Saturday, October 22, 2005

Getting Served?

Indianapolis' Flanner House Learning Center Charter School is being shut down:
An appointed trustee will oversee the dissolution of the school and will try to recover any assets that could be used to repay the state nearly $700,000 owed for students the school claimed to enroll but now can't account for. The trustee also will help the remaining students move to new high schools in the city.

• Inspectors at times found as few as 20 students in class in a school claiming to have more than 160 enrolled.
• Elective courses included crocheting, sign language and game strategies.
• Several people on the payroll were related to [School Director] Diamond.

Diamond was paid more than $150,000 a year to oversee the Learning Center, Flanner House Indianapolis -- a nonprofit, multi-service center -- and a charter elementary school. She said she was disappointed with the review board's decision.
It's never a wise practice to stack payroll with relatives, a common mistake of nonprofit organizations, said Leslie Lenkowsky, an Indiana University professor who specializes in nonprofit management.

Indeed.

This is the sort of nonsense that gives enemies of the charter school movement potent ammunition to use against any form of public school choice.
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