The Great Charter School Scam: Three charters abruptly closed in North Carolina this year, highlighting a national crisis.

• Date: 01 August 2022
• Author: Burris, Carol
• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Author: Burris, Carol

In 1997, The Learning Center, a charter school with the slogan "Naturally Grown Kids," opened in Murphy, North Carolina. It grew to almost 200 students, and the parents and guardians believed the well-established school was a sure bet. Sadly, they were wrong.

Last May, The Learning Center's board voted to close the school on June 30, due to fraud. The school's director allegedly had used school funds for what a board member delicately referred to as his own "private enterprise." So far, little information has been released to parents or the public as a police investigation proceeds.

This is not an aberration. Three Rivers Academy, also in North Carolina, closed on April 8, forcing its eighty-five students to find a new school. Three Rivers, according to the North Carolina State Board of Education, posed an "immediate threat" to students and to public funds.

Donnie McQueen, the owner of the for-profit entity that ran the school, allegedly had been cooking the books on attendance numbers to...