FBI Tracks Charter Schools
By Ruth Conniff
There’s been a flood of local news stories in recent months about FBI raids on charter schools all over the country.From Pittsburgh to Baton Rouge, from Hartford toCincinnati to Albuquerque, FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents, and making arrests leading to high-profile indictments.
"The troubled Hartford charter school operator FUSE was dealt another blow Friday when FBIagents served it with subpoenas to a grand jury that is examining the group's operations. When two Courant reporters arrived at FUSE offices on Asylum Hill on Friday morning, minutes after the FBI's visit, they saw a woman feeding sheaves of documents into a shredder."—The Hartford Courant, July 18, 2014
"The FBI has raided an Albuquerque school just months after the state started peering into the school’s finances. KRQE News 13 learned federal agents were there because of allegations that someone may have been taking money that was meant for the classroom at the Southwest Secondary Learning Center on Candelaria, near Morris in northwest Albuquerque . . ." --KRQE News 13, August 1 2014
"Wednesday evening's FBI raid on a charter school in East Baton Rouge is the latest item in a list of scandals involving the organization that holds the charter for the Kenilworth Science and Technology School. . . . Pelican Educational Foundation runs the school and has ties to a family from Turkey. The school receives about $5,000,000 in local, state, and federal tax money. . . . The FBI raided the school six days after the agency renewed the Baton Rouge school’s charter through the year 2019."—The Advocate, January 14, 2014
"The state of Pennsylvania is bringing in the FBI to look into accusations that a Pittsburgh charter school [Urban Pathways Charter School] misspent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on luxuries such as fine-dining and retreats at exclusive resorts and spas." --CBS News November 12, 2013
"COLUMBUS, OH—A federal grand jury has indicted four people, alleging that they offered and accepted bribes and kickbacks as part of a public corruption conspiracy in their roles as FBI Tracks Charter Schools | PR Watch:
