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Indiana’s 8-year-old charter school law gives the independent public schools freedom from many rules and regulations in exchange for "exceptional levels of accountability." But the tangled web of legal and financial dealings created by Imagine Schools Inc., combined with a corporate philosophy that discourages local oversight, raises the question: exceptional levels of accountability to whom?
Not to its own school board. As the first in a three-part series by The Journal Gazette’s Dan Stockman and Kelly Soderlund on Page 1A finds, the seven-member board, headed by businessman Don Willis, meets monthly and does not approve, oversee or even discuss major school issues such as staffing or curriculum. From the start, Imagine MASTer Academy defied the charter school model of a group of parents or educators working to establish an alternative to existing public schools. Imagine Inc. appeared to identify the community first, and then the board members. At best, the board seems to be the burden the Virginia-based company must bear to tie into a stream of state tax dollars.
Contrast the Imagine school board with the boards of other local public school districts or the city’s third charter school, Timothy L. Johnson Academy, which generally meet twice a month to engage in broad-ranging discussions about school policy and management. If members of the public have a grievance with the school district, they can take those complaints to a board accountable to voters.
Not to Ball State. State law gives the university the authority to sponsor charter schools, but there’s little indication from Ball State’s Office of Charter Schools that the university is exercising any oversight over school governance issues. The unusual circumstances in which the local schools were established appeared to raise no alarms with the university – circumstances criticized by Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.
In approving three charter schools with identical application information, Ball State clearly is not giving due diligence to the process. Part 3 of the series, in Tuesday’s edition, raises troubling questions about the rigor of its oversight.
Ball State is paid an administrative fee of 3 percent of the operating funds a charter school receives from the state, so it is in the university’s best financial interest to keep its charter schools in operation.
Not to Indiana taxpayers. For all of the scrutiny of public school spending, Indiana charter schools have largely been given a pass as they’ve grown to include more than 50 schools statewide. Aside from the taxpayer support of the schools, the charters’ non-profit status gives them advantages that make them susceptible to abuse, as Monday’s stories will suggest.
An earlier report in The Journal Gazette detailed Imagine’s complex real estate deals. The Imagine MASTer Academy pays about $750,000 a year to a for-profit real estate investment trust to rent a portion of the Wells Street campus. In three years, the school will have paid an amount equal to the entire property’s assessed value, but taxpayers will continue to pay indefinitely.
Without the vigorous financial oversight of a local governing board or the charter authorizer, taxpayers must rely on the government agencies entrusted with auditing and reviewing accounting practices to ensure dollars are not being misspent. With a charter school law that’s not delivering on the exceptional levels of accountability promised, state officials charged with protecting taxpayers should step up.
