When Gina Raimondo was Governor of Rhode Island (she is now Biden’s Secretary of Commerce), she determined that the only way to fix the Providence schools was a state takeover. Raimondo, a former hedge fund manager, hired Angelica Infante-Green as state commissioner, although Green’s experience was limited to two years of Teach for America and a few years as a state bureaucrat (she was never a principal). Green promptly joined Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, whose members favor privatization and oppose unions.
Green hired Harrison Peters as superintendent of schools for the troubled Providence district. Peters hired ex-Tampa administrator Olayinka Alege to be the Providence network superintendent of secondary schools.
Then parents and students began to complain that Alege liked to massage their feet and pop their toes. More boys came forward to report toe-popping incidents. Alege said it was discipline, but some of the toe-popping occurred in private gyms.
Infante Green asked both Harrison Peters and Alege to resign. Peters leaves with a buyout of $170,000. Legislators are outraged that he wasn’t fired “for cause” without severance pay.
Senator Louis P. DiPalma, chairman of the Senate Rules, Government Ethics and Oversight Committee, called the Peters payout “unconscionable.”
“I’m not a lawyer, but I think there could have been termination for cause,” he said. “And there should have been 11 months ago.”
DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat, noted that Peters on Monday told the committee he knew about news reports from 2009 that Alege had been accused of squeezing the toes of multiple boys in Florida – a practice referred to as “toe popping” – but Peters did not tell the hiring committee about that information.
Infante-Green is undeterred. The turnaround will continue.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh bleagh …
That toes thing is also sick.
What the heck?!
Forceable toe-popping?! Who even knew that was a thing.
How is this even discipline? A school administrator can’t punch a child or bend his finger back until the child is in pain and call it “discipline”. It is an assault that would be prosecuted. So why isn’t this man being charged?
He has been charged and pled not guilty. From the providencejournaldotcom, 5-13-21: A former Providence school administrator pleaded not guilty to an assault charge Thursday morning in District Court, Warwick.
Olayinka Alege, 40, of 807 Providence St., West Warwick, is accused of grabbing the foot of a boy who was working out at a Warwick gym, removing the boy’s shoe and sock and massaging his foot while the boy protested, according to an affidavit filed in District Court, Warwick.
After Alege’s arraignment, his lawyer, Joseph Solomon Jr., said, “The allegations are not what they appear to be.” end quote
The man is a serial foot grabber.
Yikes!
Thank you for the info!
I think there’s a typo in the post – Raimondo is Secretary of Commerce. (Thankfully, the million times superior Janet Yellen is Treasury Secretary)
You are right. I will fixit
Race to the Toepop?
Teach for America, Jeb Bush’s “Chiefs for Change,” Hillsborough County’s Alege… UGH! Being a public school advocate in the state of Florida means beware of
“toeing the line” !!!
Bishop Tobin of Providence is politically very powerful. Similar to Louisiana, a state unique in the south in terms of size of Catholic population, R.I. is the state that per capita has the most people identifying as Catholic.
From the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence site,
“Education- Where does the Catholic Church stand on issues critical to the success of public and private education- (Item 4) Supports parental choice in education”.
It’s been reported by a commenter at this site that the loss of congregants to one church is 5 times that of other churches. If that loss doesn’t alter the politicking of the organization then, it provides evidence that the leaders do not consider congregants as the source of their power nor do they view the collective congregants as impacting their political successes.
Many rich people, regardless of faith, don’t want to pay for poor kids’ educations. A church may couple advocacy policies, (1) fully fund public education and (2) parental choice but, the reality is the billionaires are on just one side of the equation.
Well, . . . “you can’t make this up” really does apply here . . . and there. CBK
I never heard of “toe popping” until now. This guy has a foot fetish, but only for boys.
Having seen the results of state takeover in Arkansas, nothing could surprise me about state takeovers. This comes close. Corruption abounds.
Regarding your first sentence, readers can learn about education policy professors like the University of Arkansas’ Patrick Wolf, from an article at Arkansas Catholic.