, the Bush-era Assistant Secretary of Education who has since become an outspoken critic of education reform. The organization's executive director is Carol Burris, a former award-winning New York principal. The report was written by Burris and journalist Jeff Bryant.Charters that never opened, or closed quicklyIn many cases, CSP awarded grants to schools that never even opened, or closed soon after opening.
CSP had previously awarded over half a million dollars to the same company, despite internal review noting that"there is no explanation on how the curriculum will be implemented and aligned with the standards for the state." The school opened in the fall of 2015 and closed five months later. Among other problems, the school was found to be out of compliance on all 59 of its Individualized Education Plans.
In California, the state with the highest number of charter schools, between 2004 and 2014, 306 schools that received direct or indirect federal funding closed or never opened. One hundred and eleven closed within a year. Seventy-five never opened at all. The cost to taxpayers-- over $108 million.
Many of the issues raised by the report have been previously raised by the OIG. While charging and convicting many charter fraudsters over the years, the OIG has frequently made recommendations that oversight be increased and controls be tightened.
found that at Hope Academy in Grand Rapids, with a $550,000 sub-grant, non-white students were seven times more likely to receive harsh punishment than white students. Arizona's application for CSP grants includes the objective of"improving the academic outcomes of educationally disadvantaged students," yetfound a wide pattern or"illegal and exclusionary" practices to keep those students out of charter schools.
I’m SHOCKED that private, for-profit, unaccountable schools would fraudulently waste taxpayer dollars they shouldn’t have received in the first place. SHOCKED
BetsyDeVosED great job