Acknowledgements

NPE Executive Director, Carol Burris, and journalist Jeff Bryant were the authors of this re-
port. We thank them for their extensive research and analysis.

Thank you to Leigh Dingerson for her skilled and careful editing of the report, as well as her
advice regarding structure and content.

Thanks also to the Network for Public Education’s Director of Communications, Darcie
Cimarusti, who designed this report. Darcie Cimarusti and Marla Kilfoyle of NPE also con-
tributed to research efforts.

We are also grateful to researcher and scholar Roxana Marachi for her summary of the prob-
lems associated with the CMO known as Rocketship.

The report would not have been possible without the effort and commitment of the Board of Di-
rectors of the Network for Public Education (NPE), with special thanks to Diane Ravitch, Presi-
dent of NPE. Diane generously gave her support, guidance and advice throughout the writing of
this report.

Finally, thank you to all of our generous donors who make our work in support of public educa-
tion possible. This report was funded solely by the Network for Public Education.

The Network for Public Education (NPE) is an advocacy group whose mission is to preserve,
promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of stu-
dents. The goal of NPE is to connect all those who are passionate about our schools – students,
parents, teachers and citizens. We share information and research on vital issues that concern
the future of public education at a time when it is under attack. For more information, please
visit our website at www.networkforpubliceducation.org.

1
About the Authors

Carol Burris is the Executive Director of the Network for Public Education. Carol served as
principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, NY from 2000 to 2015. She received her
doctorate from Teachers College in 2003. In 2010, she was recognized by the New York School
Administrators Association as their Outstanding Educator of the Year, and in 2013 she was again
recognized by NASSP as the New York State High School Principal of the Year. Carol has co-au-
thored three books on educational equity, and served as a consultant on desegregation cases for
the U.S. Department of Justice. She is the author or co-author of numerous journal articles on
educational equity, teacher evaluation, and detracking. Carol is a frequent guest blogger for the
Answer Sheet of The Washington Post.

Jeff Bryant is a communications expert and advocacy journalist whose award-winning re-
porting and commentaries have been published by Salon, AlterNet, The Progressive, and The
Washington Post. He currently serves as a Chief Correspondent and Writing Fellow for the Inde-
pendent Media Institute's Our Schools project, and he is the Director of the Education Opportuni-
ty Network, a public education advocacy center created through a partnership between the
Schott Foundation for Public Education and the Campaign for America's Future. 


2
 Table of Contents

Executive Summary ..............................................1

Introduction .........................................................4

Asleep at the Wheel ...............................................9

Conclusion ...........................................................32

Recommendations ................................................34
Executive Summary

Executive Summary


In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education took an charter schools in California has reached nearly
unprecedented step--it told the state of Ohio to four in ten.
put on hold the $71 million that it gave the state
for the purpose of opening more charter schools. The federal outlays we examined are not modest
What is even more remarkable is that the cut-off expenditures amounting to little more than
of funds was championed by Ohio Senator Sher- rounding errors. In its 2015 analysis, CSP stated
rod Brown, who expressed concern about the that since its inception in 1994, the program had
charter fraud and abuse that was happening in provided $3.3 billion to fund the startup, replica-
his state. tion, and expansion of charter schools, creating
40 percent of operational public charter schools
Brown’s mistrust was well founded. Shortly after in the nation. We estimate that program funding
the announcement, Innovation Ohio and the has grown to well over $4 billion. That could
Ohio Education Association issued a joint report bring the total of the potential waste to around $1
showing that more than one in three schools that billion.
had received federal grants from the U.S. De-
partment of Education’s Charter Schools Program The waste of public dollars on closed charter
(CSP) had never opened, or opened and soon schools is not the only concern. Of the grant re-
closed. The report also noted that of the remain- cipients that manage to stay open, we uncovered
ing grant-funded charters, 63 percent, were extensive evidence that raises serious questions
among the lowest performing schools in the state. as to whether or not these schools are truly "high-
quality," meeting the CSP goal of providing equi-
Was the Ohio scandal a unique event, or was it table access for disadvantaged students.
typical? That is the question this investigative re-
port sought to answer, and after two months of Through detailed examination of CSP's applica-
analysis, the answer is clear. The Ohio scandal tion process, and by comparing claims made by
was far from unique. We found that it is likely that charter grant applicants to information on state
as many as one third of all charter schools receiv- databases and school websites, we found numer-
ing CSP grants never opened, or opened and shut ous examples of federal tax dollars being mis-
down. In fact, the failure rates for grant-awarded spent due to an inattentive process that routinely
accepts applicants’ claims without scrutiny.

1
In short, despite the scandal of Ohio and numer- journalist Michael Winerip referred to as an “invi-
ous critical reports by their own Office of Inspec- tation for fiction writing.” This process resulted in
tor General, the U.S. Department of Education numerous examples of awardees that claim they
has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the seek to enroll high percentages of minority and
management and supervision of hundreds of mil- disadvantaged students, even while their pro-
lions of taxpayer dollars every year. grams and policies are designed to draw from
advantaged populations. Finally, we found in-
Below is a summary of our findings: stances where achievement and/or demographic
data on applications were cherry-picked or mas-
1. Hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dol- saged, with reviewers instructed to accept what
lars have been awarded to charter schools that was written as fact.
never opened or opened and then shut down. In
some cases, schools have received federal fund- 3. Grants have been awarded to charter schools
ing even before securing their charter. that establish barriers to enrollment, discourag-
ing or denying access to certain students.
Our investigation barely skimmed the surface of
the hundreds of charter school grant recipients Multiple schools we examined enroll smaller per-
that never opened or opened but then closed. centages of students with disabilities and students
Among the scores of schools examined, we found who are English language learners than the sur-
a Seattle private school that converted to a char- rounding schools. Some appear to be designed to
ter with grant money only to shortly flip back to a encourage “white flight” from public schools.
private school, leaving 90 economically disadvan- Thirty-four California charter schools that re-
taged children scrambling to find a new school ceived CSP grants appear on the ACLU of South-
mid-year. We found two Delaware charter schools ern California’s list of charters that discriminate—
started by the same financial firm that won mul- in some cases illegally—in admissions, and 20 CSP
tiyear grants two years apart from each other. funded Arizona charters appear on a similar list
One opened its doors but closed midyear, and the created by the Arizona ACLU. One Pennsylvania
second never opened at all. We found a Hawaii charter receiving multiple grants totaling over
charter that won a CSP award in 2016 that has yet one million dollars from CSP states on its website
to find a location, while its website continues to that its programs are “limited to students with
say it is accepting new enrollees. Of the schools mild handicaps."
awarded grants directly from the department be-
tween 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either 4. Recommendations by the Office of the In-
never opened or shut its doors. The CSP’s own spector General have been largely ignored or
analysis from 2006-2014 of its direct and state pass- not sufficiently addressed.
through funded programs found that nearly one out
of three awardees were not currently in operation
by the end of 2015. We reviewed numerous OIG audits that found
significant concerns over how CSP money is
spent and about the general lack of monitoring
2. The CSP’s grant approval process appears to
the Department carries out to ensure those funds
be based on the application alone, with no at-
contribute to the intended goals of the grants.
tempt to verify the information presented.
Each audit includes specific recommendations to
Schools have been approved for grants despite
correct this lack of oversight. But not only is there
serious concerns noted by reviewers.
little evidence the department has adopted any of
these recommendations; the current Secretary
The CSP’s review process to award grants does not
has denied responsibility for oversight, believing
allow the verification of applicants’ claims, thus
that it falls outside the federal government’s
leading to what award-winning, New York Times

2
purview—even though this is a federal grants Based on our review of grant awards to SEAs and
program. non-SEAs in 2017 and 2018, we contend the quali-
ty of the applications and the receiving grantees
5. The department does not conduct sufficient are likely getting worse, and the department’s
oversight of grants to State Entities or State Ed- willingness to provide oversight has nearly disap-
ucation Agencies, despite repeated indications peared, which may result in increased fraud,
that the states are failing to monitor outcomes mismanagement and charter failure.
or offer full transparency on their subgrants.
Recommendations
Although the vast majority of public charter
school grants are awarded to state education Our investigation finds the U.S. Department of
agencies (SEAs), our investigation reveals that the Education has not been a responsible steward of
Department has shown little oversight when SEAs taxpayer dollars in its management of the CSP.
pass that funding along directly to individual Based on what we found, we believe it is likely
charters or charter organizations as subgrants. that one billion dollars of federal “seed money”
We found a continuing record of subgrantee has been wasted on charters that never opened or
schools that never opened or closed quickly, shut their doors. We were equally dismayed to
schools that blatantly discriminate in their disci- find that many of the CSP-funded charter schools
pline, curricular, and enrollment practices, that survived did not fulfill their stated mission,
schools that engage in outright fraud as well especially in regard to enrolling proportionate
schools that engage in related-party transactions numbers of disadvantaged youth. As public dol-
that result in private individuals and companies lars are pulled from public schools and a more
pocketing huge sums of money at taxpayer ex- disadvantaged student body is left behind, the
pense. students who attend their neighborhood school
have fewer resources and greater challenges.
6. The CSP’s grants to charter management or-
ganizations are beset with problems including Finally we fear that the department’s indifference
conflicts of interest and profiteering. to accountability and its unwillingness to super-
vise the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars
The Office of the Inspector General’s 2016 audit of that flow through the program are likely to in-
CSP funded CMO’s and/or their related schools crease under the current Secretary who presses
found that of the 33 schools they reviewed, 22 had for choice for the sake of choice, regardless of the
one or more of the following: conflicts of interest cost to the American taxpayers and the disruption
between the CMO and the charter, related-party it causes to children and families.
transactions and insufficient segregation of du-
ties. We found troubling examples of CMOs that Therefore, we recommend that Congress end
received massive grants that engaged in practices funding for new charter grants coming from CSP.
that push-out low-performing students, violate We also recommend thorough audits of previous
the rights of students with disabilities and cull grant awards, steps to ensure grant awards still
their student bodies through policies, programs under term are being responsibly carried out and
and requests for parental donations. that misspent money is returned.

7. Under the current administration, while We cannot afford to continue to pump hundreds
of millions of dollars into a program whose stew-
Congressional funding for the CSP rises, the
ards are clearly asleep at the wheel.
quality of the applications and awardees has
further declined.

