The Detroit Free Press ran a story about a candidate for the U.S. Senate who will have to take a big pay cut if he wins.
He currently is paid $553,000 in total compensation to oversee and fundraise for three small charter schools, enrolling 1,500 students.
If legislators and business groups are really concerned about reining in the costs of education, they should require that charter school executives are paid salaries no greater than the local district superintendent. That is, if charter schools really are public schools. I await the day when some smart researcher compiles a list of the charter leaders of the national charter chains and their salaries. For public officials, that is a matter of public record. It should be a matter of public record for charter executives, if they are public schools.
Of course, this particular executive was responsible for only three schools, not a national charter chain.
Eva Moskowitz, the head of the Success Academy chain in New York City is paid about $400,000. Geoffrey Canada, who oversees the Harlem Children’s Zone, is paid between $400,000-500,000. Deborah Kenney of Harlem Village Academy is paid more than $400,000. This is considerably more than the chancellor of the New York City public schools, who is paid $250,000.
Public education has never attracted people by the compensation it offers. Neither should charter management. The lure should be the mission, not the money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for this Diane. How can anyone think that charters can be brought to scale. Clearly, these reforms are becoming ‘cash cows’ for the reformers. I wonder what salary Kahn gets?
Sal Kahn? He’s getting twice the amount of this charter school manager, $1,056,545 per year, according to: http://www.best-reviewers.com/how-much-money-does-salman-khan-make-4159.htm –which he did not dispute when mentioned in a comment this week on the Washington Post site: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/sal-khan-responds-to-critic/2012/07/25/gJQA83rW9W_blog.html
I agree, the lure of teaching is not for huge salaries and perks. However, I have met many upper level public education administrators and chancellors, who have planned out career moves within public education based on compensations and perks.
If the stories are true regarding Khan, that by growing as a non-profit service provider, through the “great entrepreneurial tradition,” creating an enterprise in the culture and custom of America’s vaunted “free market,” then Khan appears to be doing what many Americans have done before him, create a useful, free and opened sourced product that has come into great demand.
Now Khan has Google, Gates, Doerr, O’Sullivan, and many more supporters and contributors (both public and private) to his enterprise. And the chain of Khan Academies is born.
Khan’s open source and free video lesson plans, on their face, are not the problem. Nor are his salary and the perks. That one person extracts $553,000 overseeing a few charter schools is, indeed, ludicrous. So are the salaries of most of the presidents of public colleges. So are the salaries of public college sports head coaches.
Khan’s issue is with accountability, methodology, pedagogy, etc., as well as a disconnect to the lives of the individuals and communities he might serve. That is, it takes a well trained teacher, tied into the community, to instill real learning and inspiration to students. It takes a free public school site wherein people, parents, and other public agencies from the community interact and where there are safeguards in the design to ensure an optimal learning environment.
I am a retired teacher from the public sector. Most of us have seen huge changes that technology has brought to education. I think we’ve all used informative videos as part of our lesson plans. If the video passes muster through the school district, then it can enhance the learning experience. At least in the best of all worlds.
Our focus should not be on compensations of those who work for private corporate interests. We know it’s always about the money with them. Surely not for the kids. Corporate enterprise has taken down their public school prey over the years through union busting, and deceitful practice. What else is knew? All allowed and encouraged, with impunity, through corruptive corporate influence, and questionable actions within federal, state, and local politics and judiciaries.
We should be focused on how our public schools and staff are losing their voices as the destruction of public education by private corporate interests continues, with the approval of federal, state, even local agency. How states have illegitimately manipulated public teacher pension funds with seeming privilege. And follow through with continued representational pressure in the courts.
There must be created a massive and unified counter-attack to the corporate takeover reform movement. The activism of the CTU is admirable. They have won some battles. But the war against public education is not over. In Chicago or elsewhere. Diane, you asked your readers if Randi Weingarten will draw a line in the sand at the AFT convention. Will she? From what I’ve seen, any line she might draw is washed away by the tides of corporate influence: money. What is her salary? If people who claim to represent the best interests of public education, its teachers’ unions, do not uphold those interests, they need to be deposed by the union members. Let such leaders find another job.
.
Shameless and repugnant. And what sort of life has this guy been living? He’s a year older than I am and looks almost old enough to be my father (perish the thought!) Must be the stress of figuring out where to spend half a million+ per year.
