In Connecticut, a formal investigation of Families for Excellent Schools and Jumoke Academy concluded that the growing charter chain–a favorite of top state officials–engaged in unchecked nepotism, with little or no supervision by the state. Be it noted that Governor Dan Malloy appointed Andrea Comer, chief operating officer of FUSE to the state Board of Education. Comer resigned from her position at FUSE after the scandals surrounding Michael Sharpe broke, and she also resigned from the State Board of EducAtion.
The Hartford Courant reports:
The Jumoke Academy charter school operation was saddled with “rampant nepotism,” imposed little or no oversight on former CEO Michael Sharpe and made repeated financial missteps that could sink the organization within three years, according to a 99-page investigative report ordered by the state Department of Education.
The report, released Friday afternoon and coming in the midst of an FBI investigation of Jumoke and the closely related Family Urban Schools of Excellence, mirrors reporting by The Courant since June. The state report was especially critical of Sharpe, who hired multiple family members, gave work to the relatives of Jumoke executives, approved the hiring of felons for school jobs and oversaw “expensive and ornate modifications” to a Jumoke-owned apartment that he later rented. Sharpe resigned on June 21.
“There were virtually no checks and balances in place to control Mr. Sharpe’s actions at Jumoke,” the report’s author, Hartford attorney Frederick L. Dorsey, wrote. “Michael Sharpe basically had unfettered control of Jumoke from the time he was appointed CEO in 2003, and even after he had transitioned in July 2012 from CEO of Jumoke to CEO of FUSE.”
Here is the full report: http://blog.ctnews.com/education/files/2015/01/Jumoke-FUSE-Invest-2014-2.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
checks and balances
Thanks for posting all the documents Diane. CT can count on you when we can’t depend on our “leaders”: Alan Taylor, Stefan Pryor, Dan Malloy, Andrew Fleischman. The entire CT BOE should resign starting with the board chair, Mr. Taylor. All had nothing but praise for fake Dr. Sharpe, a convicted felon.
I must add all of them were praising this fraud constantly while simultaneously bashing teachers, the tenured unionized kind.
I guess we have to learn all over again that nepotism often results when there’s little regulation and no consistent process.
I guess all of the ordinary pitfalls of government contracting also apply to charter schools.
I don’t know why charter contractors were and are treated as unique and singular. How does CT regulate other contractors? Why not just apply those lessons to charters?
“the ordinary pitfalls of government contracting” also include bid-rigging, sole-source, nepotism et al– but it’s all against the law 😉 Not that that’s a big deal when deep-pocket corps can legally pony up millions for campaigns & lobbying to ensure they get sole-sourced, & that legislators will cut funding for audits.
But how on earth charter schools’ ‘unique & singular’ status allows them to fly under the radar of routine precautions such as assuring contractors’ financial solvency & following good business practices is beyond me.
I think plain language might help. These are government contractors with government contracts. Nothing”special” about them. No reason they should be exempt other than the fact that politicians are madly in love with the whole concept.
Ordinary financial and ethical safeguards shouldn’t at all limit their ability to “innovate!” in educational matters, even if we accept the premise that they’re “innovating!” (I don’t).
They’re still not doing it in this case. One of the board members says he’s planning on selling property that was purchased with public funds. Why are they permitted to sell property with a private board overseeing that? Who owns the property they’re selling? Where do the proceeds go?
I think they didn’t regulate these contractors because they wanted fast charter growth and low barriers to entry into the market. They should admit that.
Whether they admit it or not I care not. You are an atty, no, Chiara? It must be that in a number of states (or maybe all), charter laws have entered via a different pathway than state-govt-contracting laws.
Lately I’ve been thinking this may be just as well. Already the article commentaries in states where charters have been allowed to proliferate has begun to turn cynical as charter scams & flops are shown to be wasting taxpayer dollars,,, ‘ROI’ on ed investment is tough to demonstrate, & even ideologues pay attention to their wallets.
It will remain then only for litigation to show that charters are failing (same as they claimed poor-district p.s. were failing) to provide equal access to quality ed/
Thank you Diane for your courage in calling it straight. For some reason the Hartford Courant doesn’t touch the powers-that-be (*cough~white men*) in this state.
