The Day reports that the language in the cover letter submitted by Terrence Carter to be superintendent in New London contained language identical to a cover letter written by another job applicant in Michigan in 2011. When will this charade end? If he fabricated his résumé and plagiarized his job application and cover letter, what more evidence is needed?
Here is an excerpt from The Day:
“New London — The cover letter Terrence P. Carter submitted with his application to be the city’s next superintendent bears a resemblance to a cover letter submitted by a different candidate seeking a Michigan superintendent job in 2011.
Carter’s cover letter, submitted on March 11 along with his application and resume, shares a similar structure and, in some cases, identical sentences.
“I bring an unbridled passion for educating children and adults, a track record of launching and directing critical educational programs, and exceptional leadership credentials,” Carter wrote in his letter. “If you are looking for a dynamic educational leader who has continually succeeded in the classroom, in academic programs, in the central office, and in corporate America, then my credentials will be of great value to you, your students, and your community.”
A cover letter submitted in 2011 by Frederick Charles Clarke, then a candidate for the superintendent job in Rochester, Mich., contains a similar passage.
“…I bring to your academic institution an unbridled passion for educating America’s youth, a track record of launching and directing critical educational programs, and exceptional leadership credentials,” Clarke wrote. “If you are looking for a dynamic educational leader who has continually succeeded in the classroom, in academic programs, and in the central office, perhaps my credentials will be of great value to you, your students and your community.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just when you thought he couldn’t sink any lower…
How can he look anyone in the eye?
It’s all starting to make sense. It’s not plagiarism. It’s collaborative learning. They’re modeling their skills! They all get together, went through the same programs together (perhaps the New Leaders for New Schools has a template) and they worked together in small groups! Ta dah! Mystery solved. It’s why they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.
That’s what my students try to convince me. “We’re not cheating, Mrs. Threatened, we’re using our resources.” I don’t believe them, either. (I know you were being snarky, mrslewischem)
That’s a very humane, if satirical, take on this.
Cynical me, I just thought it was because all of these reform-bots have identical software downloaded into their central processing units, and thus the endless loop of “… Bold reform… Excellence… Rigor…Leadership…”
Ad nauseum…
Maybe the Broad Academy gave them all a template…. just fill in the blanks?
Why not? That’s how ALEC does legislation. Seems to be the in thing.
That way no one has to think too hard…
I don’t see any blanks.
Sadly this is not an uncommon occurrence. I still remember the first time I noticed that it was happening. I was an instructor at one of the nation’s largest state universities and was shocked to see that some students “wrote” essays and reports by plagiarizing from different sources. Most were smart enough to modify the paragraphs so that they made sense when written together but some students would copy one paragraph from a source and a completely different one from another source. This was forty years ago when there were no computers to detect this practice.
My guess is that some people cannot make it through high school and college without cheating. When they find this “strategy” successful, they continue using it in their professional lives. It’s probably an unfortunate consequence of being in the information age, where many individuals struggle to compete on their own merits.
Yes, this is a very common strategy by students. I find it bizarre, because it must take more time to create these Frankenstein essays than to actually read and summarize the relevant work in one’s own words. In the era of the Google search, it is also. guaranteed F as it is so easy to find the text feom the original sources that students are stitching together. I suspect the same is true for applications for superintendent positions.
You must be aware that the CREDENTIALS OF LAUSD chancellor Deasy was actually fabricated, yet he still remains in office deforming education and terrorizing veteran teachers, as any teacher who stays around after their probation is up. Keeps salaries low.
The following video
http://www.perdaily.com/…/how-to-get-your-teacher-fired–dedicated-to-lausds- superintendent-john-deasy.html
is a glimpse into the heart of darkness that Deasy has already empowered in the wake of the Miramonte child abuse scandal, that he continues to shamefully use to attack the vast majority of non-pervert and dedicated teachers, whose only crime is that they are: at the top of the salary scale; about to vest in lifetime health benefits under the rule of 80, which would cost LAUSD another $300,000 in unfunded benefits to add to the already $13 billion they already have; or are just trying to maintain rigorous academic standards for students, who find it easier to denounce their teachers than actually do the work they require.
I love your last line Susan.
Thanks… I was actually quoting Lenny Isenberg.
