As readers of this blog know, deregulation of charters leads to fraud, graft, and abuse. On this site, I have documented scores of examples of fraudsters and grifters who take advantage of weak (or no) oversight to enrich themselves and to strand children in bad schools.
A few days ago, John Oliver ran an excellent segment about charter schools and the fraud associated with them. He barely scratched the surface. Charter supporters are furious and are saying that he “hurt” children, he savaged children, etc. (This is a familiar tactic; when I criticized the improbable test scores in New York City almost a decade ago, I was told that I was “hurting children and their teachers” by questioning the validity of the dramatic rise in scores.)
Fraud is a feature of deregulation, not a bug. When no one is looking, some people steal. Not everyone steals, but many do. That is why Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and California are scamming taxpayers. No one is demanding accountability. Politicians get paid off by charter friends, then cripple any effort to oversee them Ohio and Michigan spend $1 billion a year to subsidize charter schools, which are lower-performing than public schools.
The corporate reformers and privatizers are bombarding John Oliver with tweets and messages attacking his show.
Please let him know you support him.
Please take the time to contact John Oliver by writing him at management@avalonuk.com.
And tweet him @iamjohnoliver.
Don’t let the charter industry intimidate him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Done!
I’m in complete agreement with you, Diane, that we need to all stand behind John Oliver, thank him for his fine work here, and encourage him to do more of it.
But I would encourage everyone to ALSO write to his bosses and to post on social media sites so that THEY can also see, right away, how much backing he’s receiving.
LOTS of people LIKE what he did here; and in contrast to our opponents, NONE of us are being paid to say this.
Now, we all know that the pro-charter/pro-privatization side has been bombarding Oliver and his supervisors with hate mail, undoubtedly encouraging HBO to “stop him” etc.
So let’s do more than just thank John Oliver directly; Let’s also tell HBO and the general public on social media. Here’s how we contact HBO and John Oliver on this topic and show him support for his Charter Schools piece:
http://talk.hbo.com/t5/Last-Week-Tonight-with-John/Charter-Schools/td-p/526349
AND/OR:
Facebook for John Oliver: https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/(I’ve posted a lot here and I urge all of you to do the same.)
AND/OR:
Twitter for John Oliver: https://twitter.com/iamjohnoliver
AND/OR:
Twitter for Last Week Tonight: https://twitter.com/lastweektonight
AND/OR:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight
AND/OR:
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/
If we want to see more of this, we MUST stand behind John Oliver and HBO and let them know that WE are in in the majority—not the billionaires and their paid shills! Please go to these social media sites and support Oliver on this superb work: something we’ve been waiting to see for years! (Right now the “hired hands” for the privatizers are out in force on these sites so please post there ASAP!)
An HBO spokesman wrote in an email that “John does a piece/rant and then moves on to the next thing. He is first and foremost a comedian although all his rants are well researched.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-oliver-charter-school_us_57c5d25ee4b09cd22d931476
And accurate!
Done.
Done. I sent an e-mail and a Tweet.
I am tweeting asking for him to do a follow-up in his next season. As you say, he barely scratched the surface.
I wish he’d lay out the structure, because that’s where a lot of the misleading talking points come from.
They talk about these schools as if the school is THE entity, and it’s not.
There’s the contract between the state and authorizer (the charter) and the contract between the school and the operator, and then the subcontracts for services.
That’s why “nonprofit” is meaningless. It’s meaningless because “the school” is an entity- a legal description. That’s all it is.
Ohio *technically* has 100% nonprofit charter schools. Obviously not true. People read “nonprofit” and they stop there, but the word has been stripped of all meaning.
Done. I do not tweet, so the email worked out.
Big news on the ed reform front:
“PITTSBURGH (AP) — The founder and former CEO of an online public school that educates thousands of Pennsylvania students pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal tax fraud, acknowledging he siphoned more than $8 million from The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School through for-profit and nonprofit companies he controlled.”
This criminal enterprise had 11,000 students at one point. You-all may remember the FBI affidavit- the founders were exchanging bags of cash in a Pizza Hut parking lot.
Pennsylvania lawmakers ignored it for years- did nothing.
