Archives for category: Fraud
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Arizona: Charter School Leader Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy and Theft

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
17

The former director of the Bradley Academy of Excellence pleaded guilty to conspiracy and theft of millions of dollars.

Daniel Hughes, the former director of the Bradley Academy of Excellence, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy and theft.

According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Goodyear charter school over-reported its number of students enrolled for two years so it could receive additional funding.

For the 2016-2017 school year, 191 of the 652 reportedly enrolled students were fake. For the next school year, 453 of 528 were fake.

School officials worked together to create the fake students, which ultimately caused the school to receive $2.5 million in overfunding: about $2.2 million from the state, $230,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for meals and $91,000 from the U.S. Department of Education.

Related Links
West Valley charter school abruptly closes doors amid financial woes
Hughes pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of theft — both felonies — and faces between three and 12.5 years in prison.

The school, previously known as the Bradley Creemos Academy, abruptly closed in December before it was scheduled to be audited by the Arizona Department of Education.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Fraud

California: Tuck Refuses to Withdraw or Apologize for Vicious Campaign Ad Smearing Thurmond

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
0

Will big money buy the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California? Will false ads carry Marshall Tuck to victory?

The ACLU OF Northern California condemned the Marshall Tuck campaign for mailers falsely asserting that it had “sued Tony Thurmond.” It had not, and the ACLU demanded that the campaign withdraw the ad and offer an apology to Thurmond. Tuck refused.

Tuck is running a campaign based on lies. His character has been revealed. Will the public catch on in time to stop him? Or will the public believe Tuck’s scurrilous attack ads? It is possible. Tuck has an astonishing amount of money to spend. But should California’s schools be overseen by a person of such low ethics and character.

A thought for Marshall Tuck (written by sportswriter Grantland Rice):

“For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name,
He writes—not that you won or lost,
But how you played the game.”

Is Marshall Tuck and his billionaire backers so desperate to win that they will say or do anything? Apparently so.


See letter from ACLU to EdVoice here:

Here is a report on the ads, with links to the ads.

The dispute over negative ads has escalated, with the Thurmond campaign seeking to have an independent committee take off the air an ad that falsely claims Thurmond was reprimanded by the Obama administration.

The campaign for schools chief has attracted at least $43 million worth of contributions, most of which have gone to independent expenditure committees supporting Tuck and Thurmond.

Tuck’s backers are far outpacing Thurmond’s in fundraising: Two committees supporting Tuck have taken in $24.1 million as of Monday, while a committee supporting Thurmond has received $11.5 million. Independent expenditure committees can take donations of unlimited size but are barred from coordinating with campaigns.

The Tuck campaign had raised $4.2 million in direct contributions, compared to $2.8 million for Thurmond, as of Sept. 22, the most recent filing deadline.

The contributions have come largely from advocates of charter school expansion who back Tuck and labor groups who support Thurmond.

With two weeks to go in the race, and as some Californians are submitting early ballots for the Nov. 6 election, Tuck and Thurmond backers are spending millions of dollars on television, radio and mail advertisements. Campaign finance records show the committees supporting Tuck spent $8.1 million on television advertising alone as of the most recent campaign finance filing deadline on Sept. 22, while a committee backing Thurmond spent $4.4 million. Those totals are likely to increase substantially before Election Day.

Some of that spending has gone toward negative ads, leading Tuck and Thurmond to spar over new television commercials that criticize their records.

One recent ad from an independent expenditure committee supporting Tuck blamed Thurmond for problems in West Contra Costa Unified, the East Bay school district where Thurmond was a school board member from 2008 to 2012.

Another ad, produced by the Thurmond campaign, sought to tie Tuck to the education agenda of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Is it inaccurate to tie Tuck’s pro-charter history to Betsy DeVos. She supports charter schools. Tuck supports charter schools. No smear there. It’s a fact: Marshall Tuck supports school choice, like Betsy DeVos.

The anti-Thurmond ad was funded by an independent expenditure committee supporting Tuck established by EdVoice. EdVoice officials did not return multiple messages seeking comment on their ad.

“Before he was running for state superintendent, politician Tony Thurmond was responsible for a school district with widespread budget problems,” the ad states, referring to West Contra Costa Unified.

Text on the screen directly ties district problems to Thurmond. “Tony Thurmond: School Board Member”; “Tony Thurmond: Sued by the ACLU”; “Tony Thurmond: Reprimanded by the Obama Administration”; “Tony Thurmond: Failed Kids”; “Tony Thurmond: Wrong for State Superintendent.”

