Meanwhile, the scandals continue at Ariz. charters

Years ago at a rock concert, my buddies Marty, Champ and I got so close to the enormous amplifiers on stage we could not hear one another’s voices, no matter how loudly we shouted.

It’s that way with Donald Trump. The high-frequency hoo-ha blaring from White House woofers and tweeters (especially the tweeters) drown out everything, especially the hardworking news professionals trying to tell you things you should know in calm, reasoned voices.

For example, in recent days The Arizona Republic’s Craig Harris has written articles illuminating a number of recent scandals in the state’s charter-school system.

This isn’t new for Harris and others at The Republic.

They have exposed charter-school mischief before.

But in the past few weeks, we’ve learned of another charter founder who has wildly enriched himself using state money; a charter board that refused to allow public comment at its meeting (until Harris wrote about it), and a charter principal who refused to pay teachers the bonuses they deserved (until Harris wrote about it.)

All of this is part of the bigger scandal that is Arizona’s charter-school system: the lack of transparency. The way charters slyly screen students they don’t want. The ability of charter owners to enrich themselves on taxpayer money that would get officials at other public schools tossed into jail.

Harris reported on how American Leadership Academy founder Glenn Way made millions of dollars building the campuses in his own chain, the kind of blatant nepotism that would be outlawed in other schools.

Way, who is constructing a milliondollar home for himself, justified the arrangement by saying, “The (charter school) law is silent on the question of profit, and for good reason. Arizona families will only benefit if more operators of quality charter schools are enticed to expand their offerings in our state.”

I’m not sure about other Arizona families benefiting. But his is doing great.

And there’s Heritage Elementary, where Harris found out about 20 teachers who weren’t going to receive the $1,500 to $1,800 in merit pay they’d earned.

Principal Justin Dye at first told Harris, “The reality is the school board can decide how to use it (301 money). There are schools that hold the money ... They could decide one teacher gets all the money. It’s been done before.”

After the news got out, the teachers got their money.

Likewise, after an article by Harris about how the American Leadership Academy’s school board wasn’t allowing parents to speak during a meeting a whole new meeting was called to allow

public comment.

Unfortunately, there are too many charter schools out there and too few reporters.

And the people who are supposed to be watching over your tax dollars, Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican-controlled Legislature, are doing just the opposite.

For example, this past legislative session, lawmakers expanded the watchdog power of the attorney general, making it a felony for a public-school official to break procurement laws or accept a gift worth more than $300 from a vendor.

Unless ... those officials run charter schools.

That’s right. Officials in the regular public-school system who use taxpayer-supported positions to enrich themselves could wind up in prison. Charterschool officials who do that may wind up in a new million-dollar home.

I know it’s a noisy news world, and that my own constant squawking adds to the cacophony.

But a number of my brothers and sisters in the media, like Harris, speak truth to all forms of power in calm, reasoned voices every day.

You should listen.

The poor guy’s going hoarse.