Charter School Education in the U. S.: It's All About the Real Estate

When ignorant or purchased Ohio politicians jumped on the charter school bandwagon almost 20 years ago to "provide more choices for poor families" and to "cut bureaucratic oversight to allow educational innovation," they opened the floodgates for corruption, larceny, and educational fraud promoted under the guise of helping poor kids. 

As a result, charter kingpin, David Brennan and his White Hat Management Co. have carried off mountains of taxpayer money to fund Brennan's isolating, depressing, and cellar-performing charter storefronts. 

Finally faced with the reality over years of test results, school boards finally began to react and to demand financial transparency where there has been none.  Brennan's response to the boards has been, essentially, go to hell. 

Now the case has reached the Ohio Supreme Court, which will rule on whether or not Brennan's real estate empire built with taxpayer money belongs to him or the taxpayers.

With big implications for other corporate socialists, bottom feeders are lining up behind Brennan. 

From the Beacon Journal:

Published: August 9, 2014 - 10:46 PM | Updated: August 9, 2014 - 10:46 PM 

As for-profit White Hat Management heads to the Ohio Supreme Court to defend its position on owning public charter-school assets, another Akron-based charter-school management company has signed on as a supporter.

Summit Academy Management — a nonprofit company that operates 27 publicly funded and privately run charter schools in Ohio — filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week in support of White Hat.

The high court agreed in March to hear a case that could determine whether taxpayers or private companies — some profit-driven and located outside of Ohio — own the school property purchased with tax dollars.

The assets include the real estate, furniture and computers.

The case pits White Hat against 10 school boards that previously employed the Akron company to run their schools. As the schools produced poor academic results and the boards asked questions about White Hat’s use of public dollars, the company declined to open its books to inspection.

The boards attempted to expel White Hat, but the company responded that it owned the assets and the boards would be the ones to leave.

The school boards have until Aug. 25 to submit to the high court a final brief. Oral arguments have been scheduled for Sept. 23.

The case has implications for many companies that perform government services.

Nonprofit advocacy groups — including the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education, LeadingAge Ohio, the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the Ohio Community Corrections Association — also have filed briefs in support of White Hat, arguing that public dollars do not remain public when transferred to private contractors.

Should the high court rule that White Hat is not entitled to keep assets purchased with public dollars, the nonprofit groups worry that the implications could be widespread, undermining contracts with private vendors.

Summit Academy, for example, argues that a previous Ohio Supreme Court decision involving Akron’s Oriana House settles this matter, and that the school boards suing White Hat are misinterpreting that case.

“This Court [in Oriana House Inc. v. Montgomery] did not state that public funds remain public after being paid to a private entity. Rather, this Court reached the precise result demanded by the plain language of the Ohio Revised Code — private entities receiving public funds may be audited,” attorneys at Day Ketterer of Canton wrote in Summit Academy’s argument.

In that case, Summit County Republicans were attempting to force open the books of Oriana, all of Oriana’s related companies and the personal financial records of the chief executive. State Auditor Betty Montgomery, who was close to county party chief Alex Arshinkoff, launched the effort to open all of the financial records.

While the court agreed that she had a right to audit the nonprofit receiving public money, her authority ended there.

Transparency questioned

The nonprofit groups supporting White Hat add that if the legislature had intended public dollars to remain transparent in charter-school management companies, then it would have legislated so 17 years ago when the schools were created.

“And tellingly, the legislature did not define the [management] fees as public money or otherwise restrict management companies’ rights to purchase property,” wrote an attorney for the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education, a charter-school advocacy group. “Management companies are private and the money they are paid is private, just as with any other vendor that provides services to a school or some other public entity. Property purchased by a management company thus belongs to it, not anyone else.”

Summit Academy and White Hat have accumulated significant assets by receiving money transferred from local school districts.

The two companies collected $110,837,594 last year, according to the Ohio Department of Education. County records indicate Summit Academy owns at least half of the 27 schools it manages in Ohio. These properties are worth more than $7 million.

IRS tax fillings show Summit Academy has grown its total assets from $10,541,324 in 2010 to $17,372,299 in 2013.

While Summit Academy puts its name on property deeds, White Hat uses affiliated for-profit companies to purchase its school properties, then charges the school boards rent, the amount of which is not public record.

