It’s never a good day for students when federal agents show up. Last week, FBI agents raided the offices of Celerity Educational Group as part of an investigation into allegations of fraud and fiscal mismanagement. This comes soon after another raid, in which FBI agents seized Los Angeles Unified School District for records related to a proposed $1.3 billion iPad program.

Although no charges have been filed in either case, one thing is clear: All schools in L.A. need better oversight.

While we don’t yet know all the details of either investigation, when it comes to our schoolchildren, even suspicion of mismanagement must be taken seriously. The charter model is premised on increased flexibility in exchange for increased accountability. That means that when a charter school fails to meet academic standards or misuses public funds, it must improve or face closure.

In fairness to the LAUSD board, given the federal raid this week, it seems to have taken appropriate action in voting not to renew two Celerity schools last fall, based largely on governance concerns.

Given the strong performance of the schools, the bar for closure needs to be high, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable. Ideally, the board would leverage its oversight powers to compel changes that are in the interest of students, but also allow high performing schools to continue to operate.

One recent example is the case of El Camino Real Charter High School, where the principal resigned and financial policies were changed in response to fiscal mismanagement.

But this level of oversight and accountability shouldn’t be reserved just for public charter schools. The amount of money in question with Celerity is a fraction of what LAUSD has wasted in recent years because of poor oversight from the board.

In December 2014, after a mismanaged rollout and poor in-school implementation, the FBI intervened and seized school district records related to the iPad project.

Around the same time, LAUSD rolled out its failed student attendance and information system, MiSiS, which, despite not working, initially cost the district $29.7 million. The price tag now, after years of fixes, is $173.9 million.

If a charter school were losing enrollment—and thus money—but growing its own bureaucracy dramatically, we’d expect the board to ask some serious questions about the use of public funds. And yet, despite consistent enrollment decline, LAUSD has increased its administrative staffing 22 percent in the last five years.

In LAUSD, both student and teacher attendance rates are significantly lower than the statewide averages, costing the district millions as a result of lower reimbursements from the state (because funding is based on student attendance) and higher costs for substitutes.

Ignoring warnings from financial experts, LAUSD has failed to address its ballooning pension crisis, and the district’s total unfunded liability for post-employment benefits is $13.6 billion, more than 1.5 times its current operating budget. It is the only school district on a top-10 list of government entities in the country that can’t afford their obligations.

Most damning is the $300 million the school board was forced to pay to victims’ families after patterns of abuse and misconduct by district employees were discovered. And because of disputes with the district’s insurers over the nature of some of the claims, a large chunk of that money came out of LAUSD’s general fund (that is, taxpayer dollars).

The questions surrounding Celerity suggest that we need better oversight and accountability for some of our charter schools. But the examples cited above indicate there is a larger failure of oversight — one that is resulting in more harm to the district’s students. A culture of unaccountability has plagued LAUSD for years, and the board should ask itself whether many of its politics would pass muster under the standard it uses for charters.

Federal agents intervened this time, but under President Trump we can no longer count on the U.S. government to protect students and families from corruption and mismanagement. It’s on us.

Nick Melvoin is a former LAUSD teacher, an attorney, and a candidate for the Los Angeles Board of Education in District 4.

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