There’s a corruption problem with charter schools and state government in Pennsylvania. They refused to do anything about this “school” for a dozen years. People in PA should ask why.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_US_CHARTER_SCHOOL_FOUNDER_FRAUD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
I will do so, but let’s remember he also did an EXCELLENT show on “standardized” testing, so we have to thank him for that, as well. Really, he is the REAL journalist, here, in the dearth of good, honest reporting (MSNBC? CNN? Major networks?)
Sarcasm may be the devil’s weapon, but we are fighting the devils, so it works best!
It is beginning to feel as if sarcasm is the only safe place for truth. The Daily Show exposes a lot of reality too.
Yes, retiredbutmissthekids. “Sarcasm may be the devil’s weapon, but we are fighting the devils, so it works best!”.
Many people do not “appreciate” the sarcasm and especially the humor in television shows like Jon Stewart’s, John Oliver’s, or Bill Maher’s. Sometimes I do get a bit offended watching Maher present a joke about something that is really tragic. At the same time, many of us see the truth in it, but don’t want to laugh about it.
John Oliver is one of the best at tempering it properly.
I e-mailed and tweeted him my support.
Speaking of sarcasm, one of my favorite things about John Oliver is his ability to sarcastically agree with over the top criticism from angry and sometimes rather unstable viewers. He occasionally does a segment online or on his show in which he reads and responds to viewer mail. I look forward to seeing him laugh off some privatization lovers’ whiny fits of mental contortion claiming charter schools are magical, and anyone who disagrees hates children. Should be good. He already set it up when he discussed the marginal test score gains. At least the world has John Oliver and Diane Ravitch et al.
Sent to John Oliver….When the charter school absurdities make the main stream media, it makes those of us in the trenches smile. Thank you.
Sue Legg,
Please send him a link to the 3 pm post!
Done! I included Diane’s awesome quote “fraud is a feature, not a bug”. Is that the best line ever?
Done!
First and foremost, John Oliver is an entertainer, not a journalist. His show is very enjoyable and while his statements are generally accurate, they are hardly reflective of an industry as a whole. Fraud is not a product of deregulation, it is a product of people. Beverly Hall, Jeff Hiser, Michael P. Klentschy, Danny L. Colgan, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, and literally hundreds of other public school superintendents have been convicted of fraud.
Public school administrators are audited. Public schools are seldom audited or supervised. No state has enough staff to monitor hundreds of charters, each of which is equivalent to an independent district.
I thought we learned in 2008 when the market collapsed and caused a global financial crisis that deregulation encourages fraud. Maybe I learned it and you didn’t. Did you see the Academy Award documentary “Inside Job”? Deregulation enables cheating and theft.
Public officials must be monitored in their use of the public’s money.
And the majority of the cases you cite have been people who were absolute enthusiasts for “education reform”—and charters is always a key element of that. When money and profit pollutes education—and that’s what charters are all about—temptation and corruption are a constant danger.
I’m sure you just fired those names off the top of your head, Matthew.
Had you thorough knowledge of these individuals, you would know not to include Barbara Byrd-Bennett with those others, just as you can’t group Deasy with them when he is indicted. They were wolves in the henhouse: Broad Academy graduates who were destroying urban districts from within.
Charter proponents who happened to be working from the inside are still charter proponents.
Entertainer, yes, and with no less than four journalists on his staff who thoroughly research each topic. I hope “The John Oliver Effect ” takes hold of this topic shortly. It will be great to know that it took a true comedian to shine a white, hot, spotlight on the charter industry and expose it for all of its flaws.
dianeravitch
When you delegitimize Government, portray it as failing you cripple its ability to regulate. The assault on Public Education is aimed at delegitimizing. Part of that is portraying government employees as failures.
Cut the budgets of Government regulatory agencies. Make the wages of the regulators less competitive with private industry. Government becomes a less desirable career, a stepping stone to working for those you are supposed to regulate. You don’t get that job offer, by doing your job as a regulator.
The pattern is clear “starve the beast” then rob the piggy bank.
