Charles Schwab -- A core member of the 'charter cabal'

Brokerage firm founder Charles Schwab rode the emerging wave of online investing to amass client assets of over $2 trillion, and a net worth of $6 billion. He's now become one of the biggest patrons of corporate-style school reform, investing millions in privately-run charters schools like KIPP, Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, and Michelle Rhee's operation, Stand for Children. Schwab also helps bankroll right-wing ed think tanks like the Fordham Institute.    

From Inside Philanthropy...

We're not sure why charters and finance billionaires go together like peas and carrots, but we'll save the theorizing for another article. What's notable about Schwab is that he's deeper into this area than many of the more glitzy hedge fund donors who get so much attention.

A $1 million gift to the Charter School Growth Fund in 2011 stands out, not only because of the size of the gift but also because of its destination. Founded in 2005, the Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF) is a bit like the mother ship of the charter school movement, working to grow and professionalize this alternative ed sector. A lot of the major players in the charter school funding world have given to CSGF, including Walton, Gates, Dell, Bradley, and Fisher. Schwab 's investment here is yet more evidence that it's a core member of the charter cabal. 

Charters in the 'Era of Accountability'

More than $900 million in state and local tax dollars, some of it approved by local voters, will be transferred this school year from local schools to nonprofit, publicly funded Ohio charter schools that did not exist 20 years ago. Who is watching how all of that money is spent? -- Columbus Dispatch

I'm just reading one of those tracts, attacking the idea of elected school boards, from a right-wing think tank, the Fordham Institute. The tract refers to this as "the era of accountability" and in this particular report uses the word accountability no less than 14 times or about twice per page. Another of Fordham's anti-school board screeds is actually called: Governance in the Accountability Era.

Coming from them, that phrase always makes me laugh. Why? Because the think tank also doubles up as as a school voucher proponent and one of the main sponsors of privately-run charter schools in the state of Ohio. And as I have pointed out before, here, here, and here, Ohio is the state with arguably the worst charters in the nation and the ones with the least public accountability. The Institute itself, has even referred to Ohio charters as "a laughing stock". And while Fordham talks a lot about Public accountability & private-school choice, they have also provided cover for some of the worst operators in the state, like White Hat's David Brennan. 

Part of the problem is that there's no school board oversight of privately run charters and the think-tankers want to keep it that way.

SEE HOW THEY RUN...Watch how operator Jim Sinclair of Lorain Preparatory Academy of Excellence, practically goes underground when a reporter tries to find out some basic information about his school. And...

That was not out of the ordinary in calls to nearly 300 Ohio charter schools — funded with state and local tax dollars and, by law, subject to the same transparency rules as traditional schools. The calls were made as part of a school-choice project by the Akron Beacon Journal and the News­Outlet, a consortium of journalism programs at Youngstown State University, the University of Akron and Cuyahoga Community College.  

Tea-Party Gov. John Kasich, speaking at the February meeting of the Ohio Newspaper Association, responded to a Beacon Journal editor’s question about inability to obtain basic information from charter schools.

“We’ll work with you any way we can. I’m not going to hide from you,” Kasich said. “In terms of this specific information, where you can’t get anything about these charters, we have to dig into that."

But why do we have to "dig", Governor? Isn't this the era of accountability?

Ohio charters leading in the race to the bottom with a little help from their friends

David Brennan, White Hat Charters

As I posted here three years ago, to get a charter in Ohio, all you need it seems, is lots of money for local Republican campaigns and a white hat.

When it comes to crappy, low-performing, and mismanaged charter schools, Ohio certainly leads the race to the bottom. Columbus alone, had 17 charter school failures in the past year. Nearly 30% of all Ohio charters have closed since 1997. The median life of an Ohio charter school is four years.
According to the Raw Story:

A handful of large corporate charter school operators appear to be responsible for wide swaths of the problem. For example, The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Boys and the Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Girls closed in October after inspectors at the schools discovered that students faced unsanitary conditions and poor management. Both schools were operated by the North Central Ohio Educational Service Center. 

 The North Central Ohio Educational Service Center also sponsored 21 other community schools in Ohio. In 2013, the firm attempted to open 16 community schools, including six schools that failed to open or closed within a few weeks of opening. 

