DEMAND CHARTER TRANSPARENCY: Tell Your Representative to Cosponsor the COAT Act
The Network for Public Education's Asleep at the Wheel report has exposed the waste and fraud of the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP). Washington has taken note.
Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib is introducing the Charter Oversight, Accountability, and Transparency (COAT) Act--"commonsense legislation that will increase transparency and accountability to ensure that charter schools provide necessary information to local, state, and federal agencies to detect and prevent fraud."
Under this legislation, states are ineligible for federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds unless they ensure that any contract between a charter school in the state and a PCMO includes basic transparency requirements including the following:
- The dollar amount and percentage breakdown of money being used by the PCMO on the operations of the school.
- The dollar amounts and percentage breakdown of money being used on the operations of the PCMO.
- The dollar amounts every executive is earning in salary from the PCMO.
- Public CMO Board meetings.
- Whether the PCMO is for-profit or non-profit.
- The identities of any limited liability corporations associated with the PCMO.
These are simple transparency obligations that every public school district must meet. PCMOs claim CONTINUE READING: DEMAND CHARTER TRANSPARENCY: Tell Your Representative to Cosponsor the COAT Act