The charter industry is overrun with scandals because charter laws do not require accountability and transparency. Theft, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and fraud are a feature, not a bug.
A charter operator in Dallas was sentenced to seven years in jail for taking a kickback, but then convinced the board to give her a bonus of $20,000.
Donna Houston-Woods was convicted of defrauding her own Dallas charter school, but she wasn’t done taking its money for her own benefit, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.
She returned to Nova Academy after her October trial and pocketed a $20,000 bonus. Houston-Woods, the school’s longtime CEO, then asked for another $300,000 in severance, but the school board denied it.
Her actions, the prosecutor said, showed zero remorse and a lack of respect for the law.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Houston-Woods to seven years and three months in prison for accepting $50,000 in kickbacks in exchange for steering a school technology contract to a friend, who then botched the job…
Senior Judge Sidney Fitzwater called it “outrageous” that the Nova board of directors, having been “injured” by Houston-Woods, would pay her a bonus before she resigned. He called it “stunning to me” and said the payment was indicative of the school’s management.
Because Houston-Woods defrauded the federal E-rate program out of about $337,900, Nova is ineligible for any future government money to pay for internet services, Fitzwater said.
The business leadership of Dallas wants more charter schools!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kind of makes one wonder if the $20,000 bonus was hush money? Maybe someone ought to dig a little deeper into the financial records.
…as if this is a reason not to have charter schools. Why don’t you call attention to the several edu-crats just in Kentucky who’ve gone to prison because of financial mismanagement. With your ideological bias, I’m sure there’s more to the Nova story than you’re including here.
There is more to the Nova story. The leader was charged with stealing over $300,000 in state funds from the school. I see you are from Kentucky, where the GOP legislature passed a charter bill but failed to fund it. I promise there are a lot of charter grifters eager to open charters in your state but they won’t come until You show them the money. What other reason is there to open a school?
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Special!!
A charter operator in Dallas was sentenced to seven years in jail for taking a kickback, but then convinced the board to give her a bonus of $20,000.”
That’s nothing to write home about. $20k is chicken feed.
The Obama Justice department sentenced no executives at JP Morgan Chase bank for multibillion dollar frauds that were perpetrated there AND the Chase board gave CEO Jamie Dimon a $20 million bonus (presumably for keeping everyone out of jail) to boot. Heckuva job, Jamie!
Something is rotten in Texas when charter fraud is normalized, and the entire Houston district is slated for takeover based on the low performance of one school. Privatizers are like a pack of wolves with an endless appetite for $$$. Follow the money, and vote out complicit politicians.
Retired, if voters expelled the frauds, it would be a new day in America!
Sorry, meant to say concerned readers might want to “use link” to read entire story
https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-schools-knew-these-teachers-abused-kids-and-let-them-keep-teaching
When I meet with Seattle teachers, I will ask about these incidents. Joe, you will always be remembered as the guy who hijacked Shanker’s vision of charters as collaborative R&D centers, and turned them into rapacious competitors. I’m sure you keep a long list of the horrors of public schools as part of your crusade to keep the DeVos -Walton dream alive.
Not clear what this story have to do with charter school corruption. Besides, the teachers in the story got removed from their jobs, while failed charter schools and their leaders are allowed to just simply move on unhurt or, as it happened in my home town, convince politicians to let them experiment on kids for another 10 years.
“charter laws do not require accountability and transparency.”
This is because accountability and transparency interfere with the freedom to manipulate the markets and people which are essential in education.
Btw, why do we tolerate the lack of accountability and transparency in the business world?
The entire Board of Directors had no knowledge of Donna Houston-Woods theft of the $20,000 payout. This is another example of her behavior as CEO.