Actually, I remember when deregulation brought us the answering machine, cheaper airline fares, cheaper taxi services, and the internet. Current regulations make horse masseuses attend veterinary school (that don’t teach massage) before they can rub sore muscles, hair braiders attend cosmetology schools (that don’t teach braiding), and regulate unlicensed interior decorators, because really, who wants a rouge painters and curtain hangers running amok?
Mathew,
The fact that you would equate teachers left alone with large numbers of children with horse masseuses and hair braiders is a shocking (but very revealing) admission by a pro-privatizer who demands charters be as unregulated as beauty parlors.
Or maybe as unregulated as daycare providers. Surely you despise any regulations governing day care providers, too. No need! Anyone should be able to take care of an infant or toddler, right.
Matthew knows that we don’t need so stinking regulations because anyone who runs a daycare where children are grossly harmed will eventually get caught. And if enough children die, that day care will go out of business — that’s Matthew’s free market way! And since those regulations won’t make every child 100% safe so why bother at all, according to Matthew.
As long as regulations can’t make every public school 100% perfect, we need to lose them all! The perfect logic of Matthew, lover of charter schools and despiser of any rules that might protect children.
It might shock Matthew that beauticians have to apply for a Cosmetology License and each state has different requirements, and “As of 2015, most states require you to attend an approved school for a minimum number of hours, get hands-on training in the student salon or clinic, and sit for the state’s board exams. A few states allow apprenticeship in lieu of school to get those training hours.
“Once you have passed the board exams specific to your state, you are required to renew regularly. Some states require continuing education hours to renew your beauty license, some require taking a safety and sanitation quiz to renew, and others simply require the license renewal fee.”
Imagine that, barbers/beauticians have to prove they can do their job repeatedly, but Matthew doesn’t think teachers should.
I think what Matthew wants a world so free for the money makers that someone like Old Nick from the film “Room” could end up in the classroom with our children because there would be no qualifcaiton process for teachers — none — compared to what I went through back in 1975 to become a teacher. I had to go back to college for one full year. I already had my BA in journalism. But to earn that teaching credential I went through a full time urban residency with a master teacher in her classroom and attended university classes after the school day ended. Then teachers in California are required, like beauticians, to continue their educations to improve as teachers or lose their license to teach.
Not only that, but teachers in California has to be fingerprinted and go through an FBI background check to make sure we weren’t an Old Nick.
“John Oliver is an entertainer, not a journalist.”
I get my news from Comedy Central. I get my comedy from Fox News.
I never equated teachers to anyone. It was mentioned how terrible deregulation is, but my point is there are many areas where not having deregulation is also a problem. I think licensing is necessary and mostly pretty good. But at the same time, I can recognize the absurdity of over-regulation. Especially when there are many instances of requiring people to train and test in the performance of services so they may perform services which are not taught, nor tested, by the regulatory authority.
Mr. Lofthouse,
I’m sure you went through a lot of struggle and effort to become a good teacher. But if my child was in your classroom, your efforts in becoming a teacher means squat to me. To gauge your abilities, I wouldn’t look at your credentials or who you studied under. Rather, I would ask my friends whose children you taught in the last few years about your effectiveness with their children. I would monitor your current curriculum and decide for myself if it seemed appropriate, challenging, and facilitated my child’s learning. If I felt you were the best teacher for my child, I would be furious if my child was denied your tutelage because of where we lived or the type of school you worked at. Conversely, I would be equally angered if my child was forced to learn under someone who could care less about education and I couldn’t remove them from that classroom. I don’t think it is unreasonable to offer parents options if they believe their child’s teacher (or school) is not up to par with their expectations. As far as the money goes, it seems reasonable that it should be paid to the person (or school) who is providing the service.
Mathew, parents have options like requesting that their child be moved to another teacher. When I was teaching, this happened all the time. Some parents want their children to be happy and earn nothing but A’s even if the child doesn’t do any work to learn. Those parents care more about the child’s self esteem. Other parents want their children in the toughest teachers classrooms where the child will be challenged, because they are thinking of the future when their child is an adult in the world of work where self esteem is worth squat to most corporations and businesses.
In the now defunct California Vergara trial since the California Supreme Court refused to hear the case that overturned the original verdict, the expert Harvard witnesses for the prosecution in the original trial both alleged, guessed, that 1 to 3 percent of teachers were incompetent due to decades of observations by these two witnesses.