3
 Introduction

Intro- duction

During a June 2018 hearing before the U.S. House The CSP operates inside the department’s Office
Education and Workforce Committee, Jonathon of Innovation and Improvement and includes
Phillip Clark, an Iraq War veteran and African- seven different funding streams. Two of these
American parent with seven children in the De- provide loans or credit enhancements for the
troit public-school system, described his oldest purchase and renovation of charter school facili-
daughter's troubling experience attending a char- ties. Two others provide technical support and
ter high school. The school, University Yes Acad- dissemination of best practices among charter
emy, promised academic courses and school pro- schools. Three programs—which are the focus of
grams it never delivered. The school had five our analysis here—offer start-up funds or expan-
principals in three years. An audit of the school sion dollars to prospective charter schools, exist-
could not account for $300,000 of Title I funds. ing schools or to charter management organiza-
After the money went missing, the school tions (CMO). The program was established in 1994
switched to a different management firm run by and over its 25-year existence, has funded as
the same person. Then the school’s contract was many as 40 percent of charter schools across the
transferred to a third management firm, which country.
closed the school a week before classes were to
start, leaving students and families stranded. For over a decade, Congress has poured money
into CSP at rates much higher than overall Educa-
What Clark didn't explain, perhaps because he tion Department spending has increased. We es-
didn't know, is that his daughter's charter was timate that approximately $4 billion federal tax
considered a "high-quality" school by the federal dollars have been spent or allocated to start,
government and worthy of receiving a federal replicate and expand charter schools. Over the
grant. Some time prior to 2015, University Yes past four years, while funding for the department
Academy was the recipient of an $830,000 grant essentially flatlined, with an average increase of
from the U.S. Department of Education's Charter only 2.12 percent annually, funding for charter
Schools Program (CSP). CSP, according to its web- school grants surged, with an average yearly in-
site, "provides money to create new high-quality crease of 13.32 percent.
public charter schools, as well as to disseminate
information about ones with a proven track Last year, Congress appropriated $440 million for
record.” the CSP, an increase of $40 million. That 10 per-

4
cent increase is one of the largest of any educa- published a report, based on records obtained
tion department program in the budget. Under through open records requests, in which it found
the Every Student Succeeds Act, the grant pro- key information was “severely lacking” on how
gram was expanded in a number of ways, includ- federal funds were spent on charters. The report
ing opening the grant competition to many more identified hundreds of schools that received fed-
government agencies and charter school support eral money but never opened their doors or
organizations, doling out state grants much more quickly closed after brief periods of operation.
frequently, and explicitly adding the competition The report likened the CSP grant program to a
for charter management organizations as federal “black hole.”
education law.
Two months after the CMD report appeared, CSP
Yet, while University Yes Academy was called on to released a dataset showing all grants awarded
account for what happened to the missing Title I between school-years 2006-07 and 2013-14, with
money, the school was never called on to account information on grants given to start-up, replicate,
for what it did with the grant money from CSP. In and expand charter schools. The dataset included
fact, none of the thousands of charters receiving grants awarded to individual schools, to State Ed-
grants from CSP are ever compelled to provide an ucation Agencies (SEAs), and to charter manage-
account to U.S. taxpayers of how federal grant ment organizations (CMOs).
funds were spent.
CSP said the grants "facilitated the creation of
Instead of providing that accounting, the man- over 2,600 charter schools that were operational
agement firm that closed Yes Academy, New Par- as of SY 2013-14." According to the dataset, ap-
adigm for Education, applied for and received a proximately 430 additional charter school grant
CSP CMO grant of $5,084,100 in 2017. In its appli- recipients were closed by SY 2013-14. And approx-
cation, New Paradigm spoke highly of its success imately 699 additional grantees were considered
with another of its schools, New Paradigm Glazer "prospective schools"—cases where an operator
Academy, a school which had actually closed in planned for, but had not yet opened, a school. So,
2016. Yet, reviewers of New Paradigm’s applica- by the department's calculations, of the 3,729
tion gave the firm high marks for “the extent to charter schools receiving CSP grants between
which charter schools operated or managed by school-years 2006-07 and 2013-14, about a third—
the applicant have not been closed,” with one re- 1,129 schools—were closed, never opened, or not
viewer remarking, “there have been no reported yet operational by the end of SY 2013-14.
issues of noncompliance, closure, and statutory
and regulatory compliance with New Paradigm
schools.” In 2018, New Paradigm announced
plans to double the number of students it serves As the following report shows, the depart-
in the next two years, despite the firm running a ment has likely learned very little if anything
$546,834 deficit in 2016 and a "similar loss" in from the flaws in the federal charter schools
2017. grant program—even as that program ex-
pands.
CSP has been the subject of numerous critical
reports by the department's own Office of Inspec-
tor General (OIG), which have raised significant CSP's analysis also found that, over the eight
concerns over how CSP grant money is spent, as school years accounted for, the average grant
well as the general lack of monitoring the de- award per open charter school, as of SY 2013-14,
partment conducts to ensure those funds con- was $461,813. What the analysis doesn’t provide is
tribute to the intended goals of the program. In an average award amount for the charters that
2015, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) never opened or opened and then quickly closed.

5
If that average award applies to those charters as evidence of strong demand for the school from
well, it would mean that $198,579,590 of federal the surrounding community.
tax money was wasted on charter schools that
were no longer in operation as of SY 2013-14, and Three Funding Streams Under Scrutiny
perhaps as much as $322,807,287 could be at risk
on “prospective schools.” Even after CSP’s analy-
The CSP program was established in 1994 as a
sis, however, those schools continued to close. We
way to kick-start the creation of new charter
found that 39% percent of the California charter
schools, as the independently-managed schools
schools in that CSP dataset had either never
were being legalized and licensed across the
opened or shut their doors by 2019.
country. Over its 25-year existence, the U. S. De-
partment of Education estimates that the pro-
CSP's explanation for the high cost of failure was, gram has offered federal dollars to as many as 40
"As with any start-up, school operators face a percent of charter schools. The CSP is authorized
range of factors that may affect their school’s under the Elementary and Secondary Education
opening. And as with any provider of start-up Act (currently the Every Student Succeeds Act,
capital, the department learns from its invest- Title IV Part C) and operates inside the depart-
ments.” ment’s Office of Innovation and Improvement.
The CSP includes seven different funding
As the following report shows, the department streams. Two of these provide loans or credit en-
has likely learned very little if anything from the hancements for the purchase and renovation of
flaws in the federal charter schools grant pro- charter school facilities. Two others provide
gram—even as that program expands. technical support and dissemination of best prac-
tices among charter schools. Three programs—
While congressional appropriations to the CSP which are the focus of our analysis—offer start-up
continue to climb, our investigation, the first of funds or expansion dollars to prospective charter
its kind, found that not only does grant money schools, existing schools or to charter manage-
awarded to charters by the CSP continue to go to ment organizations (CMO).
schools that never open or quickly close, but
hundreds of millions of dollars have been provid-
ed to schools that don't resemble "high quality"
schools, including many that engage in exclu- Time and again, huge sums of grant money
sionary practices that keep some economically have been awarded to charter schools that
disadvantaged students, students of color, stu- have inadequate business plans, discrimina-
dents with disabilities and English language tory enrollment practices, or no evidence of
learners (ELL) out. Through our detailed exami-
strong demand for the school from the sur-
nation of the CSP's application process, we found
a system in which the program awards grants rounding community.
based on which schools can write (or hire some-
one to write) the most compelling narrative in its Those programs are:
application, knowing that the facts they present
will never be checked. As we compared informa- Charter Schools Program State Entities
tion on state databases and school websites with (SE): The SE grant program provides federal
application data, we found startling discrepancies dollars to state departments of education or
between what charter applicants promised and other approved “state entities” which then
what they ultimately delivered. Time and again, subgrant the funds to charter operators
huge sums of grant money have been awarded to looking for seed money to create a new
charter schools that have inadequate business charter school. It is the largest of the CSP
plans, discriminatory enrollment practices, or no

6
 funding streams. The SE program was orig- schools were open and functioning. 

inally limited to funding State Education
Agencies (SEA)—departments of education Selected applications and ratings for Devel-
within a state. The program was expanded oper Grants, for a close review to check the
in 2015 to allow other types of approved data that was submitted against state web-
state entities to receive and subgrant the sites and the websites of the schools.

funds. For the purposes of this report, be-
cause the vast majority of the grants we ad- All program audits of the Office of Inspector
dress here went to state education depart- General and the department’s responses to
ments, we refer to these as SEA grants un- those reports. 

less referring to a non-state agency recipi-
ent in a post-2015 grant.
 Because it is the state with the greatest
number of charter schools, we looked at the
department’s list of California charter
Charter Schools Program Non-State Edu-
schools that received funding from
cational Agencies (Non-SEA) (now re-
2007-2014, primarily through the SEA pro-
ferred to as Developer Grants): The Non-
gram. Using the California State Education
SEA or Developer Grants allow individual
Department website, we determined if the
charter schools to apply directly to the fed-
school ever opened, or opened and subse-
eral CSP for start-up funds in states where
quently closed. We chose several of the
charter schools are permitted, but where
closed schools for review.

the state has not applied for or received an
SE/SEA grant.
 The list of charter management organiza-
tions that received grants from the CSP. We
Charter Schools Program Grants for chose one large chain that recently received
Replications and Expansion of High-Quali- the largest single grant in the history of the
ty Charter Schools (also known as CMO program, and one smaller chain, for an in-
grants): The CMO grant stream provides depth analysis of their applications and rat-
funds to non-profits, including charter ings and the comparative data about their
management organizations, to replicate and component schools from the state websites.
expand high-quality charter schools. This We looked at CMOs from the CMO grant
program began in 2010.
 program, as well as CMO-managed schools
among SE/SEA grantees.
Over the course of two months, we analyzed the
We found a troubling pattern of insufficient ap-
three programs using the following publicly
plicant review, contradictions between informa-
available records:
tion provided by applicants and available public
data, the gifting of funds to schools with inade-
The lists of states that were awarded grants
quate financial and governance plans, a push-out
under the SEA program. We critiqued that
of large grants to the states with little supervision
list by describing the troubling history of
by the department, and the waste of hundreds of
several of the states that received funding.

millions of taxpayer dollars.

2009-2018 non-SEA Developer Grant

We were equally troubled by the department’s
awardee charter schools on the depart-
responses (or lack thereof) to critical audits by
ment’s website. We cross-checked that list
the OIG and recommendations included therein.
to ascertain whether or not the grantee
Finally, we provide evidence that the program's
process for granting charter schools federal funds

7
is becoming even less discerning than it was prior
to 2016.

At the end of this report you will find our formal

recommendations. In short, we recommend that
it is time to investigate where millions of dollars
have gone and secure back for the public all un-
accounted-for spending. American taxpayers
have a right to demand that their tax dollars aren’t
wasted. Tax dollars that went to charter schools
that never opened or quickly closed should not be
considered the cost of doing business. And a pro-
gram with a stated commitment to spread "high-
quality" schools should not be a major funding
source for schools that leave families in the lurch
and promote discriminatory enrollment prac-
tices.

Congress should end new CSP grants even as it

investigates past grants and grants in progress. In
its responses to the OIG, the department argues
that it does not have the capacity nor the authori-
ty to supervise spending on what it refers to as
“its investments.” If indeed all the capacity and
authority rests with authorizers and state agen-
cies, then it is those agencies that should provide
what the department refers to as “start-up capital”
for new charter schools and replications.


