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Politicians always promise they will rid government of "waste, fraud, and abuse," so let's hope at least one political leader or policy maker will denounce our federal government's new gift of nearly a quarter-billion dollars to charter schools.

The cash dump to charters, courtesy of taxpayers, is from the U.S. Department of Education. As Education Week reports, the money is going to eight states and 15 charter school networks from the Charter Schools Program, a federal government operation that doles out millions every year to start new charter schools.

This money is the latest installment of an over $3 billion gravy train the federal government has funded to help launch over 2,500 charter schools across the nation.

Regardless of how you feel about these schools, you should be concerned about how this new government outlay to charters will be used, based on the extensive track record of financial malfeasance in these schools.

Indeed, shortly after the USDE announcement, the Department's own auditor warned that the money is very much at risk of ending up in the pockets of fraudsters and con artists rather than in the classrooms of diligent students and dedicated teachers.

Again Education Week reports, the audit by the agency's inspector general's office examined 33 schools in six states and concluded that because of a general lack of oversight of charters there was a "risk that federal programs are not being implemented correctly and are wasting public money."

The risk stems from the "cozy relationships," the EdWeek reporter's words, between charter schools and companies that operate them, called Charter Management Organizations (CMOs).

Of the 33 charter schools the audit examined, 22 had examples, sometimes multiple examples, of how CMOs take advantage of the unusual business relationship they have with their client charters to exploit federal education funds and redirect precious taxpayer dollars to private interests that have nothing to do with education.

In one of the more egregious examples the audit round, "the CEO of one CMO in Pennsylvania had the authority to write and issue checks without charter school board approval and wrote checks to himself from the charter school's accounts totaling about $11 million."

At another Pennsylvania charter, a vendor that supplied services to the school was owned by the charter school's CMO and received $485,000 in payments from the school without charter school board approval.

In Florida, a charter and a CMO that shared the same board entered into an expensive lease agreement for the school building, then expanded the facility, extended the lease, and increased the rental payments to the CMO.

One CMO the audit examined, which operated three charters in Michigan and one in New York, required the charter schools to remit all federal, state, and local funds to the CMO and gave the CMO total responsibility, with no oversight by the charter board, for paying school expenditures.

The auditor's report doesn't provide the names of these schools, so we don't know if they have received federal grant money in the past or are some of the ones getting the new money.

However, three of the six states the audit looked at – California, Texas, and Florida – are the same states the Department of Education just decided to send more money to. The other three – Michigan Pennsylvania, and New York – have received federal money for charters in the past, either sent to the state or to charter organizations operating in the state.

These states, and presumably many others the feds send charter money to, often don't sufficiently track how the money is used, according to the audit. Of the six states examined, half could not provide consistent funding data on charter schools with CMOs, a third could not identify which charter schools used CMOs, and a third that tracked whether charter schools used CMOs had unreliable information because charter schools self-reported their operations.

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The federal auditor's revelations on charter school waste, fraud, and abuse is yet another dose of reality in a long line of factual reporting about these schools.

A study released last year by the Center for Media and Democracy found "charter spending is largely a black hole." That's because the "flexibility" charters have been granted by the government is often being used not to create education innovations but to "allow an epidemic of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that would not be tolerated in public schools," the CMD report found.

Based on its extensive research on charters, CMD examined the list of new award grantees and noted Florida, that's getting a grant of $58,454,516, has closed over 120 charter schools in a little over a decade. Texas, which is getting $30,498,392, has "an unknown number" of charter schools "housed in churches" and "closely tied to, religious groups."

Tennessee, which is getting $15,172,732, is famous for having a statewide online charter school that is so bad, the state education chief tried to get rid of it but couldn't because of political maneuvering by the charter lobby and lack of regulatory accountability.

California, which is getting $27,329,904, has some of the worst charter school scandals in the nation, according to a report from the Center for Popular Democracy, which uncovered over $81,400,000 in fraud, waste, and abuse in the state. CPD call the alarming figure "likely just the tip of the iceberg."

Louisiana, another grantee getting $4,836,766 from the feds, has been ripped off by "tens of millions of dollars in undiscovered losses" from charter schools in the 2013-14 school year, according to another CPD analysis. "The state has insufficiently resourced financial oversight," CPD contends, and has yet to put into place adequate reporting, staffing, and auditing.

Three other states – Georgia, Massachusetts, and Washington – are getting the money just when they are deeply embroiled in heated controversies over charter schools.

