Feds Bust Charters for Corruption

In its recent report to congress, the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Inspector General found an unprecedented number of criminal actions by high ranking charter school officials who “used their positions of trust for personal gain and cheated the students they promised to serve,” the 4LAKids Blog reported last week. According to the report, eight charter school bosses were busted for criminal activity, including several who were sentenced to prison for embezzlement.

One of the audits found that the DOE itself was asleep at the wheel in terms of monitoring charter school grants and that it lacked an effective process for ensuring that state agencies adequately oversaw their charter school subgrants. Some of the problems discovered included the use of unqualified reviewers to monitor grants, not tracking how grants were spent, and inadequate monitoring of charter school closures.