BASIS Charter Schools make fraudulent use of Special Education designation
Arizonans for Charter School Accountability is an amazing organization that is exposing malfeasance and fraud in one of the worst charter school states in the nation. We have opined here in the past that Arizona has no concept of a conflict of interest and allows the starkest, most absurd entanglements of financial interests one can imagine.
Now, Arizonans for Charter School Accountability has exposed a crass and cynical manipulation of the charter school financing system. Cynical and crass because it exploits money designated for special needs students to increase its already considerable profits. You can read the details at ACSC's website or jump to the story immediately that has been reproduced below:
Special Education Fraud II: BASIS Inc.BASIS Inc. does everything possible to game Arizona’s financial system. They received Federal start up funds, designed for new charter holders, to build their 12th school. They charter each school individually and claim they are “small” schools to receive additional funding, even though they have over 8000 total students. Now we find that in 2013-14 they claimed to have 19 severely handicapped students in eight schools. Hearing Impaired, Visually Impaired, Multiple Disabilities, Autism, Intellectual Disability - all students that require a great deal of support to achieve in school. These students generate four to six times the revenue per pupil of a regular education child to pay for the extensive services they require. These 19 students netted an additional $350,000 in state assistance for BASIS Inc. (Data is on the ADE Finance site: Charter Equalization Report (CHAR55-1) 2014)
The problem? According to their 2014 Annual Financial Report, BASIS expended ZERO dollars on special education in all of its 12 schools, except for $244,800 for “general administration” that went straight to BASIS Inc. Worse yet, every BASIS school claims to have spent an identical amount, exactly $20,400, for special education general administration, whether they had education students or not.
It is hard to image 19 severely handicapped students being able to navigate one of the most rigorous curriculums in the country without assistance. There are three possibilities:
- First is the possibility that BASIS is collecting $350,000 for special education students that don’t exist. That is fraud on both a state and federal level. Or maybe BASIS legitimately has 19 handicapped students and is not providing them appropriate services. That would Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: BASIS Charter Schools make fraudulent use of Special Education designation: