Blogger Exceptional Delaware smells a rat in the State Auditor’s office. An employee named Kathleen Davies was a tad too eager to audit the charter schools’ finances, especially their petty cash. Davies mysteriously was placed on administrative leave. This is the audit you will never see.
It seems Davies was too diligent. She discovered too much. She had to stop. And she was given an extended vacation to stop her investigations of charter school spending. The deal seems to have backfired since her removal is not exactly a secret.
Bear in mind that Delaware is a very reformy state. It won Race to the Top money and is Gung-ho about all Arne Duncan’s bad ideas. Governor Jack Merkell is one of those governors like Cuomo (NY) and Malloy (CT) who embrace corporate reform. He loves the Common Core and charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To make matters infinitely worse, Governor Markell is also being named as a potential U.S. Secretary of Education under a President Hillary Clinton. I can’t see it happening. Delaware is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. We have less than a million people. Granted, Joe Biden is from Delaware, but Jack Markell is NO Joe Biden!
Great piece on the role and influence of the private foundations in ed reform:
” I want to give readers a taste by jumping right into a Gates Foundation official’s take on the chummy relationship between the foundation and the Obama administration—or as one Obama staffer describes it in a telling slip of the tongue, the Gates administration.”
We really should just hire these foundations directly- the government layer doesn’t seem to serve any independent function.
How many people knew they were actually hiring Gates and Broad when they voted for Obama? Not many, I would wager.
http://edushyster.com/foundations-unfiltered/
Thanks for the link to Edushyster. This is really a telling report.
Take a whiff here in Ohio too. ECOT is quoting our Auditor, David Yost who is back stepping from his tough talk on attendance issues at eSchools. Auditor Yost is also hosting a charter school summit Aug 11/12 featuring Ron Packard K12 founder who was charged with insider trading for gross proceeds of the sale of some of his K12 stock totalling $6.4 million. Now he may just have sold his stock before leaving K12 but $6.4 million? I am learning the smell of money.
Ron Packard comes from McKinsey. As leader of K12, he made $5 million a year. He knew how to spin dross into gold but not how to educate children.
Governor Jack Markell also had a stint with McKinsey back in the day…
Thank you Dr. Chapman for your recommendation Chiara’s link:
http://edushyster.com/foundations-unfiltered/
From this link:
It is worth to repeat the expression from author, Megan Tompkins-Stange.
[start quote]
Maybe in the short term you can move a political agenda,
but you can’t change hearts and minds
without investing in a much LONGER-TERM community oriented strategy.
[end quote]
In short, there is NO SHORT-CUT to be the best learner, teacher and leader in all aspects in living with democratic spirit. Back2basic