Jeff Bryant notes the escalating scandals surrounding the charter industry, creating a stench that can’t be covered up and hidden.
Case in point: when the Network for Public Education released a study of the federal Charter Schools Program which showed that about one-third of all federally-funded charters had never opened or had closed soon after opening, at a cost of taxpayers of $1 billion, the charter industry was at first silent. Then it responded by attacking the report and NPE, claiming that NPE was “union-funded,” which it is not. NPE has indeed received contributions from unions, but the overwhelming bulk of its funding comes as voluntary gifts from individual supporters.
The attack came from paid employees of the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools, whose job seems to be to deny any charter misdeeds and to attack all critics and criticism. They were outraged that NPE would criticize the federal Charter Schools Program, which under Betsy DeVos has directed the bulk of its $440 million a year to support of large corporate chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy. It is now a charter slush fund, controlled by DeVos and her merry band of privatizers.
Bryant, who was a co-author of the NPE report with Carol Burris, writes:
As charter reform in California takes one step forward and two steps back, charter proponents operating at the national level show no signs of being willing to consider the need for more regulatory oversight.
For instance, months after the report Burris and I published about waste in the federal government’s charter school grant program, officials from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a charter school lobbyist and advocacy group, attacked our report in a national media outlet supportive of charter schools.
The critique by Christy Wolfe and Nathan Barrett is a slog through a mostly unsubstantiated defense of a program their organization does not even administer and does not seem to have any greater understanding of than Burris and I’ve demonstrated. But what Wolfe and Barrett have written can serve as a useful example of how charter industry operatives continue to respond disingenuously to criticism of their schools no matter how reasonable and well-founded the criticism is.
Now, why would the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools respond so defensively to any criticism of the federal Charter Schools Program?
Surely it can’t be because the NAPCS received a grant of $2.385 million from that same program in 2018.
The charter slush fund must be protected at all costs, regardless of where the money goes or how it is spent and misspent. Accountability be damned!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s HARD to “clean house” when the basic tenets of charter schools are WRONG and BAD. Charters are are really about Jim Crow.
Interestingly, Alternet reports that Beto O’Rourke’s wife (she has a charter school) was informed by The Guardian that her ancestors were slave owners and supporters of the confederacy. She was cited as having no comment.
Her dad is called the father of the REIT, a contrivance which can be used to establish charter schools.
The charter industry does not care to police itself as so many bad actors are participating in the public money feeding frenzy. Rules and regulations are perceived to stifle innovation. The only innovation from the charter industry is how to monetize students, lie, cheat, embezzle and hide the profit so the government will not find it. More rules imply that the government will have oversight, and the free market frauds do not want anything to interfere with their profit.
I think the charter industry is similar to the Republican party.
The most powerful people in the Republican party and the charter industry are the most dishonest, greedy and/or corrupt and they do not want any policing or oversight.
I am sure there are some charter operators who are decent people just like there are some Republican politicians who are decent people. Maybe they don’t like what is going on, but they are too scared to speak out. They also get money and support from the corrupt leaders so there is a lot of personal interest going on even among the so-called “good” charter operators – and the so-called “good” Republicans — who have made the decision that their own self-interest is far more important than speaking out for what is right.
Justin Amash demonstrated that if you object to any Republican party corruption or wrongdoing, you must leave the party and give up your membership. If you want to stay in the Republican Party, you must do the bidding of the most corrupt leaders and remain silent.
There are no charter operators who have the courage of Justin Amash to give up all the nice things that come their way when they just keep quiet and let the powerful people continue their corruption.
They know if they speak up for what is right, they will be drummed of the charter movement that provides their lucrative career.
I don’t particularly like Amash’s positions on most issues, but the charter movement could use even a single voice like his — a charter operator who values the truth and honesty more than their lucrative career.
I read the attack on NPE’s Asleep at the Wheel in EducationNext. What a bunch of twisted gobbledygook. Wolfe and Barrett, the authors from the National Alliance for Rightwing Libertarian Privatization and Deregulation, claim that opening and closing schools is not wasteful because only bad schools close. Churn and burn, free market, survival of the fittest, who is John Galt? That sort of thing. They wish more public schools would be closed! They want to cleanse the school pool of weak genes.
I would like to have the authors visit the students, teachers, and their families: the victims of school closures, especially those of abrupt closures. Let them explain themselves, face to face. Let them then go to the public school districts that lost funding to the “bad schools” while they were open and explain themselves. Let every president and congressperson who approved and reapproved the New Markets Tax Credit and the Charter Schools Program explain to the American people why working taxpayers are footing the bill for investors instead of lower class sizes and better wages.
Then, let the privatization apologists from EducationNext go to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos for a photo op. Let them stand side by side with their hero because charter schools and Betsy DeVos go hand in hand, destroying public education — next.
Human (grifter’s) nature?