Anita Hoge -- Abolishing Representative Government Through Education: Common Core, Choice, and Charter Schools, Part 3

ABOLISHING REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT THROUGH EDUCATION: COMON CORE, CHOICE & CHARTER SCHOOLS
PART 3 of 4

By Anita Hoge
January 13, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

Will The Real Agenda for Charter Schools Please Stand Up!

Charter schools are privately run, but they receive public money and, as already noted, an increasing number of these schools are being run on a for-profit basis. The federal government is subsidizing the CREDIT ENHANCEMENT FOR CHARTER SCHOOL FACILITIES PROGRAM, providing grants to eligible entities to permit them to enhance the credit of charter schools so that charter schools can access private-sector and other non-federal capital in order to acquire, construct, and renovate facilities at a reasonable cost. The tax code makes charter schools very lucrative.

Statistics have proven that where charter schools have proliferated it is more likely that the public schools have experienced financial stress due to the transfer of public assets and institutions into the hands of private corporations. The “New Markets Tax Credit” program that became law toward the end of the Clinton presidency allow firms to invest in charters and other projects located in “underserved” areas, and these schools can collect a generous tax credit up to 39% to offset their costs. Private investors are flocking to charter schools. There is a huge risk factor for any local school district in a state that has passed laws promoting “choice”—especially with an easy approval process for new charters with no caps on expansion. “Race to the Top” grants exacerbate this situation because states promised to drop their caps on charter schools when they took the money.

Charter public schools soak your local tax base, putting monies into a school run by for-profit investors. They have an ideal opportunity to collect a cut of your property taxes. A well-titled article in Forbes, “Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express To Fat City,” pointedly remarks: “About the only thing charters do well is limit the influence of teachers’ unions. And fatten their investors’ portfolios.” (Source) The article explains:

On Thursday, July 25, 2013, dozens of bankers, hedge fund types and private equity investors gathered in New York to hear about the latest and greatest opportunities to collect a cut of your property taxes. Of course, the promotional material for the Capital Roundtable’s conference on “private equity investing in for-profit education companies” didn’t put it in such crass terms, but that’s what’s going on….

Charter schools are frequently a way for politicians to reward their cronies. In Ohio, two firms operate 9% of the state’s charter schools and are collecting 38% of the state’s charter school funding increase this year….

In Florida, the for-profit school industry flooded legislative candidates with $1.8 million in donations last year. “Most of the money,” reports The Miami Herald, “went to Republicans, whose support of charter schools, vouchers, online education and private colleges has put public education dollars in private-sector pockets.”…

So attractive is the math, according to a 2010 article by Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News, “that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.”

In the Capital Roundtable Conference advertisement it states,

So 2013, and beyond, will see numerous for-profit companies making inroads into public and non-profit education by taking over large swaths of the market. Consider—

• The entire education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the U.S. GDP.
• Merger and acquisition activity in for-profit education last year surpassed activity at the peak of the Internet boom.
• More and more non-profit colleges are hitting the wall and seeking investors to help them transform into for-profit institutions." [See Title IV, Higher Education Reauthorization, ed.]

Governor Jeb Bush is in the forefront of this push for charter schools with his Foundation For Excellence in Education. But don't be mislead into thinking that charter schools are just a Republican thing. Big-city Democrats, like Philadelphia Democratic Mayor Nutter, currently the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, closed 23 public schools this past summer—replaced by charters. In 2009, charters were 15% of the District budget. In 2014, they will be 30% of the District budget. Chicago, of course, is another Democratic stronghold.

Minnesota’s leading newspaper, the Star Tribune, recounts the sordid history of its charter school movement:

Minnesota's charter school movement, which sparked a national rethinking of public schooling nearly two decades ago, has been infected by an out-of-control financing system fueled by junk bonds, insider fees and lax oversight. (Source)

Another article in the Star Tribune, "Charter school fails and bondholders get bailout," tells more of the story:

While junk-bond promoters claim taxpayers will never be forced to cover the costs of a failed charter school built with state lease-aid funds, that's exactly what happened in St. Paul.

The deal dates to 2000, when American Express purchased $8.3 million in bonds used to convert the old Science Museum of Minnesota into a charter school called the Minnesota Business Academy. The project also received $1 million in community development funds from the city of St. Paul….

In exchange for a hefty 8 percent interest rate, American Express accepted the risk of default and nonpayment.

In less than a year, the school was faltering. There were cost overruns and fundraising shortfalls, and the school was forced to borrow another $1.6 million.

To pay off its debts, the school needed 440 students, with each student representing more than $1,000 in annual lease-aid payments. But the plan backfired, and total enrollment crashed to 292 in 2004.

In 2005, city officials approved another bond offering that allowed the school to reorganize its finances. American Express got $6 million, while the city recovered a total of $451,352. The unsecured creditors were paid 10 cents on the dollar. "The corporate folks got their dough,'' said St. Paul City Council Member Lee Helgen, who voted against the bond issue."(Source)

Star Tribune reporter Tony Kennedy, published an article in 2011 titled “State charter schools program is 'out of control,' Junk bonds fuel a building spree, but schools are more crowded, insiders are taking fees, and state regulators can't do much about it." His article divulged the following alarming statistics:

In the past decade, 18 charter schools have been built with $178 million in junk bonds, with financing costs on some projects chewing up nearly a quarter of the funds raised. Twelve more charter schools have taken steps to buy or build facilities, and the state projects annual spending on lease aid to reach $54 million in 2013, up from just $1.1 million in 1998.

To lure the investors they need for new buildings, some educators are abandoning the intimate campuses their founders envisioned and are building large schools that look more like the conventional institutions that some families are fleeing. Some charter school advocates say the build-your-own trend could undermine an education movement built on small class size and parental involvement….