And corruption can happen when a superintendent is falsely accused of misrepresenting his credentials in order to keep the good old boy network alive. The district can violate his contract and violate laws requiring transparency in school board meetings.
See my posts below about WCSD.
Beware, everyone.
Administrators can actually purchase what are known as “template letter” books, which contain pre-written letters that are specific to different organization issues. Administrators are known to use these to save time, and they can tweak the verbiage as they see fit or leave it alone altogether.
I am NOT saying this is what this bozo in New London used, but don’t be surprised. It is considered in that circle to be conventional practice. For those of us form the literary arts, it’s ghastly.
Love it.
Really? It is like a cheat sheet book. Administrators are so illiterate they can’t put together a letter!
Let’s not put down administrators. There are tons of great ones out there. Most of them are fine, I think. The exceptions are, well, exceptional and severe, not people I would like to work with if I could help it.
All I’m saying is that administrators have hundreds of letters they put out each year, and if they had to craft everyone one of them, would it leave physical and psychic room left to do other critical tasks?
Although, I am a fan of writing less and more succinctly; might that not help the burden?
Personally, I think Arne Duncan was born out of a template, and he is the ultimate cookie cutter corporate cronie crying crookedly and crapping up a crop of bad reforms over those of us who know and understand what it means to teach, learn, and adminstrate.
I think I abhor Mr. Duncan as much as I do George W. Bush and his evil mad scientist Dick Cheney.
But that’s America: the dumbest, richest, most powerful people drive the car recklessly while the rest of us passengers probably find it safer to exit the car at 60 MPH than to stay in it with them.
Arne Duncan is the ultimate crash test dummy . . . . .
Robert,
It is good to know there are tons of good administrators out there. I have not seen many lately.
“. . . would it leave physical and psychic room left to do other critical tasks?”
Well, if there isn’t sufficient room then they shouldn’t be in that position.
I need plagiarizing and fabricating more: I literally have more experience than this man, and more actual credentials…New London needs to hire me lol
To be plagiarizing….
He bragged in many ways (app, speech, letters) about his excellent communication skills and then he went into hiding. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah!
Unless this letter was accompanied by provable specifics, whoever hired someone who sounded as arrogant as this got what they deserved.
This is pretty embarrassing. It’s like the kid who gets busted for plagiarizing the D student’s paper. It doesn’t matter if the ultimate source was a “form letter book.” If it was, then he’s dumber than whoever wrote the original, because he either couldn’t tell how bad it is or he knew he couldn’t do any better.
The Washoe County School District in Nevada, one of the most corrupt in the country, has a board who last week ousted the superintendent there–or have they, since the board is completely incompetent. Pedro Martinez–yes, I know he is not a licensed school administrator and is a Broad Academy graduate and worked in Chicago under Arne Duncan–is totally in the right here when the board came up with some bogus allegations about misrepresenting his CPA background and other fictions. There is a HUGE uproar over the firing or whatever you want to call it and a move to recall at least some of the board members involved.
I know Martinez is in the right because the district’s administrators pulled similar garbage with me back in 2008, thus wrecking me financially and seemingly forever.
You can do a Google search on the current mess. There are just too many articles to link here.
Here are some stories at this link:
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=washoe+county+school+district+pedro+martinez&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=washoe+county+school+district+pedro+martinez&tbm=nws
It’s huge. The state attorney general’s office is investigating charges the district trustees violated the Open Meeting Law.
Even the governor’s wife yesterday blasted the board’s actions.
He’s going to get either this or some other job in education management because these are the very qualities and credentials that the deformers most value; diversion, corruption, blatant lying and taking credit for the work of others while gouging the taxpayers for the highest salary you can scam out of them.
With all the mounting evidence of Carter’s lack of academic integrity and poor ethics, purely for personal gain, Lesley University had better be investigating very thoroughly whether Carter’s dissertation was plagiarized (or purchased).
If the man has no qualms faking credentials, why stop there?
You’re not suggesting he might fake test scores or graduation rates, are you?
Wow–why copy something so poorly worded and empty?
I wouldn’t give someone a job based on that not because it was plagiarized but because they said nothing and said it poorly.
Doctor Terrence P. Cheater…He can put that on top of his resume, right!?
