Governor Dannel Malloy and Commissioner Stefan Pryor love charter schools, but now they have egg all over their faces after the revelations about the Jumoke/FUSE leadership. Michael Sharpe, the CEO of FUSE resigned after revelations of his criminal record and his false claims of having a doctorate. The fact that Governor Malloy chose Stefan Pryor as his state commissioner of education is the first tip-off to the favoritism that charters have enjoyed in the Malloy administration. Pryor, who is not an educator, was a co-founder of the charter chain Achievement First, which has enjoyed the state’s largesse. Why the love of charter schools? Could it be their connection to the wealthy hedge fund managers and equity investors in Connecticut who give campaign contributions?
Charter schools are allowed to have only 30% of their staff with state certification. That means that 7,000 children in the state are permitted by the state to attend “schools” where most of the “educators” have no certification. In some cases, the people running the school are not educators.
The Booker T. Washington school was supposed to be managed by FUSE, but severed the relationship. The school is headed by a pastor and his wife.
The state Board of Education voted Monday to hire a special investigator to look into the finances, governance, familial relationships, properties, and operations of the Family Urban School of Excellence (FUSE) — the charter school organization that oversaw Jumoke Academy and Hartford’s Milner Elementary School. The group also has a contract to manage Bridgeport’s Dunbar Elementary School and had planned to manage New Haven’s Booker T. Washington Academy, which is scheduled to open in the fall.
The Booker T. Washington Academy’s board of directors met Sunday and voted to sever ties with the embattled management group, leaving the state Board of Education with more questions than answers Monday.
Board members wanted to know if the decision means the school will still open this fall or if the 225 students will have to find a spot in the public schools.
The decision to sever ties with the embattled charter school management group “shows strong leadership and good judgment,” Morgan Barth, division director of the Education Department’s Turnaround Department, said Monday. “Booker T. Washington understands the urgency of presenting a plan to have a school up and running in the fall.”
Barth said that plan will be scrutinized with a “great deal of rigor” and the state Board of Education will have another opportunity to vote on the plan presented during a special meeting this summer.
Charles Jaskiewicz III, a board member from Norwich, said that he would rather delay the opening of Booker T. Washington Academy, “so we have prosperity, instead of more angst as we move forward.”
Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor said they have discussed with the Booker T. Washington Academy a one-year delay, but Pastor Eldren Morrison requested an opportunity to present a new plan to the board without delay….
Maria Pereira, a former Bridgeport School Board member, said FUSE earned about $435,000 in management fees for its involvement with Bridgeport’s Dunbar School.
When she was a member of the Bridgeport school board, Pereira said she voted against allowing the charter school management company to come in to town because she had done her research on the group’s involvement with Hartford’s Milner School. She said their test scores went down after FUSE took over management of the school.
Pereira said the state Board of Education is responsible for allowing this charter management group to take over these schools and needs to be held accountable.
She said Sharpe took over Jumoke Academy from his mother in 2003 and FUSE was created as a management group in 2012.
“Are you telling me his mother didn’t know he had a federal conviction for embezzlement and that he served two-and-a-half years in a federal prison?” Pereira said.
The revelations about Sharpe prompted the state Board of Education Monday to move forward with background checks for all charter school and charter management employees.
