...In Raking in the Big Bucks.
Thus spawneth the market-based ed reform movement.
A must read if you want to see what the evils of the ed "reform" movement bring forth. Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News reports on one of the more disgusting people in NYC education/politics. Charter schools have license to steal from the public coffers while private interests fuel a gravy train. What next, a Harlem Success corporate jet?
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/02/26/2009-02-26_former_city_council_member_eva_moskowitz.html
"Moskowitz, who makes no secret of her desire to create 40 charter schools across the city and run for mayor some day, raked in $371,000 in salaries in the 2006-2007 school year from organizations connected to her four schools," Gonzalez writes. "Charter schools are free to use the money they raise from outside sources any way they see fit - even if that means huge salaries for the chief executive. Given that Moskowitz routinely complains that the Department of Education has failed to provide a fair share of funding for her students, it's fair to ask why she's paying herself so much for educating so few. Charters get about 90% of what it costs to teach each child and raise funds for additional money."
That's all for about 1000 kids from grades K-3 who attend Harlem Success.
Let's see now. At this rate, if Moskowitz was the chancellor, this would come to around $1,200,000,000 based on the per child rate. Hey Joel, you're underpaid.
Photo credit: Costanza for Daily News
3 comments:
What a poverty pimp! She is siphoning off monies from public school students services and from teachers at these charter schools who probably are not guaranteed pensions and other teacher/worker fringe benefits. She should be indicted! Another reason why we need to oppose Charter Schools.
Angel
Ah, come on. You gotta admit being a charter school boss beats working for a living.
The Very Profitable Side of Privatizing Public Education and All Those "Non Profits"
_________________________________
Need Some Gravy On That Gravy ?
_________________________________
Re comment by Woodlass about teachers being forced to place all school orders from a special "DOE approved vendors" list.
How did that famous Sonnet go?
"How can EducRats rip off the system, Let me count the ways"
I remember, as if it happened yesterday, that at the time I taught at the High School of Art & Design in Manhattan, a Supervisor had a DOE "supplies" catalogue as thick as a phone book. I was told I could order a slide projector from that list.
I remember how the price of a standard Kodak projector was more than twice what I would have paid from any number of Photo supply discount stores in New York City.
Did I hear someone say "a picture (of corruption and kickbacks) is worth a thousand words".
Many years ago a NY Times reporter discovered a Board of Education warehouse in NYC that looked like the final scene in the original film version of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
Endless rows upon rows of stacked boxes of "school supplies" that had been "ordered" by some DOE "procurement officer" who no doubt later went on to live "the good life".
Among the mountains of mostly unopened cartons were hundreds of thousands of brightly colored wooden beads- the type NYC Elementary school children used to use, back in the Stone Age, to thread together when they created a home made Abicus to learn how to count, add and subtract.
If I can ever find mine, I will donate it to the Smithsonian Institution or perhaps post it on Ebay.
Also. in that gargantuan warehouse the Times reporter discovered endless crates filled with wooden replacement backs for those standard issue DOE classroom chairs.
Strange that on any given day of the year one will see piles of broken chairs piled high outside of Public schools, waiting for the Sanitation truck, being discarded because they simply require one of those wooden backs that have been rotting in some Board of Education warehouse for decades.
But by far, for text book Publishers, the NYC Dept of Education is a veritable gold mine from whence issues on a non-stop basis, orders for tens of millions of dollars in school books for every grade and subject.
It is not a coincidence that after Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s former General Counsel, Chad Vignola, Esq.. was forced to resign in disgrace for the part he had played in the infamous Deputy Chancellor Diana Lam cover-up scandal, Klein's former Counsel ended up working as a top Executive for Princeton Review Books.
We all know how the revolving door Lobbyist game is played in Washington, DC. Though happily, President Barack Obama is most interested in fixing that problem.
See Chad Vignola's Bio at the "New Visions for Public Schools" official website (a private "non profit" group)
________________________________
Quote:
Chad Vignola
Vice President, School Services and Operations at New Visions
Chad Vignola joined New Visions in 2007. Mr. Vignola currently heads the School Services and Operations department which provides professional and technical assistance to schools covered by New Visions’ Partnership Support Organization contract.
The department includes Call Center staff and Subject Matter Experts who provide support to principals and other members of the school team on a variety of pedagogical and operational issues.
Mr. Vignola was previously the Chief Operating Officer for New Leaders for New Schools. He also served as Vice President of K-12 Services at Princeton Review etc etc. etc.
________________________________
As American Public school systems continue to be privatized at an exponentially increasing rate, the potential profits to be realized by all involved in the process will continue to mushroom apace.
There is nothing quite so potentially profitable these days as getting on the bandwagon of entities claiming to be "Non Profits".
Or would it not be more correct to refer to that bandwagon as a "Gravy Train".
Can I have some more gravy with that gravy?
_______________________________
David Pakter
Post a Comment