“Spending Blind,”  by Gordon Lafer of LERC,  was published in April, 2017 by The Public Interest. The study, the first of its kind in the country, examines how hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year on renting, leasing or building buildings for California charter schools, but it all takes place without any effective policy guidance.  Schools get built regardless of whether they have a good or bad track record in education, regardless of whether there is need for another school in the community or whether there are already enough seats for all the kids who need one.  In this way, desperately needed education dollars are being wasted by paying to open schools that in many cases are both not needed for the population of students and do not provide an education that is new, different or better than what is already available in nearby public schools.