More than 35 percent of charter schools funded by the federal Charter School Program (CSP) between 2006 and 2014 either never opened or were shut down, costing taxpayers more than half a billion dollars, according to a report from a public school advocacy group.
The Washington Post says that the report by the Network for Public Education, “Still Asleep at the Wheel,” found that 537 “ghost schools” never opened, but received a total of more than $45.5 million in federal start-up funding.
In Michigan, where, prior to becoming U.S. Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos was instrumental in creating a charter school sector, 72 charters that received CSP money never opened, at a total cost of some $7.7 million from 2006 to 2014. California was second; 61 schools failed to open, but collectively received $8.36 million.
Casandra Ulbrich, president of the Michigan State Board of Education, says she found the new report “extremely troubling.”
“It raises some very legitimate questions about a federal grant program that seems to have been operating for years and years with little oversight and very little accountability,” she says.
The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group that supports public education and was co-founded by education historian and advocate Diane Ravitch. It contends that the Education Department has failed for years to properly monitor how its charter grant funding is spent.
About 6 percent of U.S. schoolchildren attend charter schools.
Charter supporters say the schools provide important alternatives to traditional public schools. Opponents say there is little public accountability over many charters, which divert resources from traditional public schools.
The new report found:
- The disbursement of more than $1 billion during the program’s first decade — from 1995 to 2005 — was never monitored, and there is no complete public record of which schools received the funds because the Education Department never required states to report where the money went. During that period, California received $191 million, Florida $158.4 million and Michigan $64.6 million.
- The overall rate of failed charter projects from 2006 to 2014 was 37 percent, with some states posting a much higher failure rate. In Iowa, for example, 11 charter schools received grants and 10 failed after receiving a total of $3.66 million. The failure rate exceeded 50 percent in a number of states, including Georgia, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland and Virginia. In California, 37 percent failed to open or stay open, after receiving nearly $103 million in CSP funding.
- Although Congress forbids for-profit operators from directly receiving CSP grants, some of them still were able to benefit. The report says 357 schools in the database were run by for-profit chains, for a total cost of $125 million in federal CSP start-up costs. Most of that money was spent in Michigan and in Florida.
