Steven Miller of the Texas Monitor reports on the perks for charter executives in Texas.
https://texasmonitor.org/charter-schools-fly-below-the-radar-on-spending-and-transparency-rules/
If you are a charter bigwig or spouse, you can fly first class, a privilege not available to public school employees.
Charter executives are exempt from the rules that apply to public schools. Yet they deign to call themselves “public schools” without surrendering their perks.
Miller writes:
“It’s a treat to fly at the front of the plane, where seats are bigger and fares are roughly double the cost of a coach seat. But for the state’s most prolific charter school operator, first-class air travel is allowed. In addition, the company will pay for the travel of employee spouses, family members and “companions” of executives as well.
“That’s just one of many illustrations of the different rules that apply to charter schools in Texas compared to public schools, where funding for even the most basic needs always seems in short supply.
“IDEA Public Schools, based in Weslaco, has allowed the first-class travel perk for six years. That includes footing the bill for the commute of chief financial officer Wyatt Truscheit, who moved from Mission, Texas, to the Los Angeles area in 2013 and comes to Texas every other week, according to tax records. IDEA also pays for Truscheit’s housing while he works in South Texas.
“IDEA received $319 million in state funding and $71 million in federal money in 2018 to operate its 61 campuses around the state. With its schools in Louisiana, IDEA runs 96 locations in all.
“As a 501c3 nonprofit corporation, IDEA is also allowed to make loans to employees and board members and to do business with relatives of employees.
“In 2015, IDEA bought property from board member and developer Mike Rhodes for $1.7 million. Board member David Earl also received money for serving as counsel for Rhodes in the land deal.”
The charters can engage in business with board members and their families. They do not have to hold open meetings. They are private schools that get public money but operate like private enterprises. Some gig.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Charters are in part exempt from state transparency laws.” Giving any entity public money without adequate oversight and accountability is asking for trouble and corruption. Charters “fly below the radar” because they can. It is a ticket to abusive practice and crooked dealing. In an age when public school teachers are spending hundreds of their own dollars each year to provide materials for their classrooms, the corporate leaders of IDEA are flying first class and making real estate deals with public money. Without accountability to the public that is paying the bill, this is taxation without representation.
WHY? Because they can. That is it in a nutshell.
I think ed reformers don’t regulate charters because they truly believe that charter operators are ethically superior to people who work for public schools. There’s no other explanation for why they wouldn’t put in some simple controls on the expenditure of public funds. They believe charter operators don’t require controls, because they’re more honest than other publicly-funded entities.
The charter legislator last week who attended one of the DeVos’ anti-public school events summed it up. He told the public school supporters “you don’t care about kids”.
This view informs ed reform policy. Public schools must be tightly regulated but charter and private schools do not have to be. Because the employees are “better”.
Ed reformers just exempted publicly-funded private schools from state testing requirements in Ohio. Public schools must be subject to the testing regimes ed reformers promote and sell, but private schools do not. Because private schools are “better”. They can be trusted- public schools cannot.
The same people who energetically pushed elaborate testing schemes on every Ohio public school for the last 30 years exempted private schools. It’s completely and utterly incoherent but no one questions it at all.
All the billions in waste and fraud should cure representatives that think private charter operators are morally superior. The lack of accountability points to the mismanagement of an irresponsible funding system that the state has enabled. Taxpayers should hold these enablers responsible, and voters should show their rejection of this poor policy by voting out complicit representatives.
They’re never going to regulate the privatized systems they promote!
They are ideologically ANTI regulatory. It’s a central tenet of this “movement”.
If they’re not regulating them now, and they’re not, why would they EVER agree to regulation when they have abolished public schools?
One can look at another sector to see how privatizing public schools will turn out. Look at the US health care system. It’s insanely expensive, wildly inequitable, and it has LOUSY public health outcomes. That’s what they will turn K-12 public into- our lousy health care system. One of the more high profile ed reformers actually makes this argument- he seeks to make K-12 schools MORE like the US healthcare system.
Why would anyone who isn’t completely insane do that? That’s a disaster.
Are the DeVos employees at the US Department of Education still missing work for their lavishly funded “public schools suck!” political tour?
This is the ludicrous situation we find ourselves in as a result of “ed reform”. We have a government education agency who OPPOSES 90% of US students.
We pay a large group of public executives who return absolutely no value to 90% of students and families. It was bad enough under Bush and Obama when none of them would lift a finger on behalf of students in public schools. Now we have federal employees who actively oppose our students.
It’s nuts, but welcome to the wacky world of ed reform! They are “public education experts” who don’t do a lick of work for anyone who attends a public school. That this is NINETY some percent of students doesn’t faze them at all.
Can someone on the US Department of Education tour promoting charter and private schools ask one of them to list what they have accomplished so far this calendar year on behalf of the 90% of students who attend the public schools they oppose and seek to eradicate?
I have no idea why the public is paying any of these people.
Did we really need a high level (and highly compensated) group of federal employees who travel the country working against public school students, parents and teachers?
Can they give us a tiny break here and consider just staying in DC? Please- don’t “help” us anymore. We’ll continue to pay you if you’ll agree not to come to work.