Low enrollment

In Akron, White Hat cited low enrollment as the reason for closing Brown Street Academy, a property owned by the Cleveland Diocese. It did not, however, close the lower performing University Academy, which had roughly the same enrollment but sits on Arlington Street property owned by Lumen Arlington Realty, LLC, a company of White Hat.

The Ohio Coalition for Quality Education and Summit Academy, which filed separate briefs, argued that the school boards, which received the state funding, entered into “arms length” agreements with White Hat, a company described as “independent” of the schools, free of conflicts of interest.

But several board members at White Hat-managed schools in Akron and Cleveland have told the Beacon Journal that the company recruited them to serve. They also said that they have not considered contracting, or hiring, any company other than White Hat.

Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com.

Plumbing the Depths of the White Hat Charter School Sewer

A really fine piece from Tom Beyerlein writing for the Springfield News-Sun:

David L. Brennan’s White Hat Management, whose 46 charter schools include one in Springfield, is being sued by the boards of nine northeast Ohio schools who say the for-profit company won’t reveal how many taxpayer dollars go for educating kids and how many end up in its corporate coffers.

But if the Ohio General Assembly approves legislation pushed by Brennan, White Hat may not have to worry about the pending court case. The legislation, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, would allow charter school operators like White Hat to do an end-run around their nonprofit governing authorities.

Critics say it’s an attempt by Brennan to use his political influence — he’s contributed millions to GOP election campaigns — to decrease oversight of his 31 Ohio schools, 20 of which are in academic emergency or on academic watch.

Earlier this month, Brennan successfully lobbied the GOP-led Ohio House for a amendment that would allow White Hat to keep secret details of how it spends the public money it receives to run its K-8 Hope Academies and its LifeSkills Center high schools, including Life Skills Center-Springfield at 1637 Selma Road. The legislation, contained in the House version of Gov. John Kasich’s two-year budget bill, is now before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, where seven of the eight members of the Republican majority have received campaign contributions from Brennan.

Akron-based White Hat is the state’s largest charter school operator and one of the nation’s biggest for-profit charter chains.

Last year White Hat’s Ohio schools received more than $78 million from the state, records show. Officials of the left-leaning think tank Innovation Ohio estimate White Hat schools have collected $500 million in taxpayer money since 2000.

“It even makes the supporters of charter schools blush — and they’re hard to embarrass,” said think tank spokesman Dale Butland.

Innovation Ohio said Brennan and his family have made $3 million in campaign contributions, mostly to Republican candidates and GOP accounts. Public records show Brennan, a wealthy former tax lawyer and industrialist, owns a $500,000 home in Akron and a $6 million home in Naples, Fla.

White Hat operated 31 Ohio charters as of the 2009-10 school year.

Eight were in academic emergency, including LifeSkills Centers in Dayton, Middletown and Springfield; 12 were on academic watch, nine were rated continuous improvement and two were rated effective. None was rated excellent.

Do read on--this is just the beginning.

And how are schools like pizza shops?  Let Governor Kasich explain:

Ohio's White Hat Charter School Protection Act

If you want to see what it looks and smells like when the corporate feeding frenzy begins in earnest on chunks of the three-quarters of a trillion dollars Americans spend on education every year, look no further than Ohio, where industrialist and ed exploitation artist, David Brennan, has bought sponsorship ofhis own bill to assure protection for his profitable charter racket, which has an unprecedented record of low performance that would have the corporate ed reformers screaming for blood if a public school had engaged in the level of corruption and ineptitude that Brennan represents.

From the Post-Dispatch:

Majority House Republicans proposed sweeping changes to state charter-school law that would make Ohio the only state in the nation to allow for-profit charter schools with no sponsors, but no one is rushing to take credit for the revolutionary plan.

More of the state's biggest school-choice supporters sharply criticized the plan yesterday. It was added to the budget last week by House GOP leaders who have not yet offered substantial reasons for wanting to give a major power boost to for-profit charter school operators such as David L. Brennan, an Akron businessman and major Republican donor who runs White Hat Management.

A spokesman for Brennan acknowledged yesterday that White Hat sought several provisions to reduce oversight and lift restrictions, but he also refused to take sole credit for the changes.

