Back in March 2019, Carol Burris and Jeff Bryant released a study of the federal Charter Schools Program on behalf of the Network for Public Education.. That study, “Asleep at the Wheel,” found that about a third of the charters that received federal grants in the $440 million program either never opened or closed soon after opening. The amount of money wasted was about $1 billion over several years. The Department of Education failed to monitor wherevthe Money was going and how it was spent.

Burris has been analyzing states that received federal charter money and has concluded that the initial estimates were understated. In the states she has reviewed, 40% of the charters were failures. Some had no name. Some were not even charters.

The extent of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal CSP is appalling, as is the ED department’s failure to pay attention to where…