{"id":4427,"date":"2015-11-06T20:36:32","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4427"},"modified":"2015-11-06T20:36:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:36:32","slug":"texas-charter-schools-under-scrutiny-in-new-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4427","title":{"rendered":"Texas Charter Schools Under Scrutiny in New Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas<\/strong> – U.S. taxpayers have invested more than $3.7 billion in charter schools over the last two decades, but according to a new report from the Center for Media and Democracy, the public has been kept mostly in the dark as to how that money is spent.<\/p>\n

Sandy Theis is executive director of Progress Ohio, a coalition member of the Charter School Accountability Project. She says unlike public schools, whose budgets are subject to democratically elected school boards, charter spending has become a black hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen nationally is that charter schools in Texas and in a lot of other states have not fulfilled the promise,\u201d says Theis. \u201cTheir academic performance is pretty bad, and they do a magnificent job of wasting taxpayer money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"According

According to a new report on charter schools, the public doesn\u2019t have sufficient access to key information about how federal and state taxes are being spent. Photo: Paul Reid\/iStockphoto.<\/p><\/div>\n

Charter advocates argue less oversight on budgets and performance encourages innovation and flexibility. But as a result of lax policy, Theis says charters with poor academic performance – even schools under investigation for fraud – continue to operate at the public\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n

One charter group drawing increased scrutiny in Texas is Harmony Public Schools, with 46 campuses serving more than 28,000 students in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio. Theis says Harmony is affiliated with Gulen charters, which has been the subject of federal and municipal criminal investigations for immigration fraud and financial mismanagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a mountain of evidence that shows they tamper with their tests,\u201d she says. \u201cThey have serious questions about the qualifications of their teachers, and their schools don\u2019t perform academically. They fail to meet the basic mission, and that\u2019s educating our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Theis, Gulen schools operate in 26 states, educate 50,000 students and collect $150 million in taxpayer funds every year. Theis says she\u2019s hopeful the new report will spur Texas authorities to pay more attention to charters so future taxpayer dollars don\u2019t fall into the wrong hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas – U.S. taxpayers have invested more than $3.7 billion in charter schools over the last two decades, but according to a new report from the Center for Media and Democracy, the public has been kept mostly in the dark as to how that money is spent. Sandy Theis is executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4428,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions\/4428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}