Michael Sharpe resigned as CEO of The Jumoke Academy, which runs charter schools in Connecticut and plans to expand to Baton Rouge, after revelations that he had been convicted of felonies many years ago and that he did not have a doctorate degree, as he had claimed.
One of the schools managed by Jumoke, the Milner elementary school, will be returned to the Hartford public schools.
“On Saturday, the website for Family Urban Schools of Excellence, the management organization created in 2012 to oversee Jumoke Academy and its expansion, still described Sharpe as “Dr. Michael Sharpe” and stated he was a graduate of NYU. Official documents, including the memorandum of understanding with Hartford for Milner School, have also referred to him as “Dr. Sharpe,” and in 2006, he told the state legislature’s appropriations committee, “my name is Dr. Michael Sharpe,” according to a transcript of his testimony.
“Controversy over the academic credential came days after The Courant detailed a behind-the-scenes feud between the city school system and Jumoke over its two-year management of Milner, a struggling school that has received $2.64 million in extra funding from the state’s Commissioner’s Network since 2012. The state intervention program gives millions of dollars to schools with three- to five-year “turnaround” plans to raise achievement — for Milner and Bridgeport’s Dunbar Elementary School, that strategy has featured a partnership with the charter operator to essentially run the schools.
“Among the Hartford district’s complaints were concerns over hiring practices. School officials had accused FUSE of nepotism and offering Milner jobs to people with criminal backgrounds, but that was before they learned that Sharpe was a convicted felon.
“Sharpe told The Courant that he has atoned for his mistakes and that he never kept his past a secret.”

He was renting an apt in the FUSE office building or the school? They create apartments for CEOs making $180,000?
FUSE also has plans to run an elementary school in East Baton Rouge, La., starting this coming school year.
Despite the expansion, Sharpe wrote to several of his senior administrators in a May 26 email obtained by The Courant: “There is no overarching strategy in play — we are winging it.”
Sharpe told The Courant recently that his FUSE salary was about $180,000. He has been living in one of FUSE’s buildings on Asylum Avenue, paying about $1,000 in monthly rent, he said.
Copyright © 2014, The Hartford Courant
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Asylum avenue sounds about right!
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If the company is a 501 ( c ) 3 educational charity, it is easy to
review their federal tax form.
Simply Google the proper legal name of the company + Form 990
You can get over the web the complete financials of the charity which includes the salaries paid to the top several employees.
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I’m hearing a lot of complaints about Charter Schools recently….what’s gong on?? It sounds like they are motivated by profits!!
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Charter schools are ONLY in it for the money. Recent well-researched and peer-reviewed studies have found that very few do any better than the public schools they replace (17%) and many do far worse (43%). When they are “successful”, more often than not it is at the expense of the most challenging students to educate, those having behavioral or mental challenges and English Language Learners…they are often kept out of the “lottery” by too many paperwork hoops, by not having needed services for them available or counseled out once they have been accepted and their per pupil state funding received. They are not held to the same accountability that public schools are, they are not required to have any transparency in how tax payer money is spent. In fact, in court after court across the nation where they have been asked for similar financial transparency that public schools must provide, they have stated IN COURT that they are private companies and not legally required to be transparent (with taxpayer money!) It is crazy!
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Perhaps some charter schools are, but others are not. I find it hard to believe the Walton Rural Life Center Charter School is in it for the money.
Here is a story about the school: http://www.kansas.com/2012/12/26/2616098/rural-life-fuels-kansas-schools.html
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The Walton charter is still under the direct supervision of the Newton school board. It is not run by an imported management company. The concept is unique. So, although we ought never to say ALL charters are only in it for the money, some are, some not. I would have liked to hear a bit more in the article about the rest of the schools in the Newton district, and about the admissions procedure for the kids.
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I believe this concept of charter schools is the standard in the state of Kansas. I take this to be evidence that there is too large a variety of charter schools to be able to state anything definite about charter schools.
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TE– FYI I found out that the public boarding schools in NC are not technically charters; they are part of our university system.
Just wanted to clarify that from the other day.
Other than profits, the other rationale I can figure as to why radical right and ALEC type leadership want charters is because they suppress the unity of the state, which I presume they interpret to mean that they strengthen their church communities or reliance in those entities. They would rather, I guess, see a weak public system so that pockets of private thought (read: religious communities) can become stronger. I think their view is short sighted and silly. Being a preacher’s daughter who watched her father’s congregations grow and flourish and yet whose family believes in strong public schools, I wish they would ask me what I think. If they have dollar signs in their eyes, shame on them. They should have the faces of children in their eyes. Happy and safe children who know they need to work hard but who see a caring community behind them, all the way to the Governor’s mansion.
