Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools in DC and especially DCPS have for-profit organizations that they work with, as contractors, vendors, et cetera.

Mundo Verde doesn't seem to have many. They try to do as much in house as possible.

Well of course no one is scamming money from Mundo Verde -- that's Walton money! The Waltons aren't going to let some Kent Amos walk off with their cash.

LOL

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools in DC and especially DCPS have for-profit organizations that they work with, as contractors, vendors, et cetera.

Mundo Verde doesn't seem to have many. They try to do as much in house as possible.

Well of course no one is scamming money from Mundo Verde -- that's Walton money! The Waltons aren't going to let some Kent Amos walk off with their cash.

In DC, DCPS schools are allocated significantly more funding and resources per student than charters are. If charters are able to not only provide a comparable education but also profit from this arrangement, it sure makes one wonder about where all the money is going in DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:Most schools in DC and especially DCPS have for-profit organizations that they work with, as contractors, vendors, et cetera.

Mundo Verde doesn't seem to have many. They try to do as much in house as possible.

Shady people can make money off anything... but in the charter sector, the contracts for management and consulting are the two things you have to watch. This is a north carolina case but I suspect there may be more cases of this:801
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Charter School Power Broker Turns Public Education Into Private Profits

Baker Mitchell is a politically connected North Carolina businessman who celebrates the power of the free market. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls http://www.propublica.org/article/charter-school-power-broker-turns-public-education-into-private-profits

Most schools in DC and especially DCPS have for-profit organizations that they work with, as contractors, vendors, et cetera.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is one of the very gray areas of charter schools, with the relationship between non-profits school and for profit management companies. In theory, a non-profit charter school could have an operating budgeting with a line item for "educational services" for example which is a contract with a for profit company. The lines are not always clear. I think one of the concerns is enrichment at the taxpayers expenses and inflated salaries. Here's a good article you might find interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/charter-school-executive-profit_b_5093883.html

So does this mean a charter board might not have any control or actual oversight over those "education services line items"?

Between this an the "required vendors list" prescribed by by someone (the charter board), it seems like board actually have very little input into some of the grayer issues.

Possibly to your question. Weak oversight (i.e. Charter School Board) creates atmosphere to take advantage of the situation, which is what Kent Amos did. A board might have little input, but a person considering serving on a board has a fiduciary responsibility so should be in a position to ask questions. The former chair at Options could have protected herself by fulfilling her responsibility to ask questions, assuming she is innocent of the charges.

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is one of the very gray areas of charter schools, with the relationship between non-profits school and for profit management companies. In theory, a non-profit charter school could have an operating budgeting with a line item for "educational services" for example which is a contract with a for profit company. The lines are not always clear. I think one of the concerns is enrichment at the taxpayers expenses and inflated salaries. Here's a good article you might find interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/charter-school-executive-profit_b_5093883.html

So does this mean a charter board might not have any control or actual oversight over those "education services line items"?

Between this an the "required vendors list" prescribed by by someone (the charter board), it seems like board actually have very little input into some of the grayer issues.

OP, this is one of the very gray areas of charter schools, with the relationship between non-profits school and for profit management companies. In theory, a non-profit charter school could have an operating budgeting with a line item for "educational services" for example which is a contract with a for profit company. The lines are not always clear. I think one of the concerns is enrichment at the taxpayers expenses and inflated salaries. Here's a good article you might find interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/charter-school-executive-profit_b_5093883.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mayor-elect Bowser said she is completely opposed to these during the campaign, but does DC actually have any purely for-profit charters?

I think they're all technically non-profits. It's just that some of them deal profits to themselves (via for-profit management companies).

Was discussed on another thread, but IRS 990s can give you some good information. As an example, here is CAPCS' 990 for 2013:

http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/522/522112449/522112449_201306_990.pdf?_ga=1.11945652.1646165747.1419282917

Page 6 has a question about delegating control and management activities to a management company. The whole thing has a lot of information, but of course all the info about the management company isn't there.

Anonymous wrote:10:32. Exactly what I was trying to get at (10:30 here). A lot of people get up in arms when they hear about people making money who work for non-profit corporations, as if "non-profit" means that no one should get paid.

10:32 here. I think the direct salaries tend to be less of a problem because they have to be reported. Sunlight on that means that people won't be too nefarious. It can be a problem when the school takes a large chunk of money and gives it to a "management company" to do (sometimes the same) work with large profit margins that don't pass the sniff test.

10:32. Exactly what I was trying to get at (10:30 here). A lot of people get up in arms when they hear about people making money who work for non-profit corporations, as if "non-profit" means that no one should get paid.

Anonymous wrote:Mayor-elect Bowser said she is completely opposed to these during the campaign, but does DC actually have any purely for-profit charters?

I think they're all technically non-profits. It's just that some of them deal profits to themselves (via for-profit management companies).

What does "for-profit" mean to you, OP? Are you talking about a tax designation or the ability of individuals to make a lot of money doing work at a particular school?

Mayor-elect Bowser said she is completely opposed to these during the campaign, but does DC actually have any purely for-profit charters?