Here are a few relevant comments by Linda from Connecticut, posted this morning, citing comments from the above-linked article:
Commissioner Pryor, the State Board of Education, the legislators, and, perhaps, the Governor should re-read the laws they passed regarding charter schools and the Commissioner’s Network. There is no way that the Booker T. Washington state charter can “go forward” (not that it ever should have been approved!)—the Reverend and his wife (?nepotism?) do not appear to have education degrees—what gives them the right to open a school? The legislation Stefan Pryor and Governor Malloy were so anxious to pass (with the spineless complicity of the state legislature) outlines in some detail the process for opening a charter school. After submitting the application, the Commissioner and State Board of Education are supposed to read and evaluate it—and its clauses about Lead Partnerships, terminations, legal proceedings, etc. It is utterly ridiculous for Turnaround Specialist (and former Achievement First principal) Morgan Barth to call severing the partnership with FUSE an example of “strong leadership”—too bad it’s not legal. I would recommend that the State Board of Education, the Commissioner, the Governor, and the legislators take a long look at what they are doing to children (no background checks? only 30% certified teachers? no curriculum, as at Milner?). To view the Booker T. Washington charter school application and its lengthy sections explaining the “Jumoke philosophy” is to realize, first of all, that this is a fantasy world in which facts, such as the dire situation of children at Milner must be suppressed, and second, that the Rev. Morrison swallowed the Sharpe sales pitch as easily as Pryor and the SBE did.
And if we’re looking at family relationships in hiring, don’t forget an examination of the Rev. Moales in Bridgeport and his family’s daycares and pre-schools.
Here is another:
One more, same article:
posted by: Parent and educator | July 1, 2014 11:29am
State Rep. and Ed. Commission member Andy Fleischmann and other officials show themselves to be woefully misinformed when they say that Sharpe has been “tremendously successful”—based on what? how many students were at Jumoke then? Is it possible to find this out? also, I think the curriculum, student numbers (at the beginning of the year and again at the end), test scores, all need to be examined for each year of Jumoke’s existence. When they were discussing the Achievement First Hartford high school in 2012, and how it would automatically admit Jumoke 8th graders, that year there were 42 graduating 8th graders! and that was after years of Adamowski’s bolstering charters and increasing funding by means of his “money follows the child”.
Also, how can SBE member Estela Lopez say she didn’t know about the problems at Milner, when last year’s CMTs were published and were shown to be falling? Why is she saying that, having rubber-stamped Pryor’s orders, she didn’t know what she had signed and voted for? She probably pays more attention to her cell phone plan than to legislation affecting hundreds, even thousands (7000 attend charter schools in CT) of children in CT.
Shouldn’t the citizens of Connecticut file an ethics complaint against the SBE? for dereliction of duty and gross malfeasance? This board is all about accountability and teacher evals, student rigor, yada yada, and look at what a bunch of toadies they are! The state legislature is not much better, by the way; witness Fleischmann’s “unknowingness” and embrace of policies he would never inflict on the affluent schools of West Hartford.
And another:
Please see this article as well and I will cut and paste two very important comments posted by an informed parent.
posted by: Parent and educator | June 30, 2014 6:42pm
The State Board of Education and the Commissioner have demonstrated a very serious dereliction of duty with regard to FUSE, and, by extension, all charter schools. Now we find out that the SBE never verified the credentials of Michael Sharpe? Never cared that his daughter Michelle, his brother or relation Joseph Dickerson, his niece (as named in a previous article) have all been employed by the charters? Not to mention the daughter of Andrea Comer, who, until Thursday last, was COO of FUSE! Background checks for those who work with children are somehow optional? SBE members today demonstrated a callous disregard for the law in claiming that they did not realize the true situation with FUSE (there were warning flags about Jumoke/Milner, by the way—and many members of the public have requested information about that partnership)—yet the SBE renewed their contract and gave them more schools! Jumoke is a pipeline for the new Achievement First high school that opened shortly after Stefan Pryor resigned from that charter school management organization he helped to found in order to be the State Commissioner of Education! In addition (and any journalist can find more egregious info about this, if they are willing to look and listen), Stefan Pryor hand-picked Jumoke/Fuse to present a workshop on the Commissioner’s Network Turnaround process—with the implication that having the newly incorporated FUSE as “lead partner” would fast-track an application to the Commissioner’s Network—which was obviously the case with Dunbar and now Booker T. Washington—a plan that simply cannot go forward, as per CT law.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Beyond the self-dealing and other forms of corruption that have gone unchecked, Pryor and the SBE have refused to follow the law and ensure that these charters do not segregate. In fact, they promote them knowing that they increase segregation. Connecticut charters routinely fail to serve ELL students, students with disabilities and the poorest students. In a state already struggling with segregation (and especially in already segregated districts- where charters are concentrated- contrary to CT law), these charters exacerbate the problem http://www.ctvoices.org/publications/choice-watch-diversity-and-access-connecticuts-school-choice-programs
So, this Governor Malloy, lover of charter schools, (corrupt and not as accountable as public schools), is going to be blessed with Randi Weingarten’s gubernatorial endorsement?
