As I may have mentioned, we have a red-hot ballot initiative up here in the Commonwealth (God Save It!) in which we are asked whether or not we want to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in the state. The usual suspects and the usual out-of-state money are weighing in heavily on the YES side of things; their ads continually portray charters as merely an extension of the existing public school system even though experience everywhere tells us that the people who are making big bank of education "reform" generally, and on charters in specific, insist that they be allowed to run their businesse…er…schools independently of the school boards that manage the rest of the public system. In other words, all they want from the public school system is money and suckers.

The latest example of this comes to us from California where, as The Washington Post informs us, the charter system is a complete and utter dog's breakfast.

There is a never-ending stream of charter scandals coming from California. For example, a report released recently (by the ACLU SoCal and Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group) found that more than 20 percent of all California charter schools have enrollment policies that violate state and federal law. A Mercury News investigation published in April revealed how the state's online charter schools run by Virginia-based K12 Inc., the largest for-profit charter operator in the country, have "a dismal record of academic achievement" but has won more than $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years.

Roll that number around in your head, especially if your kids go to a public school where they have to pass the hat for art supplies. That's $310 million in public money for lousy results. If the corporations and oligarchs financing education "reform" want to spend $310 million to run schools, they should spend their own damn money to do so.

California has been the Wild West on this frontier for quite some time now, as The Los Angeles Times discovered.

The violations cited this week by the state date from 2010 and 2011, when Okonkwo earned a total of $223,615 as the elementary school's executive director. She also received about $19,000 a month in rent from the school. She attempted to eliminate the appearance of conflict by assigning the property to a new, separate corporation, for which her mother signed the leases. But the arrangement did not pass legal muster, according to the state. The other violation pertains to Okonkwo signing contracts for school-funded renovations worth $62,000. Okonkwo addressed this conflict by resigning as executive director. Someone else then signed the renovation contract.

Also, she built up something of a sideline as an international marriage broker.

Auditors questioned, for example, the use of school funds to pay a $566,803 settlement to a former teacher who sued the organization for wrongful termination after she was directed by Okonkwo to travel with her to Nigeria to marry Okonkwo's brother-in-law for the purpose of making him a United States citizen.

The hell?

The organization's payment of the settlement was inappropriate because Okonkwo was not acting within the scope of her school employment, auditors concluded.

Also because it's nuts, I reckon.

By the way, this woman walked away from her crime spree with a $16,000 fine.

There's now a bill before Governor Jerry Brown that would tighten the public accountability standards for charter operators within the state. The evidence is now abundantly clear in a number of states: As it is presently constituted, the charter school movement is far better as an entry vehicle for fraud and corruption than it is for educating children. The fact that the charter industry is fighting to maintain its independent control over taxpayer funds is proof that the industry knows it, too.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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