Web of Secrecy Surrounding Federal Half-a-Billion Handout to Charter Schools [View all]

[Bubzer]

If true, this needs to be rectified.

The U.S. Department of Education is poised to spend half a billion dollars to help create new charter schools, while the public is being kept in the dark about which states have applied for the lucrative grants, and what their actual track records are when it comes to preventing fraud and misuse.

Already the federal government has spent $3.3 billion in American tax dollars under the Charter Schools Program (CSP), as tallied by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

But the government has done so without requiring any accountability from the states and schools that receive the money, as CMD revealed earlier this year.

Throwing good money after bad, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for a 48 percent increase in federal charter funding earlier this year, and the House and Senate budget proposals also call for an increase—albeit a more modest one—while at the same time slashing education programs for immigrants and language learners.

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more at the link

http://www.alternet.org/education/web-secrecy-surrounding-federal-half-billion-handout-charter-schools?sc=fb