I don’t live in Los Angeles, but then neither do the hedge fund managers and equity investors and billionaires who regularly pump money into campaigns in districts where they don’t live. I am giving Bennett Kayser’s campaign $100 because he expects charter schools to be financially and academically accountable. All schools that receive public money should be held to the same standards. His opponent Ref Rodriguez operates a charter school which tried to keep a recent audit secret until after the election. It has been leaked, however. See the KPCC public radio summary here. Rodriguez is the charter’s co-founder and treasurer; the audit finds the school was “insolvent” for nine years and was poorly managed in terms of its finances.

Here is a comment on the blog:

“Here’s where you can donate on-line to Bennett’s campaign:

“http://www.bennett2015.com/donate-online.html

“Here’s his website in general:

http://www.bennett2015.com/

“One more thing, Ref portrays himself as a poor Chicano from the barrio who cares about the education well-being of poor Chicanos in the barrio.

“Well, let’s see… because charters are unregulated, he can pay himself whatever he wants, and he works as little as he wants.

“So what does he do?

“He pays himself $350,000 (a third of a million dollars) annually, while he pays his custodial and cafeteria workers—all low-income Latinos—$8/hour instead of the living wage that their counterparts in the traditional public schools get paid… while principals in traditional public schools earn around $100,000 annually.

“Try to live in L.A. on $8/hour.”