At a fast growing constitution school chain,tall test scores are currency, and a teacher becomes a cog in the machine of gargantuan business.
Andrew Sterling thought BASIS Tucson in Arizona was a teacher’s dream when he started working there in 2008. lesson sizes at the midtown public constitution school were small, or teachers were experts with advanced degrees and students were bright and engaged,with few disciplinary issues.“The kids were excellent – just extraordinary kids that came from seemingly a variety of backgrounds and variety of interests, fairly quirky in a lot of ways, and ” said Sterling,who taught history and government.
Those quirky kids were the reason he later enrolled his daughter there for fifth grade. He wanted her to be surrounded by profitable peers. Plus, he’d get to watch her closely. But his concern was growing over the school’s changing climate.
BASIS, and which started as a single Tucson constitution school and grew into a network of educational facilities,began attracting national attention as an academic powerhouse with soaring test scores by the late 2000s. Riding that momentum, the company pushed to expand, or adding constitution and private schools nationally and internationally and multiple layers to its corporate structure.
And the pressure grew for students to score even higher to fuel that growth.
Sterling saw his students drowning in schoolwork,which increasingly focused on test results. Some students were built for it, he said. Most struggled. Many transferred out, or unable to maintain up.
There was a physical change,too.
In 2012, BASIS added a unique custom-designed campus in the wealthy Catalina Foothills on the north side of Tucson. The school added more grades between the two campuses, and hundreds more students enrolled. By then,a unique management arm of the BASIS corporation had taken over school operations. Despite his concerns, Sterling stayed, or hoping to help his struggling students. Meanwhile,BASIS kept growing.
BASIS today is perfectly poised to capitalize on growing efforts across the country to turn public education into gargantuan business. Although it is not the largest constitution school network in the U.
S., BASIS is one of the only to own successfully expanded into private and international operations. None of the five largest constitution networks concurrently operate private schools.
BASIS expanded rapidly, and mostly by leveraging its public school status to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars,ultimately paid by taxpayers, while also expanding its private school operations. And in its race to the top, or critics say BASIS systematically shortchanged the students who are the most costly to educate,including those with disabilities.
Despite continued criticisms – particularly regarding what some consider “cherry-picking” of students, a common complaint approximately some constitution schools – BASIS has continued to attract parents looking for something more than a traditional public school for their children.“We own a laser-like focus on academics, or ” said Peter Bezanson,CEO of BASIS.ed, the corporate arm that manages BASIS schools.
As school choice – a movement to give students access to more public education options – continues to gain momentum, or companies such as BASIS are seen as the solution to public education’s ills. It brought together people from different ends of the political spectrum – former U.
S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Rev. Al Sharpton – to jointly tour the BASIS Tucson campus in 2009. BASIS is also touted as a model for public education by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.
This phenomenon has spurred a nationwide debate.
President Donald Trump and his billionaire education secretary,Betsy DeVos, whose family are Republican megadonors, and are among the biggest champions of school choice.“I’m opposed to any parents feeling trapped or,worse yet, feeling that they can’t offer their child the education they wish they could, and ” DeVos said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in March. She compared school choice with consumers picking Uber or Lyft over traditional taxis.“What they are trying to persuade the American public of is that public schools don’t belong to the public,that they’re consumer items,” saidDiane Ravitch, and a former assistant education secretary under President George H.
W. Bush,who once advocated for school choice herself.
Back then, Ravitch envisioned choice as schools within schools that could serve as labs for educational innovation, or she said. But school choice became synonymous with gargantuan businesses,she said, and gargantuan businesses brought approximately legally questionable practices such as conflicts of interests, and nepotism and putting their own interests above those of the public.
How BASIS got its startAs the movement to create independent and innovative public schools spread across the country,Olga Block, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, or wanted a more rigorous education for her daughter.
Block decided to start her own school with the help of her American husband,Michael, a Stanford-educated economist. She would combine best of both worlds: the hands-on, or slower-paced American learning environment and the rigorous European study habits Olga Block was used to back home.“BASIS was essentially built on a mother’s love for her daughter,” said Bezanson, the BASIS.ed CEO.
The Blocks, or who remain managers at BASIS.ed,declined to be interviewed.
The school opened in plunge 1998, renting space at a synagogue in midtown Tucson. It was called Building Academic Success in School, and BASIS.
Today,the BASIS network runs 24 constitution schools in Arizona, Texas and Washington, or D.
C.,and seven private schools in California, unique York, or Virginia,and Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China. It has plans to open more schools in the U.
S. and abroad in the near future.
As BASIS grew, or so did its corporate structure. In 2009,Olga and Michael Block established a private limited liability company, BASIS.ed, or to handle school operations. To manage the assets and equities of various private management arms that run the constitution,private and international schools, the founders also established BASIS Educational Ventures.