"There were more than a thousand amendments (to the budget bill) and there are numerous school-choice interests advocating for school-choice policies," said Tom Needles, a lobbyist for White Hat.

But other supporters were hard to find.

. . . . Amendments added by Republicans would:

• Give for-profit companies the ability to use tax dollars to open unlimited numbers of schools without disclosing how public funds are spent and without oversight from sponsors as now required.

• Exempt the school, if an operator is running it without a sponsor, from current law that allows it to be suspended or put on probation for failing to meet student performance requirements, for fiscal mismanagement, for a violation of law or for other good cause.

• Allow a governing board, if it contracts with an operator, to delegate all rights to the operator; specify that funds paid to the operator are not public and that property purchased by the operator belongs to the operator; and require the school to offer the operator the chance to renew its contract before seeking another operator.

• Require a charter school board to give an operator 180 days' notice before terminating a contract, up from the current 90 days. It also gives the operator final say over the renewal of a contract between a school and its sponsor.

Mr. White Hat Back in the Driver's Seat in Ohio Politics

For awhile it seemed as if the corrupt charter school chain gangs run by corporate welfare leech, David Brennan, would be brought to some public accountability in Ohio.  With the return, however, of free-to-pillage Republican rule in Ohio, accomplished with the help of Brennan's $4+ million in campaign donations over the years, this bloodsucker is back in the catbird's seat (for background go here, here, here, here, here, and here).

With the return of Brennan comes new legislation written with Mr. White Hat in mind.  As reported in this story by the Post-Dispatch, Brennan even goes so far as have proposed legislation to lie about the fact that public money will go his for-profit sleazy outfit to exploit the poorest kids of Ohio:

• Specify that funds paid to the operator by the [public] school are not considered public funds.

So what will separate Ohio from the most corrupt banana republics of the Western world?  Nothing.  When it gets too corrupt even for the Fordham Institute, you know the sewer is totally open:

A leading school-choice supporter says the sweeping changes proposed by House Republicans would weaken oversight of charter schools severely and threaten to turn Ohio into a "laughingstock of the nation's charter-school programs."

"It's hard for me to say that," said Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio programs and policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which sponsors seven charter schools in the state, including two in Columbus.

"It's basically saying the operators should be left alone and should be able to open as many schools as they want, and there shouldn't be any accountability but the market. We believe that's not enough."

As part of their changes to Gov. John Kasich's $55.5 billion budget, which got another full hearing yesterday, House Republicans would boost the power of for-profit charter-school operators at the expense of charter-school sponsors, who are tasked with oversight of the schools.

Among the dozens of charter-school-related changes:

• Allow for-profit entities to set up schools through the Department of Education without a sponsor.

• Permit a school's governing authority to delegate any or all of its rights and responsibilities to the operator.

• Specify that funds paid to the operator by the school are not considered public funds.

• Require a governing authority to give 180 days' notice to operators before terminating a contract, and require the school to offer the operator the chance to renew its contract before seeking another operator.

• Make the renewal of a contract between a charter school and its sponsor subject to approval of the school operator.

• Allow "entities" and "groups of individuals" to form charter schools as a for-profit corporation.

• Allow an entity to sponsor up to 100 schools.

Ryan said the changes take Ohio back to the "chaos" of the early 2000s, when then-state Auditor Jim Petro issued a blistering report of the Department of Education's performance in overseeing charter schools.

"We've been down this path and it led to a number of bad schools and scandals, which were a true black eye to charter schools," he said.

Ryan also questions whether it's legal under federal law for the state to send public money directly from the Department of Education to a for-profit charter-school operator.

Rep. Ron Amstutz,

R-Wooster, chairman of the House Finance Committee, said the general thrust of the changes was to "do an update and add some flexibilities that allow community schools to flourish."

There are situations where the relationship between the operator, governing authority and sponsor do not work well, he said. He also said the bill might be suffering from drafting issues as it relates to the Department of Education and accountability.

The Finance Committee will continue hearing testimony today and Monday, and it will make another set of changes on Tuesday before a vote. The full House is scheduled to vote on the budget on Thursday, sending it to the Senate.

"One of the things you do in a substitute bill is put things up the flagpole, see what kind of reactions they get and continue the vetting process," Amstutz said.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols offered no comment on the House charter-school changes, except to say that the governor would look them over. Ryan said he thought the governor's initial proposal struck a good balance.