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Joanna,
While those schools might not technically be charter schools, they have so many of the features that folks find objectionable about charter schools (uncertified teachers, skimming of high performance students, lack of local democratic control, etc.) that the orthodox poster here must surely condemn those schools even if they are not technically a charter school.
If memory serves, you have some family that send their children to a French language charter school in Kansas City. Do you think that charter school is run to maximize the amount of profits from the system to the decrement of the students in the school?
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Might I suggest that you would present a more persuasive argument if
you cited the exact study you reference and also provide a hyperlink directly to that study to allow any and all the information to perform due diligence should they be so inclined?
Anyone failing to present that minimal form of documentation should not be surprised when they are disregarded.
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Whack-a-mole. He’ll resurface at another charter in another state.
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“Whack-a-mole”
Good metaphor. Sad reality.
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Linda Lambeck reports for The Connecticut Post that the effect on Bridgeport is yet to be determined:
“FUSE, with the state’s blessing, was put in charge of running the struggling Dunbar School, this past school year. [Sharpe’s] firm collected $435,000 this fiscal year for doing so. . . . The city school board is expected to discuss the revelations when it meets Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Aquaculture School.”
http://blog.ctnews.com/education/2014/06/21/ceo-of-company-running-dunbar-school-also-fudged-his-resume/
I hope that this revelation will make members of the Bridgeport community rethink the equation that is being pounded into their heads by many charter groups and Rev. Moales, a member of the Bridgeport BOE, that CHARTER = BETTER THAN PUBLIC. It does not matter what kind of lame brain proposal is made, if it is charter, then it will be better than the “failing public schools.” It might be hard to imagine a member of the BOE calling his schools failing (and he certainly did not when Vallas was in charge), but you must factor in that Connecticut’s Commission of Education is an outspoken (and behind the scenes) supporter of charter schools. And, look where we are . . .
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Jamoke the “am” is silent.
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If only the entire charter school movement were silent. Very clever.
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Hartford’s Board of Education rightfully terminated FUSE’s contract today. I certainly hope the Bridgeport Board of Education does the exact same thing on Monday when they are scheduled to meet.
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There is vast evidence that charter is not better than public. Every “miracle” school that has been held up so far has been shown to be successful only because they do not have the same constraints on them that public schools have…they do not have to take all who want to enter the door. They do not have to be transparent where the taxpayer money goes. They do not have to provide services for all the students who they do accept. Charters only drain money and resources from true public schools. Instead of investing in these scams, we should be putting appropriate resources into the neighborhood schools.
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But one has go wonder why the charter concept has so much support in the culture still in spite of the many abuses. Where did the public schools go wrong to lose their monopoly position?
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Most people continue to think the schools that their own children attend are fine, according to annual Gallup polls. However, they think the schools that other peoples’ children attend are inferior, due to the impact of ongoing negative reports in the media by the monied interests who are behind “The Corporate Assault on Public Education”
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Interesting speech. I’ll have to hear it all through.
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Ford mentions in that video how black clergy were paid off to promote the corporate agenda, but he describes that in more detail in the video below:
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I am an A-A who has taught in New Haven and Bridgeport, Ct. I went through a university ed program and have multiple academic degrees and several Ct teacher endorsements.
In my experience, many parents of color suspect that many teachers are prejudiced and are quick to blame any issues arising with their children on the teacher.
Politicians, BOE’s, district and school building administration have decided, in my estimation, to not fight that perception and blame the classroom teacher for whatever happens in the classroom, whether it be disruptive behavior and/or poor student learning outcomes. All the while giving little if no support to teachers vis a vis consequences for disruptive behavior, etc. Teacher’s union management essentially goes along with the school district central office.
I believe that some people,such as Wendy Kopp of TFA, and the Wall Street wolves,have discerned that there is a bifurcated mission in public school systems. On one hand you have the mission followed by those above the classroom. On the other hand, you the mission followed by those in the classroom.
The administrative mission is to preserve the system AND the salaries, pensions, and benefits of what I call the managerial class. This entails nepotism, favoritism, most likely outright corruption and definitely political patronage. Remember that, at least in New Haven, administrators make at least 120K or 10K per month. And many pensions run in the low 6 figures. I don’t think it is a distortion to suggest that there are perverse incentives here.
