Charter schools wracked with abuse ... ho hum

The people we elect to the state Legislature are supposed to guard our tax money, spend it wisely, oversee those who receive it and protect us from those who would mismanage the funds or, worse, hoard the cash for themselves.

And when lawmakers do just the opposite, as they do charter schools, we do … nothing.

We’ve known for years that the charter-school system in Arizona is a scam and a rip-off. Little or no accountability. Little or no oversight. Little or no transparency. Lawmakers hand over about a

billion dollars a year that charterschool operators pretty much get to put anywhere they want, including their own pockets.

That fact is reinforced in spades in a new report by the Grand Canyon Institute. The centrist think tank spent the past several years combing through records, culling information and setting the abuse down on paper in a way that we absolutely, positively should not ignore.

But we will.

At least the people we elect to protect us from such things will ignore it. Because they know all this stuff already. They actually included all the allowable bad behavior in the law. And since we keep electing them, they figure it’s okay.

Little things like, 77 percent of charters use taxpayer money to fund noncompetitive, no-bid purchases that involve the charter holder or a family member. Giving your money to themselves or their Uncle Bobby, or Cousin Arleen to do … whatever. And it’s all perfectly legal.

Then there are the administrative salaries, which are higher in charter schools — because they get to pick the administrators.

And the teacher salaries are lower than in district public schools. Perhaps because the teachers don’t have to be accredited in the same way. And the classroom spending is lower than in traditional public schools.

And the academic performance in charters is lower than in district schools. This is particularly true if you remove high-performing charter schools that game the system by devising ways to not accept certain kids, or put themselves in neighborhoods to which lower-income students couldn’t commute.

Again, we know all this. The Arizona

Republic’s Anne Ryman did a very fine series of articles on the problems with the charter system in 2012.

But because we didn’t hold the lawmakers to account, nothing was done. It’s an easy fix.

As the institute report points out, all it would take is requiring charters to follow the same financial rules that other public schools must follow.

I’d guess a few Democrats in the Legislature will introduce a bill or two demanding transparency and accountability. But the Republicans who control the Legislature wrote the law that allows the abuse.

And since you don’t seem to mind...