The New York Post reported on the really huge payouts that charter CEOs receive in NYC.
Eva Moskowitz received total compensation of $782,175 in 2016. It is surely larger by now.
https://nypost.com/2018/07/14/charter-school-ceos-get-massive-paychecks-thanks-to-private-donors/
“Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the 46-school Success Academy network, received a pay package totaling $782,175 in 2016.
“The nonprofit network paid Moskowitz $195,000 in base compensation and she received another $255,000 in salary plus a $300,000 bonus from the affiliated Success Foundation.
“The foundation was set up in 2012 with a mission to support the Success Academy schools. It has taken in $1 million in donations in the last two years – with the cash coming each year, all from a single undisclosed donor.
“A Success Academy spokeswoman said the foundation’s sole function was “supplementing the compensation of the CEO.”
“The city’s 227 charter schools are privately run, but get public money for each student and also raise private donations. Nearly half belong to nonprofit management organizations like the Success Academy network, which get a mix of government grants, private donations and fees from the schools they oversee.
“Geoffrey Canada, who stepped down as CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone in 2014, received a whopping $1 million bonus the following year when he began serving as president of the nonprofit organization which operates two charter schools and a variety of other programs.
“Anne Williams-Isom, who replaced Canada as CEO, received total compensation of $734,299 in 2016, including a base salary of $278,793 and a $212,955 bonus, along with deferred compensation of $234,514, according to the organization’s tax filing.
“A Harlem Children’s Zone spokesman said Canada’s bonus was cash that accumulated in a deferred compensation plan designed to “help retain its most senior staff.” He said the compensation and Williams-Isom’s pay came from private funds.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Give Eva a break. In NYC you can hardly buy a decent house for 782K these days.
Shameful!
I posted this before, but one of the most disturbing things was that Moskowitz is not simply receiving near $200,000 from her charters, but in 2016 received nearly 3x her salary from a “Foundation” and, according to the article: “A Success Academy spokeswoman said the foundation’s sole function was “supplementing the compensation of the CEO.”
And it is even worse, because this “Foundation”:
“….has taken in $1 million in donations in the last two years – with the cash coming each year, all from a single undisclosed donor.”
ONE donor! One person is directing money through a “Foundation” and it is going directly into Moskowitz’ pockets as “compensation”.
If the IRS is now claiming there is a “charitable purpose” to giving a person earning nearly $200,000/year another $550,000 because ONE PERSON has decided she deserves that money, then the entire meaning of “charitable” has been warped.
I hope the state attorney general investigates this “Foundation” whose donations are one person paying over $500,000 to Eva Moskowitz. Who is this person?
This is the outcome of a long campaign to get public funding for schools operated like private companies, with the bipartisan approval of Congress. Fraud, waste, abuse, and arrogance.
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which warns that, because of their lack of financial accountability to the public “CHARTER SCHOOLS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS POSE A POTENTIAL RISK TO FEDERAL FUNDS, EVEN AS THEY FALL SHORT OF MEETING GOALS” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets.
If nothing else is required of charter schools, there is one thing that must be required so that charter schools are accountable to taxpayers and inform taxpayers as to where taxpayer money is actually going when it’s given to charter schools; that one key thing is this: Charter schools must be required to file the SAME detailed, public domain financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file.
Charter schools will cry that this is “too burdensome” — yet public schools file such reports. What would the outcry be if public schools were “freed” of this “burden”? Why, the outcry would rattle the very heavens! So, why is it that private charter schools are allowed to get away with taking public tax money and not have to tell the public on an annual basis how those public tax dollars are spent?
Charter schools bill themselves as “public schools”, but Supreme Courts in states like New York, Washington and elsewhere are catching on to the scam and have ruled that charter schools are really private schools because they aren’t accountable to the public because they are run by private boards that aren’t elected by voters and don’t even have to file detailed reports to the public about what they’re doing with the public’s tax money. Of course, if they have to do that, the public and the media will see what the charter school scam is all about, and charter schools will fade away.
Forget every other strategy to stop charter schools: If you can force them to file the SAME detailed, public domain, annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file — and why not? — the public school industry will dry up and move on to other privatization scams in other areas to divert public money into private pockets.
How about a Value Added Model for charter CEO compensation. We can even use the same meaningless measures they use to “keep teachers accountable.” Eva et al would be in negative salary territory and forced to live on the streets.
Success had a graduating class of sixteen. This amounts to about $ 48,885.94 per graduating senior. Nothing says non-scalable louder than those figures.
Solid evidence that corporate charter schools are all about money and a return to segregation and a racist society where minorities are 2nd class citizens or slaves.
One single billionaire is giving Eva Moskowitz a million bucks a year to treat a small number of African American children like prison inmates while defunding the public schools of a much larger number of African American children. A racist conspiracy of two. Time to pull out my tinfoil hat! Who’s the billionaire? Bloomberg? Walton? DeVos? Gates? Zuckerberg? Bush? I say we start a pool. My money’s on Dick DeVos. Could be someone from Russia or Turkey too, though.
Who is this billionaire?
hedge fund billionaire Julian H. Robertson
LCT,
Maybe a lawyer like FLERP! can chime in here. It seems unlikely that a foundation can take in a single huge donation each year and hand it over to the person running an “affiliate” non-profit to supplement a very high salary with an extra $550,000. I don’t think giving a bonus to someone already in the 1% could be a legitimate “charitable purpose”. Because if that is, imagine how the rich could set up foundations to give gifts to their friends all over (and take a tax deduction).
And if that CEO is spending even one minute of her time lobbying for the Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos, it becomes more problematic. One donor giving a person earning nearly $200,000 a year an extra $550,000? And that person getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from a single donor spends time writing op eds and giving interviews to support a political nomination? That certainly does not sound like a legitimate “charitable purpose”.