Veteran journalist Bob Braun obtained a copy of Newark’s administrative payroll, and it is a shocker.
Braun writes:
“A third of Newark’s public school teachers face layoffs. The contracts of seven employee unions, including nurses, cafeteria workers, and laborers, have expired and the administration of state superintendent Cami Anderson refuses to settle. Counselors were laid off. Public schools have been stripped of assets and allowed to crumble. Cami drove the district into a $40 million budget hole but, despite all that, she has given hefty raises to the district’s top administrators, according to a Newark Public Schools document this site obtained. Just as Gov. Chris Christie takes care of his friends, Anderson’s loyal pals, from New York, New Orleans, Teach for America, and charter schools, make big bucks in the city school administration at the expense of Newark’s school children.”
One staffer got a raise from $75,000 to $135,000.
Another from $131,500 to $175,000.
Another from $140,000 to $175,000.
On it goes.
What are the metrics for their value added?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There’s no value added metric for these people. What applies is a traditional audit, which would clearly show what William Black, who investigated and prosecuted fraud in the aftermath of the Savings and Loan scandals of the late ’80’s and early ’90’s, calls “control fraud,” whereby the managers of an institution use their strategic position to embezzle.
In that era, even under George H. W. Bush administration, white collar criminals were prosecuted and jailed.
Unlike now.
In other words, Anderson and her co-racketeers have looted the Newark public schools.
We need hundreds of William Blacks these days! (and have for quite a while.)
It’s amusing, because here’s Eli Broad denigrating public school administrators for hiring their “buddies”:
“Yes. When we began to look at this, just about every superintendent had started as a coach or a teacher and worked their way up, years later, to become CEO of a major urban school district. They had no training in management, labor relations, human resources, or finance systems. You’d think the districts would hire someone from outside to do the job. No, they hire their buddies.”
Apparently, “working your way up, years later” is just not valued in ed reform circles. I don’t know why. Usually people admire that sort of commitment and persistence.
Oh, well. So much for parroting slogans about “grit”, I guess.
http://www.lamag.com/speak-easy-qa/2014/04/07/bullish-about-la
Money, money, and more money. This is all about the money. Every worthless and unqualified greed monger around has their hand out for the easy money. The people hired are a joke. What are your qualifications? 1.) Be willing to take part in unethical cronyism. 2) Ignore the democratic process and create an unresponsive dictatorship 3) Feel no guilt about peddling this rip-off to the more needy areas of the country 4) no experience necessary…anyone off the street will do. 5) Have a ton of relatives to give sham contracts and jobs to in order to make sure no one gets an actual job that is worth doing every day. 6.) Be up to date on every stale and phony reason for selling the charter school scheme to the public.
Remember those ads on late night TV? – you can get free government money – What’s the difference?