Rep. Matt Lundy,

D-Elyria, said charter-school performance is not deserving of expansion.

"I think that instead of making the system more accountable, we made it easier to grow and expand," he said.

He also suggested that the amendments are the result of some influential charter-school operators, including David Brennan, the state's largest operator, who in the past decade has given Ohio Republicans more than $4.2million, making him the party's second-largest donor.

Amstutz said Brennan did not write any of the amendments.

William Lager, who runs the online charter school eCOT, is 10th on the GOP money list.

Kasich proposed lifting the moratorium on new charter schools, setting up potential competition for eCOT, but the House proposed to delay that until July 2013.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

Mr. White Hat, David Brennan, Refuses to Testify

White Hat Management's David Brennan has built an corporate welfare empire in Ohio  by putting $1.5 million into the pockets of Republican politicians since 2000.  Now he is being sued by 10 of the charter schools' Boards that he owns, which would seem to raise some red flags for politicians who, thus far, have looked the other way, even as White Hat has preyed on the poorest kids in Ohio. From Cincinatti.com:

The state's biggest charter school operator last week refused to testify at a state legislative hearing into whether Ohio's laws give too much power to for-profit charter school companies.

It would seem that the question has been answered.  

White Hat Management: "accountability chain is totally upside down"

We have been posting about David Brennan's charter school profiteering scheme since April 2006, and it looks like the bribes and kickbacks might have finally run out. ht to Monty Neill. From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A group of Cleveland and Akron charter schools is in open rebellion against the for-profit management firm that runs the schools.


An unusual lawsuit brought Monday by 10 governing boards of Hope Academies of Cleveland and Akron and Life Skills Centers of Cleveland and Akron alleges that a 2006 state law passed by majority-party Republicans is unconstitutional and gives the for-profit company unchecked authority.

At the center of the lawsuit is White Hat Management, the for-profit company whose five-year contract to run the 10 charter schools in Northeast Ohio expires on June 30. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated. In the case of White Hat Management, 96 percent of the state funding flows to the company.

The governing boards say that White Hat's interest in making a profit conflicts with the schools' goal to educate. The suit, filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, says that the boards are "virtually impotent to govern the schools."

They say that White Hat has refused to provide detailed financial information such as unaudited quarterly financial reports required under the management agreement with the schools. White Hat has also refused to provide details on grants received and also failed to spell out what funds were used to purchase school property and equipment since 2004, the suit charges.

White Hat Management said in a statement that the company has not been served with the complaint and could not comment directly on it.

"It is unfortunate that these entities have taken this action which potentially will disrupt the lives of thousands of students and jeopardize the future of these schools," the statement said. "White Hat will continue its efforts while this matter is resolved."

A representative from the Ohio Council of Community Schools -- the sponsor of the Hope Academies and Life Skills Centers that are part of the lawsuit -- did not return calls for comment.

The largest for-profit charter school operator in Ohio, White Hat Management was founded by wealthy Akron industrialist David Brennan. He and his wife, Ann, have been major political contributors as the legislature has dealt with charter school issues in recent years. In 2007, for example, they gave a combined $733,300 to state candidates and Republican organizations, including $400,000 to the Ohio Republican Party, according to state records.

The schools' governing boards say they are in a pickle because the state law allows White Hat to remove and replace the boards if they seek to end contracts with the company and negotiate with other potential management companies.

And any board that does manage to successfully petition to get a contract with White Hat ended is stripped of the school facilities, furniture and equipment -- even though it may have been initially purchased with tax dollars. That's because, under the state law, White Hat owns those assets.

"That's the untenable situation -- tax dollars are being used to purchase assets for public schools that are in turn owned by private corporations," said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for the group of charter schools. "These boards are essentially being given the option of being fired or giving their schools away."

An Ohio charter school expert said the "accountability chain is totally upside down" in Ohio.

"The lines of authority have been blurred in Ohio," said Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio programs and policy for the non-profit Thomas B. Fordham Institute. "Therefore, we see this confusion which makes it prime territory for a lawsuit."

Ryan said the Ohio law is "the kind of law that was crafted by a management organization to protect their interests."

