Carpetbagging America’s Public Schools

by Curtis J. Cardine (Author)

Carpetbagging America's Public Schools probes the financial intrigue underlying the charter school industry. This book is a forensic accounting analysis of the financial effects of twenty years of charter schools and vouchers on the publics investment in public education. Written from an insider’s perspective by an early advocate for charter schools, the work exposes the underbelly of the radical deregulation of our public schools

Review
Curt Cardine has written an important book about the ripoff of the American taxpayer and the destruction of public schools by the rapacious, profit-driven charter school movement. He demonstrates why authorities must establish clear standards for academic and financial accountability for these schools, or close them down and return their students to public schools. (Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education; author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System)

With the founding premise that “public schools belong to the public,” Curt Cardine offers a cogent investigation of the “misappropriations and egregious abuses” of public education options afforded through the current policy context. Cardine focuses on Arizona charter school data, citing startling statistics while simultaneously attending to the nuances of the “23% of the cases studied [that] behave(d) in an ethical and fiscally sound manner.” Charter school critics and proponents alike would do well to attend carefully to the various dimensions of Cardine’s analysis. (Kim Carter, Executive Director of the Q.E.D. Foundation)

Arizona should be a beacon to the nation for what happens when you allow school choice to run rampant with little oversight. Curtis Cardine comprehensively digs into financial data for Arizona’s charter schools and shows how giving public money in a practically unregulated manner to privately-owned charter operators leads to most operators paying themselves handsomely, doing business with themselves and relatives to make more money, and compensating their teachers poorly. Read on, it gets worse. Cardine has impeccable credentials. He’s administered public district schools and overseen a highly successful charter school connected to a district school in New Hampshire. In Arizona he was recruited to help run two charter schools. (Dave Wells, PhD, Research Director, Grand Canyon Institute)

Curt Cardine has written a book to remind us all that when it comes to public education, we cannot have it both ways: either we must insist on requiring that all public schools – neighborhood or charter – are a public good, subject to the same basic laws of transparency and accountability; or we must redefine public education as a private commodity, and let the market rule. If that choice feels fundamentally important, both to you and to the future of our civic health, this book is for you. (Sam Chaltain, author of "American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community")

Curt Cardine makes clear early in his book that he neither intends nor means “to disparage the concept of charter schools.” But he does mean to disparage how the idea is—too often—implemented, how in fact a good idea becomes corrupted in its execution. What he uncovers is provocative and unsettling. Anyone serious about how we educate our kids–parents, school boards, and state legislators– needs to pay attention. (John M. Barry, author, "The Great Influenza, Power Plays, and Rising Tide")

About the Author
Curt Cardine over the past 45 years has been a teacher, principal, and superintendent of public and charter schools in New Hampshire and Arizona. Mr. Cardine has owned private businesses and has advanced degrees in Organization and Management with an expertise in school finance.