Betsy DeVos gave New Hampshire $46 million from the federal Charter Schools Program to double the number of charter schools in the state. She uses the federal funding of $440 million as her slush fund to rapidly expand charters.
[CORRECTION: I ORIGINALLY WROTE THAT NH REJECTED $25 MILLION; THAT WAS AN ERROR. NH REJECTED $46 MILLION.]
In 2018, Democrats won control of the state legislature.
This morning, the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee voted 7-3 to table the federal grant. The members of the committee were concerned about the impact of more charters on existing public schools.
New Hampshire is experiencing declining enrollments as the population ages and birth rates decline. It is an odd time to increase the number of schools competing for a shrinking pool of students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s up at OPEDhttps://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Breaking-News-New-Hampshi-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Breaking-All-The-Rules_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Dept-Of-Education-ED-gov-191213-181.html#comment751798
with this comment about charters from your blogs Links are embedded at the above address.
Corrupt to its very roots… is she. Charters are a vehicle to destroy the only road to income equality. More about the scam from former ass’t Secretary of Education, DIANE RAVITCH: The Lucrative Loophole That Charter Operators Exploit : https://dianeravitch.net/2019/12/04/the-lucrative-loophole-that-charter-operators-exploit/
This article about charter real estate dealings was written by Professors Preston Green III, Bruce Baker, and Derek W. Black. https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-exploit-lucrative-loophole-that-would-be-easy-to-close-111792.
They argue that lax state laws allow charter operators to reap profits while maintaining an ostensibly “nonprofit” status.
While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.
Charter school supporters are reluctant to acknowledge, much less stop, these practices.
Given that charter schools are growing rapidly from 1 million students in 2006 to more than 3.1 million students attending approximately 7,000 charter schoolsnow shining a light on these practices can’t come too soon. The first challenge, however, is simply understanding the complex space in which charters operate somewhere between public and private.
Unregulated competition
Charters were founded on the theory that market forces and competition would benefit public education. But policy reports and local government studiesincreasingly reveal that the charter school industry is engaging in the type of business practices that have led to the downfall of other huge industries and companies.
Charter schools regularly sign contracts with little oversight, shuffle money between subsidiaries and cut corners that would never fly in the real world of business or traditional public schools at least not if the business wanted to stay out of bankruptcy and school officials out of jail. The problem has gotten so bad that a nationwide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education warned in a 2016 audit report that the charter school operations pose a serious “risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and lack “accountability.”
Self-dealing
The biggest problem in charter school operations involves facility leases and land purchases. Like any other business, charters need to pay for space. But unlike other businesses, charters too often pay unreasonably high rates rates that no one else in the community would pay.
One of the latest examples can be found in a January 2019 report from the Ohio auditor-general, which revealed that in 2016 a Cincinnati charter school paid $867,000 to lease its facilities. This was far more than the going rate for comparable facilities in the area. The year before, a Cleveland charter was paying half a million above market rate, according to the same report.
Why would a charter school do this? Most states require charter schools to be nonprofit. To make money, some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that they also own. These companies do make money off students.
In other words, some “nonprofit” charter schools take public money and pay their owners with it. When this happens, it creates an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.
Many millions of dollars of public funds that were intended to educate children are squandered, they say.
It is called “legal graft.”
It was never a grant; it was a bribe. Public schools can’t be bought.
Apparently, Alabama and a few other Red states are quite willing to sell their public schools to DeVos if the price is right.
DeVos was born with the greed gene.
Now that her $25 million bribe was turned down, she will probably double it to $50 million because I think she was taught as a child by her corrupt and greedy parents that everyone has a price.
And if bribing them doesn’t work, hire an investigator to find kompromat on them and then blackmail them.
3rd option of the born rich and greedy, is if you cannot find kompromat, feed the media lies to destroy the honest person’s reputation.
4th option for the greedy rich and powerful: hire a hitman that uses the Russian method to get rid of them: poison or radioactive material smeared on a door nob.
We need more representatives that understand the long range consequences of decisions. Rather than fall for the short term gain of federal dollars, this fiscal committee sees the bigger picture. They believe in investment in the common good, local governance and democratic principles. They understand that these federal dollars are a Trojan Horse that will undermine their public investment in their public schools.
Correction: The five year federal NH charter grant vetoed today was $46 million for a state with 1.3 million residents. Alabama’s grant was $25 million.
Check out the fine research at http://www.reachinghighernh.org for coverage of the meetings, fiscal impact, and current empty charter seats.
Am a former Concord resident and Concord school district parent,.
Karen, you are right. I corrected the error!
Wow…a BLATANT BRIBE.