Another FL school outrage....voucher school head arrested.

[madfloridian]

I have not found a link yet. It has been on www.wtvt.com which is Fox 13 in Tampa for two days. They have a lousy website with no stories speak of.

This is the school, which is listed on the Department of Education Website. It receives voucher money from the state, our tax money!

https://www.opportunityschools.org/Info/McKay/mckay_school_private.asp?disid=29&sid=8934

This Delyn Allen has 19 convictions or arrests, would have to rewind tape to verify. 19!!! She is heading the school which takes voucher students who are special education.

Here is worst part of all. They do not have to be a certified school, teachers do not have to be certified, they are not at all accountable to the state.

There have been two other instances of corruption in these schools lately. I will do a search and post it here. This is our tax money, going to unnameable students, who are going to schoools which have no accountability.

The report was done by investigative reporter, Glenn Selig. These are the vouchers that are called the John McKay scholarships. If anyone finds other instances, please post. There is a Sabal Palms in South Florida which has had massive problems. There are others.

:argh: :mad: :grr: :argh: :mad: :grr:

[stoystown]

1. Is she Wiccan?

That would be worse for the right wing nuts - - if she were Wiccan.

Then, they would stop vouchers right away.

[madfloridian]

2. More....."where's the money?" St Pete Times wonders.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/02/Opinion/Where_s_the_money.shtml

SNIP...."Consider the case of Silver Archer Foundation and the vanishing $410,000:

The Archer Foundation was dutifully certified last year as one of eight "Scholarship Funding Organizations" empowered to collect money and dispense vouchers, even though it was not incorporated or registered in Florida. The foundation is operated by James Isenhour, who, according to the Palm Beach Post, was once charged and acquitted of 56 counts of racketeering and fraud, who once faced cocaine trafficking charges in Hillsborough that were later dropped, who filed for bankruptcy in 1999, who operated a correspondence school that declared bankruptcy. Yet Archer's application was approved so easily that DOE couldn't even produce the documentation.

After being alerted by reporters, Education Commissioner Jim Horne pulled the plug on Archer Foundation. But apparently not before the company took in as much as $410,000 without paying out a dime in vouchers. "They're not telling me anything," Horne said. "They're not responding to my questions and my phone calls and my e-mails."

AND just think. The House just voted to have vouchers in DC. My Rep told me he was voting for them because of their success in Florida.
:wtf:

[soup]

10. More on Isenhour and Silver Archer

It's not just the McKay Scholarships, this Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program is something that needs more accountability and regulating, too.

a snip to get your blood boiling:
'According to Metty and GOP legislative sources, the law was written so vaguely and enforced so weakly to please the wealthy donor, John Kirtley, who wanted as little government interference in the voucher program as possible. Kirtley, a Tampa venture capitalist, gave the Republicans a $100,000 check in 2000 for the express purpose of pushing his voucher bill. That bill was passed in the spring of 2001 and Gov. Jeb Bush signed it into law.

Kirtley could not be reached for comment.'
Voucher operation secretive about grants

note: if you want to save the above article, do it quickly. The PB Post articles don't stay up long. Viewing the full archived articles is a pay service. :-(

I have one from the PB Post about home-schoolers getting vouchers that's been archived. If you like, I could PM it to you. Here's a snip from it, but no link, since it's archived:

"State tax money intended to send disabled students to private schools is being siphoned off by middlemen who use it to help parents home-school their children -- a use never envisioned by the law's sponsor.

The state's oversight of the McKay scholarships program is so lax that the middlemen -- organizations listed in state records as private schools but often just a person's home or Web site -- are able to take in thousands of dollars each year in state vouchers with little accounting for how that money is spent.

Critics complain that the organizations are nothing more than clearinghouses for home-schooling parents to receive vouchers, something they can't normally do under state law.

In one case, a parent complained that the organization wanted up to half the voucher money for itself."


Here's a link to an old discussion on DU (with some good links) about the voucher program in the Pensecola area:
Jeb's war on public education


another recent article on money spent for voucher students who have returned to public school:
Just three months after lawmakers raised the cap on Florida's newest school voucher program to make way for an enrollment boom, the enrollment numbers are down.

As the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program begins its second full year, the early enrollment figures show a decrease of several thousand in the number of low-income children participating.

>snip<
John Kirtley, the Tampa man who oversees the collection and distribution of Tax Credit Scholarships for the Florida PRIDE Scholarship Funding Organization, said he and his staff have done exit interviews with parents who left the program. They learned a few things.

