The leader of a charter chain in Connecticut has a criminal record, but no one ever asked him about his background, he says.
The Hartford Courant reported:
“Criminal convictions and past imprisonment of Michael M. Sharpe, the CEO of a charter school organization that receives millions in taxpayer funds, are worrying Hartford and state officials – who said Wednesday they hadn’t known of his record and now want answers.”
It added:
“The questions arise as Sharpe’s organization – Family Urban Schools of Excellence, or FUSE – faces heavy criticism from the Hartford school system over its two-year management of Milner Elementary School. There are accusations of nepotism and concerns over Milner jobs having been offered to people with criminal backgrounds. The Courant reported on the complaints Tuesday.
“Tuesday night – after hearing about part of Sharpe’s criminal record from a person Wareing described as a “Good Samaritan” – the school board put off a vote on a proposal that would strip many of FUSE’s responsibilities at Milner, but still give the charter group $215,000 in state funds to provide a few services in the upcoming 2014-15 school year.
“The board expects to make a decision soon on whether to terminate the relationship, but first, Wareing said, the questions about Sharpe need to be addressed.
“Sharpe, 62, has been convicted twice on criminal charges. He pleaded guilty in Connecticut Superior Court to two counts of third-degree forgery in 1985 and agreed to pay two fines of $1,000 each. Then after moving to California, he pleaded guilty in 1989 to federal charges of embezzling more than $100,000 and conspiring to defraud the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, or BART, where he had served as the public transportation agency’s real estate manager.”
Sharpe said his criminal history was never a secret.
The charter chain has been a significant presence in Connecticut:
“The influence of Sharpe’s organization extends far beyond its assistance in the management of Milner School in Hartford. It also operates three Jumoke Academy charter schools in Hartford; manages Dunbar Elementary School in Bridgeport; and received state approval in April to operate the new Booker T. Washington Academy charter school that is scheduled to open soon in New Haven.
“In addition, FUSE has received approval to run at least one charter school in Louisiana.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Notice Dannel and Stefan know nothing, absolutely nothing. Comment left on HC:
Please note that this is Malloy’s education reform coming to fruition and possibly be just the tip of the iceberg of colossal charter school failures and billions being blown on charter schools. It would be very foolish to believe that Jamoke charter school @ Milner is the only charter school that is both corrupt and an utter failure. This warrants both an audit of Milner to see where all this commissioner money has gone and serious consideration to set up a task force to audit every charter school that operates using public funds. There will be a lot more of the same … Just consider how much money was blown on this commissioner network crap at Milner. Where did it go? Really time to listen to the true experts… The teachers.
Sunday’s Hartford Courant (they like to bill themselves as “America’s Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper”) printed an editorial, the second of three parts that were supposed to examine/extoll the state’s settlement of Sheff vs. O’Neill, a racial desegregation case. In the final paragraphs of an incredible, and incredibly offensive, piece, the editor wrote: “Hartford officials cannot wait for change… Thanks to intervention by the [Commissioner’s] Network, the Milner School is now operated by the successful Jumoke Academy charter school.”
The editor never explained where he/she got the information that Jumoke was “successful”–the next day the paper ran a story about how for months the city of Hartford has been trying to decide if they should sever the contract with Jumoke. Many of us who live in Commissioner’s Network/Alliance districts have had to fend off the overtures by the State Ed. Commissioner Stefan Pryor and the State Board of Ed to force us to take on charter school management companies like Jumoke. In fact, in the roll-out event for schools forced to apply for Commissioner’s Network money, Michael Sharpe and fellow charter member Andrea Comer were tasked with walking “Turnaround Teams” through the application process. Pryor’s hope all along was to get more schools to chose charter management organizations as their “Lead Partners”. Andrea Comer, who is the “chief development officer” of the Family Urban Schools of Excellence charter school company–Jumoke’s umbrella organization–was nominated by Stefan Pryor to become a member of the State Board of Education! And of course the compliant legislators approved her… and there she sits. They also “gave” Jumoke/FUSE a school in Bridgeport, and this year they will open one in New Haven….
For the record, America’s Oldest Continuously Published newspaper has excised the passage about “the successful Jumoke Academy”–thereby dishonestly disowning their own cheerleading. Many of us have been voices in the desert, decrying the charter school frauds.
You line, Mr. Rains …
Ack, I flubbed his cue …
Your line, Mr. Rains …
Of course, such a record would be a career ender for a rank and file classroom teacher.
