How One Charter School Audit Reveals the Fatal Flaws in Jeb Bush’s Education Prescription
Miami Herald reporters Kathleen McGrory, Scott Hiassen and Shiaa Sen continue to reveal for Floridians that state charter schools are far from the institutions of virtue their advocates want them to believe. The audit by the Miami-Dade school district of one charter school will sound familiar to Florida’s charter school watchers:
Auditors examining the cash-strapped Academy of Arts & Minds criticized the charter school for a series of no-bid contracts with companies tied to the school’s founder, attorney Manuel Alonso-Poch, according to a draft report obtained by The Miami Herald. Alonso-Poch is the “controlling force” at the school, auditors found, acting as the school’s landlord, financial manager, food provider, spokesman and occasional legal advisor.
Alonso-Poch’s real-estate company, which owns the school property and leases the building to the