New York Charter Schools - Virtually No Oversight Or Supervision By The State Either Before Or After The Approval Process

Peter Goodman at Ed in the Apple, writing about the "Dr" Ted Morris and Steve Perry charter school approvals by NYSED and the New York State Board of Regents, notes this:

The State Education Department (SED) website has impressive requirements for applying for a charter as well as monitoring the entire process.

The application is detailed and the State Department of Education (SED) in their guidance document sets a high standard.

The Board of Regents will only approve applications that clearly demonstrate a strong capacity for establishing and operating a high quality charter school. This standard requires a strong educational program, organizational plan, and financial plan, as well as clear evidence of the capacity of the founding group to implement the proposal and operate the school effectively.

Once approved the SED retains the right to monitor the performance of charter school,

… the New York State Education Department, is authorized to oversee and monitor each charter school authorized by the Regents in all respects, including the right to visit, examine and inspect the charter school and its records.

Additionally the SED requires specific actions in an opening procedures document, a monitoring plan, a performance framework and a closing procedures checklist
 
Unfortunately the SED will tell you there is no way they can monitor charter schools in the detail that the regulations allow; they simply do not have the staff. Once a charter school opens there is virtually no supervision for the initial five years.

What is disturbing is that the SED does not adequately vet the applicants, the members of the charter board.

The Regents and NYSED have given charter schools to a con man ("Dr" Ted) with a trustee board with no experience running a school and a guy (Steve Perry) who has threatened physical violence on his detractors.

Clearly there isn't much to the vetting process for charter school approval in New York State.

That SED freely admits they don't have the staff to monitor charter schools once they're opened makes the poor vetting before approval even worse.

There's a reason charter school operators don't want to be subject to auditing by either the state or the city comptroller but would rather be subject to NYSED/Regents accountability.

That's because they know there is no one at NYSED or the Regents who is going to hold them accountable.

After the "Dr" Ted fiasco, the director of the NYSED charter office went into hiding, refusing to publicly comment on the mess.

When the guy at the State Education Department who's supposed to hold charters accountable refuses to be held accountable himself, we've got major problems.

The only solution here is to ensure that a thorough auditing and monitoring of all charters, both single schools and chains, be conducted by the comptrollers at the state and city levels.

We know from a recent analysis of audits conducted by the state comptroller's office or NYSED of charter schools since 2002 that violations and/or financial mismanagement are found 95% of the time.

No wonder the charter operators don't want to be subject to auditing - it's the Wild, Wild West in the charter sector and audits have a way of taming it all.

Eva Moskowitz successfully sued last year to make sure that couldn't happen.

Since then, Governor Cuomo gave charters in NYC free rent courtesy of the NYCDOE but subject them to auditing by the comptrollers.

It is essential that these audits must be conducted.

It's clear that the Board of Regents and NYSED are neither prepared to hold charter schools and their operators accountable before or after the approval process.

Court Rules Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

And so Eva Moskowitz wins again:

New York charter schools won a big victory Thursday when a judge ruled the state’s top fiscal officer can’t follow the money and look at their books.

Charter school crusader Eva Moskowitz filed suit to bar state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli from auditing her 22 schools, all of which are publicly funded but also receive private donations. On Thursday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Breslin ruled DiNapoli did not have the authority to audit any New York charter because the schools are not technically “units of the state.”

“We are disappointed that the court struck down the law authorizing the Comptroller’s office to audit charter schools,” said DiNapoli spokesman Matt Sweeney. He added an appeal is under consideration.

Other cities, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, have rules allowing charters to be audited. In New York, the schools are required to hire independent auditors.

So Eva gets to hire her own "independent auditor" to scrutinize her books and financial numbers.

Yeah, I'm sure that scrutiny will be tip-top.

That's like Wall Street banks hiring their own ratings agencies to rate their financial products.

Remember how well that went?

In the end, I wonder if this court decision helps or hurts Eva and the other charters.

If Cuomo is going to shove through rules that enshrine co-location and additional charter funding because he says charter schools are public schools with a right to those things but now a court says they're not public schools and the state has no right of scrutiny over their financial books, doesn't that kind of undercut Cuomo's (and the charter operators) meme?

Or do charters get to have it both ways - they're public schools when they want the goodies like money and co-location rules, but they're private entities when the sticks come, like the audits and the teacher evaluation rules and the like?

Liu To Audit ARIS and Izone Programs

Now we're getting somewhere:

The city controller has launched audits of two of the Education Department's signature - and most controversial - hi-tech programs.

Controller John Liu's office is taking a look at the $80 million IBM data system known as ARIS, which was supposed to provide student-specific data to schools and parents. After several missed deadlines, the program has been criticized for being difficult to navigate.

Liu also is delving into the lesser known iZone projects, a central priority of former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

They help schools carry out hi-tech approaches to education, such as interactive online learning.

There are 12 Education Department audits in progress at Liu's office.

Keep the DOE audits coming.

The testing contracts with McGraw-Hill should be next.

Now wonder Bloomberg gets all tight in the face when anyone mentions the city comptroller's office.

Liu seems to be the only one in city government actually trying to hold Bloomberg accountable.

12 DOE audits - that's holding this mayor accountable.

John Liu To Audit NYCDOE School Progress Reports

He's announced the audit even before the progress reports have been completed:

Mr. Liu, who took office in January, announced on Tuesday that he would audit the Department of Education’s controversial annual progress reports. That’s would, as in he has not done it yet.

The reports assess each school’s performance, and help the department decide everything from school closings to budgetary choices. But critics — including Mr. Liu, when he was a councilman — have questioned the accuracy and scope of the reports. So Mr. Liu said that his audit would investigate, among other areas, the “data collection, compilation and reporting processes,” “whether progress report data is comparable from year to year” and “whether overall measures of school progress are reported fairly.”

Mr. Liu mentioned the audit on Tuesday during a City Council education hearing. And in a statement, he said: “In an era where data has become the driving justification in such decisions, the real stakeholders — parents, teachers, students, community at-large — must be assured and confident about the accuracy of these high-stakes progress reports.”

A group that represents school parents praised Mr. Liu’s approach.

“The parents of the New York City Coalition for Educational Justice spoke and someone listened and took action,” said Carol Boyd, a parent leader of the group. “Comptroller Liu is to be applauded for recognizing the urgency and immediacy of our call to action that there be an independent review of the D.O.E.’s criteria for closing district public schools.”

Good - Liu is serving warning to Bloomberg and Klein that their dictatorial rule will have push back from somebody with some actual power to stop them.

Liu has already been a thorn in Bloomberg's side over the no-bid contract for CityTime, "the long-delayed and overbudget CityTime payroll system."

That system was originally supposed to cost $68 million but has now cost $722 million.

And it doesn't work.

Bloomberg, who in the past has defended the contract, was forced to admit that CityTime has "been a disaster."

Keep the audits up, Mr. Liu.

CityTime isn't the only "disaster" Bloomberg has presided over.