Privatization Is Always Good!

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

For example, the levels of corruption and taxpayer ripoffs a private company can pull off is far superior to a government agency!

A San Bernardino County Grand Jury on Tuesday indicted the founder of a charter school network that once was the largest in California, charging him with grand theft and misappropriation of public school funds. A Hesperia city councilman also was indicted.

Charles Steven Cox, 59, who built California Charter Academy into a statewide string of 60 campuses serving more than 10,000 students from Yuba City to Chula Vista, was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with more than 100 counts of misappropriation of charter school funds and theft of nearly $5.5 million.

A 2005 state audit alleged that Cox, as head of the charter academy and also owner of a for-profit company that provided management services to the schools, misused millions of dollars in charter school funds to lavishly pay himself, friends and family and to buy luxuries such as spa services and concert tickets.

The schools were paying the teachers below the state average, too.  More money for the corporation!

The numbers are actually worse, the state is seeking $23 million in misappropriated funds.  Some of the problems with the kind of charter schools Cox created have been addressed; for example, improving oversight and ensuring the corporation is in the same district as the charter school.  But the central issue - a school focusing more on corporate welfare and the balance sheet rather than the needs of students - remains.  To deny that possibility is to deny the existence of human greed.