Kevin Ward, a leader at the KIPP network of charter schools in D.C. killed himself after it was revealed that he stole $2.2 million from the schools’ account, allegedly to buy technology. He was also mayor of Hyattsville, Maryland. ,
A Maryland mayor who died by suicide this year had been accused of embezzling millions of dollars from one of the largest charter networks in the District, according to a complaint filed by federal prosecutors.
During his tenure as senior director of technology for KIPP DC, Kevin Ward used $2.2 million of school funds to purchase cars, a camper, sports memorabilia and property in West Virginia, prosecutors alleged in a civil forfeiture complaint filed Monday. Ward worked for the charter network from 2017 until at least July 2021, according to court records, two months after he was elected mayor of Hyattsville.
The payments, approved and arranged by Ward, were supposed to go toward laptops, tablets and other technology for children, prosecutors say. However, none of the products or services for which the school system paid were ever delivered, according to court records.
Officials at KIPP DC, which enrolls about 7,000 students across eight campuses in the District, said they found irregularities with certain technology purchases during a routine internal review in December. Leaders suspected fraud and contacted the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which launched an investigation, the school said in a statement.
The school system also conducted its own review, led by outside counsel and a team of forensics accountants, which found “this was an isolated incident conducted by a single individual who took advantage of extraordinary circumstances during the pandemic and the individual’s role as head of technology.”
The lack of transparency and oversight in charter schools enables crimes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“this was an isolated incident conducted by a single individual who took advantage of extraordinary circumstances during the pandemic and the individual’s role as head of technology.”
Of course it was!
You seem unconvinced. This is the billionaire funded system. Surely they wouldn’t set up an uncontrolled scam fest.
Haaaa! Surely not!
“uncontrolled” — that’s the right word
No, not unconvinced. Just attempting to be humorous.
NPE keeps an ongoing record of charter scandals. While not all of the bad behavior relates to embezzling, there is a record of scandals that go on for 122 pages. https://networkforpubliceducation.org/charter-scandals/
What NPE has done and continues to do in this regard is amazing. Where is the freaking press that should be reporting on NPE’s findings IN GENERAL?
Well, it’s owned by the very oligarchs who want to privatize everything to enable the rapaciousness.
Bob: have you not heard of the liberal press? That’s a thing, right?
YEs, I know!
You would think that someone was wondering where $2.2 million went.
Great question, Diane. The level of incompetence or collusion with this theft is breathtaking. Hey, it’s only a few million. Probably lying around here somewhere. LOL.
Years ago, I knew a fellow who got his arm caught in the machinery at a car wash. Ripped his arm off at the shoulder joint. He walked, armless, to where the customers were waiting for their cars and said, “Does anyone here have a Band-Aid? I think I’m hurt?” As it happens, he was one of the first people in the country to have a limb reattached via surgery.
Well, this story is kinda like that, isn’t it? Hey, did anyone see the millions that were supposed to be spend on computers for the kids?
At least his arm was cleaned off.
Reminds me of Breaking Bad.
The KIPP embezzler should probably have started a car wash as a front so no one would be suspicious about his high end purchases.
Haven’t you seen It’s a Wonderful Life!? It’s in that yacht, that vacation, that mansion…it’s shared with everyone in the community! It’s right there in the false invoice that had that backyard smoker/grill custom built. Isn’t that why Jimmy Stewart took his life in the ending?
No kidding. I mean WTF that it took that long to figure it out.
The “incident” was completely isolated
As isolated as a single ant in a ten foot high ant hill.
As isolated as a single caribou in the yearly Alaskan migration.
Feel free to add your own.
As isolated as a single top secret document at Mar-a-lago.
As isolated as a single lie in all of Trump’s tweets.
As isolated as a single virus in a person who just tested positive for COVID.
As isolated as a single water molecule in all the world’s oceans.
As isolated as a single proton in the sun.
As isolated as
A dog tick on a German Shepherd
A while spot on a snowball
A catfish below the dam
Thread in a bolt of fabric
As isolated as any one of my “as isolated as” comments.
Where was the KIPP Board of Directors during all this time? They should be held accountable for their failure to do their jobs and watch what this Ward was doing with the schools funds.
Where the IT people who should have known about the orders for laptops and other such items? Why did they recognize something was going negatively wrong?
Of course his family that he left behind have to pick up the pieces and face the music but I cannot believe they did not question where all the money was coming from for all those crazy expensive purchases.
Corporations facing negative publicity often prefer to keep a situation in-house and under the radar. The plan can become untenable if there is a perceived threat that some of the firm’s management might get caught up in a cover-up if they aren’t forthcoming. Just a musing.
Public policy advocacy for school privatization creates opportunities for grift.
State Catholic Conferences and groups like Fordham…
That KIPP money was public money. No one in DC will care because the mayor is a huge fan of charters.
