The Lion of Judah charter school in Cleveland is closing, and the founder was sentenced to five years probation.
“Prosecutors last year accused Romey Coles Jr. and other officials of the Lion of Judah charter school of funneling at least $1.2 million in public funds to businesses associated with the troubled charter school….”
“Prosecutors left Coles’ sentence up to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside, who made it clear to Coles that he would have to make a substantial effort to pay restitution, including telling him to liquidate assets, such as multiple homes he owns.
“Coles, 46, told Burnside, “I’ve made some mistakes and I’m looking to take responsibility for it.”
“Burnside said she didn’t see a prison sentence as proper in the case because she felt the state didn’t properly anticipate the mistakes that could be made when citizens or non-lawyer tried to run charter schools.
“On the other hand, there was a misuse of public dollars and the public is owed it back,” Burnside said.
“Coles’ attorney, Fernando Mack, said his client had good intentions when opening the school on East 55th Street but then got greedy when he saw easy opportunities to make money….
“According to prosecutors, the academy from 2006 to 2011 took in almost $5.8 million from the state and federal government and $1.2 million of it was spent illegally, including items that were purchased for the school but went to the Church of the Lion of Judah, where Coles was a bishop and his wife was a pastor.”
By the way, the Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3314.03 states very clearly in the case of charter schools that “The school will be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations, and will not be operated by a sectarian school or religious institution.”
Does anyone care?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh, for the love of God!! So now if you’re an professional crook you get a pass because you’re an amateur educator??!!
Peter: my sentiments exactly.
Imagine if a staff member of a public school—teacher, aide, cafeteria worker, janitor, even an administrator—had spirited away, say, $1000 worth of money in a similar scheme.
Chump change? Sure, but there wouldn’t be a pat on the wrist.
The lesson is clear: steal big and shamelessly and be one of the “important people,” and you are rewarded with one set of laws and strictures; be one of Leona Helmsley’s “little people” and have the book thrown at you.
In the latter case, don’t forget the negative MSM coverage that would use the occasion to sneer and jeer at all public schools and their staffs.
For those in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$, what’s not to like about this kind of “accountability”?
Thank you for your heartfelt comments.
😎
The lesson to this story is- go ahead and take a chance, steal public money, you won’t go to prison so go ahead and steal. The judge is an idiot.
I agree with you, public education turns funds over to charters and we have given them license to milk us dry. Education Reform has created our own little Wall Street and we make excuses for criminal behavior.
I can’t believe a judge would say something so dumb. Why make him pay it back? Absolutely ridiculous. He and his wife should be sitting in prison.
…AND pay it back.
Now, if you were a certified educator and did this you should go straight to jail!!!!
Anyone want to place a bet that Coles will pay back this money? Court rulings are ineffectual against wealthy people who play the passive-aggressive game in court and tell the media and judge what they want to hear and then go out and do what they want, which does not include paying back the money they took illegally.
Jordon Beflort, of “The Wolf of Wall Street” infamy, reveals what will happen:
According to federal prosecutors, Belfort has failed to live up to the restitution requirement of his 2003 sentencing agreement. The agreement requires him to pay 50% of his income towards restitution to the 1,513 clients he defrauded. Of the $11.6 million that has been recovered by Belfort’s victims, $10.4 million of the total is the result of the sale of forfeited properties. The sentencing agreement mandates a total of $110 million in restitution.
In October 2013, federal prosecutors filed a complaint that Belfort, who had income of $1,767,203 from the publication of his two books and the sale of the movie rights, plus an additional $24,000 from motivational speaking since 2007, paid restitution of only $243,000 over the past four years. The government is currently not holding Belfort in default of his payments in order to keep negotiations open, but it is unclear when the full amount of the mandated restitution will be repaid.
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Note: the laws and the justice system in the United States are mostly written to favor or exclude anyone who is wealthy or was once wealthy unless they steal from other wealthy people. That’s why Bernie Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison—he should have only focused on robbing the middle class and those who live in poverty like Belfort did.
If King John of England—who took from the poor and gave to the rich—is the opposite of Robbin Hood, then in the US, King John is a hero and role model to the wealthy and many in the middle class who are being fooled.
“…plus an additional $24,000 from motivational speaking since 2007….”
The mind boggles. Who looks to a convicted criminal for motivational speaking?
Dienne: I am surprised you’re out of the loop. There are certain email lists that…oops, ‘nuff of that.
Ok, let’s get rheeal. Who better to understand an arsonist than an arsonist? Who better to understand a burglar than a burglar? Who better to understand traditional marriage than Newt Gingrich who [according to one wag] defines it as “a relationship between a man and a woman and another woman and another woman”?
So according to the usual unconfirmed rumors generated by Rheeality Distortion Fields, the gentleman [I use the word loosely] will soon be heading up the Ethics Dept. at the Broad Academy.
His first course promises to be a doozy: “Accountability and Responsibility: Never the Twain Shall Meet.” He hopes to create a MOOC with Bernie Madoff as a co-teacher but so far his repeated calls and checks to Mr. Madoff have not been acknowledged.
¿?
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You ask, “Who looks to a convicted criminal for motivational speaking?”
People who don’t care what it takes to become super wealthy and they are willing to learn from successful career criminals.
For instance, Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, the Walton Family, etc.
In short, psychopaths and sociopaths who have no empathy for the suffering of others.
And we have these mouthpieces dictating the economy of the US.
Middle class, hard working, educated people are thrown aside because they don’t speak the language of the conscienceless. Gates returnscto being the richest man in the US…or is it the world? $76 billion. Geesh.
And if Gates and Murdock succeed with their joint venture, In Bloom, their wealth will increase again.
Money begets power.
Power begets money.
No one else can get a foot in the door.
That is why I became very concerned when Citizens United was passed.
And, you would not believe the number of people who didn’t even know what Citizens United was!!!!
Even now.
Forward Education Spring!!!!
Currently reading “The Bully Pulpit” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. There are many similarities to what was happening in the US in the late 19th and early 20th century and today.
But then Teddy Roosevelt supported labor and went after the super wealthy to curtail their power. Corruption was rampant in the government because the super wealthy were buying politicians.
The difference is that Teddy Roosevelt was honest and a fighter working to end the type of piracy we face today and what he set in motion is in reverse now and it all started under President Reagan and accelerated under G.W. Bush and Obama.
We haven’t had a president like him in a long time. Where is a Teddy Roosevelt when we need one?
I used to teach 4th graders using “If you were living in the 1890s”. I think that is the name. We were struck by the direct similarities that we are dealing with now and how it was then. Not too different.
Except this time we don’t have a Teddy Roosevelt in the White House. We have a president who has been corrupted by the robber barons and wolves of Sesame Street.
Ohio at its continued “finest” in decision making.
Well, I’m really sorry the patient died, but don’t blame me – I’m not a professional doctor. I’m just in it for the money.
LOL
May I offer..
What? Sentenced to death? Well, I am sorry, but they outsourced Public defenders. I took a 5 week course and got payed a lot to handle your case.
Everything goes good = The Supperiority of the Private Sector
Everything goes bad = How can he be blamed, he didn’t even know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Surprise, surprise. American business has always enjoyed a heightened sense of superiority and has certainly drawn more than its share of “get out of jail free” cards, even in the face of deception and calamity.
Wow! That is one insane reason for not punishing someone. We’ve loaded up our prisons with people who smoke pot and other drugs. Why should they be in jail; we should blame the system for not monitoring their purchase and use of drugs more carefully.
Diane, there’s actual analysis going on re: Eli Broad’s experiment in “blended learning” in Detroit.
I don’t know jack about test scores, so one of you edu-experts has to look at this:
“The 2013 MEAP cohort data show us, convincingly, that most EAA students failed to make even marginal progress toward proficiency. The portrait is even grimmer for the small number of students who had entered the EAA already demonstrating proficiency. In math, 66% are no longer proficient. In reading, 37% are no longer proficient.”
Now I guess we know why Snyder’s political hacks in Michigan buried the scores and neglected to tell Detroit parents that the experiment was a failure.
https://sites.google.com/site/detroitdataanddemocracyproject/MEAP-Cohort-Data-Reveal-Stagnation-and-Decline-in-EAA-Achievement
Wait, there’s more double dealing and ethical conflicts in Michigan’s experiment on low income children and their families:
“Although Excellent Schools Detroit advertises itself to Detroit’s families as an objective source of school data compiled to help families in pinpointing and selecting quality schools for their children, the connections between ESD and the EAA suggest a much closer relationship.
The current Chair of both EAA administrative boards, Carol Goss, incubated and funded Excellent Schools Detroit in her capacity as CEO and President of the Skillman Foundation.
Excellent Schools Detroit furthermore administers the Michigan Education Excellence Foundation (MEEF), through which funds are funneled to the EAA from national venture philanthropies with which the Skillman Foundation works, including the Broad Foundation. Four current ESD board members (including Chairwoman Goss and EAA Chancellor Covington) and one former ESD Board Member currently serve or have recently served on the EAA board.”
They’re agnostics! Just looking at the data! Ignore the fact that the same small group of people are sitting on all of these “independent boards”
And, finally, here’s Michelle Rhee lavishly praising Eli Broad’s experiment on low income kids in Detroit, although she had absolutely no idea if it had any validity at all, and, indeed, it doesn’t. She was wrong:
http://michiganradio.org/post/rhee-praises-michigan-school-reform-progress
A lot of very prestigious national celebrity ed reformers rubber stamped Broad’s Detroit experiment in cheap, cut-rate “blended learning”, including the US Department of Education.
Is there some reason these people are at all credible? Is there anything they won’t rubber stamp and endorse?
Rhee is a disgusting sell-out.
Appropriate – NO jail time. Sounds like the big bankers who have bought our politicians.
I wonder if they own the Supreme Court too.
Own enough to be the majority.
5 of 9 That’s all it takes
Antonin Scalia – appointed by Reagan
Anthony Kennedy – Reagan
Clarence Thomas – G. H. W. Bush
Ruth Bader Ginsberg – Clinton
Stephen Breyer – Clinton
John G. Roberts – G.W. Bush
Samuel Alito – G. W. Bush
Sonia Sotomayer – Obama
Elena Kagan – Obama
Depending on the president who appointed them, the list looks dire, and in June of 2013 the Supreme Court invalidated a key part in the Voting Rights Act.
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval.”
Is this the start of roiling back laws that will return the United States to where it was in the late 19th century?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This happened to a married couple in my district who embezzled three million dollars by buying photocopied textbooks from a shadow book “company” that they actually ran. They received no jail time because of “all of the good they had done for students.” That was five years ago and the district has not gotten most of the money back. BUT, we now have to have all kinds of ethics and financial training and jump through a million hoops anytime we need to spend any money, for books or student fees or whatever. While I appreciate that we all need to be careful with the money, we regular peons will NEVER have access to that kind of money, but we’re still punished with endless meetings about it.
People in every state in the union should read this story. This is exactly why charter schools are nothing but cash cows. It is disgusting. This is your classic edushyster story.
This is typical in the Education Deform movement. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Consider, for example, the new national ELA “standards.” Written by rank amateurs based on state “standards” that were themselves the product of lowest-common-denominator groupthink, these new “higher” standards [sic] are basically a list of unimaginative, hackneyed, received misconceptions and half-truths about the teaching of English in the various domains that they cover. They ossify practice. They narrow and distort our teaching. And importantly, they PRECLUDE pedagogical and curricular innovation that would be incredibly fruitful.
But such is the utter disdain and contempt with which the Education Deformers view professionals in English education–the millions of teachers, scholars, researchers, curriculum developers, curriculum coordinators, working continually to submit their practice to critique and study and revision–that they are quite happy to appoint a couple amateurs absolute monarchs of education in the English language arts in the United States and to mandate what outcomes will be measured and what learning progressions will be followed by all.
And let us be “trained” by the bots to use the new definitions of teaching and learning every “objective”. Never mind that we knew what we were doing. Never mind that we used developmentally appropriate operative verbs and adjectives that were rich with collective understanding. Never mind that Newspeak makes no sense whatsoever. March forward and over the cliffs.
Good morning, class. I am roboteacher model CC$$.Achieve.TFA.666.2b1. In 2.6 seconds I will begin facilitation of your rigorous computer-adaptive lesson on standard CC$$.Literacy.ELA.RI.8.4b. Bear in mind that we shall be monitoring to ensure that you are appropriately gritful doing the lesson. Failure is not an option, and no excuses will be tolerated. This message brought to you by the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Diane asked, “does anyone care”? Absolutely. Theft and misappropriation of public funds is a crime and should be punished.
If we had a simple to understand Tweets (easy to ReTweet by anyone and everyone) for every time someone in private sector education movement is caught earning too much or siphoning off money and we kept Tweeting those tweets with (short) links to media pieces that document the crime in easy to understand detail, then more people would become aware of what’s going on.
Find a way to break twitter again with TRUTH: nstead of an Oscar selfie. Something important for a change.
For example, this ready made Tweet that may be copies and pasted and retweeted again and again:
The SAT test doesn’t measure college success
potential in life
or intelligence
DiscoverThe Manufactured Crises
http://amzn.to/1hXRMSk