Monica Yant Kinney: Not the lesson charters were supposed to teach
My dad taught high school for 30 years, and my mom still works as a district secretary in my Hoosier hometown. Devoting their lives to public education meant they'd always get Presidents' Day off, but would never get rich.
If only my parents ran a charter school in Pennsylvania.
They could have charged granite countertops to taxpayers and been reimbursed for family trips to Disney. Had the Yants been "reformers," they could have hired their only child as a consultant, paying me $100,000 to read Dr. Seuss.
Charters, you might recall, were supposed to rescue children trapped in struggling schools.
Some city charter schools - think Mastery, KIPP, Independence, Young Scholars - are soaring. But if you follow the remarkable reporting of my colleague Martha Woodall (http://go.philly.com/charter), you'll see greedy grown-ups pilfering public gold under the guise of enriching children's lives.
At last count, at least six of the city's 67 charter schools are under federal investigation.
In an audit released last week, City Controller Alan Butkovitz found 13 of 13 charters engaging in financial mismanagement and questionable business practices. Charter administrators paid themselves $150,000 to $200,000 to supervise a single school, well beyond what assistant superintendents earn in the Philadelphia School District.
"Complete and total failure" is how Butkovitz describes efforts to monitor and hold city charters accountable for the
'I will fight,' says girl, but denies report
Science is gaining momentum in American schools
If only my parents ran a charter school in Pennsylvania.
They could have charged granite countertops to taxpayers and been reimbursed for family trips to Disney. Had the Yants been "reformers," they could have hired their only child as a consultant, paying me $100,000 to read Dr. Seuss.
Charters, you might recall, were supposed to rescue children trapped in struggling schools.
Some city charter schools - think Mastery, KIPP, Independence, Young Scholars - are soaring. But if you follow the remarkable reporting of my colleague Martha Woodall (http://go.philly.com/charter), you'll see greedy grown-ups pilfering public gold under the guise of enriching children's lives.
At last count, at least six of the city's 67 charter schools are under federal investigation.
In an audit released last week, City Controller Alan Butkovitz found 13 of 13 charters engaging in financial mismanagement and questionable business practices. Charter administrators paid themselves $150,000 to $200,000 to supervise a single school, well beyond what assistant superintendents earn in the Philadelphia School District.
"Complete and total failure" is how Butkovitz describes efforts to monitor and hold city charters accountable for the
'I will fight,' says girl, but denies report
For six weeks, since the release of the official Philadelphia School District report on the Dec. 3 violence, she has been the mystery girl of South Philadelphia High
Science is gaining momentum in American schools
It has taken prodding by industry, business, and government leaders - alarms going off, even - but science education is getting an upgrade in many classrooms across the region