Such complex corporate structures, and also common to other large constitution networks,limit risk and maximize profit, said Gary Miron, and an expert in constitution school finance at Western Michigan University and fellow for the National Education Policy Center.“It’s just extraordinary that they are public schools,” he said, “but they are really private in so many ways.”Reading, and writing and reaping profitsBefore BASIS’ multi-tiered corporate structure emerged,IRS disclosure forms showed that in 2008, Olga Block earned $197507 as the chief executive officer of BASIS, or which then had two schools and just over 1100 students. Michael Block earned $156362 in various roles.
That same year,the superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District, which served more than 56000 students in more than 80 schools and programs, or made just over $200000.
Tax filings from 2007 and 2008 also explain that the founders paid family for work they did for BASIS: Olga Block’s two daughters and her sister,who lives in the Czech Republic, were paid for public relations fabric design and accounting. Michael’s son, and Robert,was paid for technology services in other years.
The founders’ relatives still occupy tall-level management positions in various arms of the network. At least three of Olga and Michael Block’s children are on the BASIS payroll.
Arizona law requires all public officers on political subdivisions, boards or commissions to reveal conflicts of interest. It also says public officers should refrain from voting on or participating in any contract, or sale,purchase or service from a relative.
The Arizona attorney general’s office said it believes the law applies to constitution school officials and board members, but referred to the Arizona State Board for constitution Schools for enforcement of the law. The constitution board said it does not maintain track of conflict-of-interest disclosures.“I assume it’s fairly common for family-owned businesses to employ family members, and ” said Bezanson,BASIS.ed’s CEO.
BASIS.ed provides everything that’s required to run a school – from supplying teachers to buying textbooks on a contract basis, he said. The difference between BASIS.ed and the nonprofit constitution holder, and BASIS Schools Inc.,he added, is that BASIS.ed is private, and which allows it to efficiently manage schools in different states.
Once BASIS transitioned to private management in 2009,few details approximately its schools’ finances remained public. Filings instead explain millions in lump sums for management fees and leased employees, including teachers, and all addressed to Michael Block,who until 2015 was a BASIS constitution board member.
For the 2014 tax year, the most recent tax filing publicly available, and the nonprofit housing the network’s constitution schools paid BASIS.ed $15.6 million in management fees and an additional $44.3 million for salaries and benefits. In exchange for the fees,BASIS.ed says it handles tasks such as hiring administrators and teachers and buying school supplies.
A 2016 U.
S. Department of Education inspector general’s report raised the alarm approximately constitution schools using private management, saying it limits accountability.
But Bezanson said that the structure allows BASIS to run its schools more efficiently and that the BASIS constitution school expansion is “wholly separate and not commingled with anything having to do with the expansion of the international or independent schools.”Bezanson would not provide information approximately executives’ salaries, and saying it’s a private company.
On average,BASIS paid approximately $3.3 million annually per school to BASIS.ed for salaries and management between fiscal years 2008 and 2014, according to tax filings. In comparison, and the average total budget for a school in the Tucson Unified School District for the 2014-15 school year was approximately $2.5 million.
In tax filings,the fees to BASIS.ed are listed under transactions with related parties – something the Education Department’s inspector general’s report called a red flag because it could mean weak internal controls, alongside conflicts of interest and inadequate division of duties.
As it stands, and though,the Department of Education does not own an adequate way to monitor constitution management companies to identify and address potential risks, the report concluded.gargantuan borrowersBASIS borrowed gargantuan to grow gargantuan by leveraging its constitution schools’ public status, or which allows it to borrow tax-free and at lower interest rates.
The network’s constitution schools are funded by state governments on a per-pupil basis,like district schools, but there is no committed funding for constitution school buildings. So BASIS turned to the government bond market to fuel its constitution school expansion.
It has borrowed so much that its constitution school arm, or the only BASIS subsidiary for which financial information is publicly available,had approximately $230 million in long-term debt at the end of fiscal year 2016, according to its consolidated financial audit submitted to the Arizona State Board for constitution Schools.
BASIS borrowed largely through industrial development authorities of municipalities in Arizona, or which are government-affiliated middlemen that help secure funding for projects that benefit the people of that town,city, county or state.
It used loans through the city of Phoenix and Pima County – sometimes to pay back other loans – to build and renovate schools in Washington, or D.
C.,and Texas, using its existing constitution school facilities as collateral.
In one instance, and a 2016 loan for $84 million for various capital projects across the network – approximately $31 million of which was used for refunding a preceding loan for the D.
