Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 260
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-4758-4019-3 • Hardback • December 2017 • $98.00 • (£75.00)
978-1-4758-4020-9 • Paperback • December 2017 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
978-1-4758-4021-6 • eBook • December 2017 • $48.50 • (£37.00)
Curt Cardine over the past 45 years has been a teacher, principal, and superintendent of public and charter schools in New Hampshire and Arizona. Mr. Cardine has owned private businesses and has advanced degrees in Organization and Management with an expertise in school finance.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Perspective
Chapter 2: Carpetbagging Radical Reconstruction
Chapter 3: Rise of the Petty Academies
Chapter 4: Schools for the Adults
Chapter 5: The Road to Perdition
Chapter 6: Economic Theories in Use
Chapter 7: Mind Sets About Public Schools
Chapter 8: Schooling Alone
Chapter 9: Private Ownership of Public Assets
Chapter 10: Mission Failure: Academic Results
Chapter 11: Real Choice: Debunking the Rhetoric
Chapter 12: Teachers in the Charter and Private Systems
Chapter 13: Teacher Compensation in Charters
Chapter 14: Administrative Costs versus Classroom Spending
Chapter 15: Academic Red Flags
Chapter 16: Unsustainable Debt and Financing Irregularities
Chapter 17: Failure is not an Option
Chapter 18: Following the Money
Chapter 19: Choosing Profits over Children
Chapter 20: Selective Memory
Chapter 21: Running Schools for the Adults
Chapter 22: Choosing High Administrative Costs
Chapter 23: Inside Job: Real Estate Acquisitions
Chapter 24: Charter Law in Arizona
Chapter 25: Stand and Deliver Probe Vertically, See Horizontally
Chapter 26: Ideals versus Ideology
Chapter 27: Situational Ethics Public Money
Chapter 28: Overspending of Revenues AKA Net Losses
Chapter 29: Opportunism-Local Educational Opportunities are no longer Local, A Unique Meta-Analysis of the Financial Data
Chapter 31: Behavior Can Be Regulated
Chapter 32: The Essential Questions
Chapter 33: Money Talks
Chapter 34: Conclusions and Recommendations for Action
Addendum A
Access to Source Data
Limited Bibliography
About the Author
Curt Cardine has written an important book about the ripoff of the American taxpayer and the destruction of public schools by the rapacious, profit-driven charter school movement. He demonstrates why authorities must establish clear standards for academic and financial accountability for these schools, or close them down and return their students to public schools.
— Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education; author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System"
With the founding premise that “public schools belong to the public,” Curt Cardine offers a cogent investigation of the “misappropriations and egregious abuses” of public education options afforded through the current policy context. Cardine focuses on Arizona charter school data, citing startling statistics while simultaneously attending to the nuances of the “23% of the cases studied [that] behave(d) in an ethical and fiscally sound manner.” Charter school critics and proponents alike would do well to attend carefully to the various dimensions of Cardine’s analysis.
— Kim Carter, Executive Director of the Q.E.D. Foundation
Arizona should be a beacon to the nation for what happens when you allow school choice to run rampant with little oversight. Curtis Cardine comprehensively digs into financial data for Arizona’s charter schools and shows how giving public money in a practically unregulated manner to privately-owned charter operators leads to most operators paying themselves handsomely, doing business with themselves and relatives to make more money, and compensating their teachers poorly. Read on, it gets worse. Cardine has impeccable credentials. He’s administered public district schools and overseen a highly successful charter school connected to a district school in New Hampshire. In Arizona he was recruited to help run two charter schools.
— Dave Wells, PhD, Research Director, Grand Canyon Institute
Curt Cardine has written a book to remind us all that when it comes to public education, we cannot have it both ways: either we must insist on requiring that all public schools -- neighborhood or charter -- are a public good, subject to the same basic laws of transparency and accountability; or we must redefine public education as a private commodity, and let the market rule. If that choice feels fundamentally important, both to you and to the future of our civic health, this book is for you.
— Sam Chaltain, author of "American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community"
Curt Cardine makes clear early in his book that he neither intends nor means “to disparage the concept of charter schools.” But he does mean to disparage how the idea is—too often—implemented, how in fact a good idea becomes corrupted in its execution. What he uncovers is provocative and unsettling. Anyone serious about how we educate our kids--parents, school boards, and state legislators-- needs to pay attention.
— John M. Barry, author, "The Great Influenza, Power Plays, and Rising Tide"