The provisions that govern charter schools were rewritten as part of House Bill 79, a controversial remaking of Ohio charter school law sponsored by former Cincinnati-area Rep. Tom Raga, a Republican lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006. The legislation languished in conference committee before being moved on a 4-2 party line vote by Republicans over Democratic objections.

It was signed into law by Republican Gov. Bob Taft on Dec. 29, 2006 -- a little more than one week before Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland took office.. . . .

White and Suburban, Good: Brown and Urban, Bad

The unalterable stupidity and overt racism that drives the reform schoolers' edu-policy, NCLB, is once more on display in Ohio, as state test scores again show that middle class white folks breed higher test scores than poor black folks. Imagine that. If this shiftless bunch of slackers could just get with that Booker T. Washinton/Barack Obama message of "No Excuses." Fat chance.

This summary is from Janice Resseger, ht to Monty Neill at ARN:

From: Janice Resseger

In the ninth of its "Ten Moral Concerns in the No Child Left Behind Act," the National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy declares:

"The No Child Left Behind Act exacerbates racial and economic segregation in metropolitan areas by rating homogeneous, wealthier school districts as excellent, while labeling urban districts with far more subgroups and more complex demands made by the law as "in need of improvement." Such labeling of schools and districts encourages families with means to move to wealthy, homogeneous school districts."

This morning, mid-week of the beginning of school in most local school districts, the Ohio Department of Education released its state school district report cards based on the annual standardized test scores mandated by NCLB. This morning the Plain Dealer reports grades assigned to school districts, grades ranging from "Excellent with Distinction" to "Excellent" to "Effective" to "Continuous Improvement" to "Academic Watch" to "Academic Emergency." Youngstown is the only district in the state with the dismal distinction of Academic Emergency. The newspaper uses letter grades --- A, B, C, D, F --- as shorthand.

The "Excellent with Distinction" districts are for the most part outer-suburbs. Many are actually so far out they are not in Cuyahoga County itself but in Lake, Geauga, Summit, Medina, and Lorain Counties. Some are in the horsey country on Cleveland's far-east side. The "Excellent with Distinction" districts are uniformly wealthy and uniformly white.

In "Academic Watch" are Cleveland and Lorain, as well as East Cleveland and Warrensville Heights, two inner suburbs that have resegregated. Superintendents from several districts try to explain away their scores as they are interviewed --- problems with the special education subgroup, for example.

Clearly NCLB has not helped schools in our area region break the nexus between low achievement and hyper-segregation by race and poverty. Nowhere, however, does the Plain Dealer name this disturbing trend. Rather, it treats the ratings as letter grades awarded for school district quality. The message is that you ought to move your family, if you can afford it, to one of the outer-ring, excellent districts because that is the only place where a good education can be had.

Interestingly, the data published on the Plain Dealer site also allows the reader to search for and read the report card for each charter school, although those ratings are not covered in any of the reporting by the newspaper. Here is a sampling:

Charters well known to be high-quality do receive good ratings: Citizen's Academy-Excellent, Intergenerational School-Excellent, and Constellation West Park-Effective.

Hope Academy Broadway Campus (a David Brennan school) is rated in Academic Emergency with 0 standards met. Life Skills Center Cleveland (another David Brennan school) is rated Continuous Improvement with 0 standards met (the nature of this school's improvement remains a mystery). The Elite Academy of the Arts is rated Academic Emergency with 0 standards met, and Apex Academy is on Academic Watch with 1 standard met.

Important questions the newspaper fails to explore include:

- What does it mean that the "excellent" and "effective" schools and districts are far out in the suburbs?

- Why fail to report (in the printed version of the newspaper) or explore the test scores posted by charter schools if the traditional public schools are to be so graded?

- Will there be any consequences for the charter schools that fail to meet even one standard?

I know this material is likely merely another version of what you are seeing in your own region, but I believe it is important for us to pay attention to what we see and understand locally. It is important that we insist on the naming of the truth.

