The federal Charter Schools Program handed out $440 Million this year. Betsy DeVos uses this money as her personal slush fund to reward corporate charter chains like KIPP ($89 million), IDEA (over $200 million in two years), and Success Academy ($10 million). Originally, it was meant to launch start-up charters, but DeVos has turned it into a free-flowing spigot for some of the nation’s richest charter chains.
Last March, the Network for Public Education published its study of the ineptness of the Charter Schools Program, revealing that at least one-third of the charters it funded had either never opened or had closed soon after opening. About one billion dollars was wasted by this federal program.
Despite the program’s manifest incompetence and failure, Betsy DeVos asked Congressional appropriators to increase its funding to $500 million a year, so she could more efficiently undermine public schools across the nation.
House Democrats responded by cutting the Charter Schools Program to $400 Million ($400 million too much), but $100 million less than DeVos asked for.
Senate Republicans want to increase the funding for the destructive Charter Schools Program to $460 million, giving DeVos a boost of $20 million. The Senate Republicans added a special appropriation of $7.5 million for charter schools in rural districts. Is there a need for charter schools in rural districts that may have only one elementary school and one high school?
The best remedy for the federal Charter Schools Program would be to eliminate it altogether.
Charter schools are amply funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, the Koch foundation’s, hedge fund managers, and a bevy of other billionaires on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bernie has the best plan. He wants to eliminate the federal privatization slush fund. Why should tax payers have to pay to incentivize the destruction of the public schools that most families value? It is time to look at real evidence and stop pandering to the charter lobby. Just because some politicians believed that market based education has some value does not make it so. We have seen the results, and we have a lot more important issues to fund in this country. We already know that the charter lobby has an insatiable appetite for public money. They will never be satisfied until they crush public education. We should not continue to fund bad ideas.
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Feel the BERN. Go Bernie.
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Perfect for ‘Red-for-Ed’ t-shirts:
“The best remedy for the federal Charter Schools Program would be to eliminate it altogether.
Charter schools are amply funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, the Koch foundation’s, hedge fund managers, and a bevy of other billionaires on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.”
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and in a roundabout way, it is often a way of giving money TO uber-rich corporations: they start things up with grants, and then when the grants run out they watch public funding step up to keep their pay-for-our-product programs running
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We know why CAP and DFER promote charter schools. And, we understand the destructive effect a CAP board chair can have, who has a bipartisan lobby shop which gets funding from Gates and Arnold and has George Miller steering its education policy efforts.
Now, we need to know why senators like Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren have TFA’ers advising them about education.
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TFA should have to register as a lobby. These young people are working like undercover operators that promote privatization policy. They should not be allowed to work for representatives..
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TFA plants its members in every Congressional office of Senators and members of Congress who sit on education or appropriations committees. Their salaries are paid by California billionaire Arthur Rock.
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They are worse than a lobby.
They are a Koppy.
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Koppy cats
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Koppy Cats for America
TFA are Koppy cats
With Koppy coats and Koppy hats
Koppy shirts and Koppy shoes
Koppy folks who pay their dues
Koppy plants and Koppy mike’s
Koppy aids who listen (Yikes!)
Koppy Kopp on every thing
Koppy Koppy Koppy sting
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TFA SUCKS.
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I was poking around the website of Elizabeth Warren. The bad news is that she thinks that the following text will address the issue of public education. She says she against vouchers, but in the article she refers you to, she is for “money follows the student.” She reasons that parents can transcend zip codes if some variant of the “one app method” of choice is available. Her thinking appears not to have changed and in my view, there is little difference between money follow the student and a voucher system.
Click to access Voucher-Page.pdf
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Laura,
That is frightening. The most zealous voucher proponents, like DeVos, want money to follow the child. Please write this up as a post.
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I thought Betsy wanted money to follow the Betsy.
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That is a link to her 2007 book, which I thought she disavowed.
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Laura, is it on her campaign website?
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How often does one have to say it?
Best government money can buy .
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