#ANOTHERDAYANOTHERCHARTERSCHOOLSCANDAL
Florence charter school suspended from state program amid investigation
A S.C. Administrative Law Court judge in September ordered the school to cease and desist operations and appointed a receiver to review PYA’s/PPA’s expenses and how they’ve spent money.
Nate Monroe: Mad about Duval’s school closure plan? Blame school-choice zealots
Pro-choice evangelists like Diamond have trolled the district for years to prepare for lower enrollment as the number of charters grow and parents, using a universal voucher system, send their children to private schools in increasing numbers.
Education Watch: Millions at Stake in Epic Embezzlement Case
Prosecutors allege Chaney and Harris diverted tens of millions of dollars meant for students’ education using shell companies and false invoices, ultimately splitting about $55 million collected from the school between 2013 and 2021. CFO Josh Brock said he received a 10% cut.
Low-scoring Gastonia charter school moves a step closer to closing
A state Board of Education committee unanimously upheld the North Carolina Charter Schools Review Board’s vote to stop public funding at the end of this school year. State officials say reading, math and science scores have been so low in the school’s first five years that they can’t justify keeping the K-8 school open.
Okla. Supreme Court considers nation’s first religious charter school
The Oklahoma Supreme Court considered Tuesday whether the state can directly fund religious education, with some justices voicing skepticism that a proposed Catholic charter school could pass constitutional muster but others suggesting there may be little difference between such a school and other instances of tax dollars supporting religious entities.
‘Minimize cost, maximize profit’: testimony in Epic Charter Schools hearing outlines multi-level concealment scheme
Brock testified that during Epic’s early years, Harris told Chaney and him the leftover amounts in the Learning Fund could be used for retirement purposes. The state asked if Brock thought that was his, Harris’ or Chaney’s money to spend, and Brock answered it was not and agreed EYS was entrusted to be stewards of the money for the benefit of the students.
Tennessee’s Failed School Takeover Experiment May Finally Shut Down
The Achievement School District grew out of the very 2011 notion that the way to rescue schools was to put them in the hands of a superstar CEO, reflecting the philosophy that gifted and committed outsiders (a la Teach For America) could, if allowed unencumbered autonomy, achieve remarkable gains where the entrenched insiders could not. The notion of fixing schools by having them taken over by talented outsiders has enjoyed bipartisan popularity, but has rarely demonstrated any actual success.
Charter schools imperil neighborhood public schools | Opinion
Providence has a charter school problem. As the city prepares to regain leadership of the school system, public schools are being closed and charters stand ready to take their place. In this critical time of transition, adding more charters would harm, not help, our city’s students. Mayor Brett Smiley has spoken thoughtfully about the care being taken to set our schools up for success. If he wants our school system to succeed, the mayor should reject the opening of new charter schools.
Longtime Epic Charter Schools CFO agrees to 15 years’ probation in exchange for testimony
Mid-morning on the fifth day of the preliminary hearing, Brock was called as a witness and described how he and other acquaintances of Harris and Chaney were recruited into Epic’s operation — and then how many of them got access to money or business for themselves or their relatives.
Letter: A duty to NVUSD
River’s admissions policy was unlike that of any public school in Napa. My daughter had to fill out an application, write a letter, go through an interview and construct an art project. Parents had to agree to volunteer a certain number of hours per month — if they didn’t, their child could be ejected from the school.
Research from pro-charter school group makes case for halting the approval of new charters
The report, “Do Authorizer Evaluations Predict the Success of New Charter Schools?”, looks at the performance of North Carolina charter school authorizations between 2013 and 2019 to determine whether ratings and votes from the Charter School Advisory Board were predictive of charter school academic performance. But rather than making a convincing case for modifying North Carolina’s charter approval process, the data make a stronger case for reinstating the cap on new charter approval.
Letters: Charter schools ruining public education
Public schools should be well-funded, but those funds must be spent carefully so that they benefit students as much as possible, without an expectation of benefit to the opportunists that see children as a commodity and corporate profit as an entitlement. Free and appropriate education should be available to every child and democratically controlled. Subverting voters’ power in the name of “choice” or profit is a mistake that society cannot afford.
San Jose charter school closes as Bay Area districts face declining enrollment and million dollar budget deficits
More than 200 students at DCP Alum Rock High School, a small charter school in San Jose, will have to transfer when the campus closes this summer — a victim of declining enrollment and a hefty budget deficit it cannot overcome and keep the campus open.
Epic embezzlement case: ‘Learning fund’ examined in preliminary hearing
To that end, Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s assigned prosecutors spent Monday and Tuesday asking a series of witnesses how Harris and Chaney — simultaneously the owners of Epic Youth Services, a management company that received 10 percent of the Epic schools’ state funding — handled money, including millions of dollars deposited into the EYS “learning fund.”
Epic Charter Schools: A decade of investigation
Then-Governor Mary Fallin requested the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation look into allegations of fraud. However, the probe remained in the investigation stage for a decade.