An audit would have helped.
Moe: really good points. Is this the result of our unwillingness to question the use of money? Where is papa getting all this cash? Why does my co-worker drive a Mercedes?
I can believe it. Question nothing and simply continue to grift. It’s the American way.
How was this allowed to happen? KIPP is guilty of so much that is wrong with charter education! Support public education for all!
Anything that has to do with money attracts the darker side of human behavior. We all subject ourselves to monetary oversight to avoid the appearance of evil.
Well, some of us some do.
It’s somewhat more than just the appearance that most of us try to avoid.
In our own mind, we avoid evil. Subjecting ourselves to oversight avoids the appearance thereof, while arresting the practice of evil as much as we can.
Sorry, Roy. I failed to read your statement closely enough. You are saying that we willingly subject ourselves to oversight to avoid EVEN the appearance of evil. My bad. And my apologies.
No apology necessary. I should have listened to my journalism teacher as about being clear And brief.
You were clear. I read what you said hastily and incorrectly.
As the NPR reports show, this incident is standard operating procedure in the charter and voucher and virtual learning industries. This is not an aberration. This is how they are intended to work. Not a bug but a feature.
When Ward drove one of his two Teslas to events, an astute observer, one who was charged with oversight of public money, should have taken note.
Shout out to the USCCB and the Koch Network for their advocacy of school privatization.
In every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot- Jefferson.
They may have killed themselves. They also may have been murdered and made to look like they killed themselves, so they wouldn’t be tempted to make a deal and reveal someone higher up the rancid food chain that was also guilty.
Heck, selfishness is baked into the physics of KIPP, plain and simple. And a head baker is none other than the President and CEO of United Negro College Fund, Michael Lomax, who’s on the KIPP Foundation Board of Directors. Go figure.
I am sorry Dr. Ravitch, but I have many issues with this. First, a person took his own life. There could be many reasons for this – guilt, perhaps other reasons. But the title of this post seems to make light of suicide. As someone who has had close friends commit suicide, I don’t think that such a loss should be posted so carelessly. Second, while yes, there should be oversight in schools, I find it fascinating that you haven’t kept track of any of the scandals that have happened, with money or other things, within more traditional public schools, and not just charter schools. Should there have been more oversight – of course. But if you had read anything about this gentleman, who served as the mayor of a small town in Maryland, one can see that perhaps there was too much trust placed in this gentleman. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/03/hyattsville-mayor-ward-suicide/). As for the question if how 2.2 million could be spent and be seen as missing, it’s very easy – this all happened during a pandemic – have you read the number of schemes that have happened with COVID funding – that people falsely claimed they were businesses, etc. Should there be more oversight in education spending – sure! But to speak so carelessly about someone taking their life – well, it’s disappointing.
I disagree with your perspective, jlsteach. Your concern should be for the students who taxpayers wanted to receive computers and technical assist so that they didn’t lose ground during the devastating time of Covid.
Before that, Ward made a choice not to help students in public schools, favoring the abomination of privatization.
Not all people should be canonized in death. Diane struck an appropriate neutral tone.
The loss is to those who loved him and they knew his flaws and good traits. The public’s opinion, people who didn’t know him, is immaterial. If he had decided to turn his life around and make amends, we would have had the opportunity to show compassion.
If the money he allegedly stole had been spent on an addiction… But, it appears he spent it on lots of cars.
I disagree. The title was neutral, simply a statement of facts. The person question was a KIPP Leader. He stole $2.2 milllion instead of buying technology for students. He took his own life.
I do not show indifference to his suicide. Two members of my family died by suicide, including my brother, who was dear to me.
I take umbrage at your fake accusations.
I agree that there was no making light of suicide in the post. I lost a precious former student’s life to suicide a year ago and didn’t think twice about the title of the post. This was a post about charter schools letting public funds go to buying personal items without proper public oversight.
Huh?
To paraphrase the Catch-22 quote, you really need to rise above principle in this case. There are suicides and there are suicides. I doubt a person who read this disagrees with your thoughts in theory. That is definitely that way most of us act and react, or at least try to. To be honest, I’m still having trouble saying “died by suicide” when I automatically say “committed.” But the good news is that I realize it immediately and correct myself.
What we are referring to is a classic example of Schadenfreude. We are not laughing, snickering, or taking a certain joy in the outcome by minimizing suicide at all. We are laughing because we well know that virtually none of these criminals are held legally or morally accountable. They live in luxury or are promoted to do even more damage. So when one is caught and pays a substantive price, in this case death by his own hand, it is very satisfying. It would have been just as satisfying if he had been impaled by a fence post, tripped into a furnace or was hit by a car. Whenever someone pays in some way, it releases endorphins caused by Schadenfreude. We like to see those who deserve punishment get it, especially when we know the system is rigged to minimize his malfeasance as much as possible. Simple as that. Consider this a longer version of “Huh?”, should that author allow.
