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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

School Tech Connect: Connecting The Dots In Charter School Financing

School Tech Connect: Connecting The Dots In Charter School Financing

Connecting The Dots In Charter School Financing

Off to the FOIA races here. And no, I'm not going after someone's emails.

Today I faxed an unredacted version of this off to the Treasury.


I'm sure it will get mired in technicalities but I'm going to stick with it.

Here's what I'm after: relationships between reformy activists and the cash-cow tax incentives available to investors in charter school construction under the New Markets Tax Credits Program. I've limited myself to Illinois, Ohio, and Texas just as a starting point-- I'm working off a hunch.

Here's how it works. The program allows certain entities (banks and subsidiary funds) to raise specific amounts of capital and then deploy this capital in the form of loans to certain types of real estate and construction projects in tracts of poverty, including projects to build charter schools. The investors in these loans receive tax credits that pretty much allow them to almost double their money over seven years. It's an interesting program,