The Network for Public Education released a shocking report about waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal charter school program.
This year, Congress handed out $440 million to charter schools, many of which will never open or quickly close. Trump and DeVos want to increase the annual sum to $500 million.
The Washington Post covered the findings. Valerie Strauss writes:
”The U.S. government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons, according to a report from an education advocacy group. The study also says the U.S. Education Department does not adequately monitor how its grant money is spent.
“The report, titled “Asleep at the Wheel” and issued by the nonprofit advocacy group Network for Public Education, says:
- More than 1,000 grants were given to schools that never opened, or later closed because of mismanagement, poor performance, lack of enrollment or fraud. “Of the schools awarded grants directlyfrom the department between 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either never opened or shut its doors,” it says.
- Some grants in the 25-year-old federal Charter School Program (CSP) have been awarded to charters that set barriers to enrollment of certain students. Thirty-four California charter schools that received grants appear on an American Civil Liberties Union list of charters “that discriminate — in some cases illegally — in admissions.”
- The department’s grant approval process for charters has been sorely lacking, with “no attempt to verify the information presented” by applicants.
- The Education Department in Republican and Democratic administrations has “largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed” recommendations to improve the program made by its own inspector general.
“Our investigation finds the U.S. Department of Education has not been a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in its management of the CSP,” it says.”
Carol Burris, executive director of NPE, is briefing key members of Congress today about this wasteful program.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I believe it was the poet Lord Tennyson who once remarked “Tis better to have opened and scammed than never to have opened at all.”
Carol Burris may be briefing key members of Congress today, but who are those members and how many of them are directly connected to the scheme? It seems that daily, we are reminded of how our tax dollars are only there to serve and bolster the wealth of the already wealthy. It is draining on the soul. I wish her well and hope for change….but I wouldn’t count on anything coming of this.
She is meeting with the staff of the chair of the House Education Committee, Bobby Scott, the chair of Education Appropriations, Rosa DeLauro, and others. They are key.
Are the staff who are listening, part of the Gates-funded Senior Congressional Education Staff Network? If so, how embarrassing for them to be found out, sidling up next to the foremost education oligarch. If so, maybe they can redeem themselves.
I doubt the 3rd ranking Democratic member of the House education committee, DFER’s Susan Davis, will send staff- she thinks there should be charter schools everywhere.
exposing the deepest rot: the DFER game
I hope Carol will be able to convince members of Congress to start an investigation of what is clearly a money pit of waste, fraud and embezzling. What is truly sad is that all that wasted money could have served the neediest students instead of lining the pockets of the crooked and corrupt. Privatization of education is rife with abuse, and there is little to no oversight. I hope Congress investigates as they are the ones that must act to stop the flow money. In comparison there is very little fraud in public education as the system has fiscal accountability built into it. Public schools are a much better educational value.
Very valuable report. Can Carol Burris pls write an expose letter to the Editor of the NYT or a guest op-ed on this?
I hope she will but I doubt the Times would print it because the Washington Post got an exclusive to introduce it.
I just shared this report on social media, and I encourage others to do so too. We should also share it other progressive friendly news outlets.
Wow. Kudos to the NPE for shedding light on this!
YES indeed …. “Kudos to the NPE for shedding light on this!”
Politics for the rich – again. How much money was spent on “charter” “colleges”, paid by the government for veterans, colleges that cost far more than public colleges but even those who graduated found their diplomas useless .
Will it even change? Laws enacted so the rich get ever richer and such a significant percentage of our children live in poverty.
Government of, by and for the richest – monetarily. Destitute in integrity.
The wealthy sure hate paying taxes, but they love stuffing fistfulls of tax dollars paid by others into their own pockets.
Look who’s running the department of education, or should say, NOT RUNNING…Betsy DeVos. Corrupt and part of the Walton family, Amway scam, companies that suck the life blood out of the people sucked into loans for colleges, etc, etc. And her brother runs Blackwater. Nothing more needs to be said. I’m sure the college scandal she’s forced to look at will be swept under the rug.
Stop funding Charter Schools, NOW!
Exactly. Charters are about Jim Crow.
Charters are like the “Military Industrial Complex” …. SUCK UP the MONEY to MAIM others and claim “Victory.” Good one, America. .
My goodness, America has gone DAFT.
I am enthused about what Kamala Harris has had to say less than an hour ago on Andrea Mitchell’s msnbc show…..she talked for fifteen minutes, and made it clear……..potus candidates are not going to be allowed to not talk about education in 2020. Very forceful on behalf of teachers and…..almost as crazy…..the automatic “yeah, that’s nice but how can we pay for it”——–is addressed, and will not be easily discarded by smug economists who have answers for everything. My biggest worry for her—–and she has a good record of opposing charter schools……how do their teachers fit into her plans…….I urge people to stay tuned before acclimation is bestowed upon Joe Biden because he can beat trump.
For me personally, I knew it was bad when the Obama Administration awarded 50 million to charters in Ohio while AT THE SAME TIME every newspaper in the state was reporting on charter fraud.
I think it’s wholly ideological and wholly belief-based. No one who was doing any kind of real analysis would have done that. It was nuts.
I wonder if PUBLIC schools can get a fair shake when applying for grants from DOE. The whole organization seems to be captured by ed reform.
I thought it was $71 million– but that DOEd backpedaled when folks in the know like you set up a hue & cry [kudos!]–w/a hold & some kind of strings. Any idea how things proceeded from there? Hope the strings slowed expansion to a crawl.
How much have public school students lost over the last 12 years under Presidents who were wholly focused on charters and vouchers?
That’s the real cost. You would need to add that.
12 years having a federal government that was openly hostile to the schools 90% of kids attend. That comes with a price.
I’m surprised that Trump and his family haven’t applied to open or opened and then closed or never opened charter schools so they could get their share of the loot taken from the taxpayers in the middle class to make the rich richer.
Trump University was an attempt to do something like that ended up another one of Trump’s many fraudulent failures.
It seems like if you are going to steal money from the public, the safest venture today is to apply to open a charter school and then take the money and run.
Too bad Trump is incapable of learning and doesn’t read books because I’m sure Betsy would be willing to teach him how to cash in from this public cash cow of stealing from the working class to make the rich wealthier.
I could suggest a more apropos title than Asleep at the Wheel: Drunk on Power Behind the Wheel. The USDoE knows it’s DPE.