Connecticut officials should have known about this corruption years ago. Not only were they supposed to exert some sort of oversight over Jumoke charter chain, they were supposed to impose even higher scrutiny over the Hartford public school, Milner, that they handed over to Jumoke. Instead, they let Jumoke drive Milner into the ground, and AT THE SAME TIME, handed Michael Sharpe (convicted felon) yet another charter school- Booker T. Washington charter school in New Haven. Once this scandal broke, the State Board of Ed, in a hasty and unprecedented process, they gave Booker T charter approval to be run by another questionable character–someone who misrepresented his record at an Albany charter school – and let slide a whole host of “curious” connections. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Connections-in-charter-world-a-curious-weave-5710475.php
This, unfortunately, is par for the course with this State Board of Ed, which treats charters with kid gloves- ignoring segregation, poor performance, and corruption, while taking over impoverished school districts whose only crime is being poor.
“Michael Sharpe basically had unfettered control of Jumoke from the time he was appointed CEO in 2003, and even after he had transitioned in July 2012 from CEO of Jumoke to CEO of FUSE.”
I think the transfer of funds aspect of charters is worth pursuing. Are there controls on that, that the school funding stays with the school? It has huge ramifications, because obviously (local) people would want to know if school funding is going into aligned organizations, causes, opening new schools, etc.
Obviously public school districts can’t do that, they can’t transfer funds from the district to another town, city, state or “aligned” organization. The same thing came up with the UNO contracts in Chicago. How much state and federal funding “follows” any student in one particular school, and how much goes elsewhere?
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/03/out-state-group-touting-charter-schools-expands-boston/BAe7FcsAsiSpUFzXQE9Y2H/story.html they are in CT, NY, Louisiana is mentioned in the report…. this is an article in Boston Globe….
We have a FUSE charter school in Louisiana and speaking with the “principal” or whatever his title is, he sounds foreign (Turkish maybe?). And his last name definitely is foreign (Turkish?). I say this because I wonder if this is a Gulan organization.
October 4, 2012 USDE awarded this Jumoke with $100,000 to work on the Common Core with another school in Hartford. http://fuse180.org/hartfords-jumoke-academy-awarded-100000-federal-grant-for-milner-school-partnership/
Then wonder-of-wonder in touch tag, the Gates Foundation awarded Jumoke $1,054,143 one month later, November 2012, for the same purpose.
Now I am wondering if this “fortuitous timing of grants” is a pattern. Skilled investigative reporters might find more of these cases where USDE seems to be “seeding” bigger grants from foundations and not giving any oversight to the rampant corruption in these and other charters .
If you want a clear picture of what is wrong with the aggressive promotion of charter schools take a look at the report by Attorney Dorsey. First, Michael Sharpe is able to pass himself off as an accomplished educator (a PHD no less); then he becomes CEO of FUSE. He uses nepotism to surround himself with loyal courtiers. He then gets involved in some shady real estate deals and a dubious sub-rental situation. When he uses state money to pay for elaborate home improvements, you could say we are far, far away from the education and uplift of poor children. But that would be understatement. In reality, the children under Sharpe’s charge are simply means to leverage more money for empire building and fast and loose playing. One problem with the report: it does not go far enough in outlining the role of the State Education Dept (and particularly Commissioner Stefan Pryor) in promoting FUSE, the Jumoke Academy, and their disgraced CEO, Michael Sharpe. Perhaps the FBI inquiry will give us a better picture of that connection.
Here’s our proposed motto, courtesy of Lily Tomlin:
“No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.”
Shall we put it to a vote?
Nailed It!
Many concerned people–parents, bloggers, writers–have been asking questions about Michael Sharpe and FUSE–see the numerous posts on Jonathan Pelto’s blog, for a start.
When Stefan Pryor, the (thankfully) out-going CT State ed commissioner, was ramping up his reform initiatives, such as the state Turnaround Office and the Commissioner’s Network, he showcased Michael Sharpe and the “Jumoke” model. This emboldened Sharpe to create his FUSE corporation–along with the Northeast Charter School Network. Pryor had Michael Sharpe present his “Jumoke model” to all the schools forced into the Commissioner’s Network, such as Windham, CT and Bridgeport. Thus, at the roll-out workshop for participating districts, Michael Sharpe was the star, along with his employee, Andrea Comer–who was immediately nominated to be placed on the State Board of Education. Could there be any more blatant proof that not only Pryor, but the State Board of Education, the legislature, and the governor, threw their full support behind Michael Sharpe and Jumoke, a man they called doctor and a “model” they hailed as exemplary?