Among the largest charter school authorizers in the state is the Fordham Foundation (connected to the Fordham Institute), currently headed by Michael Petrilli. They oversee 11 Ohio charters and have been among the loudest advocates for the expansion of privately-operated charters, vouchers, and so-called "choice".

Here's a list of the others.

Now that so many Ohio charters are closing, Fordham and several other operators have turned on each other, pointing their fingers and calling each other "weak authorizers." But it's hard for any of them to cast the first stone.

For example,  it was Petrilli's mentor at Fordham, Chester Finn who wrote a  letter to the Columbus Dispatch explaining why Ohio children should be grateful to Finn's pal and White Hat Management founder David Brennan for “rebutting those who would keep them trapped in crummy district school.”

Brennan and White Hat Management are known as being the most corrupt of the charter operators. He has been accused of bribing public officials and corrupt financial practices. In May 2010, the boards of ten White Hat-managed charter schools in Ohio filed suit against their parent company.

"Brennan was helped along by the intellectuals of the Buckeye Institute and Fordham Institute. They provided valuable cover for free-market "education" plans, and eventually these institutions proliferated in Ohio more than in any other state in the union." -- Progress Ohio 

According to former White Hat teacher Amy Rankin:

It's no secret that Brennan's schools are failing -- at rates far worse than the abysmal public schools they're meant to replace. White Hat's 20 Ohio Life Skills Centers, for example, are all on either academic watch or emergency. Not one meets the federal standard for yearly progress.

Sorry Chester, the state's children aren't grateful.

Ohio seems to be home to the most charter school scammers

Brennan

"The market works in supplying a quality product in the delivery of services because failure is not tolerated by the market. If you fail, you go out of business." -- David Brennan

To get a charter in Ohio, all you need it seems, is lots of money for local Republican campaigns and a white hat.

One of the nation’s largest charter-school operators, White Hat runs more than 30 charter schools across Ohio. The schools are funded by the state like traditional public schools but are privately operated. White Hat is run by David Brennan, the second-biggest Republican campaign donor over the past decade. He founded White Hat in 1998. His lobbyists wrote many of the proposals governing charter schools in the House’s proposed state budget this year, although most were removed by the Senate. No other state has for-profit charters like the ones authorized in Ohio. But Ohio's House Republicans acted as if they owed Brennan a return on his investment. The state of Ohio pays Brennan's White Hat Management Company $74 million a year.

In May,

Brennan's minions in the Republican-run Ohio House moved brazenly to reward their benefactor at the expense of Ohio's taxpayers. Ignoring a torrent of criticism, Thursday night the House passed a two-year budget bill that contained the unthinkable: It authorized creation of taxpayer-financed schools whose primary purpose is to turn a profit for their owners. And it reduced the oversight authority of the government entity that serves as sponsor of those schools. -- Cleveland.com

Now,

A Franklin County judge ordered major GOP donor and charter-school operator David L. Brennan to turn over a detailed accounting of how his for-profit management company spends the millions of tax dollars it receives each year. For years, the company has refused to open its books, claiming such information was secret. The decision is good news for the nine schools suing White Hat and others who for years have tried unsuccessfully to learn what portion of the tax dollars the company receives is spent on teacher salaries, school supplies and other expenses, and how much it pocketed. -- Columbus Dispatch

 A study released this year by a nonpartisan research organization at the University of Colorado-Boulder concluded that no large for-profit charter school management firm in the United States has a performance record worse than White Hat. Of the country's 51 White Hat-managed schools, one met a standard called "adequate yearly progress." That's a success rate of under 2 percent.

Brennan has been a  darling of the power philanthropists has been a featured speaker at the Philanthropy Roundtable.  Former Ohio Gov. Voinoivich had his son working at Brennan's law firm.

But even Checker Finn's  right-wing Fordham Institute, themselves a sponsor of several Ohio charter schools, admits that the state's support for for-profit charters like White Hat has turned it into a "laughing stock."

But according to Progress Ohio, 

 "Brennan was helped along by the intellectuals of the Buckeye Institute and Fordham Institute. They provided valuable cover for free-market "education" plans, and eventually these institutions proliferated in Ohio more than in any other state in the union."