State looks into loss of funds by start-up charter schools
Now closed Sacramento charter school
advertises for students on opening day last fall
Photo by Louis Freedberg
(EdSource) – The California Department of Education is looking into the loss of upwards of “tens of millions of dollars” in federal and state funds from start-up charter schools that either never opened or failed after their first year or two of operation.
Richard Zeiger, chief deputy superintendent in the California Department of Education, first made that assertion at the State Board of Education meeting on September 7 after the closure of a West Sacramento career technical education charter school.
Zeiger said the state finds itself having to balance wanting to encourage innovation with ensuring that state and federal funds are not misspent.
The California College, Career and Technical Center, or CCCTEC, opened last September, in a vast building in an industrial park leased from a high tech company that moved its operations overseas.
But despite making grand promises of what it hoped to achieve, backed up by its slogan “where eagles soar and students thrive,” the school had problems virtually from day one,
