Did you think that the mainstream media would completely ignore major report on $100 million in charter school fraud, corruption, and abuse?
I did not see coverage in the Néw York Times or any other print publication. I did not see coverage on the networks or cable news stations. But Salon picked it up.
Salon recognized this as a story of white collar crime. A story of entrepreneurs ripping off taxpayers to the time of $100 million. That’s not penny ante stuff. That’s criminal.
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/charter_schools_are_cheating_your_kids_new_report_reveals_massive_fraud_mismanagement_abuse/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Our corporate libertarian media does not see it as a scam — they see it as an opportunity.
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indeed
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$260 million in Medicare fraud reported today. Let’s get rid of Medicare.
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Eric, I don’t hear anyone say that Medicare fraud doesn’t matter. Charter advocates don’t care how many charters are involved in fraud. They also say, as you did, everyone does it.
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“Other cost-saving measures under consideration include conducting audits to find supposed dependents like ex-spouses who are improperly receiving city health-care benefits. Such audits could save as much as $250 million a year, [United Federation of Teachers] sources said.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/committee-labor-union-coalition-approves-health-savings-plan-article-1.1776902#ixzz31iYjMHa7
This is a stark reminder that “white collar” fraud and corruption are certainly not limited to charter schools. Diane, should the UFT members who collectively have been ripping off the taxpayers of New York City to the tune of a cool quarter billion dollars every year for God knows how long be held to account for it?
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I really don’t understand why no one’s been pushing on that story. It’s such a chip shot.
Possibility #1: There’s an astounding amount of benefits fraud that the UFT is aware of, and the city and the union are characterizing eliminating that fraud as new “healthcare savings” that the union may or may not sign off on.
Possibility #2: The “$250 million a year” figure is wildly overstated, which means that one of the few identified sources of “healthcare savings” is a complete sham.
Not to mention that the Mayor and the UFT are trying to sell this audit as some product of the recent contract negotiations, when in fact the audit happened last year under Bloomberg and the UFT agreed to the audit (after initially resisting).
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I think he misinterpreted the paragraph. 250 million a year is a huge and improbable number to cover people fraudulently keeping ex spouses on health insurance. Is it maybe a million dollars each person? My God, what are they paying for an insurance policy? They have a bigger problem than they think! 🙂
“Other cost-saving measures under consideration include conducting audits to find supposed dependents like ex-spouses who are improperly receiving city health-care benefits. Such audits could save as much as $250 million a year, union sources said.”
Include. Audits LIKE uncovering fraud regarding ex-spouses. It’s an example of an audit that would bring savings, not the sum total projected recovery of that particular audit.
There’s a lot more health insurance fraud involving providers than there is involving beneficiaries.
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I have the same reading of the paragraph that Tim has.
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I certainly read it that the audits are expected to save as much as $250 million dollars a year.
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Nice wording, TE. Neither Chiara, Tim, myself, nor Flerp! would disagree with you.
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No one really needs a reminder that fraud/corruption occurs outside of charter schools. It is quite obvious that fraud occurs in TPS, charters, private schools, businesses, households, and government. The point is that traditional media are rarely addressing this type of fraud with charters.
There are also degrees of corruption consider with Tim’s point. The type of fraud Tim addresses above is nowhere near the same in degree or level as a TPS school board that gave building contracts to their own companies or charters that rent out their school buildings to the operator of the charters.
People may engage in this type of fraud through ignorance, indifference, or lack of effort. It is not necessarily done as a means to consciously give health-care benefits to people who were at one time real dependents.
And logically speaking, Chiara’s reading is probably the right one. Seriously, how could it be otherwise? One would truly need to ignore so much to have such a limited interpretation.
The paragraph should read, “Other cost-saving measures under consideration include [but are not limited to] conducting audits to find supposed dependents like ex-spouses who are improperly receiving city health-care benefits.”
Any other reading deliberately ignores the word “Other,” the plural with “measures,” and the conditional word “could” in the second sentence.
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TheMorrigan,
Public schools may have people who want to commit fraud, but they are subject to public audits, are required to comply with state laws, and are supervised. The removal of supervision by public authorities over charters commits opportunities that do no exist for public schools. Imagine a public school in which the local school board hired relatives. It is illegal. It is called nepotism and conflict of interest. Freedom from such laws opens the door to greed, not to better education.
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I am in full agreement with you on this issue, Diane: There is no doubt in my mind that charters do need more oversight and accountability. The above post is in reply to Tim’s and Flerp’s posts.
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Ok, TheMorrigan.
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It’s very disheartening that media would not pick up on such an important story. For the most part, there’s no pretense at actually practicing journalism. The major outlets are merely serving as mouthpieces for billionaires. We seem to be quite a way down that road to oligarchy.
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The mainstream MAY be catching on to the narratives from your blog. Here’s a surprising article from US News and World Report titled “Report Finds Weak Link Between Value Added Measures and Teacher Instruction:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/05/13/report-finds-weak-link-between-value-added-measures-and-teacher-instruction
The article doesn’t pull any punches and underscores the skepticism of education researchers.
And here’s Dale Russakoffs’ New Yorker article on Newark Schools:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/19/140519fa_fact_russakoff?currentPage=all
It’s difficult to defend the way dollars have been spent in Newark. In the more distant past it seems money went to politicians who either put it in their pockets or used it for featherbedding… and in the recent past it went to consultants who knew a lot about mathematical algorithms and advertising but very little about public school management. In neither case did the money go to the classrooms.
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Salon has been doing some terrific education reporting. They get it.
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Of course VAM adds nothing – it is meant to subtract qualified, certified teachers from their positions, and fill them with TFA scabs. Its a money grab. That is all.
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Donna, you are right. The purpose of VAM is not to help teachers but to identify who should be fired.
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Public school management structures have traditionally been very flat compared to the the types of gargantuan pyramids that large corporations just naturally build.
The more you see corporate management hierarchies taking over public schools, the more you are going to see stories like this:
Eclectablog • EAA has spent nearly a quarter million dollars on travel, gas, chauffeur, and furniture since its inception
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Additionally, I know for sure that the story did not cover Los Angeles — only one fraud was mentioned. I have had several friends tell me that their children’s charters were going to close because the “leaders” absconded with the funds. Somehow, these happened under the radar (and in one instance, ex-Mayor Riordan donated money to keep the charter afloat). After all, who owns the media? It isn’t our unions. It isn’t us.
I could personally write a book about 30 years of misspent tax funds in Los Angeles Unified, but most of it was incompetence as opposed to fraud. Why these hedge fund and billionaire boys need to commit fraud with charters is beyond me. I don’t think the return is worth it.
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The claim that audits related to health insurance could save as much as $250 million each and every year comes straight from union sources and was reiterated by Michael Mulgrew in remarks made at a delegate assembly. If they felt that something other than audits would raise a substantial portion of that $250 million, it seems likely–and logical–that they would have mentioned it by name, if only to help deflect from what is an astonishing admission. Let me repeat: the head of the UFT admitted that his membership is fraudulently obtaining a quarter billion dollars’ worth of health benefits every year. Seems this should be worthy of coverage in the New York Times, too.
It isn’t an implausible number. There are something like 120,000 active and retired UFT members who receive very low-premium, very high-benefits health insurance, along with coverage for spouses and dependents. The DOE spends almost $10,000 per year per eligible UFT employee. The audit might not turn up only divorced spouses, but dependent children who qualify for insurance through their employer; coordination of benefits issues with working spouses who qualify for insurance through their employer; and non-dependents receiving benefits.
Annual benefits enrollment offers everyone a pretty good chance to double-check whether they are divorced or not; whether their sons, daughters, and wives are elgible for insurance through another source; and whether cousin Johnny is actually a dependent. Mulgrew’s confidence in getting $250 million is probably rooted in the knowledge that this kind of fraud is rampant and long-standing, and that absolutely no one is going to be punished for it. So talk to me again about how the districts are inherently more transparent and accountable than charters?
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Not to mention that the assertion that these audits are something that the city won from the union in partial exchange for retro pay is a complete sham, since the city already had the right to conduct the audits and the union had already agreed to them. A complete sham.
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