Still Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Results in a Pile Up of Fraud and Waste

"Still Asleep at the Wheel" continues the investigation of the U.S. Department of Education's Charter Schools Program (CSP) that began with the March 2019 report "Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride" (ED612862). This report takes up where the first report left off, providing detailed information, state by state, on how federal dollars were doled out to schools that no longer exist or never existed at all. This report (which was revised in January of 2020), documents over a half-billion dollars that were wasted on defunct charter schools that had an active CSP grant from school years (SY) 2006-07-SY 2013-14. Prior to 2006, the U.S. Department of Education did not require the states to report the names and status of the schools to which they gave CSP funds. According to the analysis, 37% of the charter schools that were funded by CSP during those years either never opened (11%) or opened and then closed (26%). That figure is the result of the investigation of the status of nearly 5,000 charter schools that received funds from CSP. This report recommends that Congress end appropriations for new charter school grants in the upcoming budget and continue funding only for obligated amounts to legitimate projects. Once those grants have been closed, it is recommended that the CSP be ended and that charter schools continue to receive federal support only through other federal funding streams such as Title I and IDEA. Students, not charter school entrepreneurs, should benefit from federal funds.