CHARTER SCHOOLS: For-profit companies stir legal trouble state bill doesn’t address
While Alabama’s recent charter school legislations allows for the contracting of for-profit management companies, charter schools nationwide have found themselves in the midst of litigation – and state taxpayers the victims of fraud and abuse – at the hands of management companies.
Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn) said the legislation does not specifically address the use of for-profit charter school management companies. Rather, it’s the responsibility of the local school board or charter school appeals board to sift through charter school proposals and check preferences on any proposed management companies.
“If they applied, they would have to list who they intend to contract with or what services they intend to contract out,” Hubbard explained. “…I don’t believe the legislation prohibits it.”
But charter schools across the country have come under fire for mismanagement of funds in the past few years. Since Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, charter school enrollment has doubled thrice. Taxpayers have also lost more than $100 million in public funds, according to “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud and Abuse,” a study authored by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education in May 2014. And that number only accounts for the study’s scope of less than half the states with charter school laws.
Nearly half of all charter schools in the U.S. are operated by private education management organizations, often with out-of-state headquarters.
“I think where my personal opinion of charter schools goes south is for-profit management companies,” said Dr. Brittany Larkin, a professor in Auburn University’s College of Education. “Their goal is for profit. It’s no longer for the best interest of the school.”
Public education advocate Larry Lee, who led the study Lessons Learned from Rural Schools, alleged some charter schools spend 25 percent of their budget on marketing to draw students.
“Because every kid they bring in, that’s a potential profit center,” he said.
Because charter schools are public schools and funded through the Education Trust Fund, the money follows the student. When profit is added into the picture, charter schools can become focused on increasing enrollment and therefore revenue, Larkin said. She cited Ohio’s often criticized charter school laws, which state legislators are in the process of amending to create more fiscal accountability, The Columbus Dispatch reported last month.
“Ohio is a hot mess with their charter management companies getting into a lot of legal trouble,” Larkin said.
For-profit management companies also open multiple schools under the same model. The practice goes against the ideology behind a charter school, which is in theory created to fill a specific need not being filled by the district.
“I think that defeats the purpose of having individual charter schools,” Larkin explained.
She also cited for-profit management companies’ lobbying efforts in state legislatures across the country, noting nonprofit lobby group StudentsFirst appearances in Montgomery at the beginning of this year’s session.
“They are big companies; they have a lot of money. They lobby very hard,” she said. “They know how to go to the capitols and lobby for what they want.”
The Sacramento-based StudentsFirst has 10 lobbyists in Alabama, Lee wrote in a column tilted Follow the Money. The group spent $61,958 in lobbying efforts. The Alabama Federation for Children – which was supported by donors in California, Michigan and Arkansas – spent $101,748.
Hubbard argued public schools now contract with private companies for a variety of services, like textbooks and CHARTER SCHOOLS: For-profit companies stir legal trouble state bill doesn’t address - OANow.com: Political: