Miami charter school got 2.4 mil from taxpayers last year. Owner's 3 other companies profit.

[madfloridian]

Manny Alonso-Poch, the Miami charter school owner, has 3 other companies that profit from his charter's 2.4 million from taxpayers. Not only do his companies handle the real estate end of it and provide the school lunches, he also formed his own charter school management company.

On top of those profitable endeavors, which he claims are non-profit....he then illegally charged fees to students attending basic classes. Charter schools are supposed to be free.

Charter school in Coconut Grove draws controversy

By Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen


Pedro Portal / El Nuevo Herald
Students gather after classes outside the Academy of Arts and Minds charter school in Coconut Grove.

Arts & Minds received about $2.4 million in tax dollars in the 2009-10 school year, records show. But the school has long depended on money from Alonso-Poch to stay afloat.

Alonso-Poch says he has donated more than $2 million to the school over the past eight years — some in cash, some in forgiven rent — and at times has had to pay the mortgage on the school building from his own pocket.

But Alonso-Poch has profited, too: The school pays more than $77,000 a month in rent to Alonso-Poch’s company, records show, though Alonso-Poch said the mortgage costs about $45,000 a month. All of the property devoted to the school is not taxed.

In addition, the school paid $147,000 in 2009 and 2010 to another Alonso-Poch company to provide student lunches. Alonso-Poch said his food-service company is “not a profit-making enterprise.”

That's 32 thousand a month more than the mortgage?

Here's the part about the education management company.

In July, the school’s board agreed to hire a company called EDU Management to run the school — a company Alonso-Poch created in April, state records show. Under the contract, EDU Management will receive $200 for each of the 450 students at the school.

Alonso-Poch now manages the school’s expenses — and makes the lease payments on the school’s behalf to his own real-estate company.

The Herald also found that one of the school's board members lives in Peru and claims not to know he was on the board.

The Lima connection: How Coconut Grove charter school cuts red tape

When it comes to board governance, a charter school in Coconut Grove not only thinks outside the box, they think outside the country. Herald reporters Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen discovered that Jorge Guerra-Castro, nominally a member of the board overseeing the Academy of Arts & Minds, has lived in Lima (Peru, not Ohio) for the last six years.

Not that Guerra-Castro has knowingly ignored his responsibilities. Called by The Herald, he seemed taken aback when told that the charter school listed him as an “at large” member of the A&M board. Emphasis on “at large.”

“Very bizarre,” Guerra-Castro told The Herald. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

Which gives the charter school an advantage over conventional schools. If board members don’t know they’re on the board, they can’t go meddling in administrative matters.

There is more coverage on this issue at the Washington Post's Answer Sheet.

A cautionary charter school tale

There’s more: Another company owned by the school founder provides lunches to students and the school pays, $147,000 in 2009 and 2010, though Alonso-Poch said he doesn’t profit from this.

“If there are areas where profits are made, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” he was quoted as saying.

Actually, there’s plenty wrong with people making big profits on public education, with public money. The country’s public education system is the nation’s proudest civic institution, and running it like a business, where profits are king, is the wrong model.

Strauss points out that there has been a rush to open new charter schools, that the move to replace the failed NCLB "is a bill designed to increase the number of charter schools and change the way they are authorized. It was approved by the House in September."

Meanwhile while heads are reeling at the speed at which all this has happened the last 3 years, the money is going missing from traditional public schools. It is going in too many cases to schools that are failing or are no better than the ones being defunded.

There is no guarantee it is coming back.

[marmar]

1. It's just blatant, out-in-the-open theft from the public trough now. ......

...... at the expense of children, who've become just another money-making opportunity for the private sector.

[madfloridian]

5. Yes, it is right out in the open.

They have no shame about it either.

[NYC_SKP]

2. What kind of local government allows this to happen? WTF is wrong with the district and board?

And the parents, why would they send kids there and why would they not pull them out?

Heads should roll!

[madfloridian]

13. It happens more often now in other states as well.

Remember how Imagine Charters sold 5 schools to Entertainment Properties Trust for 44 million and then leased them back from them.

"“We are excited to add to our public charter school portfolio and enthusiastic about the prospects of Imagine and this investment category,” Entertainment Properties Trust CEO David Brain said in a release.

In an interview, Brain said the Imagine Schools transaction announced Friday fulfilled Entertainment Properties’ 2007 commitment to make at least $200 million worth of acquisitions from Imagine. It also increases Entertainment Properties’ footprint in what Brain called “a huge new category” for private real estate investment.

“Public charter schools are now a 4 or 5 percent slice of a couple trillion dollar public education real estate market,” Brain said."

