蘑菇视频

A school board member in New Jersey . A 鈥渓ongtime educator鈥� in Palm Beach County, Florida, after authorities charged him with fraud and bribery. Nearly a dozen school leaders in Detroit in a phony scheme to provide school supplies. A manager of an audio/visual company in Utah pleaded guilty to in his dealings with a local school district.

And that was just in one week.

As we鈥檝e documented on this blog, fraud is an unfortunate reality in our nation鈥檚 schools. For that matter, it鈥檚 an unfortunate part of providing quality services in across a variety of social needs. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the indictment of state and local authorities in surrounding the locality鈥檚 water crisis. Yet the paper lamented that federal officials鈥攖hose getting their paychecks from Washington, D.C.鈥攁t the EPA and in the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs were not being held to account for ignoring warnings at the Gold King Mine (where a flooded mine ruined a water supply in Colorado last year) and in medical malfeasance, respectively.

Fraud is a serious issue at all levels of government and enforcement is inconsistent, at best.

In 2009, Apple started advertising what was, at the time, breakthrough technology in its latest iPhone by saying, 鈥�,鈥� with 鈥渢hat鈥� being whatever you needed. From finding a restaurant to playing the piano on your phone, developers were building mobile applications that allowed you to access virtually anything you needed at your fingertips. Today, programmers are building applications to

In some states, taxpayers can event submit photos or videos along with anonymous tips about misuse of taxpayer funds. The applications may cost as much as $10,000 to $20,000 to develop, but with the potential losses from fraud totaling in the hundreds of thousands or even millions in taxpayer resources, the upfront cost is worth it.

Furthermore, the next generation of parents and taxpayers, Millennials, are the generation that is most likely to carry and use a mobile device鈥攎aking these apps a natural fit. The Pew Research Center reports that to 鈥渦se their cellphones in public places for a variety of reasons,鈥� and Nielsen says Millennials 鈥溾�� This means the availability of such mobile applications is coming at an excellent time.

Is Your Mobile Phone a Smartphone?

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 鈥淐onsumers and Mobile Financial Services, March 2015,鈥�

While mobile apps won鈥檛 prevent fraud, such developments will help to limit the losses that bad actors cause. explains how mobile technology and education savings accounts, spending accounts that give parents choices for a child鈥檚 education, are both coming of age at the same time. Approximately 840,000 children across five states are eligible for the savings accounts. 蘑菇视频 lawmakers considered legislation in the last session.

Millennial parents are the generation that grew up alongside mobile technology and are already using apps to get a ride from the airport or check a bank account. Flexible spending accounts that allow families to pay for online classes, public school services, private school tuition, or save for college should be designed so that parents can report fraudulent use of such accounts, check their child鈥檚 account balance, and make a purchase for a textbook, all with their mobile phone. In traditional schools and programs that give parents choices in education, taxpayers should be able to help protect students with easy, reliable ways to report misuse.

There鈥檚 no app for the American Dream, but mobile technology can help protect taxpayer resources and make sure education funding is used as it was intended鈥攖o help children succeed.