Opinion: Show me the (charter management fee) money!

Robert Cotto Jr. is an elected member of the Hartford Board of Education and a lecturer in the Educational Studies program at Trinity College. Reach him by email here.

When traditional schools pay their bills to educate kids, they usually don’t have much money, if any, remaining. When charter schools pay their bills, they often have money left over to spend. How much? It depends on the school. For a number of charter schools, roughly 10 percent of all of public dollars meant for educating children in these schools go to pay fees for private companies called “charter management organizations.” That’s a problem.

Connecticut law states that a charter management organization (CMO), “means any entity that a charter school contracts with for educational design, implementation or whole school management services.” These CMOs claim that they are private corporations, not public agencies. Organizations that claim to be CMOs in Connecticut include Achievement First; Capital Preparatory Schools; DOMUS, and Jumoke/FUSE, which is now defunct. It’s often hard to tell the difference between the CMO and the charter schools they manage.

So how does this CMO thing work? As state law shows, CMOs are similar to school districts. They can provide the services that a school district would perform for local schools such as management or operations.

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.