What do charter schools and the subprime mortgage crisis have in common? A lot, or very little, depending on whom you believe.

“Mark Naison, a professor of African American Studies and History at Fordham University, has claimed that the charter school scandals are beginning to resemble the subprime mortgage crisis,” four researchers write in a paper to be published in a forthcoming issue of the University of Richmond Law Review. “With respect to charter schools, Naison asserted that, similar to the subprime mortgage situation, the federal government encouraged the charter school sector to expand with little oversight. As a consequence, Naison explained that charter schools are experiencing abusive practices at a level resembling the subprime mortgage crisis.”