These scandals happen so often that at some point they won’t be newsworthy.
A virtual school in Ohio was put on a one-year probation because an audit showed it has a deficit of $800,000.
Hard to know how it ran at a deficit when virtual schools get full tuition and don’t have any of the expenses of brick-and-mortar schools.
And one minor detail was that the charter had hired the wife, brother and son of the superintendent in the district where it was headquartered.
Little details like this can easily be overlooked.
The audit said that hiring those folks might conflict with the state’s ethics laws, but let’s not rush to judgment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Little details like this can easily be overlooked.”
That is why all schools that receive public funds should be subject to the same controls and audits that public schools are required to go through. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
That is exactly what charter management operators do not want. This way there is no accountability for expenditures.
If the same level of scandal and stealing of money took place in a public school district the ramifications would be severe for the people involved and justifiably so. Such public educators would be highly covered on the media front, lose jobs, certifications, and more. I get the impression that when such a act takes place in a charter school it is much less known and therefore the consequences are less too.
Ed?
In our state, we have seen that the state superintendent’s campaign is heavily funded by charter school corporations and that his wife is a paid staff member for these organizations. Of course the governor just purchased himself a very lucrative new job at a major university, in violation of laws that he originally put in place. Not much hope here. It looks more and more to me that the true objective of these so called reforms is to ensure the enrichment of select corporations and individuals (at taxpayer expense) while ensuring a permanent underclass of citizens- those citizens being the financially disadvantaged (primarily minority students and families). Such a scam and a violation of public trust.
Sounds strangely like Indiana!
By the way, the state superintendent’s campaign’s war chest received 200K from a Walmart heiress. When are voters going to start wondering about what the 200K is really buying? Oh– not to mention the big chunk of money that Michael Bloomberg gave to the same campaign.