8
Asleep at the Wheel

Asleep at the Wheel


The federal Charter Schools Program is estimated vestments in it. We believe there are ample rea-
to have handed out over $4 billion in taxpayer sons to justify a set of strong actions and safe-
dollars over the past 25 years for the purpose of guards.
expanding the number and size of charter
schools. While the program touts its focus on This report offers seven reasons, backed by data
“high quality” charter schools, our analysis sug- and examples, that justify an immediate change
gests that the department has been focused more of direction for the federal CSP.
on proliferation and expansion and less on quali-
ty. Well over 1000 grants have been given to 1. Hundreds of millions of federal tax-
schools that never opened, or later closed for rea-
sons of mismanagement, poor performance, lack payer dollars have been awarded to
of enrollment or outright fraud. The department charter schools that never opened or
does little to track or address these repeated fail- opened and then shut down. In some
ures. In addition, the department’s own Office of
Inspector General has issued multiple reports on cases, schools have received federal
the program that warn of critical concerns and funding even before securing their
recommend specific action by the department to charter.
ameliorate those concerns. We find little evidence
that the department has fully addressed those The U.S. Department of Education’s Charter
recommendations. Instead, appropriations con- Schools Program (CSP) non-SEA/Developer
tinue to climb. Grants program funds individual charter schools
in states that have not applied for or received a
The present Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, larger grant under the SEA program (described
believes that the promulgation of choice for its above).
own sake is a public good, and that an education
“marketplace” should be the ultimate decision- Between 2009 and 2016 alone, our analysis found
maker of how education is delivered, regardless 17 charter schools that were awarded grants
of the cost to American taxpayers. She is a deter- through the Developer Grants program that never
mined supporter of the Charter Schools Program opened their doors. We found an additional nine
and is likely to continue promote increasing in- schools that received funds from the program

9
and then shut down—either during or shortly af- The failure to secure approval to open is not a
ter receiving all of their federal grant. Because guarantee that federal funds won’t be disbursed,
approximately 100 schools were approved during he indicated.
those seven years, about one in every four schools
funded by non-SEA program either failed to open The charter school’s fourth application was de-
or closed. nied, and it never submitted a fifth application.
Through the help of a local Congressman, the
The number of charters that never opened or federal money was eventually clawed back.
quickly shut down through the modest non-SEA
program pales in comparison, however, to the In 2015, the Innovative Schools Develop-
number of non-functioning recipient schools ment Corporation received a three-year federal
when all three grant streams (SE/SEA, non-SEA grant totaling $609,000 to open the Delaware
and CMO grants) are considered. The CSPs own STEM Academy charter school. As the proposed
2015 analysis of charters funded from CMO for the school, Innovative Schools Develop-
2006-2014 found that nearly one out of three ment Corporation was budgeted to receive
awardees were not currently in operation. $247,500 of those federal grant funds for man-
agement fees, $147,500 in the first year alone. The
The following are examples of schools that were school promised in its application to enroll 250
financed by the non-SEA program that never students for 9th and 10th grade in September 2016
opened, along with a summary of their ap- and to add 150 students each year for 9th grade
plications with incomplete, misleading and/or thereafter from the high-needs student popula-
false information. tions in the Wilmington and New Castle County
area of Delaware. In June 2016, Delaware's Char-
Examples of Schools That Never Opened ter School Accountability Committee and the
After Receiving Federal Grant Monies State Secretary of Education both recommended
that the school’s charter be revoked two months
ahead of its planned opening, due to low enroll-
Charter schools are licensed to operate, or
ment of just 30 students and uncertain funding
“authorized” by statutorily designated authorizing
due to an over reliance on external grants. Local
entities within the state. In 2011, the Tikum Olam
news reports on the demise of the school noticed
Hebrew Language Charter High School was ap-
that New Castle County already had a heavy con-
proved for a three-year $600,000 grant from the
centration of charter schools—20 of 27 charter
non-SEA charter school fund. Yet, the New Jersey
schools statewide. Yet in its review of the applica-
Commissioner of Education, the state’s only char-
tion, the U. S. Department of Education’s review-
ter school authorizer, had rejected the school’s
ers complimented the application for its “detailed
application three times due, in part, to misrepre-
management plan including objectives, mea-
sentations that the school had made.
sures, targets” and including a full year for im-
plementation.
With the federal grant secured, Tikun Olam lead
founder, Sharon Akman, emailed then-New Jer-
sey Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf and Examples of Schools that Closed After Re-
attempted to use the federal grant as leverage to ceiving CSP Grants
secure approval for her fourth application.
Even if the funded charter school does open, that
U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin is no guarantee of success. We found eight char-
Hamilton told a reporter that the department ter schools funded by the non-SEA program that
does not require its grantees to have an approved received in total $3,681,204 from 2009-2014 that
charter in order to be eligible for federal grants. have since closed.

10
 In 2013, CSP again awarded Innovative a few years the school was opening up unautho-
Schools Development Corporation a three-year rized satellite campuses as well as falsifying en-
start-up grant eventually totaling $525,000, this rollment and attendance data resulting in a $1.57
time to open Delaware Met Charter School in million overpayment to the school. Before the
Wilmington, DE. In the department's review of State Education Department pulled its charter,
the school’s application (the application itself is the school surrendered it.
no longer available on the website), reviewers
noted "there is no explanation on how the cur- A Closer Look at California State Grants
riculum will be implemented and aligned with
the standards for the state" and "the proposal did We continued our analysis by targeting Califor-
not include specific steps for implementing the nia—the state with the most charter schools. We
program and did not describe how this would analyzed the list of California charter schools that
work with various student groups." The depart- received federal CSP grants (mostly through the
ment approved the grant anyway. The school SE/SEA program) between 2006 and 2014.
opened in August of 2015, but was closed just five
months later, in January 2016. The state commit- Because the department has failed to keep its
tee that recommended closing found the school promise to update the public database, we were
struggled to maintain a safe campus, used lesson unable to examine the list of more recently fund-
plans that didn't fit the state's academic stan- ed schools. Nearly four in ten recipient schools
dards, and was out of compliance on all 59 of its that received funding directly or indirectly from
Individualized Education Plans for its students the CSP between those years either never opened
with disabilities. At this writing, the Innovative or have shut down—a total of 306 schools. Using
Schools Development Corporation website has the DOE database, we determined that the total
been taken down and it is unclear whether the amount given to these “ghost” and failed charter
CMO still exists. schools was $108,518,463 million.

In 2014, First Place Scholars Charter School

opened as Seattle's very first charter school with
the financial help of a two-year federal CSP grant Nearly four in ten recipient schools in Cali-
totaling $400,000. The school, formerly a private fornia that received funding directly or indi-
school serving homeless and traumatized stu-
rectly from the CSP between those years ei-
dents, was a kindergarten through 5th grade
school when it received the grant money. But be- ther never opened or have shut down—a
fore the grant ended, in the middle of the total of 306 schools. Using the DOE data-
2015-2016 school year, First Place fired its princi- base, we determined that the total amount
pal and reverted to a private school. At the end of given to these “ghost” and failed charter
that school year, the school cut all its 2nd-5th schools was $108,518,463 million.
grade classes, leaving families of 90 children
scrambling to find new schools. In the depart-
ment's technical review (the application has dis- One hundred eighty-six (186) of the 306 closed
appeared from the site), reviewers awarded the schools either never opened or closed within a
school 20 of possible 22 points for Quality of Per- year. Seventy-five (75) of those never opened at
sonnel and three of possible three points for Ade- all. These “ghost schools” never made it into the
quacy of Resources. California Schools Database, even though some
had obtained federal ID numbers. Two ghost
In 2013, Path Academy opened in Windham, schools received two federal grants from SEA
Connecticut. Its CMO, Our Piece of the Pie, re- funds.
ceived a $585,800 grant to open the school. Within

11
Examples include: Education through the CSP’s SE/SEA grant pro-
gram.
Diego Hills and Diego Springs Charter
Schools were part of the Learn for Life chain, a 2. The CSP’s grant approval process
controversial chain that operates storefront char-
appears to be based on the application
ters that require students to complete “packets”
with minimum requirements for attendance. The alone, with no attempt to verify the
respective 2015 graduation rates of the two information presented. Hundreds of
schools were 19.3 percent and 0 percent. Both schools have been approved for grants
schools shut down in 2018. They had received
$625,000 in CSP funds. despite serious concerns noted by re-
viewers.
Eleven Academy of Arts and Sciences online
schools all using the for-profit K12 curriculum The New York Times award-winning education
received nearly $3 million in federal SE/SEA start- journalist Michael Winerip wrote a story about
up funds. Eight of the 11 have shut down. New Jersey’s Tikum Olam Hebrew Language
Charter High School receiving a grant with little
Hundreds of students fled the Livermore Val- hope of ever opening. He characterized the de-
ley Charter School and Livermore Valley Charter partment’s policy as inviting “fiction writing” be-
Preparatory in California after it was alleged that cause the consultants hired to review the ap-
the schools illegally charged foreign exchange plications are forbidden to “use information not in-
students tuition and transferred them to a school cluded in the grant application itself.” In other
in Stockton against their will. The management words, millions of dollars are given away based
company is under investigation for conflict-of- solely on the basis of what information the appli-
interest relationships as well as diverted, com- cant chooses to share. This encourages applicants
mingled and/or misappropriated public funds. to paint a picture of their vision that is aligned
The two schools, which had received $810,000 with what the department is looking for, even
from the CSP, closed in 2017. though the school’s reality may be quite different.

Seven charter schools operated by Celerity

Education Group received over $3.7 million in
total in federal funding from an SEA grant. Since
then the chain has come under federal investiga- The New York Times award-winning educa-
tion over allegations of fraud and fiscal misman- tion journalist Michael Winerip character-
agement. In December of 2018, its founder plead- ized the department’s policy as inviting “fic-
ed guilty to misappropriations and embezzlement tion writing” because the consultants hired
of public funds. Three of the seven federally- to review the applications are forbidden to
funded schools, along with several other charter
“use information not included in the grant
schools operated by the CMO, have now closed.
application itself.”
The American Indian Charter High School’s
founder Ben Chavis was indicted on criminal Verifying information provided in an application
charges for fraudulently applying for $2.5 million does not require an intensive investigation. Re-
in federal grants between 2006-2012. He was view of public data on state websites, former ap-
charged with three counts of mail fraud and three plications and perusal of the school website can
counts of promotional money laundering. Three uncover information that calls into question the
American Indian Charter Schools received in to- integrity of the application. We compared school
tal $1,166,500 from the California Department of applications with state enrollment data and

12
 A RIGGED REVIEW PROCESS?

Information about the process and criteria used to review applications for CSP grants
is scant, but CSP issued an "Overview of the 2015 CSP SEA Review Process” in Octo-
ber 2015.

According to the Overview, "panels of independent peer reviewers read and scored
applications … based on the selection criteria and competitive preference priorities"
provided by CSP. Reviewers were instructed to score each application "based only on
information included in the particular application they were reviewing." (italics ours)

Department staff "monitor the grants review process to help ensure thoroughness,
fairness, and objectivity," and they "conduct second-level reviews of all applications"
prior to issuing awards. It's not clear what occurs in the second-level reviews, or if
those reviews are documented and available for public review.

Peer reviewers of the CSP grant applications, 21 in all, were not publicly identified by
the Department. The Overview specified each reviewer must have “a solid under-
standing of the ‘charter school movement.’” And in the list of qualifications in CSP's
Call for Peer Reviewers, issued around the same time, the word "charter" appeared in
nearly every possible consideration for hire.

school websites and discovered that while appli- 68 percent White, eight percent Black and eight
cants often write to please the reviewer, what they percent Hispanic in a surrounding district that is
state does not necessarily match the reality of 14 percent White, 48 percent Black, 21 percent
their schools or their capacity to deliver what Hispanic. While the percentage of English lan-
they promise. guage learners in the district is 12 percent, the
percentage of MaST students who are ELL is only
The MaST Community Charter School, a one percent. Although 91 percent of the students
Philadelphia City district-wide school, applied for in the city are low-income, 41 percent of the stu-
and received a three-year CSP grant totaling dents at MaST came from low-income homes.
$721,380 in 2016 to expand its STEM-based pro-
gram to another campus in the city to be called A lack of demographic data was noted by the
MaST II. "The vision," the school promised in its third reviewer of the 2016 application. “There is
application abstract, "is to carry these opportuni- no demographic data on the current population
ties to kids in an urban setting, focusing on the of students attending MaST I; nor data on the
development of low income, special education, racial, ethnic, economic or educational needs of
ELL, and minority populations.” However, MaST's the proposed population. It is noted that the nar-
student enrollment did not reflect a school gen- rative states that the average poverty rate of the
uinely committed to the students described surrounding schools range from 50 – 90 percent.
above. The school's student enrollment, available (Pg. e17).” In fact, the school pulls from the entire
on the State Department of Education website, is district which has a poverty rate of 91 percent.

13
Nevertheless, this reviewer awarded four out of In 2018, Kamalani Academy in Wahiawa,
five points, and his two fellow reviewers each Hawaii, won a two-year grant totaling $489,586.
awarded five out of five points in the category, The school had opened in August 2017 and
Serving Educationally Disadvantaged Students. promptly lost most of its teachers and its princi-
pal in the first year. Two months into 2018-2019
Would MaST II live up to the expressed commit- school year, ten more teachers left. The school's
ment to diversity after receiving the grant? Two application received 18 out of 18 possible points
years after opening, MaST II applied for and re- for Quality of Project Personnel by reviewers. The
ceived another three-year CSP grant totaling key personnel listed on the application, the prin-
$900,000. Its application once again pledged to cipal and the arts integration coordinator, are
"provide services to high-need, low-income, and now gone.
ELL students." But if the application reviewers
had bothered to look at the student enrollment of In 2018, Snow Pond Arts Academy Charter
MaST II, they would have found the school's stu- School won a five-year grant totaling $659,403 to
dent demographics are not significantly more "launch the school to a level of sustainability
representative of the district's than the mother when the capacity of 320 students is reached
school is: 45 percent are White, 23 percent are within five years." The application's background
Black, and 14 percent are Hispanic, 8 percent description says Snow Pond was "in its second
ELLs and 53 percent low-income. year of operation, dedicated to providing high
quality academics, instruction in the Performing,
The 2018 reviewers noted the selective data that Visual, and Creative Arts." Nowhere does the de-
MaST self-reported (special education and eco- scription mention that the school opened in Au-
nomically disadvantaged students without racial gust 2017 using a "blended learning" instructional
demographics or English language learners) model that employed local academic teachers
without comparative district percentages. Re- half-time only, and filled the rest of the instruc-
viewer 1 noted that the application provided no tional day with lesson plans provided by K12 Inc.,
goals to increase the percentage of educationally a for-profit company located in Herndon, Vir-
disadvantaged students and “minimal informa- ginia. A state commission investigation of the
tion” on the demographics of its schools, the wait school at mid-year found "overuse of virtual edu-
list or the home district. Nevertheless, the three cation for non-arts classes, and special education
reviewers assigned high points (10/15, 15/15 and services are not being provided to the students
14/15) in the category, Assisting Educationally who need them." The school was also running a
Disadvantaged Students. $44,000 deficit.

A review of the MaST website during January of Before the 2017-2018 school year started, the
2019 featured few minority students, no informa- school hired new leaders and dropped its online
tion in Spanish and a request for parental dona- curriculum. Since receiving the grant, the school
tions by credit card. has changed its name to the Maine Arts Academy.
According to state data, current enrollment for
The federal commitment to MaST II now exceeds Snow Pond Arts Academy for the 2018-19 school
$1.6 million even though outside information year is 206, which certainly makes the target of
would indicate that despite the vision provided on 320 students possible by 2023. But the deceptive
the application, the school is designed to appeal description in the grant application and the
to non-disadvantaged students. In the school’s school's constant unsettled plan and program
most recent lottery, it advertised 100 open seats, should have warranted questions about the
but the dozens of families who applied may not school's financial standing and academic plan.
have known 61 of those seats were already taken Instead, the school's grant application was ap-
due to sibling preference. proved even after department reviewers gave it

14
only 72 of 100 possible points in the technical re- trict. By page 8, that figure has increased to 73
view. percent.

The directed lack of rigor and investigation in the We examined whether or not the school achieved
review process, and the seeming willingness of its goal, or, achieved its diversity by pulling ad-
the CSP program to offer grants despite concerns vantaged students from the city public school sys-
expressed by reviewers raise questions about tem. Student enrollment was reported to us by
whether this program is truly committed to jump- the school to be 700 students. The nearby York
starting schools that hold the greatest promise of Suburban School District sends 40 students to the
success, or whether simply letting 1,000 flowers charter. Central York School District sends
bloom, and accepting the chaos and waste of re- 67. The approximate percentage of students,
peated failure is really the operational model. therefore, drawn from the suburban districts is
about 15 percent while 85 percent come from the
3. Grants have been awarded to char- city. Further, rather than sending all advantaged
students, a high proportion of the students com-
ter schools that establish barriers to
ing from the suburbs are disadvantaged them-
enrollment, discouraging or denying selves—32 percent of the students sent by the
access to certain students. suburban districts are students who receive free
or reduced-price lunch. The two suburban dis-
A number of studies and reports over the past tricts, therefore, send only about 70 non-disad-
several years have noted the widespread use of vantaged students to the school—10 percent of its
practices and policies that discourage or deny enrollment.
enrollment in charter schools by certain types of
students, or that lead to disproportionate push- The City of York from which the vast majority of
out of certain students once enrolled in a charter students come, has an English learner population
school. A 2016 report by the ACLU of Southern of 24 percent. Yet York Academy, which boasts of
California found illegal or exclusionary practices being an International Baccalaureate World
at well over 200 charter schools in that state. Our School, had an ELL population of only 6.3 percent
analysis found that many schools that have re- in 2013 which dropped further to 4 percent by
ceived federal CSP funds appear to utilize some of 2018. Only 12 percent of the students who attend
these practices. York City schools are White. Over one-third (34
percent) of the Academy’s students are White.
The York Academy Charter School, located in
the city of York, Pennsylvania, received two non- A visit to the York website indicates that the char-
SEA grants from the department—one for ter may be “creaming” able and advantaged stu-
$207,750 in 2013 and a second for $997,315 in dents by design. In the “common questions” sec-
2018. In its applications, York Academy describes tion of the site is this notice: "The York Academy
itself as a charter school that draws from three offers a program for students identified as gifted
school districts (two suburban and one urban) to or talented. We do provide special education pro-
create a diverse educational environment. It grams for students; however, our programs are
states, “We are confident that programming of limited to students with mild handicaps. Those
IB’s (International Baccalaureate) rigor and pres- students with more severe handicaps would be
tige will continue to entice suburban parents to referred to the Lincoln Intermediate Unit." The
send their children into the City of York daily for website also insists that parents attend an open
school.” On page 1 of its 2018 application, the house so that they understand the expectations of
school reports that about 60 percent of the stu- the IB program. No information in Spanish is
dents are drawn from the York City School Dis- provided.

15
 Idaho’s American Heritage Charter School University Charter School, located on the
received a five-year $1,250,000 grant in 2018 to campus of the University of West Alabama in Liv-
expand its enrollment and add programs. The ingston, received $1,115,137 in non-SEA grant
school's grant application claims the school "pro- funding in 2018, even though reviewers noted
vides an exceptional educational choice for mi- serious deficiencies in the application including
nority students." But the application's claim that the school being “likely to struggle in meeting the
the school's percent of students with special target population’s complex needs.” The school’s
needs "is nearly equivalent to the local Idaho Falls principal was a former high school gym teacher
School District" contradicts state data. American with no K-8 experience.
Heritage’s proportion of students who received
free or reduced- priced lunch is about half of the Given the small and declining youth population
district’s proportion (24 percent vs 47 percent) as in the county to be served, one reviewer noted
is its percentage of students with disabilities (6 that it would be very difficult for the school to
percent vs 11 percent.) While the city school dis- meet its enrollment goal and expressed concern
trict has a seven percent ELL population, only for the financial strain the school would pose to
two percent of American Heritage students are the existing public school system. It was also not-
English language learners. Finally, the school ed that while the applicant said the school would
serves far more White students than the sur- be a “likely choice” for students, there was no
rounding Idaho Falls district. application pool or wait list information provid-
ed. Two reviewers were concerned by the lack of
The school uses a number of dog-whistle tactics a plan for serving children with disabilities.
to attract politically conservative families, which
likely influences the demographic make-up of the Two reviewers also questioned how a diverse
school. First, the poster used to recruit students school could be formed from a catchment area
features a take-off on a famous military recruiting with public schools that serve only "one race."
poster. The website emphasizes the school's cur- Although the students in the public school were
ricular focus on "patriotism." A lengthy and de- 100 percent Black, nearly half of the 2018-19 stu-
tailed dress code states no clothing made out of dents in the charter school are White. And while
denim, sweatshirt, or athletic material is allowed. the percentage of students on free or reduced-
Head coverings are not permitted indoors, with price lunch is 73 percent in the public school, it is
no mention of exemptions for religious or cultur- 46 percent at University Charter School.
al reasons. Preferred colors for clothing are "flag"
red, white, blue, and navy or black. "Boys are en- It would appear that the charter school sought to
couraged to wear ties as business professional is a achieve diversity by attracting White families who
focus of our dress code." had either home-schooled their children or sent
them to private school, and the children of uni-
Much of the culture of the school can likely be versity professors who were given enrollment
attributed to its founder. Although the grant ap- privilege. The traditional public school remained
plication claims the school "was founded by a 100 percent Black, its enrollment dropped, which
group of local parents," it's been well reported would reduce its funding, and the proportion of
that the school’s founder is Frank Vandersloot. students on free or reduced-price lunch went up.
Vandersloot was finance co-chair of Mitt Rom- Although a diverse charter may have been creat-
ney’s 2012 failed presidential campaign. Vander- ed, the children attending the local public school,
sloot made national headlines in 2015 when he already under stress, paid the price.
sued Mother Jones magazine for defamation after
the news outlet published an article detailing his Great Hearts is a charter management orga-
efforts to oppose gay rights. nization with schools in the states of Arizona and 

Texas. Between 2006 and 2015, Great Hearts’ Ari-

16
 zona schools received over $6,430,000 of CSP
money through an SEA grant provided to Arizona. In a state in which 46 percent of the public school
That funding strangely also included an $800,000 students are Hispanic, only 19 percent of the stu-
subgrant to Great Hearts Texas. dents who attend Great Hearts schools are His-
panic. Two percent are African American. We do
not know how many Great Hearts students are
economically disadvantaged because Great
In a state in which 46 percent of the public Hearts does not offer free or reduced-price
school students are Hispanic, only 19 per- lunches, nor do they provide transportation, ac-
cent of the students who attend Great cording to the Arizona Department of Education.
Hearts schools are Hispanic. Two percent
The for-profit corporation, BASIS Educational
are African American. We do not know how Group, LLC manages both charter schools and
many Great Hearts students are economical- private schools. Its charter schools operate in
ly disadvantaged because Great Hearts does Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.,
not offer free or reduced-price lunches, nor and the company is attempting to expand into
do they provide transportation, according to Georgia, Colorado and Nevada. BASIS Inc. also
the Arizona Department of Education. operates private schools in upscale neighbor-
hoods in New York City, Silicon Valley and
abroad.
The CMO was cited four times in a report by the
ACLU Arizona entitled Schools Choosing Students, Between 2006 and 2014, several BASIS charter
which chronicled the discriminatory practices of schools received funding from the CSP through
the state’s charter school sector. the SEA program. In total, schools in the chain
received $5,605,000 during that time period. Most
The ACLU report exposed a Great Hearts policy of the funding ($4,140,000) to BASIS was passed
that discriminated against transgender students, through the state of Arizona’s SEA grant.
its demands for book deposits and the schools’
requests for a minimum $1,500 annual donation A close look at the demographics of BASIS schools
from parents. It featured a story about a Great in the state reveal a student population much dif-
Hearts school turning away a special education 
 ferent from that of Arizona’s traditional public

 schools. The enrollment figures in Table 1 are
student based on the claim that it could not meet 
 from the 2015-2016 school year.

his needs.

Table 1 - Comparative demographics: Arizona schools and BASIS schools

American
Indian/
Asian Black Hispanic White Mixed
Alaska
Native

Arizona Schools 3% 5% 5% 45% 39% 3%

BASIS 32% 0% 3% 10% 51% 2%

17
These disparities are startling. But differences in Of a cohort of 85 students who began eighth grade
the students served do not end with race and eth- in BASIS Flagstaff during the 2011-12 school year,
nicity. only 41 percent (35) remained to enter twelfth
grade in 2015-16. In the flagship school, BASIS
In 2015-16, only 1.23 percent of the students at Tucson North, a seventh-grade class of 130 be-
BASIS had a learning disability, as compared to came a class of 54 by senior year.
11.3 percent of students in the state. BASIS
schools had no English language learners. And in Practices and policies that discourage enroll-
a state in which over 47 percent of all students ment, deny enrollment or drive students out of
received free or reduced-price lunch, BASIS had charter schools not only fly in the face of the
none. whole notion of “choice” (whose choice is it,
then?) but also work to increasingly segregate the
What practices or policies contribute to these most vulnerable or disadvantaged students in
disparities? Several. For example, the schools do traditional public school systems while siphoning
not participate in the federal free-or reduced- off much-needed resources that support them.
price meals program, thus potentially discourag- Discriminatory enrollment practices are wide-
ing prospective students from very low-income spread, having been documented in multiple
households that rely on those meals. states. According to a study by the Arizona chap-
ter of the ACLU, hundreds of charter schools in
the state, perhaps as many as 56 percent of all
In addition, Arizona BASIS provides no trans-
charters, "have policies that are clear violations of
portation to their schools, making it difficult for
the law or discourage the enrollment of certain
students without the means to get to them. And
students, including students with disabilities, stu-
there’s more: BASIS requests that families con-
dents who struggle academically, students with
tribute at least $1,500 a year per child to fund its
disciplinary history, and students from immi-
teacher bonus program. Enrollees must also pay
grant families."
a $300 security deposit, purchase some books and
pay for activities that would be free if the student
The ACLU of Southern California also found hun-
attended a public school.
dreds of examples of inappropriate and even ille-
gal barriers to enrollment in California’s charter
The BASIS curriculum prohibits new students sector. Our analysis identified many Arizona and
transferring in after middle school. Students must California charter schools cited in the ACLU re-
take six Advanced Placement exams and pass at ports that had received federal CSP grants.
least one with a score of three or above, in order
to graduate. However, they are required to take
more AP classes than that, beginning in middle
4. Recommendations by the Office of
school. There are comprehensive tests that must the Inspector General have been large-
be passed, or students are retained. ly ignored or not sufficiently ad-
dressed.
Even after getting into BASIS, there is less than a
50 percent chance the student will stay to gradu- Decades of audits conducted by the department's
ate. During each successive year, students leave own Office of Inspector General (OIG) have sur-
when they cannot keep up with excessive acade- faced significant concerns over how Charter
mic demands. Schools Program money is spent, the program’s
lack of transparency, and the general lack of
Like other “no-excuses” charter schools found monitoring to ensure the funds contribute to the
across the country, the attrition rates at BASIS intended goals of the program. While some weak
middle and high schools are extraordinarily high.

18
efforts have been made to improve public report- renewal denied in 2012 after a forensic au-
ing on the program, the U. S. Department of Edu- dit revealed the charter spent nearly
cation has repeatedly deflected the OIG’s critique, $75,000 helping new employees and their
saying that the department has neither the man- families immigrate. Apparently being cited
power nor the authority to more rigorously police by the 2003 OIG audit had not ended this
their own grants. illegal use of federal funds. The audit also
identified numerous related-party transac-
A 2003 OIG audit of Sonoran Science Acad- tions.
emy in Arizona found the school recruits an
unusually high percentage of teachers from An OIG audit of six federal grants provided
Turkey and that $20,519 of the $158,500 the to the KIPP Foundation, which operates
school had received in grant money from Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) char-
the CSP had been used for fees paid to a ter schools, from 2004-2006 found KIPP in-
teacher exchange organization to facilitate cluded unallowable costs in its charges, in-
hiring teachers from foreign countries — an cluding tens of thousands spent on alco-
unallowable use of grant funds. The school holic beverages, DJ services, and travel ex-
is alleged to be part of a global network of penses related to staff retreats. Federal
Turkish-run schools connected to Fethullah grants continued to pour in. KIPP charter
Gulën, an exiled Muslim cleric living in schools received approximately $20,500,000
Pennsylvania. The school denies this con- between 2006 and 2014. The CMO has re-
nection. The Academy disputed the OIG’s ceived $130,463,127.
findings and refused to refund the misspent
grant money. It’s not clear whether the de- A 2010 report to Congress by OIG found that
partment took further action to recover since 2005 OIG had opened more than 40
misspent money, but since the OIG report, charter school-related investigations that
numerous other charter schools with con- had resulted in 18 indictments and 15 con-
nections to the Gulën network have re- victions of charter officials and $4.3 million
ceived CSP grants, including those in the in criminal restitution of embezzled money.
Sonoran, Magnolia, Harmony, and Horizon The report noted there were 43 additional
networks. complaints and a "steady increase for the
number of charter school complaints for
In 2011, the CSP grant stream for CMOs our office to investigate." The most fre-
provided a nearly $5,000,000 grant to the quently identified type of fraud was embez-
Cosmos Foundation to replicate Harmony zlement of federal, state, and local educa-
charter schools. That year The New York tion funds. Reported incidents included
Times exposed the connections between charter school operators using federal
Cosmos, the Gulën movement and the Turk- funds to buy luxury goods, travel, and
ish vendors who received contracts from restaurant expenses. A reply from the de-
the charter school system. The article noted partment stated that some of the incidents
that there was an ongoing investigation re- of fraud are state violations and can't be
garding half a million dollars of federal addressed by its office.
grant funds.
In 2012, OIG issued a final audit report that
Nevertheless, Gulën-affiliated schools still found deficiencies in how the department
welcomed millions of CSP dollars through handled some nearly $940,000,000 in feder-
the SEA program. The Fulton Science Acad- al grants to state agencies and charter
emy in Georgia, that received nearly a quar- schools. The audit also found state educa-
ter-million dollar SEA grant, had its charter tion agencies (SEAs) that awarded federal

19
grant money to individual charter schools added that it would ensure that SEAs devel-
did little to ensure the money was used to op corrective action plans for their sub-
accomplish the intended purposes of the grantees and track them as part of the
grant program. The review examined the state’s overall subgrantee monitoring plans.
oversight process for SEA grants made to Consequently, the department issued a
Arizona, California, and Florida covering “Dear Colleague” letter to SEAs in 2015, em-
the grant period August 1, 2007, through phasizing the importance of financial ac-
September 30, 2011. OIG discovered dozens countability for charter schools receiving
of charter schools received federal dollars federal dollars. The letter recommended
but never opened their doors to students. SEAs conduct regular independent audits
The schools received millions in federal and strengthen authorizing practices. There
funds, but there was no record of what hap- doesn’t appear to be any follow-up from the
pened to the equipment, supplies or any- department to ascertain how many states
thing else purchased with the federal dol- followed through on this request.
lars for schools that never opened, the audit
said. A 2016 report by the OIG examined charter
and education management organizations
Of the three states examined, none of the (CMOs) and found, "The department’s in-
three SEAs adequately monitored charter ternal controls were insufficient to mitigate
schools receiving the grants, had adequate the significant financial, lack of account-
methodologies to select charter schools for ability and performance risks that charter
monitoring, or monitored charter authoriz- school relationships with charter manage-
ing agencies. Florida did not track how ment organizations pose to department
much SEA grant funds charter schools drew program objectives." In 22 of the 33 charter
down and spent. And California did not schools reviewed, there were 36 examples
have reviewers who were qualified to con- of internal control weaknesses related to
duct onsite monitoring of charter schools. the schools’ relationships with their charter
The audit concluded "there is increased risk management organizations, including con-
that department funds were not used for flicts of interest and related-party transac-
the intent and purpose of the program." tions.
Among OIG's recommendations were that
the department develop and implement These internal control weaknesses pose
policies and procedures for monitoring considerable risks including financial
grantee fiscal activities, requiring SEAs to waste, fraud, and abuse; lack of account-
develop a detailed monitoring plan, and ability over federal funds; and federal funds
ensure SEAs have procedures to properly being used in ways that violate federal re-
account for SEA grant funds spent by closed quirements. Of the six states examined—
charter schools and for disposal of assets California, Florida, Michigan, New York,
purchased with SEA grant funds. Pennsylvania, and Texas—all states allowed
for-profit management companies to oper-
In its reply to OIG, the department's Office ate charters, three states don’t require a
of Innovation & Improvement (OII), which contractual agreement or oversight of that
oversees the CSP, stated it was not OII’s role agreement between a charter and its man-
to track subgrantee corrective action plans agement company, and two states did not
directly and that because the number of require conflicts of interest to be disclosed
SEA subgrantees was in the hundreds, it in charter applications.
was not feasible for the CSP staff to track
individual charter schools. However, OII

20
 Among OIG's recommendations were for oversight and monitoring of the selected
the department to convene a formal over- SEAs by the Title I, IDEA, and CSP program
sight group for charter grants and to pro- offices was not effective to ensure that the
vide further guidance to state education SEAs performed the charter school closure
agencies for monitoring charters and their process in accordance with federal laws and
relationships with management groups. It regulations. The SEAs did not always meet
also recommended that Congress consider federal and state requirements when per-
legislation that would "clearly identify the forming close-out procedures for federal
governance responsibilities of the depart- funds a charter school received, disposing
ment and SEAs with respect to the roles, of assets a charter school acquired with
responsibilities, and expectations of the federal funds, and protecting and maintain-
administration and oversight over grants ing student information and records from
provided to charter schools, specifically closed charter schools. OIG recommended
with regard to the risks associated with the department conduct an assessment to
CMOs.” determine whether SEAs that fund charter
schools pose a risk to federal funds and is-
sue guidance to SEAs on effective charter
school closure procedures.
Indeed, the current Secretary seems to
deny the existence of a problem–Ameri- In its comments included at the end of the
can taxpayers seem to be left with little audit, the department did not explicitly
agree or disagree with the findings but stat-
choice other than to continue to toler-
ed it "did not consider charter school clo-
ate, even expect, public funds intended sures to be a risk to federal funds" and that
for educating students in charter OIG's recommendations "would be inconsis-
schools to be subject to waste, fraud, tent with the federal role in education." The
and abuse. department asked instead for "a single rec-
ommendation that recognizes the balance
between federal and state responsibility for
In comments, the department agreed to the the oversight of charter schools.”
report's conclusions about risks to federal
funds and agreed federal regulations re- Given OIG's continuing discoveries of finan-
quire that the federal grant recipient direct- cial malfeasance of charter schools being
ly administer or supervise the administra- funded in part by federal grants, and the
tion of the grant to ensure money is spent department's repeated insistence that it is
responsibly. The department also pointed unable to stem the flow–indeed, the current
out that “by statute, SEAs bear primary re- Secretary seems to deny the existence of a
sponsibility for ensuring that federal funds problem. American taxpayers seem to be
they award to charter schools are expended left with little choice other than to continue
properly.” Also, the department noted that to tolerate, even expect, public funds in-
its authority is limited by law, and that it tended for educating students in charter
“does not have the resources to monitor schools to be subject to waste, fraud, and
directly each and every charter school.” abuse.