Now, there’s a public school union leader, for ya’!
Standard knowledge to be known by all high school grads.
No standard certification for the teachers who teach them?
No standard fiscal accountability for the schools they are in?
So much for the argument for the merits of consistency.
And from a brilliant CT dad, JRP1900.
This man should be the next commissioner of education for CT.
If Stefan Pryor were a public school he would have long ago been judged as “underperforming” and he most likely would have been closed down in favor of a charter school. Mr. Pryor’s tenure as Education Commissioner has been a dismal failure. He has made it his business to use his office for political purposes. He is charged by law with the care of public schooling, but Mr. Pryor has given his best energies to initiatives involving school privatization. Rather than consult with experienced people who are familiar with the landscape of public schooling in Connecticut, Mr. Pryor has conducted a “Stalinist” purge of the SDE, removing or demoting all naysayers and non-believers. He has surrounded himself with cronies and courtiers from Achievement First and other players in corporate education reform, like Mass Insight, a consulting company specializing in school turnarounds.
I doubt Mr. Pryor would be at all persuasive if he had to defend his policies as being in the best interests of Connecticut’s children. But fortunately for Mr Pryor, he has not had to defend himself: the Malloy administration, the SBE, the State legislature and the corporate media have been content to look the other way, while Commissioner Pryor stumbles from one disaster to another. It’s only now that Pryor’s failings are creating heavy drag for Malloy’s reelection prospects that the fixers and operators have at last decided to make Pryor do something about the various shenanigans attendant to school reform in Connecticut.
Either Commissioner Pryor did not know about the fraudulent Michael Sharpe or he knew and concealed his knowledge. But any way you look at it, the whole sorry episode does not reflect well on Pryor and his reform policies. It’s patently obvious that Pryor will give a charter school to ANYONE, just so long as that person is a true believer in the reform gospel. It’s even better, for public relation purposes, that the individual seeking the charter is a person of color, as this lends a “democratic” or “community” character to the privatization initiative. In fact, the use of people of color as marketing fronts is deeply opportunistic and racist. It’s difficult to imagine that a man like Michael Sharpe would have been handed a school in West Hartford without anyone taking a close look at his background.
Look at Steve Perry: this man is no educator and he has shown himself to be lacking in judgment and temperament and yet he has been awarded a charter school in Bridgeport, with the full support of Pryor’s office. Try to imagine Perry as the Principal of a school in Simsbury or Glastonbury and you just can’t do it. But Stefan Pryor says that Perry, the megalomaniac who can’t get enough of the media limelight, is good enough for the children of Hartford and Bridgeport. Corporate reformers are always ready to criticize “liberals” for the “bigotry of low expectations”: they claim that “liberals” don’t have real academic standards for poor minority children, but are all too willing to play games of “social promotion.” In fact, it is the reformers who don’t have standards for children in distressed districts. I am confident that if I called myself the Rev Washington of the African Zion Church and I put in for a charter school, claiming that I would raise test scores by 900%, Stefan Pryor would include me in his Commissioner’s Network in no time at all. I have had occasion to look at some of the successful applications for the Commissioner’s Network from charter school companies, and, believe me, these applications were not very good.