Georgia has a ballot initiative in November on whether to allow the state to operate an Opportunity School District that would summarily take over local schools and hand them over to charter operators. Massachusetts also has a November ballot initiative, called Question 2, that would allow the state to lift the cap on the number of charters allowed to operate in the state. And in Washington, a charter school battleground for over 20 years, court rulings, legislative shenanigans, lawsuits, and counter lawsuits related to charter schools continue to rage across the state.

No doubt, this new money – over $41 million altogether for these three states – may now sweeten the pot if pro charter forces get their way.

Regarding the individual CMOs the Department is sending money to, one of them, Uncommon Schools, is a charter chain which used to be led in part by the current head of USDE, Secretary John King. Uncommon is getting $8,004,576. No conflict of interest there.

Another recipient – the Denver School of Science and Technology charter chain in Colorado, with a grant of $4,043,361 – has paid out between $20 to $50 million to a for-profit corporation owned by two of the charter chain's director, according to another CPD analysis.

A charter school chain in Indiana getting $1,923,866 is plagued with financial problems, low enrollment, and controversy over how the CEO spends money. No doubt the infusion of federal cash will help.

The federal auditor's report recommends the convening of a formal oversight group to look into charter school financial malfeasance, more rigorous review of charter school operations by federal agencies, and legislative changes in Congress to firm up government oversight.

Here's another recommendation: Stop federal funding to expand these schools.

By Jeff Bryant

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Bill Moyers - May 5, 2014, by Joshua Holland - Charter school operators want to have it both ways. When they’re answering critics of school privatization, they say charter schools are public — they use public funds and provide students with a tuition-free education. But when it comes to transparency, they insist they have the same rights to privacy as any other private enterprise.

But a report released Monday by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy — two groups that oppose school privatization – presents evidence that inadequate oversight of the charter school industry hurts both kids and taxpayers.

Sabrina Joy Stevens, executive director of Integrity in Education, told BillMoyers.com, “Our report shows that over $100 million has been lost to fraud and abuse in the charter industry, because there is virtually no proactive oversight system in place to thwart unscrupulous or incompetent charter operators before they cheat the public.” The actual amount of fraud and abuse the report uncovered totaled $136 million, and that was just in the 15 states they studied.

Diane Ravitch on school privatization.

According to the study, fraud and mismanagement of charter schools fall into six categories:

Charter operators using public funds illegally — outright embezzlement

Using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses

Mismanagement that put children in potential danger

Charters illegally taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide

Charter operators inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues

General mismanagement of public funds

The report looks at problems in each of the 15 states it covers, with dozens of case studies. In some instances, charter operators used tax dollars to prop up side businesses like restaurants and health food stores — even a failing apartment complex.

The report’s authors note that, “where there is little oversight, and lots of public dollars available, there are incentives for ethically challenged charter operators to charge for services that were never provided.” They cite the example of the Cato School of Reason Charter School in California, which, despite its libertarian name, collected millions of tax dollars by registering students who actually attended private schools in the area.

Perhaps the most troubling examples of mismanagement were those the report says actually put kids in danger:

Many of the cases involved charter schools neglecting to ensure a safe environment for their students. For example, Ohio’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Richard A. Ross, was forced to shut down two charter schools, The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Boys Charter School and The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Girls Charter School, because, according to Ross, “They did not ensure the safety of the students, they did not adequately feed the students, they did not accurately track the students and they were not educating the students well. It is unacceptable and intolerable that a sponsor and school would do such a poor job. It is an educational travesty.”

Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy aren’t the first to warn of problems plaguing an under-regulated industry fueled by billions of tax dollars. A 2010 report to Congress by the Department of Education’s Inspector General’s office warned of the agency’s “concern about vulnerabilities in the oversight of charter schools” in light of “a steady increase in the number of charter school complaints.” It blamed regulators’ failure “to provide adequate oversight needed to ensure that Federal funds [were] properly used and accounted for.”

Read the full report for the watchdogs’ recommendations for how policymakers could strengthen oversight and bring real transparency to the charter school industry.

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Texas Public Radio - March 6, 2015, by David Martin Davies - The U.S. Labor Department reports that the latest national unemployment rate is 5-point-5 percent. That’s good news for the economy overall and the sluggish recovery. But if you are still one of those without a job then the unemployment rate is 100%. But for minority communities the recovery has yet to arrive.  A coalition of community and labor groups in Texas is calling for the Federal Reserve to focus on full employment and higher wages for blacks, Latinos, native peoples and others in poor neighborhoods who have been left out of the recovery. Connie Razza is the Director of Strategic Research at the Center for Popular Democracy.