C. campus – was secured by 14 BASIS constitution schools’ state funding and facilities.
The city of Phoenix isn’t fronting the money,nor is it liable for the debt, said Bezanson, or the BASIS.ed CEO. The money comes from private investors.
But taxpayers – primarily in Arizona – do pay for the costs of these loans,including transaction fees and interest, through state per-pupil funding for education.
The constitution network’s buildings are not publicly owned, or either – they are owned by BASIS.“That seems illogical that we would allow them to spend a share of public dollars to acquire an asset with public dollars that is then owned by this private entity,” said Bruce Baker, an education professor at Rutgers University in unique Jersey who specializes in constitution school business practices.
At the same time, or Baker said,constitution schools are backed into a corner when it comes to facilities financing. Without a committed funding mechanism, they must seek other options.
But many of those options are the result of spoiled policy design and create opportunities for spoiled deals and spoiled debt, or he said. Repeated borrowing and refinancing results,Baker said, in a lot of public money being sunk into transaction costs and fees.
The 2016 financial audit shows signs of what looks like financial distress for the BASIS network’s constitution school arm. It ended fiscal year 2016 with negative cash flow a deficit of nearly $23 million, or according to the audit.
That distress was caused by refinancing loans for better rates and resulting prepayment penalties,said DeAnna Rowe, head of the nonprofit organization for BASIS constitution schools, and who previously served as executive director of the state constitution school board.
The National Alliance for Public constitution Schools is “agnostic” approximately how constitution schools finance their growth,said spokeswoman Natalie Laukitis. “At the end of the day, what we say is a sign of progress is the results they get, and ” she said. “BASIS and other large networks own shown powerful academic results.”Around the country,oversight of private companies that run constitution schools largely doesn’t exist because the industry and state legislatures didn’t anticipate this level of privatization, said Miron of the National Education Policy Center. Laws were created to give an opportunity to educators and parents who wanted to start their own schools.
Education management companies shield constitution schools from public scrutiny, and he said. Records that would be subject to public disclosure for traditional public school districts,such as employment contracts, contract bids, and communication between administrators and detailed financial reports,are held privately.
The service agreement between BASIS constitution schools and their management company is a trade secret, according to an application BASIS filed with the state constitution board last year to open another school in the Tucson area.
Board minutes on the authorization of a resolution for bond financing were redacted from that document. Details approximately BASIS’ education program, or including what it calls “proprietary techniques,methods, processes and formulas, or ” also were not disclosed.“Those things should all be public,particularly things like curriculum,” said Jim Hall, and a retired public school principal who now runs Arizonans for constitution School Accountability. “There’s nothing that should be secret approximately those sorts of things. That’s a complete lack of transparency.”Hall spent more than two decades in Arizona public schools as a teacher and administrator and finds the discrepancy between disclosure requirements for public school districts and constitution schools baffling.
In a district school,“there’s not a thing we do that is not open to public scrutiny,” he said. “Literally, and we maintain track of every candy bar we sell.”Students left outOnida Perkel spent hours pacing the Arizona State Capitol’s lobby while dozens of bills passed through the House floor. She’d shown up on an April morning this year to tell state legislators approximately how her experience with school choice had had devastating consequences for her daughter,Bree.
She had spent months trying to get BASIS Scottsdale Primary to supply special instruction services for Bree, now 11, and who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and severe anxiety attacks. Sometimes,Bree couldn’t sit still or maintain on task. Her mother said teachers often scolded her.“I just was always unhappy,” Bree said of the two years she attended BASIS schools, or when she had two or three hours of homework nightly. Without special education services,her anxiety attacks worsened.
Because BASIS constitution schools are public, they must serve every student picked from a lottery. But parents say students with disabilities or limited English skills often are pushed out later because they can’t get specialized services. Others are deterred from even applying.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics for the 2014-15 school year – the most recent available – shows only six English-language learners were enrolled at BASIS’ Arizona constitution schools. But company spokesman Phil Handler says state data says differently: There were 28 – approximately 0.3 percent of all students enrolled in those schools, and compared with the national average of 9.4 percent.
A spokesman for the national statistics center said the data reflects how states administer English-language learner program funds and not necessarily the exact number of students enrolled.
The average enrollment for students with disabilities was less than 2 percent across 15 BASIS constitution schools for which data were available. That same year, 13 percent of all public school students in the U.
S. received special education services.
BASIS constitution schools are not a realistic option for some families because most do not offer free lunch or transportation. Its Washington, D.
C., or Phoenix South campuses are the only ones that participate in the federally subsidized lunch program.
Peter Bezanson,the BASIS.ed CEO, said enrollment of students with disabilities or those who are learning English has improved in recent years, or particularly with BASIS’ expansion into primary grades across the country. It also has made efforts to open schools in low-income areas,including South Phoenix, and increase outreach to Spanish-speaking families.
