The Pennsylvania School Boards Association conducted a study of costs, comparing charter schools and public schools, and concluded that the charter schools have higher salaries for those at the top and spend twice as much on administration as public schools.
Furthermore, the bulk of their revenue–as much as 84%–is taken away from public schools, leaving them in worse condition.
Charter-school administrative expenditures are nearly double those of conventional public schools, and their highest-ranking officials are paid far more.
They spend less on instruction than school districts, but more on support services and facilities.
And while charter-school enrollment has jumped significantly over time, payments to the schools are far outpacing their actual rates of growth in admission.
All that is according to a report on Pennsylvania’s charter schools issued Thursday by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, made up of nearly 4,500 school board members.
In a 35-page study that came after rounds of records requests during the last 15 months, the conclusions present a broad picture of Pennsylvania’s 173 charter schools, which have become part of an ongoing national debate about what effect the charter-school movement is having on traditional public schools.
“This is not intended to be any sort of an attack on charter schools,” said Andrew Christ, education policy analyst for the organization, during a conference call Thursday.
But, he said, “charter schools need to be held to the same standards of accountability and transparency as traditional public schools.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“This is not intended to be any sort of an attack on charter schools,”
It should be.
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This should make citizens of Pennsylvania very angry. The charter lobby is destroying the financial health of the state. Their too generous charter policy with too few strings attached is in danger of further downgrading the commonwealth’s financial rating due to an enormous deficit. When are people going to wake up that charters are another form of corporate welfare designed to line the pockets of the connected people at the expense of everyone else? http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/07/fix_the_deficit_or_else_credit.html
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Even the pro-charter, Eli-Broad-funded, Fordham Institute, run by Mike Petrilli, has also been critical these aspects of the charter school/school privatization industry. Terry Ryan, an analyst and writer over at Fordham, wrote an article recounting how she expressed criticism — to a Dayton newspaper reporter of — of the excessive charter school executive salaries, rampant self-dealing in contracts with companies owned by the same operators, and nepotism where family members and close associates are given jobs with excessive salaries.
In response to Ryan’s public voicing of these concerns, Ryan and Fordham have gotten slammed back by charter school operators, who otherwise have been, and continue to be Fordham’s allies.
Ryan weighed in on the controversy of self-dealing that is rampant in the charter school industry, where charter executives are in charge of charter school orgs that are technically non-profit, but they nevertheless contract out services to for-profit companies for which those executives (or their relative(s)) are the sole or partial owners. That’s a lot MORE money on top of a charter school executive’s already excessive salary.
Ryan also condemned the problem of nepotism, where multiple family members of a charter school CEO (or some other charter school higher-up) are each hired at six-figure salaries.
What’s interesting is the charter school industry’s response to Ryan’s expressions of dismay at these phenomena — and at the outrageous charter school executive compensation in general. The otherwise enthusiastically pro-charter Ryan — and Fordham in general — warns his or her charter buddies that, when the public gets wind of these corrupt practices, such revelations will damage the charter school industry’s brand with the general public, without which the charter industry will fail to survive, or at least expand.
Ryan’s words of caution are below, and, as he/she relates, they were met with severe blowback from “tone-deaf” (Ryan’s words) charter school executives kvetching back:
“None of your business, Terry! Or anyone else’s business!!”:
http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/ohio-gadfly-daily/2012/should-we-care-how-much-money.html
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TERRY RYAN:
“Charter schools also need to be equally aware about what leaders receive in compensation, and how this will be perceived in the larger community, which leads me to the recent story in the Dayton Daily News. That paper ran a story on the compensation paid to a family running a charter management organization that serves about 2,000 kids in seven Ohio charters.
“The paper reported that …
” ‘Tax records obtained by the Daily News show CEO Pammer-Satow received a base pay of $168,466 in 2010 along with a $60,000 bonus and other compensation valued at $25,573. Her husband, COO Clinton Satow, received a base pay of$126,000, bonus of $45,000 and $14,000 in other compensation. Other members of the family are also employed by the management company in various capacities.’
“The Dayton Daily News reporter called me and asked for my reaction about ‘a couple making over $400,000 a year’ to run seven charter schools?
“I said, ‘That’s tough to defend.’ I also went on to comment, ‘At a minimum they (those high-paid charter executives) are politically tone-deaf to the realities of perception out in the community.’
“My comments have upset some in Ohio’s charter community who argue that as the schools perform decently, why should I or anyone else care what the leaders are paid?
“My reaction to this question is that charter schools are only viable as long as they receive political support. As such, do stories about families paying themselves more than $400,000 a year in public tax dollars to run a handful of charters hurt support for charter schools?
“I think they do, but I’d value receiving comments back from readers. Should we care how much money charter leaders make?”
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Jack,
Terry Ryan is a guy.
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Now, I know.
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Without even mentioning Gulen!?
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In our inner-city district much invaded by reformers, each time that a large high schools is “closed” and multiple small schools are then “re-opened” inside the building under various fancy names, the parking lots fill to the brim. Not with the cars of students, but with vehicles belonging to administrators, supervisors, managers, evaluators, facilitators, coaches, specialists, program directors, curricula regulators, testing personnel….oh, well, the list goes on.
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