Financial Records Revealed By Charter Schools
By the end of August at least 5 Philadelphia area charter schools were reported by newspapers and media to be under investigation as part of an attempted federal authorities investigation campaign that had been triggered by the allegations signaling about the misspending of public funds and saying too many of the charter schools were playing games with money. One of those schools that became targets is the Community Academy of Philadelphia Charter School located in the North Philadelphia, on Erie Avenue. 
The school was visited without warning by FBI agents, who seized some financial records for inspection. The school district authorities did warn the school management they would be running an inspection of its financial activities, but no one expected the FBI itself would be performing their own investigation. The school authorities earlier said they were willing to provide all their financial records since they do fall under the category of public records and therefore subject for free inspection by any member of the community, let alone law enforcement agencies in charge of performing screenings of the sort.
As it is known, since the time of their creation charter schools were meant to be run like businesses that test and implement innovative education patterns that could be then picked up by regular public schools, but no one tries to argue the taxpayers need to fund these schools without asking them for accountability. It seems this latest public financial records raid at the Community Academy comes in the same context as a probe by the State Department of Education investigators of the Agora Cyber Charter School in Devon.
The investigation conducted early in August revealed that the school’s founder had obtained a $205,500 federal grant for the school, but no record was found to confirm the fact that the check was deposited in any of the school’s known bank accounts. A background check revealed that still in 2008, Agora had received 2 federal subpoenas asking for the school’s financial records in connection with a criminal investigation. Federal investigators had spoken to the Agora founder in connection with a widening criminal probe of area charter schools as well. There are total 11 cyber charter schools across the state of Pennsylvania that are being supervised by the state Education Department. The charter schools provide distant education to pupils that receive instruction at home.