State lawmakers are frustrated by the building boom. Since 2000, at least 64 public school buildings in the metro area closed because of declining enrollment. Charter schools are responsible for recruiting away some of those students.

Follow the Money

The flight to charter schools leave districts vulnerable for closure. Moody's Investors Service issued a report on October 15, 2013 that “Charter Schools Pose Greatest Credit Challenge to School Districts in Economically Weak Urban Areas.”

Tiphany Lee-Allen, the Moody’s Associate Analyst who co-authored the report [said] "Districts may face institutional barriers to cutting staff levels, capital footprints and benefit costs over the short term given the intricacies of collective bargaining contracts - leaving them with underutilized buildings and ongoing growth in personnel costs."

Charter schools can pull students and revenues away from districts faster than the districts can reduce their costs, says Moody's. As some of these districts trim costs to balance out declining revenues, cuts in programs and services will further drive students to seek alternative institutions including charter schools.

"Many older, urban areas that have experienced population and tax base losses, creating stress for their local school districts, have also been areas where charter schools have proliferated," says Moody's. "Among the cities where over a fifth of the students are enrolled in charter schools are Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Nationwide about one in 20 students is in a charter school." (Source)

Consider the ramifications all of these statistics. Public schools will close, locally elected schools boards will be forced out of their positions. Representative government is diminished. Choice sets up this agenda and Charter schools are the end product. But meanwhile businesses are raking in the cash.

Bloomberg News reported that "Goldman to lend $25M for charter schools."

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable Wall Street firm, will lend $25 million to a nonprofit community-development organization to finance 16 charter schools in New York City and New Jersey.

The nonprofit group, Local Initiatives Support Corp., will make the money available to the school operators during the next two years, Goldman Sachs and LISC, both based in New York, said Tuesday in a statement. The chairman of LISC, according to the group's website, is Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury secretary. [under the Clinton Administration, ed.]

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Charter schools are nonsectarian, public institutions that operate independently of local boards of education in the U.S. under special charters. Goldman Sachs's Urban Investment Group has committed about $150 million for charter schools in New York and New Jersey, according to the statement.

The financing may allow the charter schools involved to obtain as much as $100 million in additional capital, credit-enhanced by funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Education. (Source)

That was three years ago. For part four click below.

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3, 4,

Source Material for this article included:

1- Mayor Action Guide,
2- National Governor's Association Push for Charter School Expansion,
3- Investing in Education,
4- Bridgeport, Conn Board files suit to keep elected positions, and this
5- Arne Duncan on " white suburban moms.
6- Michelle Rhee Controversy with test erasures,
7- DC Public Schools Flagged For Erasures,
8- Chicago Mayor Daley's Renaisance 2010,
9- Chicago spends $17 million On Safe Passage,
10- Chicago Safe Passage Routes-Unsafe,
11- Chicago School Closings,
12- New York Parents Lawsuit, and this, and this
13- The Village Voice, Eva Moskowitz, the Invasion of Charter Schools,
14- Credit Enhancement for Charter Facilities,
15- Charter School Gravy Train,
16- Capital Roundtable For Profit Education Conference-Private Equity Investing in For-Profit Education Companies ENCORE ROUNDTABLE, January, 2013, and July 25,2013,
17- Charter Schools Pose Greatest Credit Challenge,
18- Troubled US Local Gov't,
19- New York, Goldman Sachs Partners with LISC and Charter Schools:
20- “Goldman to lend $25M for charter schools,
21- Minnesota- State Charter Schools Out of Control:
22- Charter Schools Fail Bondholders Get Bailout.
23- Detroit named Ground Zero by Duncan:
24- Chicago Reform that Duncan Left Behind:
25- Chicago Charter Schools Equitable Funding:
26- Chicago and Philadelphia Closing Schools and Funding Charters:
27- Obama's Betrayal of Public Education.
28- The Inconvenient Truth About 'Waiting a for Superman'-rebuttal video against charters.
29- PARCC Grant Document-LESSONS LEARNED page 22.
30- Documents used in this article are used for research and educational purposes. Fair Use in Copyrighted Materials for Educational and Research Materials Section 107 of Title 17 of the US Code.

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Anita B. Hoge, lecturer, educational researcher, parent.

In 1990 a federal investigation was completed against the Pennsylvania Department of Education, after filing a federal complaint against the Educational Quality Assessment, EQA, & the US Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, under the Protection of Pupils Rights Amendment. Forced the Pennsylvania EQA to be withdrawn. Forced the US Department of Education to do their job to investigate the psychological testing of children without informed written parental consent. NAEP was never investigated because the Department said I didn't have standing, although documents had proven that NAEP did experimental research & used different states to pilot their agenda by embedding their test questions into the Pennsylvania EQA as well as other state tests.

Subject & main researcher for the book, Educating for the New World Order. My story is told about an incredible journey into the devious & deceptive operations of our government to change the values, attitudes & beliefs of American children to accept a new world order. The first to document the expansive data collection operation of our government establishing micro-records on individual people in the United States. Experimentation, illegal testing, & data collection is exposed.

Lectured all over the Unites States in the 90's about illegal & controversial testing, curriculum, & collection of data by our government. Arranged & lectured town hall meetings all across the state of Pennsylvania to withdraw affective student learning outcomes to stop Outcome Based Education. In January of 1992, parents in Pennsylvania won the battle against OBE when the Independent Regulatory Review Board had requested that the State Board of Education remove all outcomes which dealt with attitudes, habits, traits, feelings, values, & opinions which are difficult & subjective to measure & that the remaining outcomes be defined & coordinated with academic requirements that can be measured. The battle continues.

E-Mail: hogieshack@comcast.net

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The combination of all four points above puts this scenario together. It demonstrates that this is the plan for the destruction of our country. The following stories tell the tale.