EdVantages Academics

“Charter schools pay off for CEO’s family.” Dayton Daily News (OH), 12/15/2012

A Dayton Daily News investigation found that a company managing several taxpayer-funded charter schools in the area is a lucrative family business whose husband-and-wife management team makes more than $400,000 a year.

The nonprofit, EdVantages, manages seven charter schools in Ohio, including schools in Trotwood, Middletown and Springfield. By law, these are public schools, but CEO Myrrha Pammer-Satow’s compensation is far higher than the pay of any local public schools superintendent with many more students.

Her salary is in addition to the income from another for-profit management company, Performance Academies LLC, that oversees other schools in Ohio and Michigan.

“That’s tough to defend,” said Terry Ryan, Ohio program director for the Dayton-based charter school think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute, when presented with the newspaper’s findings...

In addition to Pammer-Stow and her husband, who is the Chief Operating Officer, the schools employ a number of family members, including the CEO’s sister, son, daughter and daughter-in-law. The daughter works as the nonprofit’s human resources director, responsible for all hiring and firing.

The structure of the management companies reduces the ability of the public to guard against nepotism in hiring practices...

Not all customers leave happy, though. The Parent Action Committee meets regularly at the Trotwood library to discuss ways to make the school better. Their complaints include the quality of materials and the administration not responding to their concerns of things such as bullying...

Because EdVantages is tax-exempt, it must report to the IRS how much it pays its top employees. Tax records obtained by the Daily News show CEO Pammer-Satow received a base pay of $168,466 in 2010, along with a $60,000 bonus and other compensation valued at $25,573. Her husband, COO Clinton Satow, received a base pay of $126,000, bonus of $45,000 and $14,000 in other compensation...

EdVantages is not unique, though. Richard Allen founder Jeanette Harris was compensated $226,685 in 2010, according to nonprofit tax filings, putting her pay above any local superintendent. Her daughter, Superintendent Michelle Thomas, was compensated $127,702.

Richard Allen Schools, with locations in Dayton and Hamilton, was called to task earlier this year by the state auditor’s office for problems including contracts involving companies owned by school board members and building rent paid to a church owned by the school president’s husband... [more info here]

The Ohio Ethics Commission estimates that it has about a dozen open investigations of allegations of nepotism at charter schools...