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Tuesday, July 14th, 2020

Charter Schools May Have Double-Dipped as Much as $1 Billion in PPP Loans

Author:     Roger Sollenberger
Source:     truthout
Publication Date:     July 10, 2020
 Link: Charter Schools May Have Double-Dipped as Much as $1 Billion in PPP Loans
Stephan:   Betsy DeVos was appointed by Trump, and confirmed by a Republican senate with the explicit intention that she work to dismantle public education in the United States and privatize it so that profit not education could become the system's first priority. Therefore, this story should come as no surprise. That doesn't make it any less despicable, or destructive of the nation's wellbeing.
From right, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia listen during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing the U.S. Department of Education on July 8, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Charter schools across the country tapped the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for what could have been more than $1 billion, according to a preliminary analysis of Treasury Department data.

One network alone, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), appears to have pulled somewhere between $28 million and $69 million in taxpayer dollars.

Another network of publicly-funded, privately-run schools, Achievement First, appears to have taken in between $7 million and $17 million in PPP loans. The network also received $3.5 million from a special $65 million federal grant that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos awarded to 10 charter management organizations in April, weeks after the PPP was passed, to “fund the creation and expansion of more than 100 high-quality public charter schools in underserved communities across the country.

Citizens of the World Charter Schools in Los Angeles received […]

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