Arizona became an early adopter in the privatization/”education reform” movement almost a quarter century ago when it opened its first charter schools.
From the beginning, the Republicans pushing charter schools had two overlapping goals: open as many charters as possible, and regulate them as little as possible. They’re fine using taxpayer money to fund the schools, but their mantra has always been, “Keep your government hands off my charters!” They’ve kept rules and regulations as few and as toothless as possible.
As a result Arizona has the highest number of charter schools per capita in the country, though other states are catching up. We also have some of the worst examples of unchecked profiteering and what can only be described as legal corruption in the charter school sector you’re going to find anywhere.
I’ll get to the most recent example of profiteering and corruption involving State Representative Eddie Farnsworth (R, LD-12) in a minute, but first let me make one thing absolutely clear. Republicans have had plenty of opportunities to increase transparency and tighten financial rules on charter schools. The media has written articles about problems for years. Democratic legislators have proposed legislation to put a check on some of charter school operators’ worst practices. Republicans have purposely ignored the media warnings and shot down Democratic legislation at every turn. If they retain their control over the legislature and the governor’s office, nothing is going to change. You can bet money on it. However, if Democrats increase their power November 6, there’s a good chance we’ll see increased transparency and tighter regulation, which will, ironically, improve the quality of the charter schools Republicans hold so dear.
Now, to Rep. Farnsworth, who has figured out a way to turn charter schools into a multimillion dollar goldmine.
Farnsworth is the sole owner of Benjamin Franklin Charter Schools. “Owner” is the proper term, since they are for-profit charters, meaning Farnsworth owns them lock, stock and school buildings on the chain’s four campuses.
Farnsworth is in the process of transferring the schools to a non-profit company. That means he plans to sell his buildings to the people who are taking over the schools. It’s still unclear how much he’ll make on the transaction, but it could be as much as $30 million.
Before making the transfer, Farnsworth had to get approval from the state Charter School Board. It wasn’t a problem. They voted 10-0 in his favor. But don’t blame them for the decision. What Farnsworth is doing is perfectly legal.
Let’s break this down. The Ben Franklin Charter Schools get money from the state just like non-profit charters, a set amount per student. That means Farnsworth built the school buildings using government funds. Now, a newly formed non-profit is about to use government funds to buy the same buildings from Farnsworth. That means the state will pay for the school buildings a second time.
Wait. It gets sleazier. The newly created non-profit taking over Farnsworth’s schools is run by three friends he recruited to sit on the Benjamin Franklin Charter School board. They plan to turn the management of the schools over to a separate company, which will most likely be run by Farnsworth. We don’t know what they’ll pay him for his services.
All this is perfectly legal. And the Farnsworth saga isn’t an isolated incident. It’s just one of a number of stories about charter school profiteering broken by Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic. If you want to read more, the Republic has provided a page containing links to all of the stories.
Charter profiteering has been big news lately, though it hasn’t gotten the attention in southern Arizona it deserves. The problems may be concentrated in the Phoenix area, but it’s a statewide concern. In a campaign season where education is the number one issue, charter school regulation should be a factor in the elections. Candidates should be ready to say what they plan to do to improve charter school transparency and accountability if they’re elected, or if they’re incumbents, what they have done during their tenure.
A “Who’s-That-Little-Guy-In-The-Corner?” Note: My last post had a bunch of angry emoticons floating around the top of the page. It was my response to Republicans’ repeated attempts to tell educators to calm down, there’s no reason to get so riled up about all this school funding nonsense. Sorry, I don’t plan to calm down. I chose the little guy pointing at his watch and saying, “Times Up!” out of the group as my personal avatar. You may see him hovering in the graphics at the top of my posts from time to time.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2018.
“Candidates should be ready to say what they plan to do to improve charter school transparency and accountability if they’re elected, or if they’re incumbents, what they have done during their tenure.”
I like it. Just add “and TUSD” after “charter school” and it would be a constructive recommendation. Also add “quality of education delivered” after “transparency and accountability.” Too often “accountability” doesn’t seem to have anything to do with use of sound educational methods.
Thanks for providing this information.
If he was able to build new buildings on the paltry amount the state pays per student, while providing a good education to students, more power to him. Remember, charters can’t do bonds or overrides for capital improvements. They do receive a small additional amount (I’m remembering roughly 10%) per student. It’s a bit complicated once you throw in federal funds.
However, I still wonder if that’s actually the case. He could’ve financed the buildings and paid some equity, enough to receive a $30 million payout. In any case, you are correct the system is ripe for corruption given the linkage of taxpayer funds and politicians and should receive stronger oversight. The profit element needs to be removed or strongly regulated.
On the other side of the coin, district schools are awful. If my kids were forced to go to the TUSD district high school, I’d move. There’s little or no oversight or discipline.
I like entrepreneurship as much as the next guy, but $20M while the teachers of our kids need to take a second job seems off somehow.
