Valerie Strauss posted a fascinating column about the biggest charter scam in history.
She writes:
Late last month, San Diego officials indicted 11 people in what they described as a charter scam that defrauded the state of California of more than $50 million in education funds.
The indictment details a scheme in which an Australian man and his business partner in Southern California opened 19 charter schools throughout the state and then took the public funding the schools received to operate and used it instead for real estate and other ventures.
This post explains the scam that the 235-page indictment spells out in detail. This is long but worth the time to read to get an understanding of how easy it is, because of lax charter sector laws in some states, to defraud the public.
California, which has more charter schools and more charter school students than any other state, now has one of the most lax charter laws in the country, allowing these schools to operate with little if any accountability or transparency to the public.
The story was written by Will Huntsberry, a reporter for the Voice of San Diego. She received permission from the Voice of San Diego to repost it in full. It is an important story.
It begins like this:
Sean McManus and Jason Schrock created an online charter school empire that covered more than half the state of California, according to prosecutors and investigators for an outside charter school organization.
From the port of entry at San Ysidro up to Los Angeles, past the cliffs of Big Sur all the way to Santa Cruz; east through Raisin City, past the giant sequoias of Sierra National Forest, and down into the flat and quiet of Death Valley; south again to the Mexican border; and back to the coast — a person could travel unbroken through 20 counties that made up the lower half of their empire. An outpost of 14 counties encompassing Sonoma and Sacramento sits further north.
From this vast swath of territory, McManus and Schrock absorbed mind-blowing profits. Take just some of their 2016 tax returns (1): Their nonprofit charter management company A3 brought in $14.2 million in revenue. It spent only $3.6 million. Of the money it spent, $855,796 went to McManus and Schrock’s salaries. They appeared to be the only two employees, according to the tax return.
The profits climbed even higher in the months that followed, according to an indictment (2) filed by prosecutors. A3 Education and other companies controlled by McManus and Schrock ultimately brought in more than $80 million, prosecutors say.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This makes California more of a “wild west” for charter schools than even Ohio- the giant Ohio charter scandal was front page news in the state for weeks and shamed ed reformers into putting some regulation in.
Nothing happened as a result of this scandal in California. They’re laxer than Ohio, which is really saying something. We can (now) rank them at the bottom of ed reform “accomplishments”, along with OH, PA and MI.
I think the amount of public money they robbed is growing as the case continues and books are opened up. I read yesterday that the number is not 50 million, but 80 million, which makes it bigger than Ohio’s scandal (60 million), which was the previous recordholder for tens of millions in fraud and theft.
California is now Number One.
Ohio public schools were never compensated for the tens of millions of dollars they sent to ECOT, although Ohio public schools were there to accept the ECOT students when the ed reform experiment collapsed.
Once again, public school students took the hit for another ed reform experiment. No one was at all concerned with them. They fund all these ed reform adventures and then the circus moves on to the next city or state.
There is no upside for public school students, and there is substantial downside, but no one in ed reform can be bothered to worry about them.
that ever more transparent school “reformer” dilemma: kids vs. profit
Cue the charter school supporters’ “yes, but” regarding malfeasance at district schools. Recently, someone had commented trying to compare all the evil goings-on at district schools and complained on this blog that these charter school rip-offs were cherry picked. The poster cited several examples of alleged embezzlement that happened at district schools. First, the crime of embezzlement is in no way unique to schools: churches, PTOs, small business, the local little league, are all vulnerable when there aren’t checks and balances in the accounting department. And the amounts are chump change compared to the millions stolen from kids and taxpayers, and the complete lack of rules and accountability that allowed this fiasco to be set in motion. This scenario, given the depth of involvement, the number of players, and the magnitude of graft, could not happen at the district level. Charter supporters know this, but will never admit that the same system designed to allow such outright theft is also the system that allows them the luxury of pocketing these same funds for themselves or their friends and relations.
Amazing to read the numbered charges, over 200, and many of them about recruiting high school football players to boost enrollments in a summer program.
I did not get through all of the charges but my eyes popped when i read that someone in this sordid scam promised to designate a teacher as “highly qualified” if the teacher brought 30 students to the charter school.
Valerie’s article itself, is posted at OpEd News https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-Online-Charter-Operato-in-General_News-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Education-Funding_Educational-Crisis-190623-342.html with comments that include embedded links to many of Diane’s most revealing assaults on public schools through the theft of taxpayer money –across the states!
Please, GO THERE. and click on the links… show this progressive site that this theft of school funding is an important issue. If you guys carried on the kind of conversation you offer HERE, then you would reach a more general audience who go to this major progressive site.