Carol Burris Responds to Charter Industry Critique of NPE’s “Asleep At the Wheel”
Last March, the Network for Public Education released a report written and researched by Carol Burris and Jeff Bryant, titled Asleep At the Wheel. It reviewed grants awarded by the federal Charter Schools Program and found that about a third of the grants went to charters that either never opened or closed soon after opening. It also reported that the CSP administrators did not conduct due diligence reviews and were basically handing out money without careful review. The report was cited by members of Congress when questioning Betsy DeVos. Burris has continued to release state reports on federal CSP awards, and she has found several states where the failure rate was 40%.
As you can imagine, the rightwing charter supporters were not happy. They responded not by calling for greater accountability and transparency by the charters, but by attacking the report! The critique was written by an employee of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. This is the organization that just honored Fernando Zulueta, who runs a highly political for-Profit Charter empire in Florida and amassed a real estate portfolio of more than $100 million.
Carol Burris responds here.
All the links are included.
Carol Burris Responds to Charter Industry Critique of NPE’s “Asleep At the Wheel” | Diane Ravitch's blog