Shocking education report reveals taxpayers paying hundreds of millions for unneeded and inferior c

[riversedge]

Source: Raw Story





15 Apr 2017 at 00:01 ET




..........“This report finds that this funding [building, buying, leasing] is almost completely disconnected from educational policy objectives, and the results are, in turn, scattershot and haphazard,” the report’s executive summary begins. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year without any meaningful strategy. Far too much of this public funding is spent on schools built in neighborhoods that have no need for additional classroom space, and which offer no improvement over the quality of education already available in nearby public schools. In the worst cases, public facilities funding has gone to schools that were found to have discriminatory enrollment policies and others that have engaged in unethical or corrupt practices.”

The report, “Spending Blind: The Failure of Policy Planning in California Charter School Funding,” was written by the University of Oregon’s Gordon Lafer for In The Public Interest, a research and policy center based in Oakland, California.

Its findings are significant on national and statewide levels, especially since California has more charter schools than any other state and the Trump administration has proposed spending $20 billion for a range of “school choice” initiatives, from charter public schools to tuition vouchers for religious schools or to subsidize homeschooling. Charter schools are privately run K-12 schools and have become an industry dominated by corporate franchises seeking rapid growth.

The school reform template embraced by the Trump administration’s K-12 privatization agenda would use many of the same fiscal devices and tax-based incentives the new report has documented as wasting California taxpayer funds and harming nearby traditional schools.......................

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/shocking-education-report-reveals-taxpayers-paying-hundreds-of-millions-for-unneeded-and-inferior-charter-schools/

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Same thing happening in red state of WI under Gov walker and his Republican Legislature!!

[tenorly]

1. It's disgusting, it's...

[radical noodle]

2. K&R

There is not enough attention given to the dismantling of the public school system.

[Turbineguy]

3. There's a reason republicans adore

charter schools.

Got to have.... da money!

[LuckyLib]

13. That is FUNNY!

[burrowowl]

4. K&R!!!!!!

[Initech]

5. Charter schools and vouchers: another pyramid scheme endorsed by your republican party!!

[Throck]

6. Tax dollars pay for shItty public schools too?

What's the solution?

[mdbl]

7. The point of the article is that charter schools have even less accountablity

and more waste than public schools beholden to those they serve. Charter schools are not. It's the same argument with healthcare. For profit social programs just cost more because you have to "add the profit" not to mention the fact that dopey repuglicans think privatization is a better guardian of public money for some stupid reason unbeknownst to reality.

[cstanleytech]

10. The current public schools are having problems because of lack of funding.

Last edited Sat Apr 15, 2017, 10:25 AM - Edit history (1)

Not for teacher pay because thats fairly decent but rather for the facilities and the supplies they need that in some cases the teachers are having to buy out of their own pocket.
If they fix that problem as well ceasing the cramming of to many students under one single teacher things might improve though they also might want to consider longer school hours like from 8 am until about 5 pm with regular breaks of course and do away with homework and also the extended summer vacation needs to be far shorter because by the time students get back they have forgotten things from the last year and then you have to play catch up.

[mdbl]

12. No, sorry. Repugs don't want to improve anything

They don't believe in public education so your suggestions go thru their narcissistic empty heads.

[yurbud]

16. and class size and social services...

[cstanleytech]

19. I already mentioned the size issue

"ceasing the cramming of to many students under one single teacher".

[yurbud]

20. good

[yurbud]

15. Did you read the article? Even if real public schools were equally shitty...

at least they wouldn't be skimming our tax dollars for Wall Street profits.

Corporate-driven education reform is an engine for corruption. The wealthy donate money to politicians to get the policy they want then get the contracts to implement the policy then use some of the profits from the government contracts to further bribe politicians to give them more and bigger contracts and so on.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Charter Schools are to enrich the founders first

just like any other non-profit. Once the principal stakeholders are paid, the money trickles
down to education, but the strategy is less sound than those who have been
educating for 100 years - the public schools.

I have a relative who was in the earliest stages of home-schooling. Completed
last 3 years at home due to incompatibility issues. Never really learned to tolerate
or socialize, just grinds on with self-righteousness. Home schooling helped ignore
these issues.

[sharedvalues]

9. Homeschooling creates little Republicans

Because exposing people to other views allows them to be thoughtful but also tends to make them progressives.

That's the GOPs real education goal: destroy public schools while creating good little brainwashed GOP soldiers via homeschooling and private schools.

[cstanleytech]

11. I wouldnt say it creates little Repugnants however you are right about it not exposing them

to other ideas which can be a major handicap down the road for them.

[QED]

14. Tax money ends up in real estate deals benefitting corporations

California’s Failing Grade in Charter School Facilities Financing


"Yet California charter schools can become the private property of a charter operator when they are paid for with proceeds from the state’s three public conduit bond programs offered by the CSFA, the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA) and the California Statewide Communities Development Authority (CSCDA). An operator could also get the same result using private funding subsidized by California’s New Market Tax Credits program, or by getting the school’s mortgage payments reimbursed through CSFA’s Charter School Facilities Grant Program, more commonly known as SB 740.

Should the authorizer revoke the charter, the state and the local school district would be left scrambling to house displaced students. The now-unencumbered former charter operator, however, would be free to turn the buildings into luxury condominiums or sell them at a profit."


http://capitalandmain.com/californias-failing-grade-in-charter-school-facilities-financing-0412

[yurbud]

17. that is about as blatant corruption and theft as you can get.

[yurbud]

18. If Democrats loudly and consistently broke with privatizers of public education, they might be

surprised at the results at the polls.

Teachers are normally among the most loyal foot soldiers of the Democratic Party, but when you screw them and their students to enrich your already wealthy donors, their enthusiasm is going to be noticeably muted.

Democrats can't afford to make excuse on this issue. They must do a 180 and base public education policy on the views of educators and education researchers, not trust fund babies looking for an easy score off government contracts.

If Democrats don't, and teachers and those with school age kids only choice is the party of privatization and the party of privatization AND hate and ignorance, they might choose to shop elsewhere.