What does that mean to the average child? In 2014-15, there were a total of 295,025 teachers working in California’s public schools. There were 10,393 schools with 6,234,520 students.
One percent is 2,290 teachers.
Three percent is 8,851 teachers.
That means thousands of public schools in California have no incompetent teachers at all, and the odds that one of those 6,234,520 students would end up with an incompetent teacher, even at the 3 percent rate, is 0.14 percent.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/ceffingertipfacts.asp
After our daughter graduated from high school and was in her second year at Stanford, i asked her how many public school teachers did she have that were incompetence.
Before I share her answer, it helps to know that she moved four times between K-12 and had between 30 – 50 teachers. Every school she attended was a public school.
After our daughter gave it some thought, she said TWO, but that didn’t stop her from graduating from HS as a scholar athlete with a 4.65 GPA and being accepted to Stanford where she graduated in June 2014 and already had a job before she graduated starting with incredible benefits that most teachers never see and her starting pay was more than $60k annually.
The most important person in a child’s K-12 education is the child’s parents and/or guardians —- not those 30 to 50 teachers or those fraudulent and misleading high stakes test results. When I was age 7, a test I was given said I was retarded and would never learn to read or write. Most if not all bubble tests are worthless and do not adequately measure a child’s future or ability. And no bubble test is applicable of determining the ability of a teacher to teach or the quality of that teaching.
Thank you for exposing these profiteers who have nothing but dollars in mind and use children as an end to their means.
Thank you! As you are no doubt aware, in an anti-intellectual environment like America few listen to the opinions of educators–even though we are on the front lines and have witnessed the horrors of the privatization movement of which charters are one component. We have seen the damages to children as corporate profiteers find increasingly creative ways to capitalize upon the untapped market of our nation’s youth. We applaud your effort to bring this national travesty to light through satire and humor–especially as our opinions are so little valued. A heartfelt thanks!
I’m in complete agreement with you, Diane, that we need to all stand behind John Oliver, thank him for his fine work here, and encourage him to do more of it.
But I would encourage everyone to ALSO write to his bosses and to post on social media sites so that THEY can also see, right away, how much backing he’s receiving.
LOTS of people LIKE what he did here; and in contrast to our opponents, NONE of us are being paid to say this.
Now, we all know that the pro-charter/pro-privatization side has been bombarding Oliver and his supervisors with hate mail, undoubtedly encouraging HBO to “stop him” etc.
So let’s do more than just thank John Oliver directly; Let’s also tell HBO and the general public on social media. Here’s how we contact HBO and John Oliver on this topic and show him support for his Charter Schools piece:
http://talk.hbo.com/t5/Last-Week-Tonight-with-John/Charter-Schools/td-p/526349
AND/OR:
Facebook for John Oliver: https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/ (I’ve posted a lot here and I urge all of you to do the same.)
AND/OR:
Twitter for John Oliver: https://twitter.com/iamjohnoliver
AND/OR:
Twitter for Last Week Tonight: https://twitter.com/lastweektonight
AND/OR:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight
AND/OR:
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/
If we want to see more of this, we MUST stand behind John Oliver and HBO and let them know that WE are in in the majority—not the billionaires and their paid shills! Please go to these social media sites and support Oliver on this superb work: something we’ve been waiting to see for years! (Right now the “hired hands” for the privatizers are out in force on these sites so please post there ASAP!)
“in contrast to our opponents, NONE of us are being paid to say this.”
This.
Parents are catching on…everywhere: This just in from Livermore, California, where 400 parents pulled their kids out of charters: http://abc7news.com/education/about-400-parents-pull-kids-out-of-livermore-charter-schools/1481008/
I think that is great! That is exactly how schools should work. If a school isn’t educating a child to a parent’s satisfaction, the parent should have the option of moving their child to school which they believe would better meet their needs.