If they get results their salaries will be paid a hundred times over by the successes of the students they touch.
When will people wise up to the fact that the exorbitant charter school salaries (leaders, not teachers) come from the same pot of taxpayer dollars that could/should be invested in schools -not overpriced, minimally effective snake-oil salespeople. There is no immediate $$ profit in education – the profit is returned to the public by way of educated citizens. If someone is profiting- besides reasonable, fair, & equitable compensation for teachers and other necessary school employees – then $$ is being diverted from an already starved system.
And Isn’t it a practice to create a job for your spouse or significant other and that person also pulls in a hefty salary? I thought I read Success Academy has a position for the husband, too? That is probably their base salary…maybe they get perks too.
No, he’s starting his own. Of course, he is a lawyer so he’s more than qualified.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-02-27/news/31105896_1_charter-schools-success-charter-network-success-academy
And I bet if elected, he will work with the charter lobbyists.
Further proof that privatization costs more than public services, whether it be prisons, military support and so on…..
If there is an immediate $$ profit, rather than a societal profit, it just means already-scarce dollars are being used to enrich a profiteer rather than improve the system.
Sadly, the salary is not the real cost. These charter school sharks, while lining their pockets, are dismantling the public trust we call public education.
So true. The true cost will come when a whole generation of children will have failed to receive even a basic education, and the achievement gap will continue to widen along SES lines. But society will pay. One way or another.
Snake oil salesmen (and women). Pure and simple!
I guess he just has a better union than those other education thugs.
Just to clarify – Cornerstone has operated private, “Christ-centered” K-8 schools in Detroit for years and recently began expanding to high school. I think those are the three “independent” schools with 550 students cited in the Free Press Article. In 2010, Cornerstone converted two of its schools to charters – the two charters with 1,000 students cited in the article. This article explains some of that: http://www.cornerstoneschools.org/assets/pdf/EdutechCSAChartersSEPT09.pdf
Durant, then, is not just the head of charter schools. Still, the number of schools he heads and the number of students served don’t seem to support his level of compensation. It would be interesting to know how the public funding for the charter schools and the private funding for the private schools mix.
Durant has served on the Michigan State board of Education (in the 1990s) and is currently on the board of Excellent Schools Detroit, a coalition of local foundations, non-profits, charter school and business interests, and public school and municipal government officials, with a plan to improve education in Detroit. Members of that coalition are influential in various aspects of Detroit school reform.
That’s a big salary, no?
Diane
Yes, a big salary. I’m not defending it by any means, just adding more background information. Durant has the history and connections to make lots of money, whatever he does. Since he is so valuable and important to them, I wonder what will happen to the Cornerstone schools if he is elected to the Senate.
All of you Defenders of the Status Quo and People Who Put Adults Ahead of Children just don’t seem to get it:
These people (Rhee, Moskowitz, Canada, et. al.) have Merit, and you don’t, and you’re envious Haters. Only Haters and Losers stay in the classroom, or would dare question their betters concerning education. If you had Merit, you’d have left the classroom a long time ago; your continuing work with children over many years is prima facie evidence of your ineffectiveness.
These people love kids (even when they tape their student’s mouths shut and publicly ridicule their own children, a la Michelle Rhee), and you don’t. Want proof? Look no further than the decades many of you have spent working with them.
These people know everything about education – despite never having taught a day in their lives, or at most had a cup of coffee in a classroom – and you know nothing. Their encyclopedic knowledge of education (“We know what works!”) is in direct proportion to how much time they didn’t spend in the classroom.
These people know that poverty has nothing to do with problems children face in school, and that unionized public school teachers in fact cause poverty.
These people know that greed is good, and that greed works. When are the rest of you going to wake up?
You forgot that defenders of the status quo (not the band) are very full of class envy!
Absolutely, and while they wage class warfare -after all, what is corporate education reform if not a form of rioting and looting by the 1%? – we’re the Haters for being so impolite as to point that out and object.
Anyone that’s ever dealt with a sociopathic personality knows that when you finally stand up to their attacks, they will then accuse you of being the aggressor.
Sounds familiar, no?
Cast thy children before the altar of the free market!
