There’s little doubt that the billionaire driven corporate education reform movement desires to sift taxpayer money into contractual relationships for it’s cronies. New York Times reporter Jim Dweyer reports on one such deal:
Last week, Russ Buettner of The New York Times reported on Philip and Joel Levy, two brotherswho ran the Young Adult Institute Network, an agency for the mentally disabled, under a state contract. They paid themselves about $1 million a year each, plus cars, college tuitions and $50,400 toward a daughter’s purchase of a co-op apartment. The chairwoman of the agency, Marcella C. Fava, said the Levys had earned their money and all the rest of it.
It is the custom at such agencies, which exist only because of state money, not to fret over criticism of their fiscal practices. For instance, a state oversight panel reported that another agency, the Center for Discovery in Sullivan County, was paying its executive more than $500,000 a year and had spent $52,000 on restaurant and wine tabs.
The good life is to be had for education corporate reformers at the expense of taxpayers it seems. Note the glossy web sites that both have. You’ll find that these are pretty much the norm in corporate education entities. They have marketing and PR people who do just that. Snazzy web sites give potential parents the impression that they may be more than they might be. Public school don’t employ such people or have such websites as available funds are targeted at the point of contact between student and teacher.
