Walmart: Stop Charter School Fraud

(This article first appeared in the September-October 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

Recently, there have been many headlines about waste, fraud, and abuse at charter schools across the country. School districts lack the resources to oversee charter schools, which has led to millions of dollars in misspent taxpayer funds.

Charter schools are big business. There are more than 6,000 schools that spend upward of $20 billion of taxpayers’ money per year, despite the fact that they demonstrate no significant academic gains for students.

A significant share of the blame lies at the feet of the Walton Family Foundation (WFF), which is run by the family that owns Walmart. The foundation has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to promote charter schools and opposes regulation of charter schools.

A report published by the American Federation of Teachers says that under the guise of “choice,” WFF has supported the unregulated growth of a privatized education industry that emphasizes quantity over quality and “freedom” from regulation. The results have been disastrous for many of the nation’s most vulnerable students.

Fraud, Profiteering

The Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education released the results of a survey of charter school fraud, waste, and abuse in 15 states, which found more than $200 million in fraud. Many of the schools caught up in the scandals have been funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Violators include:

• The Brighter Choice Foundation, which manages 11 charter schools in Albany, NY. Ronald Racela, the director of finance, was charged with embezzling more than $200,000 from the schools.
• The Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School in Philadelphia doubled as a nightclub until it was shut down.
• Two Los Angeles charter schools run by the Magnolia charter school chain were closed for fiscal mismanagement.
• Concept schools in Ohio and Illinois are under federal and state investigation for hiring practices and mismanagement of funds.
• Sixty schools in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in Florida run by Academica Corp have been the subject of an investigative series in the Miami Herald, which reported millions of dollars of profiteering through the purchase of properties for school buildings, which are leased at a profit to school governing boards that Academica controls.
• Options Public Charter School in Washington, DC, serves students with severe physical and/or mental disabilities. The school’s governing board contracted a for-profit corporation to handle Medicaid billing for the school, which was found guilty of overstating the severity of disabilities of students in order to increase federal reimbursements.

These and many other instances of fraud and profiteering have sparked cries for stronger regulation of charter schools. We must ensure that education reform serve all students.

If we are committed to a public education system that strives to serve all children – with the understanding that each and every one matters, has potential, and deserves the resources and opportunity to succeed – then we must rein in the growth of charter schools and insist instead on a well-regulated and equitably resourced system of public schools that works for all children.

To do that, supporters must work to change how politicians and policymakers view charter schools; demand increased accountability (through open board meetings, publicly available budgets and contracts, and audits); protect neighborhood schools (through impact analyses and financial assessments of the effects of charter expansion on local schools), and demand that the Walton Family Foundation adopt a set of standards that ensure charter schools operate with integrity and guarantee a high-quality education for every child.