The Detroit Free Press reported recently that the city’s schools have been ordered to repay nearly a million dollars in federal Title I funding because “there are no assurances that these [funds] did not benefit an employee personally.” The money went to flat screen TVs that are nowhere to be found, anger management classes that never occurred, and half a million dollars to, uh, pass out flyers. Did I mention that the $500,000 paper route went to an ex-con in a no-bid contract?

Critics of market-based education reform claim that it would open the door to corruption. As it happens, corruption has been living happily within the public schools for some time now, raiding the icebox and stealing kids’ lunch money — not to mention the money that is supposed to go toward their education. Cato’s Neal McCluskey published a run-down of this broken-down system last year.

Hat tip: Mackinac Center for Public Policy