I’m speechless. I’d love to compile the data. Maybe we can crowd source it. One problem though, if many of these schools are exempt from local and state laws how will we get the data? FOIA? I know principals and teachers who work in schools with populations of 1500-2500. Their compensation is a fifth of that at best. I hope these guys are turning out Nobel scholars. Oh…their no? Well something is definitely wrong.
And the CEO of fed ex makes more than the postmaster general. That’s the point. In the private sector people make more and customers either pay less or get more value for their money.
I think taxpayers just want to get more for their money. Not cheaper teachers and administrators.
Are charter schools private sector like FedEx?
Don’t they pay executives with public dollars?
Many charter management orgs pay salaries or significant portion with private funds. Don’t the national union heads make $400-500k from dues paid with public funds?
No, union leader’s salaries are paid by member dues, and they receive these salaries for representing millions of members, unlike charter CEOs (for example, Eva Moskowitz, on the Board of whose schools you sit) who oversee schools enrolling students in the hundreds or low thousands.
Try another red herring: this one isn’t taking anyone anywhere.
SMACKDOWN!
How can you prove that tax money is not used to pay the salaries of those not in the classroom?
My dues comes from my pocket, not from taxpayers. What is your association with charters and/or charter management companies?
As Glen Ford says in the video posted in another blog entry here, charters are a corporate dream. The public pays for the schools while the corporations control the schools. Just like corporate welfare and tax exemptions that allows CEOs to make multimillion dollar salaries while cutting the pay and benefits of those who actually do the work.
Your theoretically perfect version of capitalism does not exist in the real world and it never has. FedEx would not exist without a great deal of government largesse that allows them to utilize public roads and airports to conduct their business all while paying little to no taxes whatsoever. The CEO then gets to pocket millions and throw a few towards the politicians who pass favorable laws and deregulate their business while strangling the public postal service.
Charter schools are supposedly public schools and they are paid for with tax dollars. A half million dollar salary may be supplemented by corporate donations but that is not in any form capitalism or free market competition. It’s called rigging the game.
Taxpayers pay your salary. Your salary pays your union dues.
Utter nonsense.
The Chancelor of New York schools is responsible for over 1,000,000 kids. Geoffery Canada is responsible for over 10,000 kids. Why is Canada paid almost twice as much? Shameful, that is taxpayer money and should be going to for programs to help the students, or to help boost his teacher’s salaries, not to line his pockets. I am appalled.
*I meant to say “going for programs to help students.”
Maybe Mr. Canada, Ms. Kenny and Ms. Moskowitz can explain this to the community? Do they ever appear publicly to be questioned by ordinary citizens? Silly I know.
Chump change, Diane. The founder of our favorite Ohio online charter, ECOT, hides his actual salary through the private school management companies of which he is President and CEO. He is president and founder of ECOT, president of Altair Learning Management (runs the school), and founder of IQ Innovations, the small-staffed start-up software company that provides the the ENTIRE learning delivery system for the 10,000 students enrolled.
Again, I can’t find definitive salary figures for Mr. Lager, but I do have some numbers to play with — his campaign donations. Listed below are William Lager’s personal donation amounts for the past six years. While recipients are mostly Republicans, Democrats are not absent from the list.
2006: $150,350.00
2007: $146,670.00
2008: $154,418.00
2009: $122,694.00
2010: $227,295.00
2011: $83,500.00
So here’s my question: How large would your annual salary have to be for you to have the freedom to donate over $200,000 in a single year to the campaigns of state and local politicians?
Ohio’s Campaign finance website: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/CampaignFinance/Database.aspx
Two other pieces of financial information from ECOT’s Annual Report (available at http://bit.ly/QvUIou):
1) Per the management agreement with ECOT, Altair is entitled to 4% of all revenues received except federal funding. Altair is also entitled to .5% interest on any outstanding balance. The management fee for the fiscal year ended 2011 was $2,717,882. As of June 30, 2011, all fees had been paid to Altair.
2) ECOT contracts with IQ Innovations, LLC for the purchase of curriculum services for ECOT students. The cost of services for fiscal year ended 2011 was $10,871,530. As of June 30, 2011, $0 was outstanding and payable. IQ Innovations, LLC and Altair Learning Management I, Inc. have the same principal owner.
Note the end of that last line again — “have the same principal owner.”
Great stuff, Greg: keep it coming.