Ms. Jan Resseger
Minister for Public Education and Witness
Justice and Witness Ministries
700 Prospect, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
216-736-3711
http://www.ucc.org/justice/public-education


"That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children.... is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination.... It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose... tied to one another by a common bond." -Senator Paul Wellstone, March 31, 2000

Ohio Republicans Rally to Protect Corrupt, Incompetent Charter Schools

Ohio Republicans are vigilant watchdogs of the public coffers until their right-wing benefactors' corrupt business opportunites are threatened by some real oversight by Governor Strickland. The White Hat charters in Ohio have been a scandal for years, yet Republicans in the Ohio Senate continue to stand in the way of bringing some oversight and accountability to David Brennan's gravy train. From the AP:

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - The fate of many of Ohio's charter schools rests in the hands of state lawmakers who will soon begin negotiating a compromise on the two-year state budget.

Gov. Ted Strickland and the Democrats who control the Ohio House want to cut funding for the state's roughly 320 charter schools by more than $200 million. They also want more accountability and oversight, and want to make it easier for the state to close schools that aren't performing well.

The Republicans who control the Ohio Senate, however, released a budget plan last week that restores funding for the schools, which receive taxpayer money but are free of many of the regulations attached to traditional public schools. Lawmakers from both chambers will meet over the next few weeks to work out a compromise to send to Strickland before July 1.
Charter schools are just another sticking point in a disagreement between the parties about whether to fundamentally change the way schools are funded.

The Democratic plan would tie funding for charter schools to their performance.

"My hope is in the Senate they'll continue down that path of finding (incentives for) good charters, rather than perpetuate the bad ones," state Rep. Stephen Dyer, an Akron-area Democrat, said earlier this month.

The Republican plan kept standards for charter schools where they are currently, instead of increasing them. The Senate also wants the state to treat public schools the same way it treats charter schools that aren't performing well - by closing them down if they are deemed to be in academic emergency for three consecutive years.

Dyer said taxpayers have contributed $3.4 billion to charter schools since 1998, but only 8 percent of them are rated "effective" or better on the state report card for school performance. . . .

White Hat's Charter Propaganda Outgunned

With Ohio's Strickland Administration ready to send out the posse on the White Hat Management's charter school profiteering outfit that drains the state of $70,000,000 every year, White Hat's CEO and chief tax dollar wrangler, David Brennan, set out to rustle up some research showing he has done good for Ohio. He turned to some sissy boys at the local "think" tank, the Buckeye Institute, where researchers and such, some of them with Masters degrees, "have made inroads in. . . demonstrating the benefits of market-based education reforms." Only trouble is, them thar books has been cooked, goldarn it.

From the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice:

Dropout Report Uses Inaccurate Data

Reviewer finds that Buckeye’s case for “dropout recovery” charter schools is made with inflated numbers

Contact: Teri Battaglieri (517) 203-2940; greatlakescenter@greatlakescenter.org
Sherman Dorn (813) 205-6143; sherman.dorn@gmail.com

EAST LANSING, Mi., (March 4, 2009)—A February report from the Buckeye Institute offers up “dropout recovery” charter schools as a solution for reducing Ohio’s dropout rate. But a new review of the report finds that it makes its case by relying on charter school graduation data that are inconsistent with state figures, “resulting in a dramatic overstatement of the graduation rates at the charters.”

The report, The High Cost of High School Dropouts in Ohio was written by Matthew Carr for the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. It was reviewed for the Think Twice project by Sherman Dorn of the University of South Florida, a national expert on dropout data and policies.

The Buckeye report points out that Ohio’s drop out rate is too high and that there are large social costs associated with low levels of high school graduation including lower tax revenues and higher costs for medical care and incarceration. It suggests that enrolling high-risk teenagers in last-chance charter schools can increase the graduation rate and recommends that the state expand investment in such charter schools to increase the graduation rate and save resources.

The report borrows its formula from six previous reports by the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation on graduation rates in various states. Dorn observes that the Buckeye report, like the Friedman reports it emulates, “uses the existing literature on dropping out and school competition in a superficial way”—comparing the relative earnings and social burdens of high school graduates and dropouts, while ignoring extensive debate over the real costs of dropping out.

The report also ignores “a large body of useful research” on charter schools, even as it posits “dropout recovery” charter schools as the best solution to the so-called dropout problem.

The most glaring problem identified by Dorn’s review is that Ohio state data contradict the report’s exaggerated claims about the number of students graduating from the charter schools that the Buckeye report holds up as the solution, most run by a controversial for-profit education management company called White Hat Management. For example, one school that Ohio reports had fewer than 10 graduates in 2004-05 is asserted in the report to have graduated 145; another with 42 is claimed to have graduated 338.

