A charter school in Delaware recently hired a second co-administrator, then hired the chair of the board.
“Odyssey Charter School parents and teachers have been packing board meetings this summer to question the hiring of a new co-administrator, the convening of committee meetings with little public notice and the resignation of a board president rumored to be in line for a full-time job.
“In June, they demanded to know why the board hired a second administrator at $150,000, plus a $7,500 signing bonus to cover health expenses. He will share control of the school with Denise Parks, who will also make $150,000.
“The jobs were not advertised and stakeholders didn’t know about the change in leadership, they said.
“This week, they focused on the resignation of former board president Dimitrios Dandolos and rumors he might be hired for a third administrative job, also making six figures. If he was, they said, Dandolos would be doing many of the things he did for free as board chair.
“Teachers and parents, who have donated thousands of dollars to the school, questioned the need for two, if not three, well-paid administrators.”
In the unregulated world of charter schools, anything is possible. No accountability, no transparency.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The charter cheerleaders will just not concede that a charter school is like a separate and parallel school district unto itself. This is wasteful and redundant; many positions are duplicative of the district schools, the real public schools. This has the effect of draining precious and limited funds from the actual public schools.
Sorry, this was for the next post down.
In a Trump universe, anything is possible. Trump is changing the way everyone thinks and acts — even the good guys that despise Trump.
And Trump’s base keeps sinking into the quicksand Putin poured into the U.S. for Trump. In fact, many of the deplorable are now below the surface with their mouths and lungs full of that toxic sand, and they don’t even know it.
The former City Controller of Philadelphia did an extensive report on the city’s charters which showed that the amount spent on administrators v instruction was significantly higher than the district’s public schools.
There have been other reports across the country about charter administration costing more.
“But a new study by the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education debunks this belief. By looking at charter and traditional public schools in Michigan, where both receive about the same operational funding, researchers found that charter schools actually spent more per-student on administration and less on instruction than non-charter public schools.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/charter-schools-spend-mor_n_1415995.html
“More money for top staff, less in the classroom since Katrina, study finds”
“The leaders who overturned New Orleans public schools after Hurricane Katrina criticized the old regime for its bureaucracy. But they’re now spending more on central administration than districts across the state – and less in the classroom.
“That’s according to a report the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans released Tuesday (Jan. 17) that’s sure to make waves.”
https://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2017/01/charter_spending_administratio.html
“Charter Schools’ Administrative Costs At $128 Million”
“In the first ever of its kind, the report: “Higher Administration Charges of Arizona Charter Schools Cost Taxpayers $128 Million a Year,” calculates on a per pupil basis that Arizona’s charter schools spent $128 million more on administrative costs during the 2014-2015 school year than traditional public schools.”
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/02/24/charter-schools-administrative-costs-128-million-a-year/
Another perfect example is how much Eva Moskowitz pays herself vs the Chancellor of New York City’s public schools.
“Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the 46-school Success Academy network (with 10,000 students), received a pay package totaling $782,175 in 2016.”
https://nypost.com/2018/07/14/charter-school-ceos-get-massive-paychecks-thanks-to-private-donors/
“Mayor de Blasio’s office is defending the $353,000 salary the city will pay new schools chancellor Alberto Carvalho — which is about $120,000 more than outgoing Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s base pay.Mar 1, 2018”
The New York City public school system is the largest in the world. More than 1.1 million students are taught in more than 1,700 public schools … The public school system is managed by the New York City Department of Education.
https://nypost.com/2018/03/01/de-blasio-defends-new-school-chancellors-salary/
Eva Moskowitz with 10,000 students is paid almost $800k annually
Alberto Carvalho with 1.1 million students is paid $353,000 annually.
The Charter School Scam rolls on. 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.
Delaware’s Sen. Carper is vocal in wanting to “introduce market forces into schools”. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. People in Delaware should support the Working Families Party candidate in the primary.
Vote against him
The Delaware Education Association endorsed Carper. Rhetorically, where is the NEA?
It must have been a choice between greater and lesser evil.