California Charter Academy

The California Charter Academy was formerly the largest charter school operator, operating over 60 campuses scattered throught the United States. From its start, CCA was under the leadership of Mr. C Steven Cox, a former insurance executive. During the charter school's tenure, CCA ran into many costly legal confrontations with the California Department of Education, one which CCA lost a lawsuit to.

In 2004, the Superindent of the California Department of Education, Jack O' Connell, launched an investigative audit into CCA suspecting financial irregularities. Problems shortly became apparent after CCA abrutly haulted operations in August of 2004. The closing of CCA caused chaos among chartering school districts, leaving them to deal with student transcripts and landlords who were left with other CCA assets. Students and former employees were equally impacted by the close leaving them jobless and schooless shortly before the beginning of the new school year.

On April 14th 2005, MGT of America and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Team released an investigative audit of CCA, exposing the harsh realities of what was actually going on at the charter schools and giving some insight as to why they may have closed. The former CEO of the charter schools and charter management company did not take the audit well, and initiated another audit via his attorneys and outside accountants.

The DA most recently denied a bankruptcy petition requested by the CDE for Educational Administrative Services Corporation (CCA's management company) and Cox has recently filed a $120 million dollar lawsuit against the CDE.

External links

• California Department of Education official statement
• CorpWatch article about events at time of collapse
• AP article at beginning of the investigation
• SF Chronicle article about criminal charges being sought
• Desert Dispatch article about the release of the Department of Education audit
• Desert Dispatch article about a separate audit being conducted