"First, the population of families we work with is very transitory," Kirtley wrote in an e-mail. As happens in the public schools, Kirtley said, the low-income families who take the scholarships often move out of the area or to a different part of the Tampa Bay area.

The other reason, Kirtley said, is financial. The scholarships are capped at $3,500. Often that does not cover the total cost of tuition, fees, uniforms and other costs, and low-income parents have to make up the difference.

>snip<
The public school budget was built on the assumption that more children would leave for private schools under the Tax Credit Scholarship plan. If those children remain in the public schools, school districts don't have the money to pay to educate them.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/02/State/Fewer_students_seek_t.shtml


Beyond Florida-

A really good post on this thread by 9215:
school vouchers

School Choice:
Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Legal Questions
The Thomas B Fordham Foundation
http://www.edexcellence.net/library/bolick.html

Vouchers Undermine Public Schools
Anti-Defamation League
http://www.adl.org/vouchers/vouchers_public_schools.asp

Dr. Dobson Tells Christians to Get Kids Out Of California Public Schools
http://www.home-school.com/news/drdobson.html

and another consider the source list of articles on school choice:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/Schools/schoolchoice_news.cfm


I have much more, just have to go dig in the other computer's files.

One last note- while you're doing your research on this, keep an eye open for involvement of The Florida Council of 100 (follow the money)

[madfloridian]

12. Thanks, Soup! Yes, PM me the article.

I saved a lot of these articles somewhere, and I am beginning to think they are on my other computer. I keep finding stuff that got lost in the transfer. I need to check it.

[madfloridian]

3. Kick, hoping for more voucher outrages in Florida.

I am still looking.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. No accountability vouchers

Just how exactly did the Republicans think that vouchers would more efficiently resolve our school problems by giving the money to people that were far less trained on matters, such as financial accountability, than our own public school administrators and teachers?

Paul Krugman coined the term faith-based deregulation. By extension, this here is faith based voucher system. Anything that the Republicans touch, because they never set out to regulate it, will come back as egg in their face. It's so fraudulently irresponsible that I'm convinced that these private give-aways were paybacks to cronies and never meant to be more.

[SoCalDem]

5. How?? They don;t care..

The goal here is to dismantle the public education system.. If it involves some fraud, they are willing to tolerate it.. When the cash-starved public education system is in even worse condition, they will use that fact to justify further dismantlement..

Remember folks, repubes think LONG TERM.. They are willing to put up with some speedbumps if they achieve their eventual goal..

That goal is:
No public schools
Church supported schools
Stay home Moms banding together and forming "private schools"
........

They have a simlar plan in store for Social Security..

.........

The money gets pushed through the system from public money to private (unregulated) pockets and back into THEIR pockets for campaign money..

It's such a perfect scam..

of course the byproduct is a whole bunch of kids whose parents cannot afford to send them to school, so they are ripe for the picking when they turn 18...McDonalds or Uncle Sam are waiting with open arms:(

[sandnsea]

7. Noplace to blame

That's another result of this massive deregulation. There isn't any central agency for people to direct their anger and demand changes. Even privatizing the military, no 'support our troops' when they become unidentifiable privatized workers.

[sandnsea]

6. Check out Charter Schools too

I know of one in Washington State, at least one in Arizona, several in Texas. Directors running off with the funds. Buildings in disarray. We need to fix our public schools and stop pouring money out the door to these false choices that only prolong the problem.

[MassDem4Life]

8. tell me, I am just curious

do you get this pissed when the principles or superintendents of public schools are arrested?

Are you suggesting that one bad apple invalidates the entire voucher program?

If the purpose of schools is to educate our kids, why do we spend so much of our energy defending schools that are not doing that? and so much of our energy excusing organizations whose aim are clearly at odds with that stated goal?

[FlaGranny]

9. Did you miss the point?

This person had a record of arrests and was given the contract with no investigation into her history and credentials.

[madfloridian]

11. I am saying that my tax money should only be given to accreditated schools

whose owners/managers/principals are accountable.

Since Jeb is taking so much money from public schools, they can not function as well. I think you are having a little skewed thinking here.

Do you want your tax money going to children who are not allowed to be named or tested, and to schools which do not have to be held accountable?

And if you are by chance speaking of teacher organizations, they are the only ones standing up for teachers at all. The parents surely do not anymore. These groups want the best for the children and the teachers.

If you want no more public schools, no accountability, then your views are just fine.