Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's grand charter give-away. Feeding the beast.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's grand charter give-away. Feeding the beast.:

Duncan's grand charter give-away. Feeding the beast.

Arne Duncan has turned the D.O.E. into little more than a feeding trough for even the most corrupt and unaccountable charter school operators. His latest gift of $157M to charter privateers comes virtually accountability-free. The most stunning part is that Duncan knows and admits it, making him complicit.

"We still see too many reports of unscrupulous behavior of charter schools and their authorizers," Duncan tells reporters.

Ohio, where unscrupulous/corrupt is the name of the game and where charter operators like K12 Inc. and White Hat Management stuff millions into their own pockets, has just received another Duncan grant of more than $32M with another $40 million on the way. It's the largest single award of any state, leaving Ohio's Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan shaking his head in disbelief.

From the Washington Post:

“The charter school system in Ohio is broken and dysfunctional,” said Ryan, who sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, asking him to “place stringent restrictions” on the federal dollars he is sending to Ohio. 

“There are people making a lot of money off schools,” he said. “Why Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's grand charter give-away. Feeding the beast.: