New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has released the first of a series of charter school audits. His audit team found that a charter school in the Bronx had not documented $135,000 in expenditures.
$6,000 for ice cream. $16,000 for unlimited MetroCards. $7,000 so the principal could travel to Boston, Albany and Las Vegas.
“If you’re going to go to Vegas, you better document it,” said City Comptroller Scott Stringer.
Over a two-year period, officials at the South Bronx Charter School for International Cultures and the Arts spent more than $135,000 without the proper authorization or documentation, according to city auditors.
Until now, the city’s charters have audited themselves. Eva Moskowitz led a legal battle to prevent external audits, and she prevailed in court. But the legislature passed a law authorizing the city comptroller to audit the charters since they are publicly funded.
The Success Academy charters will be audited. The report is supposed to be released later this year.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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So the charter promise of “lifting all boats” by using best practices was an empty boast and selling point?
If even a fraction of rheephorm assertions were true, this couldn’t possibly happen in a million years.
Or perhaps this is what is meant by “higher standards” in rheephorm circles.
Higher return. Less fiscal responsibility.
Makes ₵ent¢.
😎
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I love these audit reports, believe me. But when are we going to start hearing about the ones who fraudulently embezzle public money getting convicted and thrown in jail?
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It kind of happened in my district several years ago. A husband and wife, who both worked for the main office, embezzled funds by selling “books” (cheap photocopies) to the district, from a company that they owned. They were convicted of stealing $3 million dollars. However, they weren’t thrown in jail, sadly. The judge didn’t do that because of their “records of public service.” And the $3 mil hasn’t been paid back.
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Weren’t those two “well-connected” to certain legislators or higher-ups in the church? If I remember correctly, one got a piddly $4-500 fine for copyright issues, and then they had to give up their 2-3 houses and several vehicles to pay back some of the money. Maybe $500,000 out of $3-4 million back to the district?
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You are familiar with this, I see. They may have been connected to legislators–I’m not sure. But you are right on the tiny payback for what they stole. It’s ridiculous.
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I just published this on my own blog: Academy of Dover go BOOM!!!!
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This ties in well with the suddenly exposed “subprime balloon” bubble now being tied to the charter-school scandal.
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Cuomo and Elia should have to cover the loss from their salaries.
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Is Stringer planning to audit any NYC DOE schools? Whoever is supposed to be handling it in-house seems to be letting a bunch of stuff through the cracks lately. Here’s another headache for the DOE’s in-house public relations team on top of PS 207, PS 194, PS 193, etc.:
“The business manager of a crumbling Brooklyn high school has put four relatives on the payroll, whistleblowers charge.
“Alma Encarnacion has been running the show at the Urban Assembly HS of Music and Art in Downtown Brooklyn since Principal Paul Thompson is often absent, four teachers told The Post.
““He’s out of the building so much, there’s literally no one running the school except Alma,” one said. A lone assistant principal quit last year.”
Embarrassingly, the AWOL principal is married to a former member of Chancellor Fariña’s inner circle.
http://nypost.com/2016/02/28/teachers-say-nepotism-runs-rampant-at-this-high-school/
It’s a scary that two tabloids that could go out of business at any moment are apparently responsible for monitoring what goes on at district schools (it’s beneath the Times). Imagine how much stuff they are missing.
A little help, Scott Stringer. Please?
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Nice try, Tim. Public schools in New York State, including NYC districts, are required to be audited by the state on a regular basis. To imply otherwise is disingenuous at best.
http://www.oms.nysed.gov/oas/
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Charter schools in NY are required to undergo annual financial audits and at least two authorizer audits every five years.
Here is the most recent OAS audit on file for the NYC DOE. Does it seem particularly comprehensive to you, considering there are 1,700 DOE schools and nearly 200,000 DOE employees?
Click to access NYCDOERegion8FINALEPE-0614-01.pdf
Stringer’s audits are the offshoot of his placating a special interest. If he were serious about unearthing fraud and waste, he would have audited NYC DOE traditional public schools, and in proportions that reflect the 90-10 district-to-charter enrollment ratio in NYC.
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Tim,
Apparently your girlfriend Eva does not think she is subject to audits or rules for school finance. Personally, I think she ought to rule big Pharma, big Agra, big Banking, big NRA, big Pentagon, and big ego-ish, small headed parents who are banned from their children’s school.
In her model, people could just do anything they want, and society can have a free-for-all. We can then promote total chaos and anarchy, and well, who needs rules?
I will co-write this very position paper on Eva with you, advocating that she become the decider above and beyond the POTUS, Congress, the Senate, and the SCOTUS. We can pitch it to all the major networks, the NGA, Congress, and Cathy-Lee and Hoda.
Will you help me compose the paper?
Are you in, Tim?
This is your chance to do something meaningful . . . To BE something meaningful, especially to the people on this blog.
Don’t be Tim-id, for once.
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Yeah, yeah, kind of an argument American expats enjoying financial privilege in non-western countries love to use against Americans who don’t. Privilege for establishment of secret charcoal mining club, eh!?
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Tim, I don’t think the woman you mention is part of Chancellor Farina’s “inner circle”.
Seems more as if she is part of Bloomberg’s inner circle. When was her husband appointed to the principalship? Was it Farina? Or did it happen when Bloomberg’s DOE was all about reform, reform, reform?
This person left the DOE soon after Farina took over. She seemed to be removed from a job and given a sinecure job instead so she left for a private organization.
Remember, she was the one who said “small schools were working”! She led the Bloomberg DOE faux reforms and was rewarded handsomely. Are you sure you want to attack her? Here is the information about the principal you are criticizing:
“…..Another staffer said of Thompson, a musician who sources say was a substitute teacher before becoming principal in 2005….”
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^^^and by the way, Tim, it was teachers who brought this to the attention of the media. Were they union teachers or the ones so cowed by the loss of their job that they ended up video recording abuse of at-risk kids by the model teachers who were protected by their school?
I’m glad you now support unions. And acknowledge that principals may actually do things that are harmful to kids and not be able to fire any teacher who complains.
See, we agree!
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http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2015/12/sentencing_rescheduled_again_f.html
Check out Steven Ingersoll in Bay City, Michigan.
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Let the games begin…
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Who’s going to publish the first book?
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I am glad that Scott Stringer is auditing the finances of charter schools.
But he should also be auditing the practices.
Is it really okay if almost every child with severe special needs disappears from a charter school’s books as long as they document the fancy catered lunches they have with receipts?
Is it really okay if at-risk 5 year olds are being suspended at a rate of over 20% while middle class white kids are being suspended at a rate of 5% or less, as long as there are receipts for the buses used to transport the kids to political rallies?
Is it really okay if the attrition rate in the schools that serve primarily at-risk children of color is as high as 50% over a period of years while the attrition rate at a school that serves primarily affluent white children is significantly less, as long as there is a receipt for the cost of the trip to the National Chess tournament for selected children?
Is it really okay that a charter school release damaging personal records of a child they decide is too violent to deserve a spot in their school, as long as the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to hire public relations firms to attack their critics is properly documented?
I don’t think so.
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The Comptroller’s job isn’t to pass judgment on how the funds were used, just if the uses were for legal business that the funds were intended for, and documented appropriately. You need a civil rights case for many of the concerns you bring.
I do wonder how the rallies in the capital were paid for and if it is going to show that it came out of their budget as an educational expense of whether it was funded by outside people (but if staff were paid to go to a political rally I would be VERY interested to see the court case for compelled speech and taxpayers paying for political speech with education money)
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Today’s ed reform news in Ohio:
“E-school to repay Ohio hundreds of thousands for missing students”
Ed reform politicians in my state expand the for-profit eschools every year although they have the worst scores in the state.
Those same ed reform politicians have received in excess of 200k in campaign donations from the eschool operators this year.
Well, “campaign donations” might be too kind.
Bribes. They’ve received 200k in bribes, basically.
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Seek evaluation of the closed District 85. Who was the Superintendent?
Was it Barbara Byrd Bennet?
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Only $135,000?
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Yeah. That was my thought. If all that they dug up was $135k, then there are no big issues on the financial front here that will seriously ding charters. That’s not big $$ sorry to say. My district got a slap on the wrist after an audit found a “misplaced” $4 million (during a contract negotiation year no less). It was basically a warning to not do that again. There was no mention, obviously, from the state comptroller that it was real sleazy to hide $ during a contract negotiation either.
Anyway, if finding discrepancies in the hundreds of thousands of dollars is all these audits of charters will dredge up, then we can forget about this being a vector to go after charters. In fact, they could make the case that the audits are nitpicking them and that bigger financial discrepancies can be seen in public schools. And they’d have a point….my district blows $135k just in printing copies of common core nonsense to hand out to us during teacher training days.
As always, our eagerness to score a win against reformers via some apparatus outside of labor organizing and action may turn out to be a bust. Ain’t no saviors out there for us teachers. No audit, no federal prosecutor, no politician, no seat at a table, no opt-out will do for us what we inevitably have to do for ourselves.
I don’t think the audits will take down charters. Only whole communities fully rejecting them because they are a gross idea will kill charters…..and only then if the politicians are made to have no choice. I think a narrative that calls them what they are and one that is smarter and louder than the other side is the thing that could move in that direction. At some point this just has to be seen as a brawl. And believe me, we have the most to lose.
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I’ve recently wondered, when there are only charters left, who will the reformers go after?
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Donna, this is referring to just one school in the Bronx.
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“when there are only charters left, who will the reformers go after?”
No worry.
They will burn that bridge when they get to it.
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As a former charter school teacher this supports my firm belief that charter schools need more accountability and transparency when it comes to their finances.
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RE: trip to Vegas
Was it on a chartered flight?
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TAGO!
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Yes, but the flight took place on an airplane that they were still building in mid-air . . . .
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It is your tax dollars they are spending – taxation without representation -in other words – without an audit to see where your money is going – charters nowadays are about privitazation and power and money – they are far, far from the original ideas about lab schools run by creative teachers and thinkers helping students that did not fit in at regular schools. Albert Shanker is rolling in his grave.
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Does this, really, surprise anyone?
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One year into NCLB, with a sped population that generally didn’t make AYP, our school was told that we would receive extra funding to help out. It took six months
of Q&A. Finally, our school of 350 students, with a large sped population, received $1,250!
My point: $135,000 is a lot of money.
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The amount declared in the audit is just a checken feed. It’s like a rich Japanese corporate CEO giving out 1,3500 yen for a single ride of the bullet train.
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Here’s an education story that is not about charter schools, in case anyone cares.
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Whoa, I didn’t think Kate Taylor would ever write about New York City traditional public schools again, especially not a piece reporting that huge numbers of students enrolled in NYC DOE traditional public schools aren’t receiving recommended special education services.
In other breaking education news, yet another New York district (the 22nd one so far, to be precise) needed a little prodding from the state attorney general to open its schoolhouse doors to EVERYONE:
“From 2012 through 2015, Westbury schools asked about students’ citizenship status or for their Social Security numbers, which undocumented immigrants generally would not have, the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said. The schools also required students to give proof beyond what the state required that they lived in the district.
“As a result, the students — many of them unaccompanied minors from Central and South America — had their enrollments delayed by up to six months, and in some cases they gave up.
“Westbury schools were also found to have an unwritten policy of excluding non-English speakers over 16 from the public high school, instead sending them into alternative programs that did not allow them to earn a diploma. Mr. Schneiderman’s office identified nearly 24 students who were diverted, and found that they remained in the alternative programs from one to three years, without regular evaluations by the district.”
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Thank you FLERP! It’s nice when the people in charge of education are interested in fixing the problem instead of denying it exists and claiming that every single child is being served.
Unfortunately, the real fixes that are needed require money.
“Mr. Hartfield said in an email that fixing the computer system was “a top priority for the administration,” and that several city agencies — the Education Department, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Information Technology — were working together on a plan. The system was created by the Bloomberg administration for $130 million and implemented in 2011.”
I think Tim was under the impression that Mayor de Blasio and Carmen Farina have been going around the country claiming that they have solved the problems of special education in NYC and if all the other cities would just copy them all children in special education would be given a top tier education and would all pass state standardized tests. And Tim thinks that Kate Taylor wrote the article as a “gotcha” because it turns out that when Mayor de Blasio was claiming he had solved all the problems of educating ALL special education children — and doing it for less money — it was all a lie!
Of course, Mayor de Blasio never made such claims. His administration certainly seems to want to direct more (scarce) resources toward special education services, which is great and much needed.
Tim, that’s what is called having an honest discussion of the issues. If you begin with the lie that under Bloomberg and continuing under de Blasio every special education student was perfectly served, and attack any reporting that says otherwise, you get the kind of discussion you seem to have when it comes to charter schools.
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Diane,
This seems to fly in the face of the post that you just made regarding the Cohen charge that charters are not accountable to anyone.
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