The classroom mission is to teach the children and see to their welfare when they are with us during the day. It is an incomprehensibly exhausting task but one with equally hard to understand rewards unless of course you are, or have been, a classroom teacher.
In short, you have one group of folks in it for the money and another group of folks in it for social benefit to our kids. Simplistic I know but you get my point.
The private equity folks have decided that they want in on what the public school bureaucracy has been enjoying quietly while municipal education budgets have ballooned to nearly one half of the total city budget.
The propaganda starts with blaming the teacher which feeds in on the perception that many of our inner city parents think already.
(Incidentially, I have never met a teacher who allowed their personal opinions or bias affect their teaching although I am sure societal racial basis has affected us all to varying degrees.)
Then the reform propaganda suggests that school reform is the civil rights issue of our time. Given that very few people truly understand education or how human beings learn or about motivation, etc., one can see that this is an easy sell.
One last point. Teachers are not, in my opinion, wholly innocent in this astonishing fiasco or what history will see as such. Teachers have their heads in the sand about what those with power are doing. Teachers have given their collective bargaining power to teacher union managers who have sold them out for a seat at the big muckedy-muck table. Teachers must learn that they, at least at present, are sheep and sheep get slaughtered.
Not so hard to understand,is it?
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http://www.freep.com/article/20140622/NEWS06/306220096/Michigan-spends-1B-charter-schools-fails-hold-them-accountable
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More on the transfer one billion dollars of public funds to private charter interests in Michigan… http://www.freep.com/article/20140622/NEWS06/306220096/Michigan-charters-1-billion-taxpayer-dollars
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The stat they use on for-profit charters is bogus.
They should messure how many seats are for-profit, not schools.
It’s a deceptive statistic.
The largest charter, by far, in Ohio is a for-profit.
“Number of schools” skews it and makes it look better than it is.
The operators are counting per seat revenue. Why don’t newspapers?
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Connecticut does not do criminal background checks on charter school leaders? It’s 40 dollars in Ohio. The employer submits an online query to the state AG. It takes about 7 minutes, total.
In other news, Martin O’Malley gave a speech in Iowa that was pro-public schools. “We don’t attack teachers, we support them”
I hope it’s an issue for Democrats in 2016. If they’re raising it in Iowa it’s on their radar.
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Also another article on the EAA by a reporter who has been guilty of “writing” fluff pieces, but here does some real reporting on the on-going EAA scandal: graduates can’t obtain their official transcripts to get their scholarships or to attend college! http://bridgemi.com/2014/06/f-is-for-frustrated-disorganization-at-detroit-eaa-schools-leaves-students-scrambling-to-graduate/
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Ed reformers in MI were pushing for statewide expansion of the EAA as late as January.
So the question is did they not know what a disaster it is, or did they not care? They were willing to push every low performing school in MI into this disaster rather than publicly admit an error?
Talk about “self interested adults”. I think we found some!
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Chiara: The governor has been continually pushing to codify and expand the EAA as a union breaking ponzi scheme, but even some of his own henchmen are leery in an election year. He was pushing right up to the summer adjournment… the EAA honchos all showed up in force that last day before adjournment, but they couldn’t get it done. Without the new infusion of cash to pilfer and prop it up, CEO Covington resigned and bolted. Students are left in schools that are in shambles.
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Also, reading that piece, I’ll make a bold prediction.
Sometime in the next 2 years the high school graduation increases Duncan is touting will be exposed as phony.
This “credit recovery” is a scam.
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There is an interesting paper about high school graduation rates by James Heckman. Basically he argues that the NCES statistics are misleading and high school graduation rates are significantly lower than the NCES statistics and have been declining over the last 40 years.
Here is the paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13670
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So there’s another function of state licensing and it’s ongoing.
A state licensing process would have caught the criminal conviction, but it also imposes a CONTINUING duty on the license holder to report any criminal issues while employed.
So for example if the license holder committed a crime in CA he or she would have a duty to report that to an employer in CT.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. There is going to be a tragedy much worse than fraud or theft if they don’t regulate.
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Did he write “Dr.” in his resume? If he did, it could be even worse. It could also be interpreted as ‘Doctor Guest.’ (or whoever a person wants to impersonate for academic fabrication.)
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Dr. Of Deceit. Sadly, not the only one.
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Was he not subject to fingerprinting? Surely the background check either was not done, or it was suppressed. Either way, foul play.
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