Education Quagmire

The managers of the Roslyn, New York public school system have stolen millions of dollars of the public's money:

Pamela C. Gluckin, a senior administrator, was charged with stealing more than $1 million in school funds. Several days later, the superintendent, Frank A. Tassone, resigned after the school board discovered that a word processing company hired to do $800,000 worth of work was owned by his roommate.

Now, as school officials, state auditors and Nassau Country prosecutors pore through the district's bills, it has become apparent that not only were the district's financial safeguards woefully insufficient, but its spending on items like limousines and restaurants was often out of bounds.

This makes me think of all those public education insiders here in Washington State who are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the formation of charter schools.

Referendum 55 will allow voters to repeal controversial legislation that allows millions of public school dollars to be given to unaccountable charter schools.

But charter schools are accountable. Unlike existing public schools they are accountable to parents. What the charter school opponents really want is to keep the millions of public school dollars in the existing unaccountable public schools. Like the ones in Roslyn, New York. Or the ones in Seattle, where, by the way, the anti-charter-school School Board members still haven't responded to my requests to document the "institutional racism" which they're going to spend an unlimited amount of money to eradicate.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 28, 2004 10:11 AM