“Overall, for 18 schools for which Ohio reported a specific number of graduates, the report claimed 1,610 more graduates in 2004-05 than what the state reported,” Dorn writes. “This documented exaggeration represents approximately half of the total graduates that the report claims for the 23 schools.” The Buckeye report doesn’t explain the source of its graduation data or discuss the discrepancy between its counts and those reported by the state.

Dorn recommends that state policymakers interested in increasing graduation rates choose not to rely on the Buckeye report, but instead, “seek out the available well-researched scholarship on the topic.”

Find Sherman Dorn’s review and a link to the Buckeye report at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Thank You, Governor Strickland

For years David Brennan of White Hat Management, Inc. has run some of the most notorious for-profit charter "schools" in the country--and definitely the worst in Ohio. That is about to end:

. . . .Stanford noted that this budget does not seek a moratorium on charters, unlike two years ago when such an attempt failed to win support from legislators.

But it does once again go after the for-profit management companies that some charters hire. New contracts would be prohibited, and existing ones wouldn't be renewed.

The companies would include White Hat Management, which is headed by Akron businessman David Brennan, a long-time contributor to Republican candidates. White Hat runs Brennan's Life Skills centers, Hope academies and an online charter, the Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy.

The ban on for-profit management companies goes too far for Terry Ryan, who heads the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Ohio office. The related Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a nonprofit sponsor of charter schools.

"Quite frankly, some of the for-profits are good and some are bad," Ryan said. "But let's not throw out the baby with the bath water."

Strickland, however, is adamant. The day after his State of the State speech, he was asked about his stand during an appearance at Cleveland's Louisa May Alcott Elementary School.

"I do not believe injecting the profit motive into public education is a good thing," he said.

When the profit motive of the "non-profit" charter schools is understood by politicians who stupidly praise them, perhaps we will see a similar phenomenon. The tax-dodging non-profit corporations are definitely the more prominent threat to public education.

White Hat's Ohio Operations Rake In $84 Million Annually in "Non-Profit"

With so many of Brennan's chums in jail, indicted, or kicked out of office, one has to wonder how his mis-education enterprise for the poor survives. From the Beacon-Journal:

By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal Columbus bureau

Published on Friday, Mar 28, 2008

COLUMBUS: The Ohio Federation of Teachers has asked the Internal Revenue Service to examine the non-profit status of charter schools managed by White Hat Management, the company established by Akron entrepreneur David Brennan.

The union, which has a long history of challenging Brennan's company, is asking the IRS to determine whether the schools under White Hat's umbrella can properly register as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt firm.

Lisa Zellner, an OFT spokeswoman, said the union does not expect an immediate answer, but a ruling against the White Hat charter schools would force the company to pay taxes ''like the rest of us,'' and possibly jeopardize their standing, because state law requires all charter schools to be nonprofit.

Through Columbus-based public-relations firm Falhgren Mortine, White Hat issued a statement calling the OFT's accusations a publicity stunt that recycles points previously raised and addressed.

''The Internal Revenue Service is aware of the community school structure and White Hat Management's contract provisions making the management company responsible for all start-up and day-to-day operations of its contracted schools,'' the press release noted.

The public-relations firm also stated that White Hat is a target for groups like the OFT that are seeking to promote their own interests.

Brennan, a large contributor to Republican candidates, was instrumental in pushing then-Gov. George Voinovich and the Republican majorities in the Ohio House and Senate in the mid-90s to pass laws allowing charter schools to open in the state.

White Hat currently operates 38 Life Skills schools geared toward high-school dropouts in Ohio, Colorado, Michigan and Florida.

Initially, White Hat established Hope Academies for elementary students, but after opening 12 in Ohio, the company has been focused on Life Skills, which are considered to be more lucrative.

OFT points out to the IRS that at least 25 charter schools operating under White Hat have qualified for tax-exempt status with the Ohio auditors' office.

Zellner said a number of the schools have also applied for and received nonprofit status through the federal government.

Don Mooney, an attorney representing OFT, wrote the IRS that documents indicate that the for-profit White Hat company controls the non-profit charter schools that pass through 95 percent of all their tax dollars to Brennan's firm, which amounts to about $84 million annually. . . .