Inevitable corruption in privatized public education

Joann Vega and Harold Cadiz Photo courtesy of azfamily.com

Arizona Republic investigative journalist Craig Harris reports today that a second charter school official has been sentenced to prison for enrollment fraud. 

Charter schools, as well as district run public schools are funded on the basis of the number of students who go to those schools.

    Joann Vega and two other executives at the now-closed Discovery Creemos Academy charter school knew they were in financial trouble during the 2016-17 academic year.

    Enrollment was falling at the K-8 Goodyear charter school, and there were concerns about keeping teachers employed and classrooms open for students.

    The three orchestrated an enrollment-inflation scheme to keep $2.5 million in state and federal tax dollars flowing into the school from 2016 to 2018, court records show.

    Eventually, they were caught and each admitted to the fraud.

    Vega on Wednesday became the second school executive sentenced in the case. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jay Ryan Adleman ordered Vega to serve four months in Maricopa County Jail and five years of supervised probation after her release.

    Vega, according to court records, suggested the school use "placeholder students" to inflate the school's enrollment. The hope was that the made-up students would eventually be replaced by real students, but that never happened.

The prosecutor sought a sentence of 3.5 years in prison. The judge gave Vega four months.

Public corruption is a serious matter. It's no secret that neoliberalist ideology mandates privatization of everything. Journalist and author Kurt Andersen, in Evil Geniuses, explicitly makes the case that the economy and American government have, since 1971 been overrun by very aggressive action by Big Money/Capital.

The charter school movement has been a significant factor in looting of state and local treasuries (taxpayer funding). The Arizona Legislature has consistently turned a blind eye to oversight of charter school finances. A four-month prison sentence for scamming taxpayers to the tune of $2.5 million seems like not quite a slap on the wrist.

    Vega also brought $1,500 to court as an initial installment for restitution of the $2.5 million the school fraudulently received.

Even without charging interest, it would take 1,667 payments of $1,500 to make full restitution.

What can and should be done?

How about we start by opening the Overton Window a lot wider to bring viable solutions into the realm of possibly stemming the tide of corruption in government. The charter school industry is quite lucrative (the word is related to the expression filthy lucre). The movement was started so that privateers could get their hands on public school funding. Public education makes up the vast majority of what taxpayers fund in Arizona.

Let's start by turning Arizona Blue. Contrary to popular mythology, Democratic policies cause economies to function better than those of Republicans. 

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