I would like to add that I am not outraged by the fact that the state (and before that, the city of Hartford) gave a charter school to a person with a criminal background (if he paid his debt, he paid his debt)–what outraged me was that they gave a school to someone who was not an educator! And then another school. And another. Please. The disgusting court case in California is trying to blame teacher tenure for a host of problems (wrongheadedly), but no one seems to care if just anybody shows up and opens a school; or decides to “teach for a while” with TFA, which truly has a deleterious effect on schools in poor districts.
Connecticut is also a state which has an ed commissioner who has no education credentials. This is the Ed. commissioner who favors Jumoke so highly, and nominated its chief development officer for a slot on the state board of education (the fact that this SBE member, Andrea Comer, is an offical of Jumoke’s charter management company had nothing to do with her daughter getting a job at the school Jumoke was supposedly running for the city of Hartford….).
Someone with experience hearing Sharpe on the “Jumoke” philosophy made this comment to me:
If it walks like a duck….Just over a year ago I had the interesting experience of hearing Michael Sharpe lecture on the Jumoke philosophy of education and on school reform in general. I remember thinking at the time: this man is a f@#&ing fraud! Sharpe was droning on about the wonders of Jumoke and the “whole village” and other such banalities. He thought he was some kind of genius because he told the students entering Jumoke that they had to leave all “excuses” for under-achievement at the door. This egotistical man assumed that reasons for poor performance in school were merely “excuses.” Imagine the scenario. “Sir, my cousin got shot last night and I think I have PTSD.” Sharpe in return: “I don’t want to hear it. Excuses are for losers. If you want to be a strong black man in America, you gotta learn to roll with the punches.” That is how Sharpe talks: he goes from corporate CEO to ghetto brother and leader in the blink of an eyelid. When I heard him going on about “the community” and “the people” and “civil rights” and stuff like that, I just knew he was a lying con man, who was only interested in getting rich. His talk that day was ridiculous. A friend of mine tore into Sharpe, accusing him of running a fraudulent system at Jumoke. Sharpe was not too bad at dealing with criticisms. He didn’t try to refute my friend, but nor did he get emotional or mad. He tried to play it cool, suggesting that it was all one big misunderstanding. This man is smooth, I thought, but not smooth enough: he still comes across as a f#@%ing fraud…
There were some people with Sharpe who had drunk the Jumoke Kool Aid. They kept going on about “Dr Sharpe this” and “Dr Sharpe that.” It was enough to make you vomit. Sharpe just stood there, basking in all the false glory that his minions were according him. It was obvious that this confidence man was only of use to the corporate reformers because he puts a blackface on their racist, privatization initiatives. In other words, Sharpe is just a bit player in the ongoing minstrel show that is American race politics. Sharpe as a school leader in West Hartford or Simsbury? Absolutely impossible! But this fraud is good enough for the “savages” of Hartford and Bridgeport. As for Andrea Comer, she should be ashamed for herself. Sometimes it isn’t fair to judge people by the company they keep, but sometimes it is!
Three cheers for the good Samaritan who exposed Sharpe. It’s most likely the end of Sharpe’s run as the black emperor of CT school reform.
And Pryor must go for recklessly allowing just anyone to be a caretaker of Hartford’s children….
Kenneth Moales Jr., former chair of the Bridgeport Board of Education and Paul Vallas did everything in their power to turnover Dunbar School to Dr. Sharpe late last year. He receives over $400,000 in management fees annually. Dr. Sharpe is a Moales ally and Moales was trying to have a new “turnaround School”, Luiz Marin turned over to Dr. Sharpe about a month ago. Thankfully his efforts failed. What a scam! How does someone who is found guilty of embezzlement have access to millions of CT tax payer dollars? In 6 months, 6 of their new TFA recruits resigned and they have lost certified educators as well.
Where did the TFA go?
Did the other educators get real jobs, one hopes?
Dr. Sharpe flooded Dunbar with TFA when he took over the school. 4 resigned within the first 45 days. Two additional TFA resigned in the last couple of months. They didn’t transfer, they resigned. The Board of Education pays a $6,000 placement fee for each teachers hiring for a 2 year commitment. Money down the drain!
I don’t think Sharpe is a doctor. His linkedin profile says he went to “Columbia University in the City of New York” for a degree in “Liberal Arts” and Norwich University (an online university?) for a degree in counseling–no date for that, though.
