A few days ago, the New York Times ran a first-page story about the big push by tech companies to get their software and hardware adopted by public schools. The market is huge, and the vendors are pulling out all the stops to woo District officials by inviting them to conferences, giving them awards, and showering them with attention. The district that was featured by the Times was Baltimore County, which had committed to spend $300 million on high tech, while basic physical needs of the schools were ignored. The BC Superintendent Dallas Dance had recently resigned, and he was replaced on an interim basis by his deputy Verletta White, who shared his passion for going high tech.
The big story was that the district bought equipment that was soon discontinued and that ranked third of four choices in an independent evaluation. No, the big story was how cleverly and insidiously the tech industry sold their stuff to school officials.
But now we learn that Dallas Dance and Verletta White both were paid fees by the tech industry and didn’t report the payments on their income disclosure. In relation to the size of the contracts, the payments were relatively small. Which does not excuse the payments but demonstrates how easy it is to buy influence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dallas Dance has retreated to Richmond, Virginia where he heads his own consulting firm. This is from his Linked In profile.
“President/Chief Executive Officer
The DDance Group
July 2017 – Present (5 months)Richmond, Virginia Area
President & Chief Executive Officer of a premier professional services consulting firm committed to partnering with our clients in order to assist them in accomplishing their biggest goals and solving their toughest challenges.”
This guy seems like a smooth operator. Obviously, he needs to consult with himself as he has some tough challenges ahead. Hopefully, he will be charged with tax evasion and perhaps more. That’s how the government got Capone. Unfortunately, Baltimore taxpayers are left to pick up the pieces of this fiasco. As Michael Jackson once sang, “You’ve been hit by, You’ve been struck by–
A smooth talking criminal.”
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Dance is in California
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Jennifer Mozingo- what is Dance doing in California, do you know?
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Please be sure to read the interim superintendent, Mrs. Verletta White’s response to the school system. At the most recent Board of Education meeting, she asked teachers to “rise up” because she thinks that teachers are being diminished by these articles being written about her and Dallas Dance. And feel free to comment on that page.
https://www.facebook.com/BaltCoPS/?hc_ref=ARR53tJpWf8wOFfkfsyHP5jPLEeq8njozimV_YquDk_qTFx7Ua1uE8kCaRCl1BGN_mg&fref=nf
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Defend her right to take payoffs from vendors?
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Yes, exactly.
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I tried to leave this comment on FB, but gitches galore prevented it.
While the income from ERDI is small, no-bid consulting contracts to ERDI subsequent to ERDI sales junkets are writ large in taxpayers’ view.
And furthermore: a letter pleasing confusion over bureaucratic rules is no justification, just a weak excuse. Income is income. It matters: you & Dance establish a pattern of not reporting small income on disclosure forms, paving the way for successors to not report larger & larger amounts.
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BCPS is deleting any negative comments, anyways. So you may be better off leaving them here. So discouraging.
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Yeah she’s full of crap. It’s deflecting. She’s caused alot of harm before even being superintendent.
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Ugh, I just read this and the Times articles. I’m going to bed now, but I’ll be back tomorrow to comment.
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These robbers should NOT be anywhere near our public schools and students.
The deformers ruin our youth and our public schools (a national treasure) while bilking the public with their bad products for … PROFITS at that. This is more than sick.
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