No matter how many obstacles are removed from the charter school path, somehow failures abound.
Here we have an extremely well-connected, backed-by-a-venture-capital-fund (so you know the ultimate goal is making money off kids' education) deformer with a Gatesian pedigree and space in an existing real public school. He's also got 150 incoming students and a principal.
And yet the school won't be opening.
I wonder where the $1.5 mil that had been invested in Tom Vander Ark's charter schools went.
ReplyDeleteIn another charter crisis, an acclaimed chain of L.A. charters called ICEF -- beneficiary of lots of philanthropic funding -- suffered financial collapse a few months ago. The chain's larger-than-life head honcho, previously viewed as an admirable spokesperson for miracle charter success and hailed by the mainstream press, quit and dropped out of public view too.
Of course I'm sure that nothing suspicious happened with any of that money. Of course not.
I admit to curiosity about how much of the money spent on "consultants and lawyers" is still seeding his venture capital fund.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many nice things about public schools is that their budgeting is fairly transparent: complicated, but available.