Imagine Charter Schools Receive $11,000,000 from Duncan's Stim Fund

Sylvia Smith, the Journal Gazette's Washington editor, has been doing a little digging of her own. Dennis Bakke, who has the lead role in the investigative piece reported below by Soderland and Stockman is getting fabulously wealthy from Federal education dollars, with no oversight, no accountability, no scientific evidence, no local control, and with the blessings of the President and his Sec. of Ed. Amazing and all true.

WASHINGTON – Imagine charter schools in seven states and the District of Columbia have received more than $11 million from the federal stimulus program this year.

Including $971,950 sent to Imagine schools in Fort Wayne and $493,689 given to Imagine schools in Indianapolis, facilities throughout the country received a share of the stimulus money that was funneled through state education departments.

Distributed on a formula basis, schools received money to help prevent teacher layoffs, to pay for catch-up programs for low-income children and to underwrite the cost of education for children with special needs.

Imagine Schools is an Arlington, Va.-based company that is the subject of a Journal Gazette series that examined the company’s operating procedures. The series found that the parent company appears to make decisions about local charter school policies – including curriculum and hiring – instead of the boards of the charter schools.

In all, Imagine schools in Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia received $11.3 million, according to reporting filed on the government’s Web site that tracks stimulus money.

Several states where Imagine charter schools are in operation – Colorado, Georgia, Florida, New York and Maryland – did not report that they provided grants to the charter schools.

The reporting on the government’s Web site is done by recipients of the money; in this case, state education departments.