The Abysmal State of Management in a Charter School

Earlier, I reported the experiences of a teacher in a charter school who was fired by the school's managers/owners. Two things make the incident noteworthy. The treatment of the teacher was abominable. And, the school is run by a young woman with an MBA and her two parents. The three family members pay themselves an incredibly high salary to manage a charter school of 600 students. And – only in Arizona – the director of the charter school also happens to be the chairman of the state board of education.

That earlier posting has now brought forth the following communique from another former employee of the same charter school. It is not without reason that the writer of the following message wishes to remain anonymous.

I, too, worked at this school as one of the many office staff that they have been through in the past several years. Their H.R. Management is completely lacking. Once, when I was in a building workroom working on a computer, Mr. Miller came into a classroom of which a parent of one of the students was observing, and, went off, yelling at the teacher in front of all the students and the parent. Most of the children were in tears as Mr. Miller escorted the teacher out of the classroom. When I was back in the office, the parent that was observing the class withdrew her child from the school. The teacher was fired that day. I still don't know what it was about, but Mr. Miller was questioning her ability to teach.

Incidents like these speak to so many things that are wrong with the charter school system.

Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
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University of Colorado Boulder
National Education Policy Center
~            
San José State University

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The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the National Education Policy Center, Arizona State University, University of Colorado Boulder, nor San José State University.