By Dustin Slaughter
Action United, Integrity in Education, and the Center for Public Democracy have released a report this week on charter school fraud to help push for greater oversight, according to Newsworks’ Tom MacDonald.
The report indicates that over $30 million in misappropriated public funds have already been spent; the groups argue that without stringent auditing of charter schools’ financial records, communities and politicians won’t know the full extent of fraudulent activity.
Chinara Bioaal, a public school parent, tells Newsworks:
“We will be conducting information requests on all charter schools to review board minutes to determine the quality or existence of their fraud risk management programs, we will challenge charter schools to sign the fraud risk management pledge adopting fraud risk management programs.”
The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools supports investigating fraud, but states that the report’s conclusions are “sweeping” and “based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years.”
Read Tom MacDonald’s full story and listen to the audio report at Newsworks.
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