Student success is difficult to hide. No reason for transparency when competition winners make the newspaper. TUSD once did a good job of teaching Mathematics, but for at least the last two years not a single TUSD Middle School produced any top Math students. They all came from charter, parochial or private schools or southern Arizona schools in other districts: https://tucson.com/news/local/education-no… The cost for educating these students is often much lower than the public school average.
Nationwide academic competition winners are sometimes home-schooled students whose parents are very eager to show transparency. For zero taxpayer dollars & family incomes often lower than local teachers’ salaries home-schoolers are getting the best educations & are being eagerly sought by elite colleges. Something is wrong with the “more money” argument when the best educated students – not just in Arizona, but across the country – have the least expensive educations.
Honestly, we NEED someone who can hold all sectors accountable. Not Republicans intertwined with this crap and Democrats endorsed by Foster, Juarez, and Dong (and having to give campaign donations from Flakey Foster (TUSD Board Member) back when outed).
https://www..com/news/david-garcia-return-campaign-donations-lobbyists-promise-10713626
Is there anyone in this Godforsaken state who understands what CONFLICT OF INTEREST means?
Evidently not.
As long as charter school administrative costs (i.e., salaries) and profits out the door are allowed and/or encouraged to NEVER be reported on a public spreadsheet, I will continue to regard them as dishonest, unethical operations mugging all Arizona taxpayers for money that we pay out and that NEVER sees the light of lawful overview.
The states failure to provide appropriate legislative structure for the charter sector does not make every charter operator unethical and dishonest. Some charters are non-profit and are allocating funds appropriately and providing good education. When it comes to public district schools, the existence of disaster-districts like TUSD does not make all public district schools and systems bad. On both sides of the controversy, its important to direct the criticism to the target where it belongs and not to make category-villefying mistakes that lump good actors in with bad. But partisans on both sides want the public to do exactly that: overgeneralize in a way that serves their networks and self-interested policy agendas.
You sound like a charter school administrator/owner.
The solution is easy: just report all salaries, profits, real estate deals, capital improvements, operating costs just like public schools must do every year. Charters receive $6,748 per student (more than public schools get) plus facilities’ support. We taxpayers are required to pay taxes, so all who receive taxpayer money should be required to report completely and honestly. Currently they do not, and therefore all of the good are mixed with any of the bad no matter how effective or ineffective, sincere or duplicitous an owner/operator may be. All who take tax money to spend it however they want while refusing to open the books are suspect to taxpayers like me. This is not politicizing; it is common sense procedural accountability and fiscal fairness.
Open the books, or get your funding elsewhere.
Yeah, somehow the sorts of things that go on in Sunnyside and TUSD while the books ARE open does tend to undermine the idea that legally requiring transparency is the be-all, end-all of accountability. It is a good first step, but then somebody needs to go to the board meetings and pick through the budgets and watch for the items buried in misleading language at the very end of the agenda, which will probably take place at 10:47 pm when most of the people who tried to attend the meeting or watch online have long since given up. Somebody needs to submit the public records requests and speak in calls to the audience and find a way of alerting generally apathetic constituents to what is going on that needs advocacy. Charters exist because so little of this has happened for so many years in some of our public districts that at this point cleaning up the ingrained dysfunctionality is nearly impossible, in spite of the fact that transparency is a legal requirement in these contexts.
Theres the law, and then theres ENFORCEMENT. When no one bothers to enforce the law (the state) or ask that it be enforced (constituents), it doesnt do you much good.
So sure, lets change the legal requirements for charters. Unless citizen advocates are subsequently more vigilant than they have been with public districts, it will do little good. (And ironically, some of the so-called citizen advocates who complain most loudly about charters are at the same time negligent in using transparency requirements to play a watchdog role over budgets in public districts. Funny that. Makes it a little hard to believe that its the PUBLIC best interest that is actually motivating their commentary, doesnt it?)
What? Cynical, patronizing, advocating ethical paralysis.
AZ Daily Star 09/19/18:
“In response to a question Tuesday, Ducey said he was aware of multiple reports on how the owners of for-profit charter schools have managed to enrich themselves with the money they get from state taxpayers. These include the owner of an online charter school with a high dropout rate getting an $8.8 million shareholder distribution, and a state lawmaker who runs a charter operation selling off the buildings that were constructed with the cash he got for educating students.”
Let’s tighten it up, Gov. Ducey. — Prosecute
Great! I like your spirit. By all means prosecute that and then take on this challenge: round up a few more crusading constant voters like yourself and bring them to the next TUSD board meeting, and the next, and the next, and the next, and so on. It would be fascinating to see how long that would last. In the unlikely event that not only the zeal for prosecuting charters but the stamina for the tedious work of overseeing public districts is firmly in place among your crowd, put it in play. TUSD could use a few more board watchers with a burning passion for JUSTICE and REFORM.