State education leaders, San Diego prosecutors and the state controller have issued new recommendations for improving charter school audits meant to help prevent fraud and abuse in California — the latest in a growing body of calls by experts for reforms.
The report comes from a task force ordered by a San Diego judge in the A3 charter school fraud case, in which charter operators bilked the state of $400 million largely by manipulating student attendance records and funding. San Diego prosecutors who led that case said it highlighted weaknesses in charter school laws and oversight that A3 operators exploited.
It has been five years since the A3 indictment landed, but state policymakers have not yet implemented major changes to charter school laws and policies meant to prevent fraud.
Now there are three state-level reports that altogether recommend scores of changes to state law and policy regarding charter schools and public schools in general. In addition to the one released last week, other reports have been published by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and a statewide organization for charter school authorizers.
The latest set of recommendations comes from a task force ordered by a judge in the A3 case one year ago and focused primarily on the annual financial audits every school district and charter school must submit to the state. Several recommendations echo suggestions made by the Legislative Analyst’s Office six months ago, as well as changes that were proposed in past charter school bills.
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“The recommendations will provide a critical road map for ensuring trust, accountability, and transparency in the fiscal and audit functions and operations of our entire K-12 public school system,” state Controller Malia Cohen wrote in a statement.
Audits are supposed to be one of the key ways to flag potentially questionable activity in a charter school. But A3 prosecutors have said that requirements for these schools are limited, and A3 operators were able to manipulate the process by choosing an auditor that provided more favorable audits and even choosing their own audit samples of data related to operating the schools.
The task force was led by Cohen’s office, which is in charge of reviewing annual audits of California’s K-12 schools. The task force was also led by key people from the A3 case, including prosecutor Leon Schorr and investigator David Iorillo of the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office along with the court’s successor receiver for the A3 case.
Members included representatives from groups representing charter schools and school districts, as well as the head of the state’s school auditing agency, San Diego Unified’s director of charter schools and members of California Charter Authorizing Professionals.
Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Association, called the report’s recommendations “a good starting point” and said her group looks forward to talking more about how to implement them.
Auditor qualifications
Just 22 firms conduct 93% of all audits for school districts and charter schools in California, according to the report. That represents …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
