[Vision2020] Charter Schools and Annualized Salaries . . . again

[melyndahuskey at earthlink.net]

Dear Vision 2020 Friends,

In a recent email to levy opponents calling for the blanket replacement of the entire Board of Trustees and Moscow School District administration, Jack Wenders writes:

"My recommendations for Superintendent Donicht's replacement? UI President Tim White, who cut a couple of million out of UI's spending; Mary Lang, Principal of the Moscow Charter School, which runs successfully by spending less than $5000 per student of Idaho taxpayers' money."

Interesting proposal.  Would that be the President White who wasted all that money on a statistical analysis of academic programs that the faculty were able to discredit within minutes of seeing it?  Who just hired a breathtakingly expensive temporary Vice President--and threw in a $25,000 lagniappe to his headhunting firm, a car, and three trips a month to the coast?

More to the point, would that be the Mary Lang who cut costs at Moscow Charter School back when my daughter was a kindergarten student (2000-2001) by allowing the janitor, a high school drop out, to serve as a substitute teacher?  In those days, MCS had a 97% teacher turn-over rate each year, a striking inefficiency.  Special education services were extremely limited.  And educational outcomes were less than stellar, despite the hard work of the excellent teachers (all of whom were able to find other jobs, thank goodness).

I've had a rather extensive experience with charter schools--after our daughter left MCS, we tried out Renaissance Public Charter School, where I ended up not only serving on the Board, but doing a brief stint as Chair.  When Jack Wenders writes:

"The hard facts are that private and charter schools are one-third to one-half the size of comparable public schools, have no administrative structure above the school level, and operate at 60-65% of the per pupil cost of the public schools, at most. And their students learn at least as much."

I have to laugh.  The lack of experienced administrative oversight above the school level was a key element in the failure and bankruptcy of RPCS.  The board simply lacked the support, experience, and knowledge necessary to run a school properly in the face of deliberate, self-interested incompetence.  And while RPCS did operate at a lower per-pupil cost for awhile, ultimately it went bankrupt, because the lower funds it received from the state were insufficient to cover the costs.  

Serving on the RPCS Board was one of the most frustrating experiences of my professional life--the incompetence of the school administration, the cronyism of the Board, and the complete refusal to respond to the needs of parents and teachers, which ultimately resulted in the resignation of half the Board and the loss of nearly half the student body in a two-week period.  The remaining students suffered significant disruption to their education.  I just wouldn't call that a heartwarming story of charter school success.  

And didn't the state just bail out the Idaho Virtual Academy to the tune of a couple of million bucks?  That's not the way I want my state education dollars spent, to protect the business interests of education profiteers like William "Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes" Bennett while our facilities decay and our districts starve.  If these schools are so efficient, why the need for extra cash?

Melynda Huskey

P.S.  I've been wondering if anyone's annualized Jack Wenders' salary at UI?  It's an interesting exercise.  According to Ron Force, Prof. Wenders earned about $43,000 per year. Professorial time is generally calculated at 9 hours a week per class.  Prof. Wenders, if my research is correct, taught one class per year, which puts his hourly rate of pay at $263.80.  Annualized to 2080 hours per year--what most of the rest of us work, and what he could have worked if he'd chosen to, according to his own and the Cato Institute's logic--that puts him at $548,711.65.  Add benefits at 21.6% of $43,000 (another $9,288) and you have one seriously overpaid critic of teacher salaries.  

Makes you wonder if UI would have more money now if they'd spent more wisely then.

melyndahuskey at earthlink.net
EarthLink Revolves Around You.
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