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News broke recently about what may be the single biggest charter school scam ever in which an online charter school organization is alleged to have bilked the state of California for $80 million by enrolling tens of thousands of students into their programs, often without the students’ knowledge, and charging the state for nonexistent education services and bogus expenses related to operating the schools.

Nationwide, the litany of charter school outrages continues to grow — the Network for Public Education tallied 43 negative reports on charter schools from local and national news outlets in June alone. After a recent report I coauthored with NPE executive director Carol Burris found a federal government grant program had likely wasted as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or were viable for only short periods of time, Burris and her colleagues followed up with yet more research that found $1 billion is likely an underestimate.

Charter advocates continue to […]