Reclaiming Education Fraud and Waste: A Conceptual Framework to Locate The True Sources of Resource Leakage and Harm in The U.S. K-12 System

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Resource Allocation in School Choice

Abstract

The recent dismantling of federal educational institutions has been legitimated under the banner of “eliminating fraud and waste.” In this paper, we reclaim these terms to and locate the sources of potential fraud and waste in the U.S. K-12 education system through a novel conceptual framework that centers both structural components and the actions of educational actors. We posit that overdiagnosing failure within the public education system coupled with a lack of regulation of private actors are the true sources of potential fraud and waste in the system. We apply this framework to the Arizona charter school market to illuminate how it can be used by policymakers and researchers to understand particular contexts in which fraud and waste are prevalent.

Authors

• Amanda Lu, Georgetown Public Policy Institute

• James C. Bridgeforth, University of Delaware

• Amanda Lauren Pickett, University of Delaware