Giving Compass' Take:

• Patrick Wall reports that the Great Schools for All PAC, a charter advocacy group, spent nearly $100,000 on three winning candidates in the Newark school board race. 

• How can funders work to ensure that school boards are representative of the values of the population they serve? 

• Learn about the accountability challenges posed by charter schools. 

The winning candidates in Newark’s recent school board race got a nearly $100,000 boost from a group backed by charter school advocates, according to new campaign filings.

The group, called Great Schools for All PAC, spent more than $97,000 supporting the team of three politician-endorsed candidates who swept last month’s election, the filings show. By far the biggest spender in the race, the group netted most of its money from donors based outside Newark.

Great Schools for All has extensive ties to charter school supporters. Its chairman is a former official at KIPP New Jersey, an affiliate of the national KIPP charter school network. And its donors include a group seeking to spread charter schools across the country and Doris Fisher, the Gap Inc. co-founder who is a longtime KIPP donor and board member.

As an “independent expenditure” group, Great Schools for All could raise and spend unlimited amounts in the election but not coordinate with its chosen candidates — Shayvonne Anderson, A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, and Tave Padilla.

Those candidates, whose team was called Moving Newark Schools Forward, raised their own money separately from the independent group. The team spent about $27,000 of the money it raised through its campaign committee, according to filings. The committee reported its spending Thursday night — three days after the May 6 deadline, which could subject it to a fine.

Read the full article about the Newark school board race by Patrick Wall at Chalkbeat.