Listen to the clip here.

Corte Suprema puso en peligro más de cinco millones de vidas el mes pasado al no emitir un fallo con respecto a un programa que podría haber ayudado a muchos inmigrantes a salir de la clandestinidad. El programa, llamado Acción Diferida para Padres de Estadounidenses y Residentes Permanentes Legales (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents o DAPA), evitaría que se deporte a inmigrantes indocumentados si sus hijos son residentes legales del país.

El presidente Obama anunció el Decreto Ejecutivo sobre DAPA en noviembre de 2014. La medida se produjo dos años después de un programa complementario, Consideración de Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals o DACA), que permitió que quienes llegaron a Estados Unidos de niños legalmente soliciten vivir y trabajar en el país. Juntas, estas dos medidas significaron un avance hacia la solución de los graves problemas del sistema de inmigración de nuestro país, que victimiza y castiga a millones de personas que trabajan, pagan impuestos y contribuyen al futuro de nuestro país todos los días.

Las fuerzas antiinmigrantes no tardaron mucho en combatirlas. Al cabo de horas, algunos estados comenzaron a tomar medidas legales contra el programa. En total, 26 estados presentaron demandas para bloquear la implementación de DAPA. La Corte del Quinto Distrito exigió un mandato judicial para prevenir que se implementara DAPA en todo el país. La apelación pasó a los ocho miembros de la Corte Suprema, que en un empate de 4-4 dejaron vigente el fallo de la corte de menor instancia.

El gobierno del presidente Obama le ha pedido a la Corte Suprema que vuelva a oír el caso cuando cuente con nueve jueces. Esta medida del gobierno tiene sentido y la alentamos. Sin embargo, en pocas ocasiones la Corte cumple con dichas solicitudes, y si lo hace, lo más probable es que tome por lo menos un año que se llene el escaño y que se vuelva a oír el caso.

Ya que el programa federal está en limbo indefinido, defensores de la inmigración han hecho propuestas innovadoras para sortear el fallo en su contra. Peter Markowitz, profesor de la Facultad Benjamin Cardozo de Derecho, escribió una columna en el New York Times que propone que el presidente Obama use la facultad de indulto a su partida para otorgar amnistía a millones de inmigrantes afectados por el fallo.

Markowitz argumenta que tal medida también ayudaría a realzar el legado del presidente Obama. A pesar de los decretos ejecutivos, este ha deportado a 2.5 millones de inmigrantes, más que ningún otro presidente.

El Center for Popular Democracy ha apoyado el llamado a Obama para que imponga una moratoria en deportaciones, lo que promueven Not1More y muchos otros. Con el llamado de #noDAPA y #noDeportations, los activistas plantean que Obama debe comenzar a desmantelar las estructuras que produjeron un récord de deportaciones, a fin de mejorar su legado y crear un sistema más humano para el próximo presidente.

También es importante aprovechar campañas locales que han logrado ayudar a los inmigrantes. Incluso mientras nos lamentamos, grupos como Center for Popular Democracy y Make the Road New York están tomando medidas para asegurar que los inmigrantes se sientan seguros y apoyados. Continuamos diseminando información sobre el carnet de identidad municipal de Nueva York y, en el caso de quienes enfrentan la deportación, hay un programa de la ciudad que ofrece acceso a asesoría legal gratuita. CPD ayudó a facilitar ambos proyectos y también seguimos oponiéndonos a los centros de detención en

Nueva York y otros estados que mantienen encarcelados a inmigrantes injustamente durante varios meses, sin que se cumpla el proceso debido.

El fallo también reforzará los esfuerzos que ya están en marcha para que familias inmigrantes se inscriban para votar, la única manera de elegir a candidatos que reconocen el valor de la inmigración en este país. Ya ha aumentado el número de inscripciones electorales este año en comunidades latinas, debido a la retórica extraordinariamente xenofóbica de Donald Trump, el candidato republicano a la presidencia. Diversos grupos están ayudando a acelerar esta campaña en todo el país y a dar voz y voto a quienes se verían más afectados si un candidato antiinmigrante llegara a la Casa Blanca.

El fallo de la Corte Suprema es un paso hacia atrás, pero no es el fin del camino. Al trabajar juntos, nos aseguraremos de que se trate con dignidad y justicia a las familias inmigrantes que hacen que nuestro país sea un lugar mejor, y nos aseguraremos de que sus hijos reciban el legado de un futuro mejor.

By Adam Gold 

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