Arizona: Indiana

by David Safier

Remember that wonderful 5 part investigation of tuition tax credits and STOs in the East Valley Trib? And remember how the Trib reporters as well as others at the Republic kept adding to the story? And remember how all this journalistic attention led to not one, but two legislative committees looking into tax credits and STOs?

Pretty neat how that works, isn't it? Power of the press and all that good stuff.

Well, a similar thing is beginning to happen in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the Journal Gazette published a series of articles about their local, non profit Imagine Schools being run by the for profit Imagine Schools corporation instead of by their local boards, in direct violation of IRS regulations.

by David Safier I've been out of town, so I haven't written about the second and third installments of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette's series on Imagine Schools: Education Inc. This is about Part II, It's 'Our school, not...

by David Safier

Today's Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Indiana, began a 3 part series about the corporation, Imagine Schools, and the charters it runs in Indiana. Compared to these stories, the posts I've written have handled these folks with kid's gloves. The first day's articles are serious stuff.

The Sunday paper actually has two interlocking stories, Private company skirts public boards in running tax-funded charter schools and Company’s compliance to tax policy in question, as well as an editorial, Who’s minding the charters? If that sounds familiar, it's because it's the same approach the East Valley Trib took in its investigative series on tuition tax credits and STOs.

by David Safier
This is one of a series of posts, Peeking into Charter Schools. If you have information you wish to contribute, you can post comments or email me: safier@schooltales.net.

Here's a perfect illustration about how Imagine Schools (there are 72 nationwide, 14 in Arizona) pulls its quick school building shuffle, taking money from students' educations and putting it . . . well, that's the question. Where does it go? Wherever it goes, Imagine Schools has no apologies. It's proud of what it does.

Imagine MASTer Academy Charter School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, began operations in 2006. In July, 2006, the building for the school, an old YMCA campus, was purchased by North Wells Schoolhouse LLC for $2.