Ravitch: Expose of Charter School Corruption in Arizona

From Diane Ravitch's blog, November 20, 2012, "Expose of Charter Corruption in The New Republic":

Timothy Noah, a senior editor of The New Republic, has written a stunning expose of charter school corruption. He begins with Arizona, where the laws are so lax that self-dealing by charter executives is the rule, not the exception. Noah points out that 90 percent of charter operators are exempt from state laws requiring competitive bidding. The state has never withdrawn an exemption.

Noah bases his observations about Arizona’s Wild West of charters on investigative reporting by Anne Ryman of the Arizona Republic.

He quotes from Ryman’s article:

“The schools’ purchases from their own officials,” Ryman writes, “range from curriculum and business consulting to land leases and transportation services. A handful of non-profit schools outsource most of their operations to a board member’s for-profit company.” A nonprofit called Great Hearts Academies runs 15 Arizona charter schools. Since 2009, according to Ryman, the schools have purchased $987,995 in books from Educational Sales Co., whose chairman, Daniel Sauer, is a Great Hearts officer. And that doesn’t count additional book purchases made directly by parents. Six of the Great Hearts schools have links on their Web sites for parents who wish to make such purchases. The links are, of course, to Educational Sales Co. Since 2007 Sauer has donated $50,400 to Great Hearts. You can call that philanthropy, or you can call that an investment on which Sauer’s company received a return of more than 1800 percent. I’m not sure even Russian oligarchs typically get that much on the back end.

Oh, yes, Great Hearts Academy. This is the same Arizona-based outfit that has been turned down four times by the Metro Nashville school board because it did not have a diversity plan. Because of its rejection of Great Hearts, the Nashville schools were fined $3.4 million by Tennessee’s TFA state commissioner of education Kevin Huffman. Huffman and the governor really, really want Great Hearts in Nashville and apparently they “won’t back down” until Great Hearts has at least three or four campuses in Nashville, regardless of what the school board says. The governor and legislature are set to pass an ALEC-model law to create a commission to overrule local school boards that have the nerve to turn down a charter school.

By the way, Great Hearts Academy just got permission to open charters in San Antonio.

Noah notes corruption in Ohio and California charters, including the Adelanto Charter School, which was shut down. It will now be replaced the the nation’s very first parent trigger charter, also in Adelanto, California, which was selected by only 50 parents in a school that enrolls more than 600 children.

Keep writing, Timothy Noah.

Jury Selection in 2009 Bloomberg Campaign Aide's Trial Begins Monday

From Queens Campaigner, September 15, 2011, "Jury selection set to start Monday in theft case against Haggerty" -[on Bloomberg election aide]
Scroll below for NYT on JUDGE DECISION AGAINST MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, HAGGERTY ROLE RELATIONSHIP TO 2009 BLOOMBERG RE-ELECTION
Queens Campaigner 9/15 article, by Joseph Gargiulo:

Jury selection was expected to begin Monday in the trial of Forest Hills Republican political operative and Bloomberg campaign volunteer John Haggerty, who is accused of stealing $1.1 million of the mayor’s money for a phony poll watching operation.
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg was running for a third term in 2009, he donated $1.1 million to the state Independence Party that was then funneled to Haggerty, which prosecutors say was supposed to be earmarked for poll watching on Election Day.
But prosecutors claim Haggerty, a Forest Hills resident and a widely known Republican operative, did not use the funds for those purposes and instead used the money to buy out his brother’s share of their father’s Forest Hills Gardens home.
Haggerty is facing larceny charges and jury selection was scheduled for Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Haggerty’s lawyers contend he did not do anything illegal in how he used the funds from Bloomberg.
Haggerty and his brother, Bart, are in a longstanding feud with Queens Republican Party Chairman Phil Ragusa and have tried to wrest control of the county party from Ragusa and his allies.

And now for the John Eligon, New York Times report, Monday, January 12, 2011 on judge's decision against New York City Mayor Bloomberg, and the background on this political corruption trial.

With Ruling, Mayor’s Spending May Enter Trial of Former Aide
A Manhattan judge on Monday refused to bar defense lawyers from exploring Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign spending habits in the trial of one of his former political consultants.
Justice Ronald A. Zweibel of State Supreme Court did, however, say he would decide the relevance of particular evidence as the trial of the consultant, John F. Haggerty Jr., proceeded.

The ruling sets the stage for what could be interesting and revealing political theater, as Mr. Haggerty’s lawyers have hinted at plans to expose what they say were efforts by Mr. Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election campaign to keep certain information secret. Jury selection is now scheduled to begin next week.

Prosecutors have accused Mr. Haggerty of stealing more than $1 million from Mr. Bloomberg by promising to provide ballot security for that price, even though he had no intention of doing so. Based on Mr. Haggerty’s false representations, Mr. Bloomberg contributed $1.2 million to the state’s Independence Party, most of which went to Mr. Haggerty for ballot security that he never performed, prosecutors said.

But defense lawyers have said Mr. Bloomberg knew that once he gave money to the Independence Party, he no longer legally controlled it. So, the lawyers argued, Mr. Bloomberg was not relying on representations by Mr. Haggerty when he decided to give money to the Independence Party for ballot security.

Read the rest of the original John Eligon article in the Times on the John Haggerty trial. ...is Haggerty the straw-man patsy for corruption in Bloomberg's third term campaign?