StudentFirst Charter School Found to Be Putting Administrators First in Charlotte NC

In a recent Charlotte Observer article entitled "StudentFirst Charter School to Close Next Week" 300 students will find themselves without a school next week due to the foundering of this charter school on the rocks of mismanagement and downright incompetence. According to the article, state consultants hired to investigate this charter school found:

• academic shortcomings
• unopened mail
• unpaid bills
• overpaid and overstaffed administration
• tens of thousands of spending not properly documented

Of course the irony of the name of this charter school rings loud and clear once you read the grocery list of issues above. 

I have long understood that the theory most have about charter schools is to create schools that can avoid the red tape and regulation that regular schools face. Say what you want, but in regular public schools, it is fairly difficult for this kind of thing to happen. There are "pay scales" that control how much administrators are paid. There are regulations dictating how money is handled and paid. As much as we administrators might fuss about these regulations sometimes when we're dealing with administrative matters, this incident is a reminder that not all regulation is bad. 

When you create an governmental entity that can operate outside the rules the rest of us have to follow, corruption will follow. Now North Carolina has increased the possibility of more charter school corruption by lifting the ceiling, and we have a current United States president and secretary of education who are avid charter school supporters. 

Should we be really surprised when a charter school called "StudentFirst Academy," whose actual name sounds like it should be "Administrators First" suddenly becomes so corrupt that 300 students are cast into the street to find their education elsewhere? As a whole charter schools are no better than regular public schools. Their ability to avoid regulation is a recipe for more corruption and wasting of tax payer money like StudentFirst academy in Charlotte, North Carolina.