rocketship

http://www.rsed.org/bayarea/

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, which continues to be a center of entrepreneurship, innovation and technology, Rocketship Bay Area is proud to be the birthplace of Rocketship Education. The region’s diversity and immigrant population is a testament to the potential and opportunity for those striving to achieve the American dream.

We have nine Rocketship schools in San Jose and one school in Redwood City, together serving over 6,000 students. More than 1,200 families on our wait list indicates a significant demand for more great schools. We are striving to open more schools each year to provide even more families with high-quality educational options.

PAC money floods local school board races

By Sharon Noguchi

snoguchi@mercurynews.com

POSTED: 10/31/2012 10:52:28 AM PDT | UPDATED: 4 YEARS AGO

With an unprecedented surge of cash from charter schools and their high-tech backers, normally low-profile school board campaigns have morphed into big-bucks contests to elect charter-friendly candidates and defeat their challengers.

The six-figure spending by independent committees highlights the muscle of charter proponents in Santa Clara County, where the county Board of Education is rapidly approving charter schools that compete for students and funding with established public schools.

The most aggressive campaign appears to be aimed at Anna Song, who is running for her fourth term on the county Board of Education.

The Santa Clara County Schools Political Action Committee has raised nearly $200,000 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 20, and financed auto-dial calls plus four mailers slamming Song and three supporting her challenger, trustee David Neighbors.

"It's an outrageous amount of money to take out one school board member," said Song, who's running for a seat that represents areas served by the Santa Clara, Milpitas and the Berryessa school districts.

Neighbors, who has benefited from $76,000 worth of PAC mailers and auto-calls for his candidacy and against Song, said about the PAC, "I don't know much about it."

Created at the suggestion of the California Charter Schools Association, the PAC is run by Santa Clara County political consultants Jay Rosenthal and Jude Barry.

Through Oct. 20, Neighbors raised $23,539 for his campaign. Song raised $6,525

The PAC is also sending mailers to re-elect Grace Mah, who's running for the county school board to represent areas within the Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale school districts. Her opponent, Dave Cortright, is an outspoken opponent of Bullis Charter School in Los Altos.

The PAC dwarfs spending in county school board elections, where serious candidates typically have spent closer to $30,000. "What they're doing could be very significant," said Terry Christensen, professor emeritus at San Jose State and a specialist in state and local politics. Because so little is typically spent in a county school board race he said, "it wouldn't take much to have an influence."

Among the big donations to the PACs are $75,000 from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates; $50,000 from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; $50,000 from Gap heir John J. Fisher; $40,000 from Emerson Collective, the nonprofit run by Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs; and $10,000 from Rocketship charter schools board member Timothy Ranzetta.

Those reached, including Jobs' spokeswoman Candace Pugatch, declined to comment on their contributions.

The charter school PACs serve as a new counterweight to unions and construction companies that have dominated big giving in local school board races.

Another political action committee, Parents for Great Schools, has raised $41,000 and spent at least $17,000 promoting Magdalena Carrasco for a seat on the East Side Union High School district board. As of Tuesday afternoon, Carrasco had not reported all the PAC contributions on disclosure forms, although she did list $15,250 in other contributions, many from Southern California interests.

Carrasco did not return calls seeking comment.

In addition, the committee is supporting Leland Lowe and Karen Martinez, challengers for the Alum Rock School District board.

Parents for Great Schools also received $10,000 from Jobs' Emerson Collective. In addition, it took in $15,000 from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates, $5,000 from Ranzetta and $5,000 from philanthropist Carmen Castellano of Saratoga. Smaller contributions came from ex-San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer, PACT Executive Director Matt Hammer, Silicon Valley Leadership Group President Carl Guardino and Rocketship land-use consultant Erik Schoennauer.

Carrasco is one of two challengers seeking to oust two incumbents on the East Side board. Fellow newcomer Thelma Boac, a retired East Side principal, has reported raising $13,300 for the campaign. Incumbent Lan Nguyen hadn't filed a report by last week's deadline but said he's raised about $21,000. And incumbent Patricia Martinez-Roach reported carrying over $84,543 from previous campaigns.

The spending outpaces expenses in two races in San Jose Unified's two district elections. Paul Murphy, Sandra Engel and Teresa Castellanos have raised slightly less than $10,000 each. Candidate Cathy Davis failed to submit contribution reports.

"It's unprecedented that so much money is coming into this race against people who are more measured with their approach to charter schools," said Cortright, who is self-funding his campaign and plans to spend about $1,000.

Had donors given money directly to support high-performing schools, they would have had a more beneficial impact, Song said.

While Song voted against Rocketship Education's application to open 20 charter schools in the county, Mah voted against Bullis Charter School's renewal. Rosenthal said that the endorsements are "based on the totality of board votes" and the candidates' temperament.

Both Song and Cortright deny that they are anti-charter. Ironically, the mailers slam Song not for her charter votes, but for the board's lavish contracts with current Superintendent Xavier De La Torre and former Superintendent Charles Weis -- who might saddle the County Office of Education with an underwater mortgage on his luxury condo. But Song has been among Weis' detractors. And the mailers praise Mah, who has been one of Weis' staunchest supporters.

Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775

Money

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_21896419/

Rocketship has put hundreds of thousands of dollars into PACs,and acted with an aggression that is characteristic of highly profitable sectors. This makes one want to follow the money trail. StopRocketship.com has been investigating this for quite some time. Follow the links below to see what we’ve learned so far.

Profit Potential:Hedge Fund Investors and Software developers are poised for huge profit windfalls from educating poor students of color, using public tax dollars.
Money Trail:Follow the money trail from Washington DC to San Jose.
Money Diverted?: Rocketship’s management and facility fees are twice that of Morgan Hill Unified, and board reports indicate the difference is being used to fund growth.
Rocketship Private Corporation?: An attorney that represents Rocketship argues that charters are private corporation in defense of a convicted charter embezzler on behalf of the California Charter School Association.
Investors Make Millions: High student-to-teacher ratios and lack of transparency enable huge tax payer funded profits for tennis great Andre Agassi and his investors.

Rocketship’sattorney, Paul Minney, recently filed an Amicus Briefon behalf of Ivy Academia Charter Schools in L.A. Ivy Academia’s executive director, Yevgency Selivanov, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for embezzling state funds. In that brief, Minney, states, “Again, the court cases and other arguments cited above make it abundantly clear that the nonprofit operators of charter schools are private entities under contract with local school districts and are not the state, nor a county, nor a city, nor a town, nor a district, nor any other “public agency” of the state.”

Rocketship’s own legal council argues that they are indeed a private corporation. :{Rocketship is organized as a :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{501C3:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, with a separate land holder, Launchpad LLC. For more, see this link.

With Rocketship’s aggressive growth, and profit generating plans for 50:1student to teacher ratios, we are increasingly worried about a lack of public oversight. The criminal conviction above makes us all the more worried.