Stefan Pryor has a nerve pretending to scold Sharpe. No one enabled Michael Sharpe more than the Commissioner, the SBE, and Stephen Adamowski, the ex-Superintendent/CEO of Hartford schools who allotted Sharpe so much autonomy.
What’s in a word, that which we call “nepotism” by any other dictionary, we’d spell as “fraud”?
Now that Gov. Gina Raimondo (RI) has appointed Stefan Pryor to the new $195,000 position as the States first Commerce Secretary, I wonder if one of the main businesses that he plans to “grow” might not be the education business and charter schools. Isn’t her husband an education consultant as well?
Uuuugggghhhh!
And I thought we were bad enough off here in MA with Jim Peyser as Sec. of Education and Charlie Baker as governor!
Brace yourself Rhode Island…it is worse than you think. Hide your children and warn the teachers. He is coming to charterize, privatize, monetize your schools. See Pelto research here:
Gina Raimondo’s husband Andy Moffitt was Cory Booker’s roommate.
Moffitt is a member Stand for Children Board of Directors
Moffit is a Senior Practice Expert and member of core leadership team for McKinsey & Company’s Global Education Practice.
“Since co-founding the Global Education Practice in 2005, Andy has worked with multiple large urban districts, state education departments and charter management organizations to markedly improve system performance and close achievement gaps.
He co-authored a recent book, Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for School System Leaders (Corwin Press, 2010), which describes key success factors and steps in driving results in global school system reforms.
Before joining McKinsey, Andy was an elementary school teacher in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas as a corps member of Teach For America.”
From my recent article in the Progressive:
The Corporate Education Reform Industry effort to buy control of Public Education
This year’s election season provided a series of textbook examples of how corporate education reformers used their personal fortunes to contaminate the democratic process.
Let’s begin with the little state of Rhode Island, where former hedge fund owner and charter school champion, Democrat Gina Raimondo was elected governor with 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race—one in which there was an unprecedented level of campaign spending.
Raimondo, who as Rhode Island’s state treasurer won national acclaim from conservatives for successfully dismantling the state employee pension fund, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors associated with funding the education reform movement and profiting from the charter school industry. Her running mate, Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee, one of the state’s most vocal supporters of charter schools, was elected lieutenant governor with help from many of the same donors.
Over the course of her gubernatorial campaign, Raimondo collected checks from many of the major players in the charter school and “education reform” movement, including donations from billionaires Eli Broad and members of the Walton Family. (The Broad Foundation and Walton Foundation, along with Gates Foundation, are the primary funders behind the overall education reform movement.)
Another billionaire, former Enron executive John Arnold along with his wife, not only donated directly to Raimondo’s campaign and her political action committee, called Gina PAC, but the couple’s $100,000 check made them the largest donors to the American LeadHERship Council, a Super PAC affiliated with Raimondo. The second largest donor to the Super PAC was Eli Broad with $15,000.
A proponent of doing away with public employee pensions, Arnold also donated as much as $500,000 to an advocacy group called Engage Rhode Island, which spent approximately $740,000 lobbying for Raimondo’s successful assault on public employee pensions. Over the past three years, the John and Laura Arnold Foundation has donated more than $100 million in support of charter schools and entities involved in the corporate education reform industry, including being one of the largest contributors to Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence.
Raimondo’s success in raising funds from the charter school industry includes at least $50,000 from the members of the board of directors of Achievement First, Inc., the large charter chain that recently opened a school in Rhode Island, adding to their existing schools in Connecticut and New York.
Jonathan Sackler, an investment manager and heir to the Purdue Pharma fortune, is not only a founding member of Achievement First, Inc, but a founder of a national charter school advocacy group called 50CAN. One of 50CAN’s related entities, 50CAN Action Fund, dumped $90,000 to run TV commercials to help Raimondo’s running mate win his primary race.
As a result of the Citizens United case and IRS regulations, the 501(c) (4) Foundation 50CAN Action Fund can accept unlimited donations from contributors and can participate in political campaigns and elections, as long as
Why isn’t his in the PROJO?
What’s missing from the Jumoke/FUSE report, Part I by Jon Pelto:
http://jonathanpelto.com/2015/01/04/whats-missing-damning-jumokefuse-report-part-1/