TFA should refund the money. I heard of one who lasted 10 days–I don’t know if the district had to pay for her… unbelievable. I’ll bet the stressed district did (and $6K is a lot! run Nate Snow out of town and out of the state, please).
I’ll tell you one thing: This sort of thing would NEVER happen in public schools throughout NY State, where we have very robust vetting systems. Administrators, board of education members, and parents would NOT stand for it. Michael M. Sharpe would not even get past a second call-back interview.
This is a major flaw of charters: their transparency is almost nothing, and someone like this guy in Hartford only gets scrutinized when caught with his pants down.
I personally would love to see this guy with his criminal past become a leader in the schools Obama and Bill Gates send their children to . . . .
If the philosphy behind charters has any merit, this guy just gave charters a bad name. There is far more room for abuse and corruption in the charter model than there is in the public school.
“I’ll tell you one thing: This sort of thing would NEVER happen in public schools throughout NY State, where we have very robust vetting systems. Administrators, board of education members, and parents would NOT stand for it. Michael M. Sharpe would not even get past a second call-back interview.”
Don’t make Joe Nathan open up a can of Google on you.
I’m not making Joe Nathan do anything he does not want to do.
He can open up anything he wants. I welcome Mr. Nathan’s can of Google.
The bottoom line is that charter transparency is too varied and far too inconsistent. NY State public schools are open to the most molecular scrutiny; charters here are not.
I really don’t know where you are coming from, funny little entertaining ridiculous pusillanimous.
Joe Nathan? Well, the best thing he has ever proposed is that charters should be unionized.
“I really don’t know where you are coming from”
I’m not entirely sure myself.
I know nothing of Michael Sharpe or of his schools.
However, I must say that I am aghast at the suggestion that because someone has made mistakes in the past, everything that he or she does thereafter is suspect. I believe in redemption.
In the United States, 3 out of every 100 citizens is in jail, in prison, or on parole. It is the highest rate IN THE WORLD.
From Wikipedia:
“According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, and have nearly six times the rate of whites. In an August 2013, Sentencing Project report on Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System, submitted to the United Nations, ‘one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.””
Given such a situation, the attitude that one cannot turn his or her life around and contribute significantly would doom enormous numbers of people of color to lives with no future. We must unlearn this prejudice.
Well, I agree with you that people should be able to work after a conviction, but this is amazing.
They didn’t do a criminal background check on the “CEO” of a school?
There’s two issues- the fact that he’s administering tens of millions in public funds and the fact that he runs a SCHOOL.
They’re lucky it isn’t worse. They didn’t know the first thing about this person and they gave him tens of millions in public funds and access to other peoples children.
He says he was never even asked. They don’t ask the CEO of a charter school “have you ever been convicted of a crime”?
What are the state or local requirements to be the CEO of a charter school? THOSE don’t include a criminal background check?
Removing background checks is in the ALEC playbook. Just look at Senate bill 337 (I think) in North Carolina. This makes it easier to hire, say, a convicted embezzler and make them the charter school’s CFO.
Redemption is honorable, but trends and probability more accurate.
The following is from an article published earlier this week on the situation and may give you some perspective on the pay differences:
“Tasha Hosendove, Sharpe’s niece and a longtime Jumoke employee, received a $75,000 salary in the 2012-13 year as Milner’s recruitment coordinator — a job that generally would have paid no more than $35,000 in Hartford schools, according to one memo. In December, FUSE reassigned her to its central office in what was described as a promotion in a letter to Milner families.
It’s common knowledge that Hosendove is his relative, Sharpe said. “She calls me Uncle Mike.”
In addition to the section Linda quoted below about Sharpe hiring his niece at double the Hartford public schools salary, Sharpe also hired Andrea Comer’s daughter… Comer is on the board of FUSE (the charter school management firm of Sharpe) AND she is on the state board of education….
Mr. Sharpe is entitled to redemption but not with MILLIONS of tax payer dollars. When you have a federal conviction for embezzlement you should NEVER receive taxpayer dollars. In addition, he has convictions for forgery.
Robert, you’re talking about the mass incarceration of our working class, as though that excuses white-collar corruption. That’s hooey.
When the “mistakes” are forgery and embezzlement of public funds, he’s not entitled to his “redemption” under color of authority, and at the expense of the most vulnerable children in the nation. you say you “know nothing” of Mr. Sharp. Do you even open the links?