In 2018, an audit by OIG of charter schools

that had closed in Arizona, California, and
Louisiana in school years 2011–2012 and
2012–2013, found that the department’s

21
 5. The department does not conduct ents, which did not appear on CMD’s original list,
that have closed or that never opened. Nine addi-
sufficient oversight of grants to State tional charter schools could not be tracked, either
Entities or State Education Agencies, because they closed, consolidated or changed
despite repeated indications that the names.
states are failing to monitor outcomes
In addition to schools that never open or quickly
or offer full transparency on their sub- close, some Michigan SEA grant recipients pose
grants. additional concerns:

Since its inception, the Charter Schools Program The Benjamin E. Mays Male Academy in
has awarded billions in federal grant money to Detroit, MI received $110,00 in federal
state agencies through its program for State Edu- funds. The school's website address takes
cation Agencies (SEA)—now called the “State Enti- you to a website for a Baptist Church and
ties” program. includes no mention of the school, other
than in a photo of the church’s message
The OIG has repeatedly warned that some of the board. Listings on the internet classify the
worst abuse of charter grant funds occurs when academy as a "private" school affiliated with
SEAs pass that funding along directly to individ- the Baptist Church.

ual charters or charter organizations as sub-
grants. We found that the risk posed to federal Troubling data that points to possible discrimina-
funds through the subgrant process is actually tion at charter schools also seems not to bother
much worse than what OIG has reported. Michigan’s subgrant reviewers. According to the
“Miseducation” project at ProPublica:
The culprits here appear to include state agencies
that are ill-equipped to aggressively monitor the At Hope Academy of West Michigan in
use of federal pass-through funds, and/or that Grand Rapids, which received an SEA sub-
have little or no interest in doing so. grant of $550,000, non-White students were
more than seven times more likely to be
subjected to harsh discipline practices,
while White students were ten times more
apt to enroll in Advanced Placement classes
We found that the risk posed to federal than their Black and Brown peers.
funds through the subgrant process is actu-
ally much worse than what OIG has report- At Caniff Liberty Academy in Hamtramk,
ed. which received a $500,000 grant, non-White
students were more than six times more
likely to be subjected to harsh discipline
Michigan has long been considered a “wild practices, and White students were five
west” of charter proliferation and malfeasance. times more apt to enroll in Advanced
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Placement classes.

whose findings are referenced earlier in this re-
port, found that in Michigan alone, which won The Center for Media and Democracy found that
$34,997,658 in federal CSP funding for charters where there are agencies and commissions
between 2010-2015, 25 charter school subgrantees charged with oversight of charters in Michigan,
that together received nearly $1.7 million never those regulatory bodies are staffed “mainly by
opened. Since the CMD report, we have identified charter proponents.” The report calls this “a clas-
another 15 Michigan charter school grant recipi- sic example of ‘industry capture’”—agencies

22
charged with oversight being controlled by repre- awarded Michigan another five-year grant total-
sentatives of the industry they are tasked with ing $47,222,222 in 2018.
overseeing.
Another frequent recipient of CSP grants has
Nowhere in Michigan’s 2018 application to the been Arizona, which was also twice cited in au-
federal CSP are there specific references to the dits by the U. S. Department of Education's OIG.
state's previous problems with overseeing and The state's CSP won a five-year award of
monitoring federal grant money. None of the five $46,549,367 in 2009, a three-year award of
"objectives" listed in the application have any- $23,624,997 in 2015, and another five-year award
thing to do with increased transparency and ac- of $55,000,000 in 2018. About 16 percent of Ari-
countability for how CSP money will be spent. zona students attend charter schools, the highest
The application’s section describing Quality of percentage of any state.
Eligible Subgrant Applications states, "The likeli-
hood that the eligible applicants receiving sub- Each year the state has applied for grants, its ap-
grants under this program will meet their objec- plication stated that among the state's most im-
tives and improve educational results for Mi- portant objectives is "improving the academic
chigan can be shown in the historical data." Mi- outcomes of educationally disadvantaged stu-
chigan Department of Education (MDE) cites dents." The state's 2018 application proposed a
work "done in the last two years … to improve five-year impact of the grant would be 85 percent
overall school performance." Using a table com- of disadvantaged students in awarded schools
paring charter schools receiving previous CSP meeting or exceeding the state average on state
support to those that didn't, MDE claims, "CSP assessments and 85 percent of disadvantaged stu-
subgrantees perform measurably better with dents graduating from high school. Reviewers of
overall proficiency for all students." The table in- the application had reservations about these ob-
cludes data from only school-years 2014-2017, and jectives, with one reviewer noting a lack of "suffi-
it's not clear whether grant-receiving charters cient information to verify the ambitiousness,
that never opened or closed before annual as- soundness, or feasibility of proposed objectives."
sessments are accounted for. The application
states, "Schools deemed for closure are provided But perhaps Arizona intends to achieve its ambi-
the process to disperse assets and transfer stu- tious goals for educating disadvantaged students
dent records," but it's not clear what the process is in charters by preventing them from enrolling in
for charters that receive grants but never open. the schools. According to a study by the Arizona
chapter of the ACLU, hundreds of charter schools
For-profit charter management organizations in in the state, perhaps as many as 56 percent of all
Michigan are permitted to act as "agents of the charters, "have policies that are clear violations of
charter school" applying for the money, a huge the law or discourage the enrollment of certain
loophole that allows for-profit CMOs like National students, including students with disabilities, stu-
Heritage Academies to continue to benefit from dents who struggle academically, students with
the grants. disciplinary history, and students from immi-
grant families.” The report found charter schools
Even though no potential subgrant applicants are that were capping the number of students with
identified in Michigan's application, the depart- disabilities enrolled, refusing to admit students
ment's reviewers gave the maximum number of with prior suspensions, requiring student essays
points, 15, or near maximum, 14 of 15, on the or interviews, requiring parents to volunteer for
Quality of Eligible Subgrant Applicants. the school, and providing enrollment materials in
English only or not providing them online at all.
Despite its troubling track record on monitoring
its grants, the U.S. Department of Education

23
We determined that no fewer than 20 Arizona means for holding charters accountable for acad-
charter schools and/or chains that received mon- emic performance as “minimally developed.”
ey through the SEA charter school grant program
were identified in the ACLU Arizona report. In 2017, an investigation by the State Auditor’s
Office found that about a half million dollars were
Another issue completely overlooked in the de- diverted from an Albuquerque elementary char-
partment's review of Arizona’s CSP application is ter school into a former employee’s personal
the well-reported history of financial waste, bank account during a six-year period. Altogether
fraud, and abuse in the Arizona charter sector. A over $700,000 is unaccounted for.
recent investigative series by the Arizona Republic
found widespread problems with charter school Another examination by the State Auditor’s Office
financials in the state, including numerous char- in 2017 looked at how administrative costs are
ter school leaders who have made millions off accounted for in the state's system for overseeing
their schools and their associated businesses by charter schools and found $20 million in unac-
using taxpayer money to purchase valuable real counted-for costs over a five-year period. The au-
estate assets and to engage in no-bid contracts dit surfaced other concerns about charter finan-
with their own companies. Reporters found a cial practices that could impact how federal grant
chain of schools that solicits large donations from money has been spent, including "procurement
parents to cover the cost of teacher salaries while code violations, a lack of background and licen-
the executives who run the school earn high six- sure checks for educators, overspending, and in-
figure incomes. Meanwhile, numerous charter effective financial controls."
schools severely underperform on state measures
of academic achievement and high school gradu- New Mexico’s 2017 CSP grant application
ation rates. promised to "improve the fiscal/audit and organi-
zational performance of the charter school sec-
Despite this troubling evidence of discrimination tor" and require charters to undergo state-admin-
and financial malfeasance in Arizona charters, istered annual budget reviews in which the
the department's Technical Review Form for its schools must "justify the projected uses of state,
2018 grant applications failed to include a single federal, and other funds."
question that might have led reviewers to exam-
ine whether new applicants might continue these Apparently, these promises were good enough to
same concerning practices. secure the state over $22 million in additional
federal funds.
New Mexico received a five-year grant of
$14,660,296 in 2009 and a five-year grant of In Idaho, Charter Schools Program grants
$22,507,805 in 2017. totaling more than $21.6 million included over
$2.3 million in federal funds going to schools that
In its 2009 grant application, the New Mexico never opened or closed after brief periods of ser-
Public Education Department promised a "higher vice. Seven of the 51 Idaho subgrants went to
degree of direct accountability for state-chartered charter schools that later closed. In 2018, Idaho's
school operation, management, and success" and Public Charter School Commission imposed a
"greater responsibility" for charter "programs, range of academic sanctions on 13 of 25 charter
management, policies, and accountability." Yet, schools up for renewal in the state. Of those 13
there's strong evidence the state's oversight of its schools, nine had received CSP grants.
charter sector is inadequate.
The Idaho Department of Education stopped ap-
A 2016 report by the National Association of plying for federal SEA grants, according to a
Charter School Authorizers describes the state’s spokesperson, because the federal government

24
 stepped up its insistence that states have docu- Four members of one charter school in
mented plans for closing failing schools. But that Pennsylvania were officers of both the char-
didn’t stop the Charter Schools Program from of- ter board and the CMO, signing contracts
fering a new, five-year State Entities grant of for both boards including those contracts
$17,111,111 to Idaho’s Communities of Excel- between the charter and the CMO.
lence, a private consortium that supports charter
school start-ups in the state. Communities of Ex- In Texas, five charter schools did not dis-
cellence is run by a corporation called Bluum Inc. close their relationships with vendors. In
The consortium’s CSP application is not available another two schools, present and former
on the department's website, but the abstract administrators of the charter school had
makes no mention of efforts to improve the fi- substantial interests in companies that pro-
nancial stewardship of federal grant money in- vided services. Two charter schools in Flor-
tended to fund new charters. Bluum Inc.'s CEO ida that shared the same CMO leased their
Terry Ryan has defended the state's charter start- buildings through companies affiliated with
up failure rate as being significantly lower than the CMO.
new business failure rates, but he ignores the im-
portant distinction that new businesses are start- The CEO of one Pennsylvania charter man-
ed with private capital, not taxpayer money. agement organization wrote checks without
board approval, including multiple checks
6. The CSP’s grants to charter man- to himself totaling approximately $11 mil-
lion dollars in one year alone.
agement organizations are beset with
problems including conflicts of inter- An Oregon CMO and two former executives
est and profiteering. of a charter school misused both state and
federal funds.
Perhaps the most blistering of all of the audits by
A Michigan coupled diverted over $400,000
the OIG was the 2016 report concerning the rela-
for personal use including vacations by hav-
tionship between charter schools and their CMOs
ing the CMO they started fraudulently bill
(it should be noted that the OIG uses the term
the charter school on which the husband
“CMO” for both non-profit and for-profit charter
served as a member of the board. The cou-
management organizations). Of the 33 schools
ple were sentenced to over three years in
they reviewed, 22 had one or more of the follow-
prison.

ing: conflicts of interest between the CMO or the
charter, related-party transactions and/or insuffi-
The problems found in the audit were so signifi-
cient segregation of duties.
cant that the OIG recommended that the U. S. De-
partment of Education offer legislation to Con-
gress that would “clearly identify the governance
Despite the problems identified in 2016 by responsibilities” of the department, the states and
the OIG, the department awarded nearly authorizing agencies with respect to roles, expec-
$127 million to charter chains alone the fol- tations, responsibilities and oversight associated
lowing year. with charter management organizations.