The Connecticut Post says that it is almost beyond belief that Pryor’s office is only now requiring background checks of those who receive public monies. But the Post has missed the point. School reform is not about the education or care of children; it is about money-making and the destruction of teachers’ unions and the control of the teaching “workforce.” In other words, school reform is part of the corporate attempt to take over and remake American society. The logic is simple: when “the market” replaces “government” as the source of social goods, power flows away from the people towards big private companies. The transference of power, from the people to the corporations, has been taking place on many social fronts. The corporatists think that now the time is right for this process to unfold in education, and, with politicians like Dan Malloy at the helm, they have good reason for their belief.
Michael Sharpe might have thought that he was engaged in “the civil rights issue of our time” or he might have just been lining his own pockets. But either way it doesn’t really matter, because Sharpe is a mere pawn, as are the poor children who are being used to advance the cause of privatization. It’s worth remembering that the people backing school reform are some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in the United States, and many of them have shown no interest in civil rights, or the plight of the poor, in any other respect. It’s fair to assume that their interest in school reform is NOT part of a wider concern with social justice, but is rather an opportunistic ploy to advance their own political agenda. The Connecticut Post should delve deeper into education reform. The behavior of Pryor and his cronies is not simply a matter of “incompetence.” It’s exactly what you might expect from people who have ideology and true religion.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of the special investigation of FUSE/Jumoke. Will the investigator hang it all on bad man Michael Sharpe or will he indict a bad system, involving Sharpe, Pryor and Malloy, wherein anything goes, just so long as it goes in the preferred corporatist direction?
The number of certified teachers and how they obtain certification (is it alternative? durational? provisional? waived?) is a bit confusing–it seems to be more like 50%, although many charters, including Milner/Jumoke and Dunbar, appear to have a continuous exodus of teachers. According to the CT State Department of Education FAQs on charter schools:
Q.Do all teachers have to be certified?
Answer: At least 50 percent of the teachers employed must hold a valid CSDE educator certificate obtained through a traditional route. The remaining 50 percent must hold a CSDE authorization allowing them to serve in the position for which they are employed. This may include an interim initial or interim provisional educator certificate, substitute authorization, Durational Area Shortage Permit, Nonrenewable Charter School Interim Educator Certificate, Resident Educator Permit, etc. Issuance of this certificate is contingent upon meeting entrance requirements for acceptance into the alternate route to certification and completion of required tests. The Commissioner of Education may waive these requirements for any administrator or person providing instruction or pupil services employed by a charter school who holds a charter school educator permit, provided not more than 30 percent of the total number of administrators and persons providing instruction or pupil services hold the charter school educator permit for the school year. However, charter applicants are not eligible for consideration of this waiver. The Commissioner may consider requests for waivers of the certifying requirements only after: the school governance council has been established in accordance with Section 10-66bb, as amended, of the Connecticut General Statutes; and teachers and administrators for whom the waivers are sought have been identified and are able to demonstrate evidence of effectiveness.
See page 7 of this doc: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/equity/charter/FAQs.pdf
From our Wendy:
Pursuant to Section 10-66(dd) (5) of the 2012 Supplement to the Connecticut General Statutes, effective July 1, 2011, the Commissioner of Education may waive the requirements or any administrator of person providing instruction or pupil services employed by a state charter school. Under the legislation, such educators must meet requirements as identified in the statute for the Charter School Education Permit (CSEP), provided that not more than 30 percent of the total number of administrators and persons providing instruction or pupil services in the charter hold the CSEP for the school year
In looking at handbooks for Jumoke which are included in the application of the Booker T. Washington charter school, it is hard to determine the staffing. Almost all public school websites include staff directories along with school-based contact information–I have not seen anything like this for Achievment First charters or other charters. This is just another example of their lack of transparency. One has to wonder if background checks are not systemically conducted or required, maybe checks of qualifications are lacking, too. Now that we are asking questions about charter school staffing in Connecticut, what about substitute teachers, a very great concern when there is such high teacher turnover.
Here’s the Booker T. Washington application from the CT SDE website (scroll down): http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2681&q=320438
And go to page 286 where you can read a letter written by a CT Webster Bank VP praising “Dr.” Sharpe to high heaven omitting that he is married to the CEO of Achievement First, who will automatically accept all Jumoke/ FUSE students into their charter high school (without applying).