“Sharpe, 62, has been convicted twice on criminal charges. He pleaded guilty in Connecticut Superior Court to two counts of third-degree forgery in 1985 and agreed to pay two fines of $1,000 each. Then after moving to California, he pleaded guilty in 1989 to federal charges of embezzling more than $100,000 and conspiring to defraud the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, or BART, where he had served as the public transportation agency’s real estate manager.”
We have a group of kids in Boston right now, who were arrested for a sit-in demanding reduced public transport tickets for youth. Defend them, instead of creeps who violate public trust repeatedly, and steal from public transport.
I did not see in this story any indication that Dr. Sharpe is engaged in “white-collar corruption” in his current role. He was convicted of a crime twenty-five years ago. Precisely what jobs should that disqualify him for forever? I stand by my original point. A decent system MUST hold out the possibility of redemption. I do not see what the arrest of those kids for exercising their free speech and assembly rights has to do with this, except that I don’t think that they should be kept from becoming school administrators 25 years from now because they were arrested at a protest in Boston in their youth.
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
Bob Shepherd, a teacher with a criminal background–even 25 years ago–would not be hired. If he/she can’t pass criminal check, no job. Should it be different for CEO of a charter chain?
I agree, Diane, that the rules should not be different. But I also think that we must become a less punitive, more forgiving society. I would say that the way to approach this issue is to require complete transparency with regard to financial records for all of these institutions. And of course to have everyone play by the same rules–that’s a fundamental principle upon which our law is supposed to be based, that there is one law for everyone–the teacher or the CEO of the chain. But I do not think that having a criminal record should mean automatic disqualification for either the teacher or the CEO. There are too many instances of people who have done terrible or stupid things and then have remade themselves. I am fortunate. When I am looking for a job, I don’t have anything like that on my “permanent record.” But what if I had grown up in different circumstances, around different people? What if it had taken me time to sort all that out? We tell kids the story of how Malcolm X taught himself to read in prison and determined to make something of himself rather than to waste his life in petty criminality. We hold that up as a model, and rightly so. I believe in redemption. And in a culture where we routinely lock people up for breathing while black, and think that creating SYSTEMS and RULES that honor the possibility of personal redemption is important. As I said above, I know nothing of Dr. Sharpe, but I would not say that having a past is an automatic disqualifier. Does it raise a red flag? Should it make us look more carefully at what he is doing in his current role? Yes. But it could very well be that he is strongly motivated by the desire to make amends for a life that took wrong turns. I hope that that is the case.
Update, he’s not a Dr. either. A liar, a felon and a fake dr.
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-michael-sharpe-degree-0621-20140620,0,5954399.story
Hartford Charter School CEO Acknowledges Inaccurate Academic Credential
I found this story told by Dr. Sharpe extremely moving:
“A number of years ago, I was talking to a kid who had a behavior problem,” he said. “And as I’m talking to him, I noticed his white shirt was very, very dirty. You could tell it hadn’t been washed in a while. So I brought him to the student store and gave him a shirt. He put it on and tucked it in, and as I watched him walk down the hall, I saw that his chest was out and his head was up. He didn’t come to me that way. I realized then that we were missing something really basic here.” Consequently, Jumoke Academy was equipped with a washing machine and dryer to ensure students have access to clean uniforms. The added attention to fundamental needs, which may not be met at home, has helped the students make progress emotionally as well as academically. “That little, simple thing has made a huge difference for just a small population of the school,” explained Dr. Sharpe. “Oftentimes you’ll find that it’s a very small population that causes the majority of problems in the school.”
More of that.
You must read Mary G above. There are many more examples of shady behavior coming. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Teachers, bus drivers, volunteers are fingerprinted and background checks are completed to even be in a school. We would not get a second chance. How could this happen? And Pryor was praising him only days ago. And by the way, there were articles before this about the many problems in his schools and the measurement they use to close schools, test scores…..his were abysmal.
Read comments too. Traditional public schools would be lambasted for these results. Why second and third chances and new schools given to this shyster?
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hartford-jumoke-milner–20140616,0,4826789.story
Also, Bob, one doesn’t have to knock him out of the workforce completely to show some common sense.
He misused public funds while at BART for his own enrichment.
Should he have THIS job, where he administers public funds?
There’s a reason there are licensure and/or bonding requirements in jobs involving public funds or working with vulnerable populations like children or the elderly.