Ah, that isn’t how schools should work. Schools should be community controlled, democratic, transparent and non-profit. Schools should be staffed with teachers that have gone through FBI background checks to determine that they are not a clear and present danger to children. Schools should be staffed by highly trained and qualified teachers. Schools should be controlled by elected school boards that answer to voters/parents, because then when the voters/parents don’t like what’s going on in their (emphasis on “their”) schools that that paid for through taxes/frees, then they can vote out the elected board and vote in someone that will change the schools to be more efficient.
That is choice. The choice to vote every year to keep or get rid of the elected guardians of our children who live in the same community/school district boundaries with no political ties and allegiances to outside corporate stockholders, corporate CEO’s and billionaires.
Choice is voting every year for local, state and national representatives that have to run for re-election and face being voted out if they don’t delver to the majority of the Leopold they represent.
The parents in Livermore, California made a bad choice when they were offered the choice between their local public schools and an autocratic, opaque, often fraudulent and inferior, publicly funded, private sector corporate charters school that lied to them to lure their children away from schools where parents have choices, many choices.
The reason they pulled their children out of that fraudulent and inferior cooperate charter school was because they woke up and realized they had been fooled.
Grass roots democracy works best at the local level and for most of the public school districts in the United States, you can’t get more local. And each month (or more often if needed) elected school boards meet in open meetings where parents, teachers and children/students are allowed to attend and even address the school board and the administration that the elected school board hired to run the district.
Waking up and discovering you have been lied about the publicly funded, private sector corporate charter school you sent your children to is not the same as making a choice between shopping at Sam’s Club or Costco.
Good work Mr.Oliver.Journalism at its best.
Done!
Done!
Love your show, I watch every week. Loved the charter school segment, as I live in Chicago and that is how they operate here.
Done.
What strikes me is what a good TEACHER John Oliver is. Note to anti-lecture education professors: he lectures. See what a good lecture looks like? See how effective it is? Do you really think this lesson would be more effective if you plonked some texts in front of the audience and had them do group work on it? Are you prepared to stick with your assertion that we viewers were deplorably passive and thus not truly engaged in learning? Don’t you see that LISTENING and WATCHING is not deplorable passivity as you have so often (ironically) lectured your ed school students, but the central artery of all learning?!
Outstanding,.. thank you John Oliver!!
Thanks Mr. Oliver, I am a Chicago public school teacher. We are desperately trying to save our public schools. Thank you for shedding light on the problems that arise with charter schools and public education!
The most important thing from Oliver’s segment was his sources.
They were all LOCAL news stations. While the national TV media praises charters, the local stations are left to tell the reality of what’s really going on.
He oftentimes uses local sources in his programs. My guess it is not because they are more accurate, but because local news reporters are much less polished and there is a greater opportunity to find humor.
John Oliver also has an excellent research staff
I’m sure he has a fine staff. But just like reading any peer-reviewed journal article, it is always a good idea to consider the information within the context of who paid for the research.
Matthew, Anyone, and that means you too, can fact check every allegation made by Oliver on his show. Were any of the facts he shared with his audience false? If so, prove it with links to the evidence that what he reported was wrong or misleading.
I don’t doubt the accuraccy of his comments. But he and his researchers cherry pick the information that is most entertaining to his target audience, for purely selfish reasons: to gain marketshare, to gain proffits, and to get paid. Which is great! He has found success by locating a niche in the marketplace and found a way of meeting customer’s wants. He is good at it and I find him very entertaining, but his efforts certainly do not rise to the level of quality research or journalism.
Mathew, While true, the evidence that Oliver used is just the tip of Mt. Everest.
Report: Millions of dollars in fraud, waste found in charters school sector
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/28/report-millions-of-dollars-in-fraud-waste-found-in-charter-school-sector/
Why Charter Schools Are Fraud Factories
https://weaponsofmassdeception.org/3-charter-school-kid-prisons/3-3-why-charter-schools-are-fraud-factories
Charter Schools Gone Wild: Study Finds Widespread Fraud, Mismanagement and Waste
http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/05/charter-schools-gone-wild-study-finds-widespread-fraud-mismanagement-and-waste/
Runaway Credit Cards: one Person Over the Money: Open Doors to Charter School Fraud.