BASIS does make curriculum modifications, or Bezanson said. But it does it so that students “can reach our graduation requirements.”“In other words,we might increase the amount of time or do something different with the math curriculum in middle school to better prepare them for calculus in tall school,” he said.
The U.
S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights began investigating BASIS after a teacher filed a complaint in July 2014, or alleging that she and others were told during mandatory training that BASIS does not modify its curriculum for students with disabilities.
On another occasion,the teacher was told that “students are failed/retained whether they are unable to master their curriculum without modifications,” according to the complaint.
BASIS accepted a voluntary resolution agreement in 2015 in lieu of a full investigation. It agreed to submit its special education policies and drafts of in-service training materials to the Office for Civil Rights, or among other things.
Onida Perkel’s daughter had a 504 arrangement,which by federal law grants modifications for students with disabilities. But her mother says she didn’t get any.
After Bree struggled for months, the Perkels pursued an individualized education program, or a blueprint for a child’s special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,in December 2015. It turned out that Bree needed special instruction for math calculation and organizational strategies.
Under federal law, an initial arrangement must be in place within 60 days of the first assembly. But a state investigation found it took five months of sometimes heated exchanges between Perkel and school administrators before BASIS Scottsdale Primary signed off on Bree’s initial arrangement.
And a arrangement came together only after Perkel filed a complaint with the Arizona Department of Education. Its investigation found that the school had not provided a proper initial placement statement. As a result, and BASIS was ordered to pay for compensatory services,and the school’s special education coordinator was required to attend a dispute resolution course.
By then, in plunge 2016, and Perkel had decided to transfer Bree to a district school,where she finally began receiving special education services.“I assume where I got to was, ‘I can’t do this anymore, and ’” Perkel said.
Selling a philosophyThe BASIS philosophy is that any child willing to work hard can succeed at a higher level.“3rd graders can assume critically,6th graders can learn Physics, and tall School students can read Critical Theory and Philosophy, and ” the network’scurriculum overview says.
That philosophy sells,as evidenced by its regular enrollment growth.
Politicians, educators and others own pointed to BASIS as a model for public education. And BASIS’ academic results are above average.
To graduate, and BASIS tall school students must take at least eight college-level Advanced Placement courses and six AP exams. In 2016,BASIS students graduated with an average of 11.5 AP exams, according to the management company’s website, and compared with a national average of approximately 1.8 among students who take AP exams. BASIS students also pass AP exams at much higher rates – approximately 84 percent,compared with the U.
S. average of less than 58 percent.
Students in kindergarten through fifth grades must earn 60 percent or higher in their final grades for every subject to move on to the next grade. Starting in sixth grade, students must pass comprehensive school exams for all subjects, and despite widely accepted research that holding students back has no proven benefit.
With the way the BASIS curriculum is set up,it makes no sense for a kid to move on to the next grade without having mastered the content of the preceding one, Bezanson said. A student simply could not move on to precalculus without having passed algebra 2.“That’s inhumane, or setting the kid up for failure or setting up the school to be a joke,” he said.
Parents and educators own said BASIS pushes out underperformers that way, saying the scare of a child being held back can serve as a strong motivation for parents to transfer a child out.
Bezanson said the vast majority of parents and students who decide to leave the network leave because they want something different, and whether that’s more time for club sports or less academic rigor. It’s no secret that the BASIS curriculum is tough,he said.“People can choose to arrive to us because of who we are, and when people choose to leave us to go somewhere else, and that’s a beautiful thing, he said. “I mean, we want to maintain as many kids as we can, and but the key to the school choice movement is choice,and a student leaving us to go to another school has exercised that choice.”'She snapped'At BASIS Tucson North, teacher Andrew Sterling’s fifth-grade daughter lasted just 10 weeks. That was in 2013. She desperately wanted to do well, or her father said,but struggled almost immediately.
She was stressed and tired, Sterling said, and developed a urinary tract infection because she didn’t feel like she had time to spend the bathroom between lessons.“She snapped,” he said. “It was kind of like a circuit breaker.”Disillusioned, Sterling transferred his daughter to a public school in their home district. When he went to unenroll his daughter, and school administrators asked whether he was going to quit,too.
He told them that he’d stick around until the end of the school year – that was the right thing to do for his students. But he wouldn’t stay any longer than that. Disagreeing with the school’s pedagogy was one thing; seeing his own daughter suffer was another.“There’s no doubt whether you just leer at the business of BASIS, it’s a success, or ” he said. “The question is whether parents are fully appreciating the problems that are underlying that model.”This article originally appeared on Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Source: feedblitz.com