Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

An investigative reporter for “Beyond the Books”, an investigate arm of a Utah CBS TV station, looked into the operation of the Vanguard charter chain that operates out of West Valley City, a racially diverse community outside of Salt Lake City, following up on a tip from a former employee who noted that the four schools in the chain are all white while other schools in the district are mostly minorities. And here’s the section of the story that jumped out at me:

Beyond The Books also discovered that many of the students have the last name Kingston. Vanguard uses a state-approved lottery system to enroll students. The lottery, among other cases, gives preference to applicants who already have a sibling in the school. There is no evidence that the school is deliberately squeezing out minority students in favor of Kingston-linked children.

And why so many Kingstons?

Vanguard’s school board,that Beyond The Books has discovered is made up almost entirely of members with links to polygamy, said it wanted to add more students so it could, in part, address the diversity problem. However, Beyond The Books dug into their application, and nowhere does it indicate that increasing minority representation is the goal; rather, the school says its primary reason for adding more seats is to make room for the siblings of kids who already attend the school.

As the title of this post indicates, you can’t make these kinds of shenanigans up….. A related article on the finances of the Kingston clan indicated tat 22% of the students attending the school were from their family tree. And they came out of this all right financially! It seems that seven companies controlled by the Kingston’s raked in $1,600,000 of taxpayers money in one year!

The good news is that the Utah State Board is looking into this. But the bad news is that the money is gone now and as along as libertarians insist that tax funds can be used for religious schools we can expect fundamentalists like the Kingstons to seek taxpayers funding for their missionary work.