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Akron businessman David Brennan told employees of White Hat Management last month that his family can no longer afford to subsidize the company he founded in 1998 and owns. White Hat is one of the country's largest for-profit charter school operators.

A new national study of academic progress in charter networks-which my colleague Nirvi Shah wrote about yesterday and this morning-is already generating debate among the commenters here. Yet it also highlights some interesting ways research on controversial issues gets channeled in our 24/7 blogo-news world.

Two new reports about public charter schools expose serious issues about the way they are run and their effectiveness.

This is the story of Benjamin Rayer, and how he got approval for not one, but TWO charter schools from the NJDOE.  It's an unlikely story, since our protagonist isn't even a resident of our fair state!!  But that didn't deter Benjamin from applying as the lead founder for both charters, no siree!  After all, he knew he had the right reformy qualifications to get ahead in New Jersey!

In some cases, charter schools are managed by for-profit entities (referred to in this article as "management companies"). The management agreements documenting these relationships range from agreements to provide general administrative support to agreements to provide virtually every service to be offered by the charter school, including curriculum, payroll, compliance reporting, providing teachers and staff through employee leasing, and the purchase and leasing of facilities. Many charter schools are intended to be operated as 501(c)(3) public charities. Historically, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") has carefully reviewed other types of charitable organizations operated by management companies to determine whether they qualify as a tax-exempt charities because they are, in fact, operating for the private benefit of the for-profit management company. However, the IRS has not brought a similar focus on this issue to charter schools generally - until now. The IRS is poised to increase its scrutiny of charter school/management company relationships and is now subjecting charter schools to more stringent standards defining such relationships.

This policy paper explores the role of charter schools in turning around the nation's lowest-performing high schools. Based on conversations with charter school operators, school district staff, researchers, and education reform experts, it examines how some pioneering cities-Los Angeles and Philadelphia in particular-are partnering with local charter operators to turn around some of their dropout factories and improve college readiness and graduation rates.