Fordham should update its research using KIPP DC for illustration.
Back in 2010, Fordham wrote about its research finding relative to schools in general and identified an average of 150.2 students per administrator.
Does the KIPP DC webpage show about 75 people on the “team.” Here is a partial listing of the team departments and the number of staff in them, External Affairs- 9, Legal and Accountability- 6, Finance, Accounting and Real Estate- 8, Recruitment- 5. If we add to the total number listed, the 18 school principals and I speculate there’d be another 18 vice principals then, calculate the ratio based on 6800 students, what would Fordham find?
I wanted to respond to a few of the comments.
First, there is a factual error in the title AND the post, “Kevin Ward, a leader at the KIPP network of charter schools in D.C. killed himself after it was revealed that he stole $2.2 million from the schools’ account, allegedly to buy technology. He was also mayor of Hyattsville, Maryland.” DID he kill himself AFTER it was revealed? The man died in January. Perhaps IT was revealed to him THEN that he was under investigation. But from everything that I see the revelation happened MONTHS later. So, this may not a case of…Oh, I got caught, so let me kill myself…
Second, Linda, why is it one thing or another? Why is it that my concern should be for the students who lost access to technology AND not for someone who chose to take his life. Mr. Ward was someone’s son, he was someone’s neighbor. The actions he did were clearly wrong, and if he were alive he should be punished for them. Perhaps it was part of a mental illness that led to the actions? I honestly don’t know and neither do you or anyone else on this post. This reminds of many posts on Twitter about the passing of Queen Elizabeth where people chose to berate the idea of a Commonwealth instead of realizing that someone’s mother just died. Imagine being King Charles III – on one hand ascending to a title I am sure he has longed for over many years, and yet the only way to earn that title is if your own mother dies.
Third Linda, you write, “Before that, Ward made a choice not to help students in public schools, favoring the abomination of privatization.” Do you know WHY he did that? Perhaps he tried to work within the public schools system and faced so many roadblocks he became frustrated and thus turned to charter schools (which, let me remind you and everyone here, are technically public schools using public funding). When you go so far as to admonish someone who decided to go into education but didn’t do it in the way that you would have preferred him to, why call that such a negative choice?
JLSteach,
Enough. I appreciate that you are very sympathetic to Mr. Ward, but there was nothing in the title or the article that was not factual.
My brother killed himself by putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
I have deep empathy for anyone who commits suicide and for their survivors who grieve their loss.
People on the blog are free to react as they will, without asking your approval.
The post did not mock him or take pleasure in his death.
Let it go.
I’m sorry he killed himself.
I’m sorry he fleeced KIPP of $2.2. million.
I’m sorry you take offense at a factual account of what happened.
jslteach-
First, charter schools are not public. State supreme courts in places like Ohio ruled they are private. Lockheed receives tax money but, it doesn’t lie and claim to be a government entity.
Independent of this particular situation, just a discussion in general terms-
(1) Would people with mental illness be offended with your suggestion that it is within their illness diagnoses to steal to buy luxury items? Fyi-The afflicted might recognize the result is employers less willing to hire them.
(2) The first person in line for victimhood is the person robbed not the thief.
(3) A person who chooses an organization for employment, e.g. privatized K-12, may make the decision because he/she knows the cookie jars aren’t guarded.
(4) Administrators, on occasion, move from one organization to another to find a good fit. Pubic schools are plentiful making choices abundant. However, if a person’s qualifications make them uncompetitive in the market or, if they get a better salary and benefits in a more lax enterprise…
An observation (profound in its implication) derives from your argument. You may want to consider what it does to undermine your position. A gay person would not find employment at a conservative religious school. SCOTUS ruled religious schools cannot be excluded from tax funding in states where privatization has been approved.
If Mr. Ward agreed with the SCOTUS conservative judges that there should be exemptions from civil rights employment law for private (religious) schools then, could it be viewed as betraying his race?
2018- NYT- “Founder of KIPP schools, is fired after misconduct claims”
Queen Elizabeth was a monarch. At any point that people, especially citizens of the United Kingdom, choose to express opposition to or, to disavow support for a form of government that concentrates wealth and fosters a class system, they should do so.
In the current system, the Queen’s SUBJECTS have no opportunity to request a peaceful transition of power to someone they select.
To understand media’s enthrall with Britain’s monarchy, one only need to look at the demographics of the Accession Council to whom Charles gave a speech yesterday.
Diane, I agree. It is go. I do feel sorry for his family. Now they are going to have to clean up the mess he created. That will not be an easy task and they will be answering to what he illegally did for years to come and have the shame to go with it. Where was the love for his family in doing what he did?