I don’t know how they insured this place, let alone got a state rubber stamp. I suspect they were able to bond or insure the funds because they created an entity distinct from “the school” to receive the funding (the management company) and someone else’s name is on that as the responsible party.
More people will be speaking out. Many were and are afraid. The conditions for teachers are horrendous. This man can’t run a school. He gets a pass because he can switch from “CEO” to hood-talk in a heartbeat and of course, that means he cares more than lifelong educators. See Mary above, 10:18 pm. The writer of that post has witnessed Sharpe’s schtick firsthand.
Heartwarming, to be sure, but it doesn’t change the stubborn fact that this man, who has a history of defrauding public agencies, has been given control of another public agency and therefore another opportunity to commit fraud. If I were a Connecticut taxpayer–and I am really relieved that I am not–I would not be happy about this.
I don’t care how nice this man is; he has a demonstrated record of criminal behavior, and he should not have access to the money that funds public institutions.
Have you ever been in a public school? Public school teachers do this all the time, teachers buy winter coats for freezing children, nurses have clothing extras in their closets, free uniforms are donated to students. OH, I guess most public school teachers don’t get up in front of cameras and announce it, like Sharpe is doing in the above example. I must say, the chest out thing does not have a ring of truth… it’s a little too cliched… but, for the record, teachers and staff at traditional schools, especially in impoverished areas, do incredible outreach and many acts of kindness. Because they are humane and caring. The fact that most public school teachers make about a fifth of what “Uncle Mike” pays himself is certainly germane to this discussion.
Yes, I was and am a teacher. So I am very familiar with this.
And Mary, should not leaders of schools be making the point, as often as they can, about the negative external weights that kids carry with them to school? Nothing in this suggests to me someone blowing his own horn. It seems to me a story told to make this point–kids bring a lot to school with them. Sometimes, what they bring to school with them is embarrassing. Sometimes, it may seem a small thing, but to a given child it might be enormous. It often comes up, for example, that someone suggests that kids’ parents pay for this or that–“It’s no big deal. It’s only $5.00.” But that $5.00 might well be beyond the means of some parents, and it might be terribly, terribly embarrassing for a child to have to say this to a teacher. Children are no different than adults in this respect. They have great concern about their dignity. Even the goofy ones have this concern–sometimes especially the goofy ones.
You have not seen Michael Sharpe and other charter shysters in action. Sharpe sets up a huge trash can near the front door of his school(s) with a big sign over: “Put Your Excuses in Here”, scream the capital letters. Sharpe does not make a point about the “external weights” children bring to school–quite the opposite, just like his cohorts in the school reform ranks–poverty is no excuse; homeless is no excuse; there is such a thing as a “high-poverty, high-achieving” school, a reformer by the name of Steven Adamowski once declared (I didn’t believe him). Talk about inhumane. That’s why I suspect the story of the shirt and the head held high.
We have a new law in Massachusetts, requiring all teachers to pay to be fingerprinted. We already have CORI background checks on file, of course.
Pro-charter trolls have been calling me names for using “divisive” terms like cheat, liar, fraud, huckster, and crook. This information on charter fraud and corruption isn’t new. it’s built into the system. The enabling legislation for institutionalized fraud and nepotism was passed under big corporate lobbying pressure, backed by supposedly “respectable” entrepreneurs, non-profit fronts, and public officials who are all knowing accomplices.
Cheats, liars, frauds, crooks. We have to say it louder and clearer. We need indictments, subpoenas, prosecutions, trials, convictions, and jail time.
As a new teacher, I was fingerprinted and subjected to a background check. A small offense from my past (walking a dog off a leash, which was misdemeanor disorderly conduct) surfaced, and I was obliged to track down my arrest record and present it before I could receive a license to teach.
So please tell me, Connecticut, how this convicted white-collar felon flew under your radar?
Charter cheerleaders are protected under the Malloy administration and the Pyror SDE. It’s what you get when you appoint a non educator, lawyer and former charter chain creator to your state department of education.
I read a study recently that claimed that almost all people have done something illegal. Perhaps the soccer mom did not claim the $600 dollars from her garage sale when she did her income taxes. There but for fortune most would go if they got their just deserts. We are building a police state characterized by continual surveillance and by permanent records of every blemish upon a life.
