Office of Inspector General Again Condemns U.S. Department of Education’s Oversight of Federal Charter School Dollars
For many good reasons, we are prone to blame Betsy DeVos, our current U.S. Secretary of Education, for weakening regulations in the Department of Education. She has, for example, eliminated regulations designed to protect student borrowers from predatory for-profit colleges and cut back civil rights enforcement in the public schools. But a new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) once again disparages Arne Duncan, and his lax oversight of federal dollars flowing to charter schools. The new report documents that when charter schools have closed or been shut down, the Department has failed to ensure that federal dollars flowing to the schools from Title I, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the federal Charter Schools Program were properly tracked. Further, students’ records from the closed schools were not properly protected.
The report condemns a trend of poor oversight: This is the third major report in which the Department of Education’s OIG has documented poor management of federal dollars flowing to charter schools. Reports from the Department of Education’s OIG in 2012 and 2016 also disparaged Duncan’s charter school oversight. It is not likely, however, that Betsy DeVos, a libertarian, will improve the Department’s regulatory role.
The new 2018, OIG report examines whether the U.S. Department of Education has a process for adequately monitoring the management of federal dollars and the management of student records and data when charter schools are closed. OIG examined charter school closures in three states between 2011 and 2015. Defining privately operated charter schools as public schools for the purpose of this report, the OIG notes that in the 2015-2016 school year, there were 98,277 public schools across the United States, among which 6,855 were charter schools. Between 2011 and 2015, 977 of the charter schools closed. OIG studied charter school closures in three states: Arizona, which had the highest number of closed charter schools authorized by the same authorizer; California, which had more charter schools than any other state and more students enrolled in charter schools; and Louisiana, which had the highest ratio of Continue reading: Office of Inspector General Again Condemns U.S. Department of Education’s Oversight of Federal Charter School Dollars | janresseger