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/runaway-credit-cards-one-person-over-the-money-open-doors-to-charter-school-fraud/
Fraud, Waste, and Lies: Charter Schools Cheating Communities Out of Millions of Dollars.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/29/fraud-waste-and-lies-charter-schools-cheating-communities-out-millions-dollars
The Scam of Charter Schools Start to Show Cracks in New Orleans.
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/the-scam-of-charter-schools-starts-to-collapse-in-new-orleans
Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in Pennsylvania’s Charter Schools
http://integrityineducation.org/pa-charter-fraud/
Businessman Indicted for Fraud and Money Laundering Involving Charter School construction.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdla/pr/businessman-indicted-fraud-and-money-laundering-involving-charter-school-construction
the states through their SEAs–where pro-charter staffers work within state education departments–varied greatly in how much information was provided to the public about which charters had received funds and how that taxpayer money had been spent–despite mounting news accounts of fraud and waste by charters, including numerous criminal indictments, as tallied at more than $200 million by the Center for Popular Democracy.
Under ALEC-style charter bills, charters were exempted from most state regulations including key financial reporting and controls, and a number of charters refused requests by the press under open records laws for such information.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13015/education-department-releases-list-federally-funded-charter-schools-though-incomplete
This is just a small sample.
The bottom line, for me, is the lack of transparency, accountability, and oversight that many of the charters enjoy, regarding the use of taxpayer dollars along with teaching/administrative methods employed.
Anyone collecting and using our money should be held to the same standards as others who are doing the same. As is, the public schools are being held accountable to standards that are extremely difficult if not impossible to measure up to, exacerbated by the mandate to enroll any and all students, often while funding is being cut. Meanwhile the charters receive taxpayer and private funding, can operate as they please, and aren’t questioned until things go out of control.
Done
What I sent via the NPE page.
Dear Mr. Oliver:
I’ve spent the past two decades of my life researching and writing about the lucrative charter school industry. For many of those early years I, and a few others, were subjected to scorn and abuse for our audacity to speak truth to power.
My motivation has always been to defend those with the most to lose because of the charter project’s existence—students with disabilities (SWD), students with disciplinary issues, low-performing students, and so on. All these students are discriminated against because they threaten charter school revenues.
Today our voices are no longer alone, ignored, or silenced. The recent NAACP announcement, and your brilliant segment are testament to that. I understand that the charter industry has been launching vile attacks against you for exposing their insatiable greed. Please know that people of good conscience stand behind you. The neoliberal corporate education reform project backing the charter industry puts profits before pupils, and that’s unacceptable.
It’s time to end the horrifically failed charter school project, and turn our attentions to public schools.
Thank you for your courage.
Robert D. Skeels
Juris Doctor Candidate\
Good, Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene – My motivation (also) has always been to defend (no, I am not a lawyer, although my daughter is an IP attorney for Google) those with the most to lose (suppose I cheer for the underdogs). Not because of the charter’s project’s existence, but (44 years as a special education educator) for the children.
For the future (and I don’t have any grandchildren), because the children are the future of humanity itself.
It IS time to end a lot; not just the horrifically failed charter school project. Yes, we must turn our attentions to public schools, basically education. Maybe if the US didn’t spend so much on war, they might fund education. They might. If they value education. Which they don’t.
I am assuming you are a person of “good conscience” (I assume meaning ethical and moral values).
Somewhere you must have gotten a good education that taught you ethics and morals (studying to be a lawyer, are you?).
Use your education and experience to make a difference.
That’s exactly what Diane is doing.
Actions speak louder than words.
“Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose.”
Excellent piece.
His piece on Standardized Testing is classic, as well:
Great program in charter school fraud!
I just can’t figure out how millions of parents are being duped like this. Maybe its because not every charter school is a front for fraud.
Kraig,
Not every charter is a fraud, but without supervision, many are.
Take the American Indian Model Charter School in Oakland. It has high test scores, but its leader was found to have siphoned off more than $3 million for his personal accounts. Is there a fraud there? Surely a financial fraud.
No. Not all are corrupt. It would be naive to think so. But it’s also naive to suppose that people won’t take advantage of any loophole (or larger) that’s available in a given situation.
Bottom line: if you’re going to use taxpayer dollars, you should expect to play by the same rules that everyone else does.
Thank you!