• More than 1,000 grants were given to schools that never opened, or later closed because of mismanagement, poor performance, lack of enrollment or fraud. "Of the schools awarded grants directly from the department between 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either never opened or shut its doors," it says.
• Some grants in the 25-year-old federal Charter School Program (CSP) have been awarded to charters that set barriers to enrollment of certain students. Thirty-four California charter schools that received grants appear on an American Civil Liberties Union list of charters that discriminate - in some cases illegally - in admissions.
• The department's grant approval process for charters has been sorely lacking, with "no attempt to verify the information presented" by applicants.
• The U.S. Education Department in Republican and Democratic administrations has "largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed" recommendations to improve the program made by its own inspector general.