Pryor primarily staffs his dept. with former AF “leaders” (who taught for 2-3 yrs, if at all).
Yes, and Jennifer Alexander, lobbyist at ConnCAN, also wrote a letter of support for this charter!
Yes, page 281…a very smart CT mom tipped me off. 👏👏👏
I find this overview of the Commissioner’s Network very interesting. I highly doubt that, as of November 2013, when this was written, Windham Middle School was receiving the resources it needed to be doing what it claims here. And check out the report on Milner! page 13: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/commissionersnetwork/commissioners_network_overview.pdf
In the interests of understanding the law, I also link this state law on the “Charter School Educator Permit” and note that a “conditional certification” can be awarded for a year provided there be a reasonable expectation that the awardee will fulfill the requirements… given the turnover in charter schools, I have misgivings! We need some hard facts–DATA!–on teacher numbers in all CT charter schools, are they TFA; do they have traditional training and certification?; how many have waivers? how long have they been teaching? how long have they been at the charter?
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/sum/2011SUM00060-R03SB-01104-SUM.htm
AN ACT CONCERNING CHARTER SCHOOLS
SUMMARY: This act establishes a charter school educator permit and allows the State Board of Education (SBE) to issue such a permit to someone who (1) is employed by a charter school as a teacher or administrator, (2) lacks state certification for the position, and (3) meets the act’s qualifications. Starting with the 2011-2012 school year, it allows the education commissioner to waive certification requirements to allow permit holders to work in charter schools as teachers or administrators, but limits the number who may hold the permit in any school year to no more than 30% of a charter school’s teachers and administrators combined.
The act also (1) makes anyone holding a charter school educator permit a member of the appropriate teachers’ or administrators’ unit for collective bargaining purposes and (2) requires a permit holder to become a member of the Teachers’ Retirement System when he or she obtains a state educator certificate.
Under prior law, all charter school teachers and administrators had to be certified, with at least half of those providing instruction or pupil services at a charter school required to hold the proper state certification for their positions and the rest required to hold temporary 90-day or nonrenewable temporary certificates.
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2011
Inspired in part by a well-known DISN•E movie, I’ve decided that the best name to describe the Pushers of Private Profit Education is DIDDL•E.
And anyone who thinks that DIDDL•E will give the U.S. higher quality public education at a bargain price just doesn’t know DIDDL•E.
Here’s an off-topic but interesting article about a Michigan charter school president who has turned in his resignation because he does not agree with Common Core.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2014/06/charter_school_board_president.html
“This copy-written, corporate-driven education model has been developed by non-teachers and edu-crats from Washington to Lansing to the detriment of students, parents, taxpayers and local school boards,” Polet wrote in his letter.
“I want no part of a lousy educational model and I refuse to sign my name to a product that confuses, disorients, diminishes and fails to protect our students,” he wrote.
Very well stated, plus the word edu-crats, which I had never heard, which says so much in so little space.
I love off topic comments Alabama teacher! Maybe I have ADD. Your link put a smile on my face. Maybe there is a glimmer of hope.
Noooo! Not nepotism!
Teacher certification is a last century notion. Children are best taught by the best and the brightest Ivy League grads with no connection to the community. Traditional university teacher preparation programs are not effective in attaining high standardized test scores. Outfits like Relay can churn out the new breed of teachers replete with snappy little tricks. Why would anyone question the wisdom of philanthropic, altruistic education reformers by seeking to maintain the status quo?
Just recently a newspaper had an editorial stating tenure and LIFO laws should go because there is no longer any type of nepotism or discrimination by any school administrators. All are judged by their ability to create academic achievement. Imagine every school in the US run by charter chains. If that ever happened, very, very few people would ever enter the teaching profession. If the teaching profession 36 years ago were like today’s world, I doubt that I would have ever become a teacher.