded former district administrator, was admirably businesslikein his approach. His minimal administrative staff seemed focused and hard working. Parent volunteers weremuch in evidence and actually doing useful things. This charter plainly lacked the unfortunate novelties of many Philadelphia public schools. It wasn't dilapidated or dreary, but brightly lit and well appointed. Thehalls smelled of floor wax, not urine. Packs of truants weren't lolling on nearby corners. Profanities weren'tbeing screamed in the halls. The teaching staff did not manifest the attitude of Captain Bligh's crew shortlybefore the mutiny. There were enough textbooks and supplies for every child. And in a city where schoolsare often dangerous for kids and staff alike, this school seemed safe.The CEO explained how he and the teachers had successfully integrated special education students intoregular classrooms. He also recounted taking creative advantage of the relaxed regulation concerningteacher certification to hire a popular dance teacher. And he explained how he substantially supplementedthe school's resources via grants and capitalistic enterprise—selling school uniforms, for example.
Impressed
Despite a scarred veteran's caution, I came away impressed—so impressed, in fact, that I took my studentson a field trip to the school, invited the CEO to speak to both my graduate and undergraduate classes, andadvised some of my best students that they should consider teaching there. I conceded that they would makeless as well as lack union representation and the protection of a detailed contract, but they might also behappier.I even allowed myself to hope that the benefits of charter schooling might outweigh the costs. To be sure,my examination of another charter, an allegedly "Africanized" one, was disappointing. Nevertheless, Icontinued to hope that charter schooling might, in aggregate, prove more plus than minus.
Scandal
Several years passed and the number of Philadelphia charter schools continued to grow. And with theaddition of a high school my favorite charter school expanded to include some twelve hundred students.Hearing nothing but praise of the school, I continued to recommend it. I also continued to harbor hope.Then, without warning, a series of front-page stories in the
Philadelphia Inquirer
announced that the charterwas deeply mired in scandal. The paper reported federal and school district allegations of fiscalmismanagement, nepotism, and conflicts of interest against the school's top management. It also revealedthat the CEO and his handpicked successor, a former policeman with only a high school diploma, were
 
being paid more than most area superintendents. The school's chief financial officer was said to be awaitingtrial on charges of conspiracy and altering records. Concerns also were raised about the school's lack of diversity (enrollment at the school is 87 percent white) and alleged favoritism in its admission practices.
[4]
So much for hope triumphing over experience.This scandal was not the beginning or end of charter school troubles in Philadelphia. For instance, inOctober 2008 the
 Inquirer
announced that law enforcement agencies were investigating still anotherPhiladelphia charter school that allegedly diverted some of its thirty-one million dollars in taxpayer funds tosupport other nonprofits operated by its parent group. To make matters worse, in 2006–07 this charter spentonly 38.4 percent of its budget on instruction: the remainder went for niceties such as legal fees, travel,meals, and entertainment. In addition, the school's test scores lagged drastically behind state benchmarks;dozens of vendors were complaining that the school was stiffing them on payments; and the landlord wasthreatening the school with eviction.
[5]
And there have been other scandals involving other charters.
Competition
Two main ideas inform the charter school movement. The first is that competition is an essential ingredientin school improvement. Charters are said to provide that.The trouble with this argument is that competition doesn't select the best, only the most popular.McDonald's doesn't produce the best-tasting or most-nutritious food, for instance, but its heart attackspecials certainly are popular. A second-rate school might prove similarly competitive if it provides atawdry but reassuring education to the children of the low-information crowd. Fearful your kids willdiscover you are an ignoramus? Send them to Alpha Charter where they will never learn to doubt.
Deregulation
The second main idea behind charters is that state directives are strangling public school innovations. That'swhy charters are exempted from many regulations restricting the operations of traditional public schools.The trouble is that deregulation creates opportunities for mountebanks to pilfer the public purse, abusechildren, and the like. As a matter of fact, to the extent that charter operators have freedom of action, theconfidence tricksters and bunko artists among them find opportunities for fraud and misuse of public funds.What is more, the politicians (and/or their relatives) who push charters often end up feeding at the charterschool trough themselves.
Other Scandals
We shouldn't be surprised, then, that Philadelphia's experience with charter school scandals is widely shared.A Google search for "charter school fraud" turns up 498,000 results. We read, for example, that Ohio charterschools, officially known as community schools in the Buckeye state, have become "cash repositories to besiphoned of sponsorship and management, in one case by a former Republican state legislator who wrote thelegislation creating charter schools." That politician's daughter is cashing in too.
[6]Deregulation Writ Large
Charter schools are hardly the only enterprise to give deregulation a bad name. At this writing the U.S.economy may be headed for its worst crises since the Great Depression. Many commentators cite the 1999Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a 1999 banking deregulation bill, as the primary cause. The act, signed byPresident Clinton by the way, repealed Depression-era regulations and encouraged the creation of sub-primemortgages, including no-money-down, interest-only loans to individuals with poor credit histories. Thosemortgages were subsequently packaged and sold as securities. The Bush administration, blinded by the
of 00

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