I had commented on another post (I think Klonsky’s) that this sounded like the recent plot line of the very awful CBS show “Bad Teacher” (the only episode I’d watched, & this hapless, scheming wretch {for those of you who liked the movie–& I kinda did, because it was so farfetched, the acting was so exaggerated, that it was clearly a dark comedy} had stolen someone else’s resume, & the moronic principal thinks it’s okay!). So, does life imitate art, or visa versa? Something else that used to come only from the likes of The Onion–but now it’s real news.
The good news is, however, he’s finished with his “administrative, executive” career.
Pear$on will take him, though, but at least we don’t have to see this dance of the lemon play out in a community near us anytime soon!
Here’s an idea for these folks: Use the computers that grade student essays to scan applications for plagiarism.
There are a variety of services out there that do exactly that. Some at my institution use Turn It In: http://turnitin.com
That’s my point. Why aren’t these applications scanned? This isn’t the first time something like this happened.
Concerned,
One reason may be that what is written down is not really that important.
The problem is capitalism.
The problem is OUR brand of capitalism, which is largely deregulated coupled with weakening social safety nets.
A perfect recipe for destroying a democracy . . . .
Seems like telling half truths and plagiarizing your resume is a necessary skill to become one of Arne Duncans Super principals and super superintendents. Someone who can bluff his way into a job he’s not qualified for.to begin with so he can shove the rhetoric of the reformers down teachers throats with no nasty conscience or moral principles to get in his way.
The man that New London just named as interim superintendent is a career educator and a decent administrator. I worked under him before in another district. This should be an improvement.
Good news for new London. Imagine choosing him to begin with. Pryor and Adamowski have much to learn from REAL educators.
One wonders why they didn’t choose this individual or another career educator in the first place.
here’s your answer “Knowledge Isn’t Power” by Paul Krugman. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/opinion/paul-krugman-knowledge-isnt-power.html?emc=edit_ty_20140801&nl=opinion&nlid=50637717&_r=0
Although he is referring to the fact that the consensus of the authentic/professional economists agree on the facts, the truth never makes it into the public arena because the media slants the facts; Krugman says: “It usually turns out that there is much less professional controversy about an issue than the cacophony in the news media might have led you to expect.”
Yes, professionals do not get much respect. “More important, over the past several years policy makers across the Western world have pretty much ignored the professional consensus on government spending and EVERYTHING ELSE placing their faith instead in doctrines most economists firmly reject.” Substitute ‘education’ for “economics.” Professional educators, including those of you who write on this blog, are not the ones who get to run the schools.
Krugman continues… just substitute EDUCATION for Economics. “Am I saying that the professional consensus is always right? No. But when politicians pick and choose which experts — or, in many cases, “experts” — to believe, the odds are that they will choose badly. Moreover, experience shows that there is no accountability in such matters. All of which raises a troubling question: Are we as societies even capable of taking good policy advice?”
Well, when the ‘advice’ comes from the likes of Campbell Brown, instead of from real educators, we know the answer.
Campbell Brown was chosen to represent the view of the education deformers, and Colbert gave her a forum. The principal that would be chosen by this woman would NOT be a real educator.
When crisis struck education, we got the Duncan narrative not the professional advice of genuine educators: “When crises struck, however, much of what we’ve learned over the past 80 years was simply tossed aside,” says Krugman abut economics, but the same applies to what genuine knowledge about how learning is enabled. Every cockamamie theory that comes out about what the schools should do, pushes aside the research that shows what actually works… like the REAL National Standards (yes Duane) that no one has heard about… despite the zillions spent by Pew to prove the * principles of learning’ out of Harvard.
Krugman sums it up for education, too, when he says: “And macroeconomics, of course, isn’t the only challenge we face. In fact, it should be easy compared with many other issues that need to be addressed with specialized knowledge…” You bet, Paul, Like education and pedagogy. “So you really have to wonder whether and how we’ll avoid disaster.”
It is a disaster for out children who will not be children for long, but who will be running this country. It is a disaster for our democracy to have outrageous lies, like those spoken by Brown, cloaked in words that appeal to a citizenry ignorant of what the PROFESSIONALS ACTUALLY KNOW WORKS.
The defining issue for our democracy is ensuring that education is available for all our future citizens , and our Institution of Education is not dismantled by the deliberate manipulation of the truth by the likes of Campbell Brown!… because the disaster is real, and like climate change it is not a matter of opinion.