The New York Times reveals today some of the findings of an ongoing audit of New York State’s privatized program to provide special education services for prekindergarten children Thomas P, DiNapoli, the Comptroller of the state of New York, has found evidence of massive fraud. New York’s preschool special education program is a $2 billion system that relies mostly on private contractors, many of them for-profit operators. New York spends more to provide these services than any other state in the nation.
Here are key excerpts:
“The owners of a Bronx company that employs teachers for disabled toddlers used thousands of dollars in government funds to fix up a weekend getaway in the Poconos, state auditors found. A Brooklyn company in the same program, which provides treatment for prekindergarten special education students, billed taxpayers for his wife’s $150,000 salary as his assistant director when she was a full-time professor at the City University of New York, the auditors said.”
“And the owners of an upstate company improperly diverted more than $800,000 to pay, among other things, rent and interest to themselves and the full-time salary of an executive who lived in South Carolina and seldom worked.”
A valuable story to read and ponder as our nation’s policymakers are pushing more and more districts and states to privatize the management and control of their public schools.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This doesn’t come as a shock to me, that’s for sure. Public school teachers enter their profession knowing that, while personally rewarding, they will never get rich pursuing this vocation. The same cannot be said for the founders of for-profit schools. Every dime that goes into the pockets of the operators of these schools is a dime not spent on educating our students. Fraud, sadly, is an extension of the motivation to maximize profit.
Perhaps these people will get to be first in line at the new Justice Center for the Protection of People With Special Needs. They seem to be highly qualified for that dubious distinction. How utterly shameful to exploit society’s neediest children.
Dante – Inferno – 9 Rings
Most politicians are businessmen and don’t see anything wrong with this. This goes on all the time. Privatizing is just a way of getting taxpayers money to big business. And destroy the unions while at it. 2 for 1. Sure let there be charters but cap the profit and demand how much goes to the classroom. You probably won’t see many charters at that point.