Again, I wish to point out that the United States convicts and incarcerates more people than does ANY OTHER NATION ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Millions have criminal convictions. The current President of the United States admitted in writing to having smoked marijuana and to having taken cocaine while living in states where, at the time, these activities were FELONIES. The incomparable Dr. Maya Angelou–may she rest in peace–inspired millions and built the person that she became upon a background that included having worked as a stripper and having run, for a time, a brothel to make ends meet.
Let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone.
Our systems must allow for people to be rehabilitated, to remake themselves, to straighten up and fly right.
Here’s a poem I wrote a few years back. It’s called “Terroir.” The title comes from vinticulture and refers to the characteristics of a piece of land that make it appropriate for growing particular crops. I refer you to lines 13-17 of this poem.
Terroir | Bob Shepherd
For Scott Fray
Listen. In the gloaming, a dog is barking, a frog croaking.
Ravens gather at the wood’s edge. Light thickens,
And its very thickening invites you to attune your senses,
To empty your mind, to push your fear to the extremities
Of your corporeal being and make of it a weapon.
Your navel is a fulcrum. You wait and watch.
This is the moment for which all else was but preparation.
This is the borderland, the gateway, the door, the crossroad,
The mouth of the cave, of the canal of the second birth,
The entrance to the labyrinth, the liminal interstice you’ve glimpsed
Between daylight and darkness, waking and sleeping.
She will test you beyond all imaginings of the tellers of tales.
When you face the monsters fashioned of yourself,
Of your every pettiness, failure, betrayal, cowardice,
You will wish it were only your flesh being torn asunder.
She will throw against you the whole phantasmagoria
Of shape shifters and demons, but all her glamour will not prevail.
For you will experience, as at a distance, the serial foes, the tricksters
And riddlers, the press of battle, the penultimate melee and discord,
The final spiraling downward toward the logos.
Even at the threshold, it is done.
That you stand ready is sufficient,
For the end is in the beginning.
In your veins flows the dark blood of the mother.
That Hecate/Phoebe hides her face but reminds you, seek her.
She is eternally present, at the core of being, even when unseen. Most when unseen.
She is the center you seek, the culmination, the goal, of the hero’s journey,
Of the birth into knowledge.
What treasure will you return to your undeserving fellows?
On your return, we shall carry you to the place of honor,
And we shall feast and drink your glory and shine by your borrowed light,
And when night falls, our children will listen, rapt, en-couraged,
Awe full, by the fire, under the maiden moon, to the tales you tell:
Listen. In the gloaming, a dog was barking, a frog croaking.
They got rid of licensure requirements for “superintendents” by renaming them “CEO’s” and no one bothered to put any new rules in.
Pesky regulations! Always thwarting innovation!
I’m going to declare myself “CEO” of the publicly-funded senior citizen center here and manage the place.
My word is good enough and no “red tape” like a criminal background check or licensure is required, right? No matter that the lowest level aide in the senior center will have had a criminal background check. As the CEO I’m a manager so therefore above all that.
It seems that Mr. Sharpe paid his previous debt to society for the crimes of forgery and embezzlement.
However, as a charter school operator, he seems to running up another one, this time on the backs of children and teachers.
How did we come to be THE WORLD LEADER in imprisonment? to have a greater percentage of our citizens in jail, in prison, or on parole than does any other nation on Earth?
Self righteousness. Politicians who can count on winning elections by being “tougher on crime” than the other guy. Mandatory sentencing. Systems that make it very, very difficult for people, having committed a crime and having paid for this, to rehabilitate themselves, to remake themselves, in new jobs, new careers.
President Obama admits that he took cocaine when he was a young man. Having committed, by his own admission, a felony, should he be forever after barred from entering a school and speaking to kids?
There’s never any shortage of hyper-righteous hypocrites. Those are the folks I would trust LEAST with my children.
I suggest that you work on reform of the criminal justice system; then you can hire Michael Sharpe to run schools for the inmates.
Our criminal justice system is itself criminal. Again, think of the most venal, most corrupt system in the most despotic state in the world. We imprison a greater percentage of our population than that country does. We are the LEADER OF THE WORLD IN THIS.
And the cost of that, in ruined lives, is enormous. Try getting a job if you have a criminal record. And what does that mean? Well, for many it means no choice but to become part, again, of the underground economy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander-more-black-men-in-prison-slaves-1850_n_1007368.html
According to me The editor never explained where he/she got the information that Jumoke was “successful”–the next day the paper ran a story about how for months the city of Hartford has been trying to decide if they should sever the contract with Jumoke