When the media often refers to your organization as "cash strapped," folks are going to question when you spend tens of thousands of dollars on travel.
Joel Kurth of the Detroit News writes:
The cash-strapped Education Achievement Authority continues to spend tens of thousands of dollars per month on travel, using money that could be spent on computers or hiring teachers, newly released documents show.
In March and April, the EAA spent $52,000 sending administrators and teachers to conferences in a number of cities including San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas and Portland, Ore. That’s atop $178,000 charged on credit cards for travel since the authority was formed in 2012 to take over Detroit’s 15 lowest performing schools.
Since 2012, the tally for travel has been $286,000, the News reports.
The EEA says the travel is for training teachers.
The News writes:
The EAA provided records showing $40,000 of the travel in the past two months was funded by federal grants for districts with large numbers of disadvantaged students. Of that, $16,000 was covered by federal School Improvement Grants that “require extensive professional development,” said Terry Abbott, an EAA spokesman, who noted that state officials blessed the plan.
The conferences are an “investment” to help students “make rapid progress after years of being stuck in failing schools,” said Abbott. New EAA communications director Mario Morrow said turning around historically low-performing districts is “not an easy task” and the district “will do whatever it takes” to train teachers.
