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School vouchersSchool voucher money could be in the hands of families and schools one month earlier than planned for the upcoming school year—and prior to a court date that could rule the program unconstitutional.

According to an updated schedule published on June 20 on the N.C.  State Education Assistance Authority’s website, funds for the school vouchers, formally known as taxpayer-funded Opportunity Scholarships that are worth up to $4,200 per student annually to attend a private school, are now scheduled to be delivered to schools on August 15.

The money for school vouchers was previously scheduled for disbursement September 15, according an affidavit by Elizabeth McDuffie of the NC SEAA. But a court date that had been scheduled for August 22 could halt the program before school starts if Judge Robert H. Hobgood rules the voucher program unconstitutional.

Attorneys filed a motion late last week to block the early disbursement of funds, concerned about the harm that could result from providing families with potentially worthless vouchers just as they send their kids to private schools this fall. A hearing to consider delaying the disbursement of funds until after the court decides if the program should go forward will take place this Friday at 3:30p.m.

“If funds are distributed to parents and schools to support a program that is going to be declared unconstitutional in late August, then the state is put in the position of having to retrieve that money from hundreds of schools, and parents who are relying on these vouchers are going to find that the voucher is worthless,” said Burton Craige, attorney for plaintiffs who are challenging the constitutionality of the voucher program.

“So this disrupts parents, children, schools, and the state in its use of taxpayer funds.”

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The Wilmington StarNews reports that Baker Mitchell’s Roger Bacon Academy, the for-profit education management organization that oversees four charter schools Mitchell founded in eastern North Carolina, as well as another company that leases school equipment and supplies both take in considerable sums of money from leasing land, buildings, equipment and supplies to Mitchell’s schools.

For the 2013-14 school year, Charter Day School in Leland and Columbus Charter School in Whiteville paid Mitchell’s Roger Bacon Academy about $1.5 million to lease their buildings. As part of their contract, the schools also agreed to pay property taxes and insurance, which totaled another $90,000; and building upkeep, for another $200,000. Douglass Academy, housed in the Peabody Building on North Sixth Street in downtown Wilmington, is leased from the nonprofit Friends of New Hanover County Community Action for $1 per year.

The company plans to open a fourth school, South Brunswick Charter School in Southport, this fall.

Mitchell incorporated both the Roger Bacon Academy for-profit education management company and the for-profit Coastal Habitat Conservancy school equipment and supply rental company in early 1999. He founded the first nonprofit charter school four months later, according to records from the N.C. Secretary of State’s Office.

Mitchell currently serves as the secretary for Charter Day School Inc.’s board of trustees, is the president of the management company and is the registered agent for the rental company.

That means Mitchell leads the company that manages the schools and the company that rents equipment to the schools and is an officer on the schools’ decision-making board.

Mitchell, who also sits on the state board that reviews and recommends new charter school bids in the state, has come under intense scrutiny lately as he has fought hard to keep the salaries of his public charter school employees secret, even though state law requires that information to be made available to the public.

Mitchell, who he himself has collected in the neighborhood of $16 million in taxpayer funds over the past five years for managing charter schools in southeastern North Carolina according to IRS filings, is reportedly under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, but details of that case have not been made public.

One of Mitchell’s newer charter schools, Douglass Academy in Wilmington, is currently under a warning for low enrollment numbers. The school must boost those numbers to the statutory minimum of 65 early this fall in order to avoid closure.

Read the full StarNews story here.

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In case you missed it over the weekend, the Wilmington StarNews had another good editorial concerning the efforts of some of the state’s public charter schools to keep the salaries they pay secret and en effort by lawmakers to approve of the secrecy.

“The public has a right to know who works for its government agencies and institutions, how much they are paid and other important details of their employment. North Carolina’s General Statutes make that clear.

But after news organizations including the StarNews sought salary information for charter schools, a Charlotte-area state representative introduced an amendment that allows charter schools to redact the names of employees from salary lists. The House foolishly passed the amendment on Thursday; the Senate should opt for full disclosure.

At best, this amendment sets a bad precedent by shielding some public employees from full disclosure when others – including teachers in the state’s traditional public schools – do not enjoy that same protection. At worst, the amendment could go a long way toward confirming what charter school critics have been saying all along: that these schools are effectively private schools paid for with taxpayers’ money.”

The editorial goes on to provide more updates on the efforts of a charter school chain in the Wilmington area run by right-wing funder and activist Baker Mitchell

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The once semi-prevalent illusion that the charter school movement is somehow about aiding public education and not just privatizing it continues to fall apart. The latest confirmation comes from the Wilmington Star-News which which has still more news on the stubborn and absurd refusal of charter school chain owned by conservative power broker Baker Mitchell to release information on the salaries it pays its staff:

“The nonprofit Charter Day School Inc. has yet to comply fully with media requests for the salaries of its employees.

Missing from the list school officials released Friday are 33 employees – including headmasters, assistant headmasters and many lead teachers at Charter Day School in Leland, Columbus Charter School in Whiteville and Douglass Academy in Wilmington. Read More

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House Speaker Thom Tillis partnered with Gov. Pat McCrory today to announce their efforts to work together toward a teacher pay plan they characterized as responsible and affordable—but key details of the House’s new mini-budget proposal, unveiled today, remain unclear.

“We’ve been preparing plans from not inside the beltline but outside the beltline – by listening to the experts who are closest to the action, who are every day inside the classroom,” said McCrory, who was flanked by Speaker Tillis, State Board of Education Chair Bill Cobey, State Superintendent June Atkinson as well as lawmakers, school superintendents, teachers and other education advocates from around the state.

McCrory called on local superintendents and teachers to support his proposed teacher pay plan, which would work toward implementing career pathways that reward teachers for performance as well as experience and avoid cutting teacher assistants, unlike the Senate proposal which would slash TAs in the second and third grades.

Tillis followed McCrory by stepping up to the podium to announce his revised “mini-budget” that would be unveiled later in the afternoon in the House appropriations committee.

Calling it a consensus bill that people on Main Street would support, Tillis said his revised legislation would give teachers a raise but take the lottery funds off the table to do that. He would also preserve funds for teacher assistants. Read More

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