According to Arizona entrepreneur and charter school founder Raena Janes, schools are businesses, and students are the product. In a local Tucson publication she claimed that the Arizona charter schools she runs are “like free private schools” with strict dress and honor codes. She admits that her charters “expel quite a few kids a year” if they don’t fit her model.
Janes’ charter school model doesn’t work for all kids, but it is very lucrative for her and for board members. Public documents show that since the 2010-11 school year, Janes and several of her fellow board members have extracted close to $33 million taxpayer dollars from the charter schools.