by Carol Burris
Two years ago, the Network for Public Education began keeping track of fraud, mismanagement and other scandalous behaviors involving charter schools. We noticed that problems in the charter sector were appearing in our news feed nearly every day. Because these stories were covered primarily by local news agencies, there is no national repository to allow policymakers and the public to understand the scope of the problems that result when schools are funded by the public but are not fully transparent in matters of governance and spending.
We began a Twitter hashtag (#anotherdayanothercharterscandal) and a web page to collect stories. We expected one or two postings a week. However, the coverage and the incidences of charter scandals are accelerating, and so we are posting 25 or more stories each month.
As the new year begins, the Network for Public Education staff decided to review our 2019 collection and identify the five most serious charter scandals of 2019. What follows is the results of that review. All five are equally egregious in their own way and are not listed in rank order.
