Posted on 03/08/2005 3:20:18 PM PST by calcowgirl
SACRAMENTO – State education officials said Tuesday they will investigate the business practices of a Pasadena-based charter school that serves 20,000 students at dozens of centers throughout California.
Options for Youth is the state's largest independent study charter school organization. The 10 schools focus on at-risk students who are on the verge of dropping out of school, such as pregnant teens, low academic achievers or gang members kicked out of other schools.
A state panel that oversees independent study programs has already cut its funds by 30 percent for failing to spend enough on credentialed teachers and in November requested an audit to resolve questions about the schools relationship with several private companies owned by the schools' founders.
The audit will be conducted by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which helps troubled schools, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said. The team will be helped by education officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Bernardino, and Siskiyou counties, where the schools are located.
"After a thorough review of this organization ... we are concerned about its business practices, and we believe it is prudent to have the California Department of Education launch this investigation," said Mark Kushner, chairman of the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools.
School officials declined to comment Tuesday.
The audit's announcement came the same day that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed a charter school founder and advocate to head the Governor's Initiative to Turn Around Failing Schools – a privately funded drive to promote charter schools in communities where public schools have been lagging.
Margaret Fortune, was superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools, a Sacramento-based charter school that enrolled 2,000 students. Fortune said Tuesday that she'll focus on helping parents launch charter schools or call in state assistance for low-performing schools.
In 1992, California approved legislation allowing charter schools, which are public schools that are freed from many state regulations in the hopes that increased flexibility will result in greater academic achievement. California now has more than 500 charter schools with more than 180,000 students.
Former teachers John and Joan Hall founded the 10 charter schools – the six nonprofit Options for Youth schools and four operated by a for-profit organization called Opportunities for Learning. Last year, those schools received $43 million from the state.
The Halls have been fighting the state for three years over a funding formula that requires independent study programs to spend 50 percent of their money on credentialed teachers.
The Halls' schools barely met the 50 percent requirement last year, according to documents from the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools. In some cases, state records show, it appeared they only made that threshold because the schools' chief financial officer applied for an emergency teaching permit.
The Halls say they they've met the requirement and are entitled to the full amount – about $5,000 per student. Last week, they asked FCMAT to examine their books, hoping to resolve their differences with the state before next year's funds are determined.
State charter school officials also have concerns about the business structure of the schools, which contract for management services with companies also owned by the Halls, Kushner said.
Although charter schools are considered public schools, some use private management companies to consolidate administrative tasks or buy textbooks and supplies in bulk for several schools. But state officials worry that public money can't be tracked by regulators.
"It's unclear to us who was on the board at times and whether they did recuse themselves from votes," Kushner said.
The state laws were designed to combat profiteering, Kushner said. "It's hard to tell if there's excess profiteering when we can't see salaries of board members and employees of the charter school and the management company."
State officials say the structure resembles that used by the California Charter Academy, which also ran independent study programs throughout the state.
Last August, the California Charter Academy collapsed as state and local officials investigated its finances, particularly how the academy funneled state money into a series of private companies that shared the same management as the schools themselves.
Unlike the CCA schools, Kushner said, officials aren't worried about the quality of Options for Youth's academic program.
"It's not the issue here," Kushner said. "It's how they're spending the money."
Good grief .. we can't have these people really teaching these children and causing the children to be successful .. my my my.
This sounds like our public school system.
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