Today, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) urged that the bill to reauthorize the federal charter school program include guidelines to require and enforce conflict of interest standards among charter schools that receive federal assistance.

This is consistent with Rep. Castor’s fight to fund an education system that works for all, instead of diverting taxpayer dollars for private schools that are not held accountable to the same quality standards of public schools that also receive federal funding.

Recent reports, including the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General, have found extensive waste, fraud and conflicts of interest in publicly funded charter schools across the country.  “Charter schools and their administrators need to be held accountable for self-dealing and the conflicts of interests should be outlawed,” U.S. Rep. Castor said today as the U.S. House debated the charter bill.  

U.S. Rep. Castor cited examples in Florida, Arizona, California and Colorado, where cases of waste, fraud and nepotism demonstrate that oversight is needed to ensure that public funding is invested where intended -- the education of our children.

“There are laudable charter school programs whose missions I support and are given a bad name by the egregious waste and self-enrichment,” U.S. Rep. Castor added. “However, all schools that receive taxpayer funding should follow stringent accountability standards to ensure our children are not shortchanged in the education that they receive.”

Last month, U.S. Rep. Castor joined PTA leaders in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties to demand that the Florida state legislature and governor take action to stop the theft of tax dollars from public schools. Over the past three years, some 500 private charter schools received $200 million while Florida’s 3,600 public schools received $6 million under the budgets approved by Rick Gov. Scott and Republican-controlled legislature. While the Florida Legislature finally appropriated some capital outlay funding to traditional public schools this year, charters took another huge slice. Meanwhile, Hillsborough and Pinellas public schools now have more than $125 million in unfunded maintenance needs over the next five years.

###

Supporting sensible guidelines to enforce ethical and financial standards is evident as Florida is not the only state plagued by these problems when it comes to charter schools, for example: 

• In 2012, Arizona found that board members and administrators from more than a dozen of its publically funded charter schools had profited from deals worth more than $70 million over a five-year period.

• In 2012, state auditors in California found that the American Indian Public Charter Schools president, Ben Chavis, had given $350,000 in improper payouts to his wife. The auditors also found that $348,000 had been spent on unauthorized construction projects, all going to companies owned by Mr. Chavis.

• The Colorado Department of Education recently issued an audit citing egregious financial impropriety involving the Cesar Chavez Network, which operates three schools. The CEO of the Network, aside from paying himself a $340,000 salary, also hired his wife as COO at a salary of $201,000 a year. The audit also found that the couple hired 20 members of their own family from 2002 – 2008. The audit further found that the wife’s stepbrother was installed as a board member and owned a janitorial service that was a vendor for the schools.

###