That was last year, it's happening a lot.

[Initech]

3. This is legalized theft - there's no other word for it.

[madfloridian]

19. Yes, legalized theft of public property.

The 2.4 million is from taxpayers who probably do not have a clue what is going on.

[Initech]

22. The only way to win this "class warfare (tm)" is to follow the money.

Then maybe they will all get caught. And we will be free!

[madfloridian]

23. Very true,

Follow the money.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Will the real trough feeders please stand up?

[madfloridian]

10. Regular pigs at the trough...

to quote Arianna Huffington's book.

People are catching on but they just keep on with their grabs of what should be public.

[aggiesal]

6. I've said this before in this forum ...

and I'll say it again.
Charter schools should not have access to our tax dollars except
if the student's parent paid property taxes, and then only the
portion that they paid.

For example, a $500,000 home pays approximately $5,000 in property taxes.
Of that $5,000, let's say that $500 was budgeted towards the public
school system.

If the home owner wants their child to go to a charter school then the charter
school is only allowed the $500 that the home owner paid towards the public school
district in property taxes.

If the home owner has 2 children that they want to send to charter schools, then
both go, but only $500 total goes with them.

If the children lives in an apartment and no property taxes are paid, and the parents
wants to send their children to a charter school then since no property taxes were
paid by the parents, no public money goes with the children.

I pay my taxes so that there is a public school system. I do not pay my taxes so that
the local school system can funnel my tax dollars to a charter school system.
If they're going to funnel my money to a charter school system, I'm going to fight
to keep my money in the public school or give me my money back.

I'm a product of the public school system, K-12. Plus I had free lunch and reduced lunch
through the entire time. I went to college and graduated using the Pell Grant.
My parent didn't come close to paying what I used to get my degree from k-College.
The public paid to educate me, and now it's time for me to pony up my fair share,
regardless if I have kids in the system.

[Reader Rabbit]

7. This is obscene.

I've got students living in cars. I've got students who have to take a backpack full of food home on Friday so they will have something to eat over the weekend. I've got students who have one or two parents in jail.

Whoever is allowing public money to be wasted on this charter school travesty needs to be strung up by his or her gonads.

[madfloridian]

8. It's terrible.

Defunding the public schools so they can't provide essential services. It's pure greed, and no party is speaking out against it.

[Starry Messenger]

9. +1

[chervilant]

11. K&R

Where are all the Obama sycophants? Where are all the naysayers who question your sources, your patriotism and your political sensibilities?

If you haven't listened to the most current video clip from Anonymous (posted here on DU), they've given us an assertion that is warranted for all of those sad sock puppets who would pooh-pooh your erudite and essential threads:

"This is a cultural crisis and you are simply too stupid to understand."

I plan to say that to anyone who disses you. I plan to post this remark to any of the fake '53%' nonsense cropping up on Facebook and other social networks.

I've had enough of that nonsense, and we can no longer afford to tolerate it.

[Norrin Radd]

12. kr

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. Criminals, just like Rick Scott.

[madfloridian]

18. Imagine how much that 2.4 million would have helped public schools in the district?

It's tragic to me what they are allowing to happen.

[madfloridian]

15. In June the owner called parents "misinformed, ignorant" when they complained.

It is now October. A new school year has begun.

From June:

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2011-06-09/news/coconut-grove-charter-school-owner-manuel-alonso-poch-accused-of-bilking-taxpayers/

"The academy's Parent Teacher Student Association sent a searing letter last month to Dade officials alleging fraud and malfeasance, including a governing board made up of relatives and lackeys that pays Alonso-Poch inflated rent.

Alonso-Poch says the complaints are hooey: "For a group of misinformed, ignorant parents who don't trust anything to attack my hard work is very offensive."

He started the school from scratch eight years ago with his partner, Ana Renteria, and has built it into an "A" school focused on creative arts. Lately he has earned headlines with a plan to build a marine exhibition center next to the languishing, graffiti-tagged stadium on Virginia Key.

But some parents say they've uncovered troubling practices at the academy...."

More at the link.

[EdMaven]

16. I can only echo the other posters: In-your-face legalized theft. It's almost

like these folks, including the government that sponsors the charter school legislation, are doing a deliberate asset-stripping operation, much like the corporate raiders who take over companies, strip them of anything valuable, and then declare them bankrupt.

off-topic: is scott hiaasen the novelist's son?

[madfloridian]

17. Yes, it does look like that. "a deliberate asset-stripping operation"

[cachukis]

20. Keep up the good work. I share.

[madfloridian]

21. And....

I appreciate that you do. :hi:

Someone in political power needs to speak out about this kind of stuff.