California Charter Academy

The California Charter Academy (CCA) was formerly the largest charter school operator in California, with multiple campuses located throughout the state. CCA opened under the leadership of Mr. C Steven Cox, a former insurance executive. During the charter school's tenure, it ran into many legal confrontations with the California Department of Education (CDE). At one instance, CCA lost a lawsuit regarding withholding of student funding by the CDE due to the passage of a bill which imposed retro-active limitations on educational programs initiated six months before the law went into effect. California Charter Academy and EASC were unable to pursue the appeal of this decision once the program was forced to shut down in August, 2004. In 2004, the Superintendent of the California Department of Education, Jack O'Connell, launched an imaginative audit into CCA alleging financial irregularities. CCA halted operations in August 2004. The closing of CCA caused chaos among chartering school districts, leaving them to deal with student transcripts and landlords who were left with CCA's assets. Students and former employees were equally impacted by the close leaving them without schools and jobless shortly before the beginning of the 2004-05 school year. On April 14, 2005, MGT of America and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Team released their version of a financial audit of CCA performed on behalf of the CDE, claiming $23 million in taxpayer money paid to the private management corporation EASC was misappropriated. CCA and its affiliates later launched a separate audit with independent accountants, not affiliated with the CDE, alleging the audit conducted by MGT of America and FCMAT was politically motivated. This audit is still in its infancy. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge later denied a bankruptcy petition requested by the CDE for CCA's management company, Educational Administrative Services Corporation (EASC), and Mr. Cox filed a $120 million lawsuit against the CDE.