Step Right Up: Build or buy a charter school, get a Green Card…

Oct 12

jonpeltoAchievement First/ConnCAN, Charter Schools, Economic Development, Education Reform, Malloy, Stefan Pryor , , , 3 Comments

Stephanie Simon, of Reuters News, has written extensively about the “education reform” movement, including articles about Connecticut’s new “reform” law.

Today, the news is that wealthy individuals from China and other countries are, “spending tens of millions of dollars to build classrooms, libraries, basketball courts and science labs for American charter schools.”

Simon provides a number of examples, including a new charter school in Buffalo, New York, a sixth campus for an Arizona charter school chain and a foreign investment program in Florida charter schools that is attracting up to $90 million dollars a year.

For half a million dollars, foreign investors can buy themselves and their families a set of “EB-5” visas.

The federal “economic development” program provides permanent visas to foreign investors who are willing to invest in a company that “creates or preserves at least 10 jobs in two years.”

Between January and September of 2012, the Department of Homeland Security reports that the number of people applying for EB-5 visas was about 3,000, “nearly twice as many as were approved all last year.”

There is even a new investment niche to link foreign investors with charter schools.  A company called the Education Fund of America has already put together investment packages for 11 charter schools in North Carolina, Utah and Arizona.  The head of the fund says he has, “four more deals in the works.”

An Arizona charter school company, that already runs three charter schools, told Reuters that they “couldn’t believe how easy it was to secure $4.5 million in funding from abroad.”

Simon explains that, “Well-established and successful chains of charter schools, such as KIPP, Green Dot or Achievement First, receive hefty support from philanthropic foundations and private donors. The chains can also tap into financing provided by an array of for-profit and non-profit investment funds created for that purpose.”

Achievement First, Inc., of course, is the charter school management company that was co-founded by Connecticut’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.  After serving as a Director for Achievement First, Inc., for eight years, Pryor resigned to accept to position of Education Commissioner in Governor Malloy’s administration.

With 20 charter schools already in place in Connecticut and New York, the Connecticut Board of Education has now granted Achievement First permission to expand their schools in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport.

The story does not indicate whether foreign investment dollars have made their way into Connecticut, but ironically, as Reuters reports, “Fitch Ratings warned it was likely to downgrade bonds backed by charter schools because the sector is volatile and the schools are highly leveraged. Such risks mean charter-school debt is typically considered speculative, rather than investment grade…”

Simon’s national story can be found via the Hartford Courant website at:  http://www.courant.com/news/nation-world/sns-rt-us-usa-education-charter-visasbre89b07k-20121011,0,3974014,full.story

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  • Linda174

    If a charter receives private donations and support from wealthy philanthropimps, their government tax money should be reduced and sent to the neighboring public schools. When students exit or it is determined they are “not a good fit”, the money should follow the students back to their schools. Why do they keep the per pupil expenditure if they no longer have the pupil?

    Giving out these green cards willy nilly seems like a national security issue…I wonder if Joel Klein and Condoleeza are concerned or does that not fit their teacher bashing agenda?

  • anniemil

    Wonder if this was part of Dannel’s agenda during his recent trip to China? More $ for his CT charter initiative?

  • THE TRUTH

    Not a fan of charter schools! So what are the solutions? I know there are problems, but can this blog talk about solutions instead of bogus comments by angry educators/people. Were children receiving a great education prior to our so called reform? Should we stop the reform and go back to a system that was not working? What is the answer? I see a lot of problems but no one is offering solutions. And I don’t want to go back to schools being utter failures like they were. Isn’t this the reason we have reform? Dropout rates, kids not reading, kids failing. And no I am not a fan of charter schools. But something needs to change. Here are my solutions. Instead of attacking I choose to find solutions
    1) Create a regionalize system where suburban students go to school with poor students. Maybe some people don’t want their kids going to school with poor kids of color.
    2) Magnet schools are grossly overfunded and have created a Jim Crow mentality where the train tracks divide the economically advantaged and the poor. Why not address this?
    3) Help schools by volunteering to teach our students to read. Lets create a system where kids are taught to teach by individuals that talk crap about reform and have never set foot in an inner city school.
    4) Walk the neighborhood of a poor community school deemed as a failure. You might learn something and if you really want to help try spending time with kids that need role models and volunteer at the school. Wait, will unions fight about this? Maybe!
    5) Demand that schools that have high special education kids (magnet schools won’t accept these students) and high ELL students receive more funding than grossly overfunded magnet schools. Instead of fighting about testing, lets fight about why magnet schools don’t have Special Education kids and how they don’t educate all kids?
    6) Know that reforms are created because our poor communities were not being educated and we cannot afford to have teachers and administrators make money off of the very kids they fail to educate.
    7) Charter School, as awful as they are, were created to address all the issues that have not been solved. Lets not allow them to function! Can we create great public schools?
    8) Admit that some people do not belong in education (including school reformers and people bashing school reform)
    9) Lets focus on kids first!
    10) Send your child to a so called failing school so you can change the very problem you are fighting for. Then other parents will have respect for people that advocate for the poor. Parents are confused that the very people fighting for reform or no reform are people that have a vested financial interest in their school.