NEWS
From the Office of the New York State Comptroller
Thomas P. DiNapoli
Contact: Mark Johnson, 518-474-4015
For release: Immediately, Sept. 4, 2014
DiNAPOLI: SPECIAL EDUCATION CONTRACTOR CONVICTED FOR $2 MILLION FRAUD
The former owner of a Queens-based special education provider, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges earlier this year following a joint investigation by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara, was sentenced today to 24 months incarceration and ordered to pay $2,151,318 in restitution and forfeit another $1,924,318.
“Cheon Park enriched himself and deprived children with physical, developmental and emotional disabilities of the help they need,” DiNapoli said. “His conviction today stands as a warning for those who attempt to cheat taxpayers and instead use the money for their personal benefit. I’d like to thank U.S. Attorney Bharara for prosecuting this crime and working with my staff to bring Park to justice and recover stolen taxpayer money.”
In July 2012, DiNapoli’s office issued an audit of Bilingual SEIT & Preschool Inc. that found Park inappropriately charged New York City’s Department of Education for salaries, vehicle leases and items such as cosmetics and children’s furniture. There were also a number of questionable issues related to staff salaries. For a copy of the audit, visit:
http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093012/11s13.pdf.
DiNapoli referred the findings to United States Attorney Bharara’s office and worked to prosecute Park and recover the stolen funds. DiNapoli also praised the work of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for New York City’s Department of Education, the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Education, and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office for their collaboration in this investigation.
DiNapoli has identified fraud and improper use of taxpayer funds in a recent series of audits and investigations of special education providers, resulting in multiple criminal convictions and the recovery of over $3 million. His office has completed 23 audits of preschool special education providers, finding nearly $23 million in unsupported or inappropriate charges. There are currently 18 additional audits of preschool special education providers in progress.
In December 2013, Governor Cuomo signed legislation – proposed by DiNapoli and sponsored by Sen. John Flanagan and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan – mandating the Comptroller’s Office audit all of the more than 300 preschool special education providers in this $1.4 billion program by March 31, 2018.
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The City of Seattle has plans for universal pre-K, and I fear the city’s version will end up like this because of the Gates Foundation influence and some of the other major players in Seattle Ed Deform. Privatized, staffed with TFA (yes, they’re invading preschool now too), rife with corruption.
NYC universal pre-K follows the head start model by contracting with private providers.
Don’t listen to this reformer who promotes privatization and knows diddly squat about education. This is not the Head Start model. Head Start is in a lot of public schools districts across the US and has been since its inception, as TE has been told many times before. However, he is incapable of acknowledging education experts or hearing anyone except himself.
This is the model that is implemented in many states for PreK because most public schools are not set up to accommodated children under age 5, since those ages are not included in compulsory education. Therefore, preschoolers typically attend private schools and, provided the schools meet certain requirements, they can receive government funding for eligible children in specific programs, such as through the child development block grant for subsidized child care and the federal meal program. There are way many more of children in private preschools than there are in Head Start.
ECE,
Head start is in both public schools and in other independent organizations. Here is the web site of the Child Development Council of Franklin County Ohio, INC : http://www.cdcheadstart.org/ . They are the folks that provide head start classes to the students of Columbus, Ohio.
Public money going to private hands, just like with the expansion of Pre-K in NYC.
When did I say that Head Start isn’t in private schools? I said that, contrary to your personal opinion, privatization is not “the Head Start model.” Many people have already told you how Head Start is in public schools in their districts, but you live in an echo chamber where only your own voice is valued. Go back to college and try to learn something from other people, dufus.
ECE,
When I said the Head Start model I was referring to the practice of giving grants out to organizations to provide Head Start classes to both private organizations and public systems. Do you think that the orthodox poster here thinks that we should do the same for K-12 education?
Instead of passing off inaccurate information about P12 education, go work on improving your competencies in your own field and get the hell out of mine, imposter.
ECE,
Perhaps are disagreeing views can be reconciled with the answer to a simple question.
Does the government give public tax money to non-democratically controlled private organizations so that those organizations may provide pre-K education to students under the Head Start program?
I think the answer to this is undisputedly yes and have cited as one example, The Child Development Council of Franklin County, INC. Do you think the answer to the question is no? If you agree with my answer, I think we are in agreement.
I don’t answer someone who could not care less about the answers and thinks questioning people means he is teaching them lessons. Get a frickin life, troll.
ECE,
I will take that as a yes. I think we are in agreement on that point.
I agree with nothing that you say. I saw a lot of question marks and I did not even read what you wrote, because I am familiar with your puerile tactics. Stop wasting people’s time here with your stage show.
ECE,
There was just one simple question, let me repeat it:
Does the government give public tax money to non-democratically controlled private organizations so that those organizations may provide pre-K education to students under the Head Start program?
It’s more like an ongoing freak show. Even I have more credibility than this creep.
Not a public,
This is just a very simple point about the facts of Head Start. In many places public money is given to private organizations to provide pre-K education to disadvantaged children. I don’t find anything wrong with that. The problem that I think others might have is how to differentiate between how pre-K education is provided and K-12, that is why is it laudable to give public money to private organizations for pre-K and a terrible idea to give public money to private organizations after pre-K but before college, when it becomes ok to do it again.
Good idea to not read TE’s questions, let alone answer them. That’s what I do, too, especially since he previously wrote that he doesn’t even expect people to answer him. He argued that he thinks he’s teaching when he poses all those inane questions, too, and, yes, he constantly acts as if he knows more about P-12 than genuine P-12 educators. (He doesn’t provide insights on economics either.) It’s much more interesting to skip right on past whatever he writes and just read what others say.
Leaving aside the odd yelling about what the “head start model” is and who is or isn’t a “dufus,” NYC’s UPK is largely a privatized (or at least “private”) program. We have a general idea how much it costs. We’ll see how it works out. Right now the NYC comptroller is holding press conferences about how the contracts haven’t been vetted. Mayor BDB says that’s business as usual.
You can always count on FLERP! to come to TE’s rescue as well. Two peas in a pod, both of whom let the reality of why preschool education is situated in private programs go right past them. Funny, I’ve never seen either of them argue for funding programs with brand new developmentally appropriate facilities to serve children those ages in public education.
Too bad they’ve never been in all the private preschool programs that have existed for decades without teachers who have bachelors degrees. It wasn’t until last year –48 years after it was first established– that Head Start required HALF the teachers to have BA degrees, while state laws typically require that every Head Start and PreK classroom situated in public schools have a certified teacher.
Cares about,
I sent my children to a private pre-K and K program where some of the faculty had masters in early childhood development and others did not have college degrees, so I am familiar with such schools.
None of that has anything to do with the way Head Start uses public funds to contract with private organizations to provide pre-K education. I had thought this was a simple fact of the world that would not be controversial in the slightest.
CaresAboutKidsEtc. — are you asserting that NYC’s universal pre-K program is not largely private/privatized? Or are you explaining why it’s private/privatized? I sense you’re saying the latter, but I’m not sure. If so, and if you’re saying that the reason it’s private/privatized is because there was not a pre-existing public pre-K program on a large enough scale to cover 50k-plus students and there was neither time nor political support to create one in nine months, then I agree with you. If you’re saying something else, then I don’t follow.
I’ve seen this discussion here before with TE. When someone has said the same thing over and over again to a college professor but it did not sink in, I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that you are dealing with a “dufus,” as well as a know-it-all.
Not a,
I am unclear what you think is not sinking in. This thread is about public funds going to private organizations to provide pre-K education to disadvantaged students. As FLERP! Has pointed our, is is exactly how the new universal pre-K program in NYC works. As I said before, I don’t have any particular problem with this, but I also don’t have a big problem with this arrangement for post pre-K as well.
TE, When you try so hard to make your original position sound like something different, you just look like even more of a fool.
Cares about,
What do you see as my original position?
My intent was to point out that both NYC pre-K and Head Start give public taxpayer money to private organizations. It was a factual statement, not any suggestion about policy.
The fact that these programs give public money to private organizations would seem to have little to do with Bill Gates, so I think poster K Quinn’s concerns were exaggerated.
Yes, FLERP!, this is about why preschool ed is privatized.
TE, This is consistent with K Quinn’s concerns, since educator qualifications vary across the country but are typically significantly lower for private child care centers than for public programs, depending upon the state. It might be somewhat higher now, but only 19% of all center based preschool educators across the US had BA degrees in 2004: http://www.naeyc.org/policy/advocacy/ecworkforcefacts
In my professional experiences, when private preschools get public funds for state PreK or universal PreK, which are programs that bring in the most money, it’s seen as a windfall to top administrators and that money tends to go to them, not to kids, classrooms or teachers, as with so many charter schools. Privatization is not a good model anywhere in education except for the elites controlling the purse strings at the top.
“Losing Ground in Early Childhood Education
Declining Workforce Qualifications in an Expanding Industry, 1979- 2004”
Click to access losing_ground-summary.pdf
“Roots of Decline: How Government Policy Has De-Educated Teachers of Young Children”
Click to access roots_decline061.pdf
What crooks! Talk about stealing candy from babies. How low can you get?
Wouldn’t you just love to see a detailed audit like this one on Success Academy? The state is very thorough. No wonder Moskowitz doesn’t want to be audited by them. She must have a lot to hide:
Note double whammy jackpot–special education + preschool. I wonder it there are enough auditors with freedom to act on corruption on this scale. It is noteworthy that this audit is the result of legislative action, not the Governor, and it extends until 2018. I wonder if the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Education will continue to be involved, and what other investigations may be in the works.
Gates is behind the City of Seattle’s effort to push Quality Pre K for “All”, which is essentially 2000 children. The city plans on hiring one highly paid administrator for every 50 children.
Here is what is interesting: The Pre-K initiative is of enormous importance to the city, but the campaign remains largely unfunded. The city is also working with the CEO of Acelero- a for profit entity that is revamping Head Start. I’ve asked the city if they plan on hiring Acelero and I’ve not received an answer.
It should be noted that Seattle’s program is actually prek-3. Essentially, pre-k Common Core. I’ve learned that there is a plethora on line Common Core materials for Head Start Pre-k.