More news of success from the barely regulated, semi-private and "superior" education system:
Nearly half of the charter schools in Texas have incorrectly reported student attendance, resulting in $26 million in undeserved payments that the state is trying to recover, according to state records.
"Nearly half" in Texas is no small number. It's "93 of the 211 charter operators," 20% of which, apparently, took the money and ran:
The Texas Education Agency probably will never recover at least $9 million of the debt because 20 schools went out of business before repaying the state.
Why did these charter schools rip off the taxpayers?
"There is a kind of perverse incentive for a charter school in financial distress to look at (attendance inflation) as a way to get more money," Lisa Dawn-Fisher, deputy associate commissioner for school finance, told The Dallas Morning News. "If they can't get the warm bodies in the building, they may feel an incentive to falsify records."
Why Ms. Dawn-Fisher believes "financial distress" is more of a "perverse incentive" for robbery by officials running charter schools than for other kinds of thieves is inexplicable. Perhaps a more fruitful question is why so many of the Lone Star state's charter schools have found themselves frequently distressed. Unsurprisingly, one explanation happens to be one of the reasons that many politically active misers find attractive about charter schools: cheap labor. As is so often the case, cheap labor = inexperienced labor:
TEA officials say that while traditional schools make errors, mistakes are more common at charters because they typically lack experienced staff or strong oversight and can't generate revenue through property tax hikes or bond elections like other public schools.
Similarly unsurprising to those who don't believe responsible governmental policy can be reduced to 1980ish political clichés, it's occasionally smart for the government to "get in the way" of private enterprise, especially before it becomes too late:
TEA officials say they look for suspicious attendance figures at charters, but their regulatory system relies on self-reporting by the schools. TEA puts monitors at schools only after serious problems are identified.
Given that state funding in Texas for charter schools has grown from $10 million to more than $646 million in just 11 years, the so-called "school choice" lobby qualifies as a powerful and influential force in Texas, one that is mostly prosecution proof on criminal charges, their alleged acts fraud notwithstanding. It also shows how irresponsible state officials have been to buy (what has become in many cases) the swindle that charter schools are best left to their own devises*:
When legislators first approved charters in 1996, many supporters argued that relaxing regulations for schools would spark innovation in the classroom. The competition was supposed to make regular schools better.
It appears that charter schools in Texas have certainly accomplished the task of making public schools "better" if only by contrast. As long as 1/2 of the public schools don't commit fraud and pocket taxpayer dollars and, as in some cases, close shop afterwards, public schools in Texas are performing better than charter schools.
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* It is no exaggeration to dub the practices of some of these charter schools a swindle. Take the case of Gulf Shores Academy. It seems to have a fascinating expedited way of getting children to pass the classes they failed in the pedagogically "inferior" public school system:
Assistant District Attorney Anna Emmons said prosecutors started investigating Gulf Shores after receiving complaints from several area high school registrars. Students who had failed classes would return after just a few days with the credits on transcripts from Gulf Shores, she said.
Two investigators were sent to the school earlier this month posing as parents whose children needed to make up classes. In both cases, Gulf Shores administrators issued credits to the parents for $150 and some class assignments that the parents handed in the next day, Emmons said.
Both investigators received the same packet of assignments — even though they were seeking credit for different classes — and they turned in the same set of sloppy, incomplete answers, she said.
Gulf Shores employees never saw the students or verified their existence, she said.
"Common sense says within 24 hours, you should not be able to receive a semester's credit," Emmons said. (link)
There's the miracle of the marketplace in education. You can fail a course on any subject in the public school system and, for a mere $150, "enroll" in the charter school for just one day, write whatever on a canned package of assignments and pass the course without ever seeing a teacher.
That certainly sounds like one of the "choices" some parents and students should have underwritten by taxpayers to enhance America's intellectual and economic future.