Despite the problems identified in 2016 by the

The OIG illustrated the problems with real exam- OIG, the department awarded nearly $127 million
ples (see pages 17-20 of the report): to charter chains alone the following year.

25
CMOs that have been recipients of lavish federal year earlier, the department awarded the chain
grants are not starving for funds. Some also enjoy nearly $12 million. Since 2010, IDEA has received
millions of dollars in philanthropic grants. In- nearly $108.5 million—including new grants given
deed, one of the areas of concern expressed by even before a prior grant has been spent.
many groups are the oversized salaries of some
CMO executives, salaries that often exceed the IDEA’s 2016 and 2017 applications were quite simi-
salaries of big city district superintendents. The lar. The data presented regarding the chain’s nu-
Success Academy Charter School chain in New merous schools in San Antonio caught our eye.
York City has received $47,540,399 dollars from Although nearly all of the CMO’s San Antonio
CSP—over $44 million in CMO grants and an addi- schools were located within the San Antonio In-
tional $3.2 million for individual schools through dependent School District, the application com-
the SEA grant program. According to its 2016 tax pared the schools’ demographics not to the dis-
form, the Success Academy ended the year with trict, but rather to San Antonio Region 20, a large
over a $55 million balance in funds and assets. geographic region which encompasses hundreds
That year it paid its CEO, Eva Moskowitz, of miles with areas that are about a three-hour
$782,175. drive away from any of the schools. Using region-
al data made a compelling case that IDEA’s
In addition to the lack of financial need, the con- schools served a far needier population than the
troversial charter chain has received notoriety for public schools. When it came to comparing per-
its high attrition rates, “got to go lists,” excessive formance data, however, IDEA used San Antonio
disciplinary practices, misreporting of Civil ISD, not the sprawling region in which it is locat-
Rights discipline data to the federal government ed.
and, according to a recent federal lawsuit, unwill-
ingness to provide appropriate special education A visit to the Texas Education Agency website
services. A recent New York State investigation makes the motivation clear—if the chain were to
found Success Academy to be in violation of the compare the demographics of the San Antonio
rights of students with disabilities, while also cit- IDEA charter schools (open at the time of applica-
ing the New York City Department of Education tion) to the San Antonio Independent School Dis-
for not properly supervising the charter school trict, it would become apparent that the San An-
chain. tonio IDEA charter schools on the whole serve
fewer English language learners, students with
Success Academy is not alone. Exorbitant sums of disabilities, at-risk students and students who
money have gone to other charter chains, includ- receive free or reduced-price lunch. The schools
ing those that engage in practices that are de- listed beneath the district were in operation and
signed to encourage lower performing students to located within the boundaries of the San Antonio
leave or never enroll. The “cherry picking” of data ISD at the time of application. These discrepan-
included in applications to the CSP, not verified cies are shown in Table 2.
by the department, result in application ratings 

that are higher than deserved.

In 2017, the charter management company

known as IDEA received a grant from the U. S.
Department of Education for $67,243,986. Not
only was this astounding sum more funding than
was given to the 16 other awardees in its category
combined that year, it was the fourth time in sev-
en years that IDEA had received a multi-million
dollar grant to expand its charter holdings. One

26
 Table 2 -Comparative demographic data: IDEA charter schools in San Antonio and
San Antonio public schools
SWD ELL At Risk Econ. Disadvantaged

San Antonio ISD 10% 19% 71% 91%

Carver Academy 5% 8% 17% 77%

Carver College Prep 11% 11% 39% 78%

Eastside Academy 7% 16% 21% 93%

Eastside College Prep 14% 12% 26% 93%

Judson Academy 5% 13% 14% 61%

Judson College Prep 14% 15% 20% 67%

Najim Academy 2% 10% 13% 88%

Najim College Prep 11% 13% 18% 88%

South Flores Academy 6% 8% 24% 79%

South Flores College Prepe 8% 13% 34% 80%

Using the poor urban center that the San Antonio percent of its special education kindergarten stu-
Independent School District serves for compara- dents, 20 percent of its special education third-
tive performance data advantages the charter grade students, and 12.5 percent of its general
chain. Hence the switch, without explanation, is education fourth- grade students. To put the
later made in the application. fourth-grade general education rate in perspec-
tive, that year only 0.6 percent of all Texas general
Not mentioned in IDEA’s application to the CSP or education fourth graders were left back, accord-
the department’s review are serious issues raised ing to the Texas Education Agency.
about IDEA that could be found through a simple
google search. The school’s handbook notes that it To avoid being “left back,” many students just
can exclude students with serious disciplinary leave IDEA charter schools. Indeed, Professor
issues. Although the application brags that it has Edward Fuller of Penn State College of Education
a 100 percent college acceptance rate, it requires presented compelling evidence that not only do
acceptance into a four-year college as a condition the schools lose students, but more specifically,
for graduation. This requirement acts as a screen they lose low-performing students in disproportion-
that keeps out students who wish to enter the ate numbers, thus boosting scores in high grades.
world of work rather than college upon gradua- In its own strategic plan for 2011-2017, describing
tion. what it calls its “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” for
expansion, IDEA notes that it is only able to keep
Per IDEA policy, the schools retain students who about 65 percent of its high school students—in-
do not achieve sufficient scores on state tests in dicating that it expects to lose about one-third of
Grades six and nine. There are high retention its students during the high school years.
rates at other grade levels as well. In 2017-2018,
San Antonio’s IDEA Carver Academy retained 50

27
In 2018, Rocketship Education, a charter man- sought authorization through alternate methods
agement organization based in Redwood City, and eventually opened the school. However, in
California, received an expansion grant of February of 2018, only months after opening,
$12,582,678 through the CSP’s CMO grant pro- Rocketship announced the closure of the new
gram. Rocketship had previously received a grant Partners Community Prep due to low enrollment.
for over $6 million in 2011, while individual
Rocketship schools in California received SEA Additional concerns have been raised. In 2017,
grants totaling at least $2,360,000. National Public Radio published an investigative
exposé citing reports of serious health and safety
Rocketship’s 2017 federal grant application of- concerns, re-testing of students, and unsound
fered that it “has never had any schools closed, educational practices (corroborated by multiple
any charters revoked, any statutory or regulatory interviewees) at Rocketship campuses in San José.
compliance issues, any student safety violations
or issues, or any financial or operational mis- Despite denial by district and county boards, and
management. (p. 30). However, on February 22nd, strong community opposition, the State Board of
2017 (during the same month of their grant sub- Education in California authorized Rocketship
mission to USDOE), the Office of Charter Schools Futuro in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District.
for the Metro Nashville Public School District is- Several months following the school’s opening, a
sued a Notice of Deficiency to Rocketship, citing series of letters were issued by the State Depart-
“several violations at Rocketship Nashville North- ment of Education indicating financial concerns
east Elementary concerning state and federal that appeared to have been unresolved since at
laws governing the education of students with least 2015-2016. Since October 2017, the Califor-
disabilities, English learners, and homeless stu- nia Department of Education has issued at least
dents.” This is not an isolated complaint. Many six letters of concern to Rocketship with a range
ongoing issues and concerns were not disclosed of issues cited, including failure to provide access
in Rocketship’s bid for federal funds. to appropriate ELL instruction, ongoing non-
compliance with teacher credentialing require-
There have been numerous abandoned attempts ments, and escalating financial problems. In ear-
by the CMO to open schools, despite receiving ly 2019, Rocketship was required to pay back
substantial federal start-up grants. For example, $400,000 to the California DOE after being cited
in May of 2018, parents in Washington DC were for violations of the law regarding enrollment
informed that Rocketship’s third planned school counts.
was not going to open. Families weren’t notified
until after the deadline for the DC school lottery, On March 6th, 2019, when asked by Trustees of the
leaving them scrambling to find schools for their Santa Clara County Board of Education how
children. Although Rocketship claimed they were Rocketship planned to communicate its financial
unable to open due to facilities issues, enrollment problems to parents, their response was that all
may have been the deciding factor. Rocketship the information was “already available” to the
had a targeted enrollment of 160 students, while public on the Rocketship website. As of March
only 22 families had enrolled when Rocketship 10th, 2019, however, the Rocketship Board docu-
decided to cancel the school opening. ments are inaccessible to public view, with the
meetings page linked to the Board Doc link reveal-
In 2016, Rocketship’s attempt to open a third ing a note that reads “No meetings to show at this
Nashville school was rejected for the second year time.” The section of Rocketship’s website that
in a row, in part stemming from data of one of its had included links to past years’ meetings, agen-
other Nashville campuses indicating test scores in das, minutes, and documents is also no longer
the bottom 3 percent of all schools in Tennessee. visible.
Despite denial at the state level, Rocketship

28
Small charter chains also cherry pick the data pared to the respective rates for the school’s His-
they share to present a picture of schools that are panic students (24 percent and 21 percent).
more successful than they are. The Great Oaks
Foundation, Inc., received a federal CMO grant The discrepancies continued:
for nearly $4,000,000 in 2017 to expand enroll-
ment in its four schools, each in a different state
Reviewer 1: “The applicant schools are
in the Northeast. Charter chains receive these
identified as enrolling a significant sub-
grants in theory for demonstrating a strong
population of English language learners. It
record of success with disadvantaged students.
is specified that in New York City the
But the data presented in the CMO’s application
schools operated by the applicant demon-
for a grant is not verified by reviewers, and so
strated student data of 60 percent of English
they make decisions based on what the school, or
language learners demonstrating proficien-
in this case the charter management organization
cy in state assessments as compared to
reports.
eight percent of a similar population in oth-
er New York city schools.”

One of the four Great Oaks Foundation schools is
located in New York City. The school is referred to This statement is also not true. Again, according
its application to the CSP as GO NYC. The school to the New York State Education Department
provided selected data in its narrative from a sin- database, the aggregated 2015-16 6-8 grade ELA
gle year—the 2015-16 school year. Because the proficiency rate for GO NYC’s English language
charts provided by the applicants are not avail- learners on the state assessments was 0 percent.
able to the public, reported data must be gleaned The aggregated 6-8 grade math proficiency rate
from the reviewers’ comments on the application. for English language learners on the state as-
In their review, the following notes are included: sessments was 43 percent. All of those students
were Asian-American and only six were tested.
Reviewer 3: “Low income students at GO
NYC were 24 percent more proficient in
Despite these concerns, the reviewer gave the
Math and 16 percent more proficient in
CMO a score of 31/45 on the criteria of quality.
English Language Arts (ELA) than low in-
The two other reviewers gave the applicant nearly
come students in NY State. (e29).”

full points for quality.
New York State Education Department (NYSED)
data tell a different story. On half of the state As more and more of the nation’s charter schools
tests, GO NYC students had a 2015-16 proficiency are operated by charter management organiza-
rate for low income students that was substantial- tions, the federal Charter Schools Program could
ly lower than the comparative rates for the state. be a strong enforcer of transparency and over-
sight of these private entities. Instead, as with the
other funding streams within the CSP, it seems
In the three cases in which the school exceeded
that the objective of the program is to drive out
the proficiency rates of students in the state, the
taxpayer dollars, with little effort to rein in bad
results were carried by one sub-group, Asian-
practices.
American students. In 2015-16, Asian-Americans
comprised 22 percent of all students at the
school. The Asian-American proficiency rate on
the eighth-grade ELA test was 89 percent. On the
seventh and eighth grade math tests the rate of
proficiency for Asian-American students at the
school was 85 percent and 72 percent as com-