Okay, here’s some more numbers that will astound you:
David Brennan founded White Hat Management Company in 1998. The company is a charter school management group with approximately 30 schools, mostly in Ohio, including an online charter and numerous “dropout recovery” schools (http://www.whitehatmgmt.com).
David Brennan’s campaign donations over the years:
2003: $86,500.00
2004: $82,000.00
2005: $338,000.00
2006: $654,500.00
2007: $690,490.00
2008: $555,170.00
2009: $306,155.00
2010: $278,036.12
2011: $10,000.00
2012: $10,000.00
And if those figures don’t make you question his annual income from the public through management of charter schools, his wife, Ann, also contributes to campaigns:
2003: $58,700.00
2004: $83,500.00
2005: $55,300.00
2006: $198,850.00
2007: $47,150.00
2008: $103,225.00
2009: $192,185.00
2010: $118,910.56
2011: $250.00
2012: $10,250.00
As a couple, their combined donations are as follows:
2003: $145,200.00
2004: $165,500.00
2005: $393,300.00
2006: $853,350.00
2007: $737,640.00
2008: $658,395.00
2009: $498,340.00
2010: $396,946.68
2011: $10,250.00
2012: $20,250.00
These numbers never cease to amaze me.
Ohio’s Campaign finance website: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/CampaignFinance/Database.aspx
This information literally makes me ill. To think that we have teachers who aren’t able to pay all their bills. We have students who are homeless. And now my tax money is going to pay for private and charter schools…. These astronomical numbers are absurd.
Reblogged this on teachingandlearningtoday and commented:
This is clearly what so many do not realize. The movement to charters and non-public schools is about certain individuals cashing in. The most well-known being Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee but there are so many more.
These exorbitant charter school salaries come from the same limited pot of taxpayer dollars that could/should be invested in public schools – not in the pocketbooks of overpriced, minimally effective charters and their “leaders”.
There is no immediate $$ profit in education – the “profit” in education isn’t $$, nor should it be. The “profit” to society is educated, civic-minded citizens. Yes, people need to be paid, and it is essential to provide reasonable, fair, & equitable compensation for educators and other necessary school employees, but when charter profiteers are raking in the big bucks you know that money is being diverted from an already-starved system.
All about money has finally hit Public Education. Really, is there anything left to make big money on? We are it now. Unfortunately, all children are the pawns in this game. Wake up, everyone!!!
I can understand that if someone in private industry, paid by the sale of a product, with the approval of the stockholders wants to demand such a salary as this. Charter schools are public schools. Where is the outrage? Who, in the public sector, signs off on such a thing? Where is the accountability? We, who serve in local districts, are accountable to the people of our district through the members of our local boards of education. How do charter schools get away with this?
I used guidestar.org to poke around in the TFA KIPP IRS 990’s a few times in the last few years – don’t forget that power couple running the KIPP-KOPP KRYME syndicate, raking in over 1/2 a million a year!
I do love how defenders of this garbage ALWAYS miss out on the fact that at the top it is a club, AND, if the people at the top were paid the way we’re paid, the top pay would be a lot less. How many people are making 90k or 250k and who would JUMP at making 3 million a year? How many OVER 5 million a year execs could be replaced by August 1 with people DYING to make 3 million a year?
oh yeah – and here is what I learned in 25 years of the private sector, when you’re pay requests / demands get beyond what they’re willing to pay: they tell you to leave, they tell you to shut up and live with it, they fire you…! WHEN does that happen to the pond scum at the top layer ??
rmm
Lots of envy here. If you think you can run a charter school and make these salaries, go for it. It’s easy to tell others what they should make, should wear, should opine, should do, but anyone who uses others’ shoulds to run their lives is a bitter loser who spends too much time online.
Dear Time to Act,
When a principal is paid $553,000 of taxpayer dollars, it’s a scandal.
Diane, your facts are incorrect. Mr. Canada runs two charters that will serve 2,000+ students but he’s also the President/CEO of HCZ serving over 12,000 kids — this includes those kids in the two charters. These numbers don’t include the adults they serve too. I visited this organization and they do a wonderful job. You’re only touching on a piece of it.
I think HCZ is a wonderful idea, and I wish Geoff Canada would stop knocking the public schools that have half as much money per pupil as HCZ has.
He also refuses to admit that he kicked out an entire class of 9th graders (his first class) because their scores were too low. Read Paul Tough’s book “Whatever It Takes” for the story. A sad story.