29
7. Under the current administration, enough detail regarding how it would continue
once the federal grant ran out. They also noted
while Congressional funding for the that there would be a decrease of 25 percent in
CSP rises, the quality of the ap- philanthropic support, indicated the lack of a
plications and awardees has further fundraising plan for the school, noted that there
was no research base provided for the school’s
declined.
academic plan and stated that qualifications of
key personnel such as the Superintendent and its
As mentioned earlier, congressional appropria- finance manager were missing. The school re-
tions for the federal Charter Schools Program ceived the grant with over $800,000 front-loaded
have been steadily increasing. The program was to the first year. It has yet to enroll any students.
appropriated at $219 million in 2004. The budget
went up to $256 million in 2010, $333 million in
The Accel Charter School, also in Alabama,
2016, then to $342 million in 2017, $400 million in
did not have its application posted—instead an
2018 and is now at $440 million for FY 2019.
application for a Missouri charter school is in its
spot. Once again, reviewers expressed serious
With the additional funding, the number of concerns. They noted that the applicant did not
grants has climbed dramatically. In 2018, the de- provide a detailed budget, financial plan, descrip-
partment awarded grants to 32 applicant non-SEA tion of internal controls and auditing procedures,
charter schools. This was only one fewer award nor resumes of key personnel, sources of private
than was given in this category during 2014, 2015 funding, or an explanation for a $190,000 shortfall
and 2016 combined. in revenue. No worries. The school received a
grant for $1,026,960.
Even as the number of awardees has increased,
the quality of the awardees’ applications de-
creased.
Even as the number of awardees has in-
During 2014-2016, the average score of schools’ creased, the quality of the awardees’ ap-
receiving a non-SEA grant was 91. Only one plications decreased.
awardee had a score below 80 (79.67) In 2018, the
average score dropped to 84. Nearly one third of
DreamHouse Ewa Beach charter school se-
awardees had scores below 80.
cured a three-year CSP grant eventually totaling
$567,804 to open in Ewa, Hawaii. But reviewers
Among the questionable awardees in the 2018
gave the school’s application an average score of
round of grants are the following:
71.6 out of a possible 108 points. Reviewers ex-
pressed concerns about the school’s “unproven,
In 2018, Star Academy, aka Legacy Prep
untested curriculum;” the application’s “minimal
Charter School in Birmingham, AL received a
amount of detail about the design of the proposed
$1,115,137 grant through the Non-SEA program. It
project;” and the absence of any “plan for moni-
received only 72.33 points for the quality of its
toring the project’s budget.” Two of the three re-
application. During the application process, the
viewers stated the school was “not financially vi-
school was embroiled in a lawsuit over school
able without CSP funding,” and one noted the ab-
governance between New Rising Star Baptist
sence of any “philanthropy organizations or spe-
Church Pastor, Thomas Beavers, and the Execu-
cific grants for future financial support … to en-
tive Director of the charter school. Though the
sure sustainability.” After obtaining the grant, the
U. S. Department of Education did not post the
school had to delay its opening because it could
school’s full application on its website, according
not find a location. Recently, the school an-
to the reviewers, the application did not provide

30
nounced it will open in a temporary location
above a Buffalo Wild Wings at a shopping center
for the 2019-2020 school year.

Moore Montessori Community School, a new

charter school in Southern Pines, North Carolina,
opened in August 2018 after receiving a four-year
grant totaling $734,000. The school’s application
has not been posted by the department, but two
of its reviewers gave the application identical
scores of 71. Both noted the school is anticipating
an annual funding shortfall of $71,500 when the
grant ends and the absence of any local philan-
thropy or fund-raising that would support the
project long term. A third reviewer diverged
sharply from the other two and rated the applica-
tion 95, stating “no weaknesses indicated” regard-
ing financial priorities. The department awarded
the grant without posting any explanation of the
huge disparity in the reviewers’ findings.

The Utah County Academy of Sciences Early

College High School in Orem, Utah, won a five-
year, $1,250,000 grant to help expand its grade 10-
12 program to ninth grade. The application re-
ceived an average score of only 72.6 from review-
ers. The school’s application admits it has a spe-
cial education population rate of only one per-
cent, compared to the state’s average of 10 per-
cent, and an ELL rate of one percent, compared
to the state’s average of five percent. Reviewers
noted the application’s general lack of any de-
scription of how the school intended to remedy
this disparity. All three reviewers remarked on a
lack of any kind of detailed financial plan or bud-
get in the application. Reviewers also criticized
the application for inadequate descriptions of the
school’s curriculum program and management
plan, with one reviewer slamming the application
for its “general statements” and “zero data to sub-
stantiate claims.” Yet the school was awarded a
grant anyway.


31
 Conclusion

Conclusion

Despite the warnings of the Office of Inspector The department claims it is unable to stem the
General and the Center for Media and Democra- flow of good money going to bad results because
cy’s 2016 investigative report, administrators at the states are responsible for oversight. The cur-
the federal Charter Schools Program have not rent Secretary of Education denies the existence
learned—or do not care to know—how to prevent of the problem altogether, arguing that stronger
federal taxpayer dollars from flowing into the oversight of the program would be “inconsistent
black hole of failed charter schools. From our with the federal role in education.” This impasse
investigation, we know failure rates are not only leaves American taxpayers with the expectation
likely higher than previous estimates; we also that public funds intended to proliferate the pri-
know failures are still rampant. We found scores vately-managed charter school marketplace will
of charters that opened and then closed after re- continue to be subject to unavoidable waste,
ceiving their grants. fraud, and abuse.

CSP has also yet to grasp the significance of the

problems posed by providing the vast majority of These are all signs of a reckless program
funding to State Education Agencies, which have
that is asleep at the wheel as huge sums of
proven to be incapable or unwilling to tightly
monitor the funds. Our findings show that some money are wantonly wasted on schools
of the worst abuse of charter grant funds occurs that, even if they ever opened their doors,
when SEAs pass that funding along directly to often do not resemble high-quality, equi-
individual charters or charter organizations as table schools at all.
subgrants. We found a continuing record of fail-
ure in the SEA grant program, with grants going
CSP touts its record for sending grants to schools
to schools that never opened or closed quickly, to
with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic
schools that blatantly discriminate in their disci-
students, and students who are eligible for free or
pline, curricular, and enrollment practices, and to
reduced-price lunch (a measure of household
schools that engage in fraud as well as in related-
income). But while that may be true at a national
party transactions that result in private individu-
level, our analysis has found charter school
als and companies pocketing huge sums of mon-
grants frequently go to schools with student pop-
ey at taxpayer expense.
ulations that do not reflect the demographics of
students in the surrounding traditional public
schools.

32
CSP also claims that grantee charter schools
served a similar percentage of students with dis-
abilities and limited English proficient students
as traditional schools. But here again, national
comparisons mask the numerous examples we
found where CSP-funded charters enroll lower
percentages of these student than the surround-
ing schools—sometimes blatantly discriminating
against them, as shown in the example of York
Academy Charter School, noted above. Multiple
schools we examined enroll dramatically fewer
percentages of students with disabilities than the
surrounding schools.

Finally, based on our investigation into the most

recent rounds of grant awards to SEAs and non-
SEAs in 2017 and 2018, we contend the quality of
the applications and the receiving grantees are
likely getting worse. Applications are often word-
ed in vague generalizations with little or statisti-
cal data to back up their lofty promises. The re-
viewers the department hires to rate the ap-
plications are increasingly more critical of the
quality of applications and are more apt to score
applications lower on the department's criteria,
yet the grants are awarded anyway. Although CSP
gives notice online that it would periodically up-
date its public data set, it has not done so since
December 2015.

These are all signs of a reckless program that is

asleep at the wheel as huge sums of money are
wantonly wasted on schools that, even if they
ever opened their doors, often do not resemble
high-quality, equitable schools at all.


33
 Recommendations

Recommendations

The U.S. Department of Education has not, in our Congress should require the department to
opinion, been a responsible steward of taxpayer conduct a thorough review of the awards
dollars in regard to its management of the Char- process to address the concerns raised by
ter Schools Program. It has not responsibly re- this report and should direct the depart-
sponded to the concerns of its own Office of In- ment to implement all recommendations
spector General regarding the lack of supervision from the Office of Inspector General
of federal funds once they are released at the through previous audits, and to report to
state and local levels. Congress on that implementation.

The program’s ultimate authority rests with Edu- For previous grant awards whose terms
cation Secretary Betsy DeVos, who believes that have expired:
the promulgation of choice for the sake of choice
is a public good, and that the marketplace should
The department should immediately update
be the ultimate decision maker regardless of the
its database, by state, of all charter schools
cost to the American taxpayers and to the chil-
that have been awarded federal SEA, non-
dren whose lives are disrupted when they attend
SEA, CMO, or other program grant money,
a school that suddenly goes belly-up. This philos-
with the year(s) of disbursement and
ophy will result in increased waste as more char-
amount awarded. This public record should
ter schools with even less chance of success are
be updated every year hereafter. There has
funded simply because they provide choice.
not been a publicly available update since
2015.
Therefore, we recommend that the department
take the following actions to stem the financial The Office of the Inspector General should
malfeasance and education inequities enabled be given the authority and staff to conduct a
and tolerated by the Charter Schools Program: complete investigation of charter schools
receiving grant funds through both the SEA
Immediately: and non/SEA program streams, that never
opened or opened and then closed within
Congress should end funding for new CSP three years of the grant's termination, to
grants even as it investigates past grants and determine whether the schools committed
grants in progress. fraud, theft, or mismanagement and to rec-

34
 ommend actions to claw back wasted funds state agencies, then it is those agencies that
when possible. should provide what the department refers to as
“start-up capital” for new charter schools and
The department should hire an indepen- replications.
dent program auditor to conduct an investi-
gation of charter schools receiving grant American taxpayers have a right to demand that
funds through both the SEA and non/SEA their tax dollars not be wasted. Tax dollars that
programs, to ascertain if grant program flow to charter schools that never opened or
expenditures led to education outcomes quickly close should not be considered the cost of
consistent with CSP's stated goal to create doing business. And a program with a stated
and spread high-quality schools. commitment to spread "high-quality" schools
should not be a major funding source for schools
For grants previously awarded still within that leave families in the lurch and promote dis-
criminatory enrollment practices that increase
term:
segregation and unequal opportunity for students
with disabilities, behavioral challenges or English
CSP should notify the department of any
language learner status. We cannot afford to con-
charter school grant awardee that has yet to
tinue to pump hundreds of millions of dollars
open or has opened but already closed and
into a program whose stewards are clearly asleep
provide a full accounting of how funds were
at the wheel.
spent.

Prior to further disbursements, CSP should

require SEAs and non/SEA grant recipients,
including CMOs, to provide information on
program financials, including annual bud-
gets, compensation of key staff, assets ac-
quired using grant money, and information
about contractors compensated with grant
funds.

Prior to further disbursements, CSP should

require SEA and State Entity grant recipients
to provide information on subgrantees in-
cluding the subgrantee's application, the
criteria for the applicant's approval, and the
amount allotted to each awardee.

The department should contract with an

outside auditor to review all applications of
grantees still within term for accuracy of
claims made to secure the grant.

In its responses to the OIG, the department

makes it clear that it does not have the capacity
nor the authority to supervise spending on what it
refers to as “its investments.” If indeed all the ca-
pacity and authority rests with authorizers and

35
36