The voice over adds details about the district: “Ranked last in the state for failing to serve students of color. Sued for leaving at-risk students in rotting trailers with mushrooms growing in the floors. Reprimanded by the Obama Administration for failing to address widespread sexual harassment and assault in district schools. Tony Thurmond failed the students he was supposed to help. California deserves better.”

The ad does not mention that Thurmond was one of five West Contra Costa Unified board members.

The claim that Thurmond was reprimanded by the Obama administration is false. The letter from the Obama-era Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights criticizing West Contra Costa Unified’s handling of sexual harassment never mentions Thurmond or the district’s board. The letter was issued in 2013, after Thurmond left the board, though it does state the department’s investigation began during his term in 2010.

“I was never reprimanded by Obama, and I wasn’t even on the board when the letter was sent by the Department of Education,” Thurmond said. He added that the claim prompted his campaign to send a cease and desist order to the committee that produced the ad.

The ad’s statement that Thurmond was sued over school facilities is technically accurate, in that he was named as a defendant board member in an American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit against West Contra Costa Unified. However, the lawsuit named every member of the school board, along with the district, its superintendent and its associate superintendent. The district’s daily management falls to its administration, not the elected board members.

The ad mirrors criticism of Thurmond’s time in West Contra Costa in an opinion column published in the San Francisco Chronicle last month by Bill Evers, a hardcore Republican and a Tuck supporter. Evers is a research fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution. Evers was also a member of Trump’s education transition team. Evers is not a neutral observer. He is a rock-ribbed Republican who worked in George W. Bush’s Education Department as Assistant Secretary of Education. He was a senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, after the Iraq War. His endorsement serves to reinforce the fact that Tuck has a conservative agenda that is aligned with the Republican Party.

Basic fact: Tony Thurmond was endorsed by the Democratic Party. Marshall Tuck was booed at the Democratic State Convention. Tony Thurmond has run an honorable campaign. Marshall Tuck has not.

The state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as well as Christine Pelosi, the chairwoman of the California Democratic Party’s Women’s Caucus, have also denounced the ad. While the Tuck campaign is prohibited by law from coordinating with the independent expenditure committee that produced the ad, Thurmond’s campaign has called for Tuck to disavow it.

Tuck told EdSource he would not disavow the ad. It accurately described problems in West Contra Costa Unified during Thurmond’s term, Tuck said, and “the board should be held accountable for that.” But, he also stressed that the ad was outside of his control.

Andrew Blumenfeld, Tuck’s campaign manager, also defended the ad.

“Assembly member Thurmond uses his time on the school board as evidence of his ability to serve as state superintendent,” Blumenfeld said. “I think it’s well within bounds to question what was the quality of his leadership when he was on the school board.”

The California publication EdSource predicts that the race is on track to cost $50 million, with Tuck having a 2-1 advantage over Thurmond.

“The largest donors to EdVoice for the Kids PAC, which managed independent campaign committees for Tuck and other activities, are real estate developer Bill Bloomfield, $5.3 million; Doris Fisher, co-founder of the Gap clothing company, $3.1 million and venture capitalist Arthur Rock, $3 million.”

Tuck has been endorsed by Meg Whitman, chair of the board of Teach for America, by billionaire Michael Bloomberg of New York, by Christopher Cerf, who was appointed to be state commissioner in New Jersey by Republican Governor Chris Christie.

See info here:

http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017
Edvoice for the Kids PAC

Contributors here: http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=received

Contributions made (mostly to Tuck campaign) http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=contributions

See attached; expenditures of $4.9M since 09/17/2018 to two separate subcommittees

http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=expenditures

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Fraud, Lies, Privatization

Arizona: Parents Use Voucher Money for Personal Purchases, Not Education

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
23

Arizona’s State Auditor identified more than $700,000 in voucher money that was mis-spent for cosmetics, music, movies, clothing, sports apparel, and other personal items. Some even tried to withdraw cash with their state-issued debit cards. The state has not recovered any of the money. The legislature passed a bill to expand the voucher program, which gives parents a debit card for their e Peres, to every student in the state. Auditing will be even more difficult. Millions will be wasted. And many of the state’s children will go without an education.

On November 6, Arizonans will vote on whether to give a debit card to every parent in the state. If you don’t want universal vouchers, vote NO on Prop 305.

The Arizona Republic reports:


Arizona parents have made fraudulent purchases and misspent more than $700,000 in public money allocated by the state’s school-voucher style program, and state officials have recouped almost none of that money, a new Auditor General report has found.

The findings are the latest blow to a program that Republicans have touted as a model for school choice that has been replicated nationwide, but has faced serious questions about lax financial oversight.

The audit, released Oct. 25, found the state Department of Education, charged with administering and regulating the program, repeatedly failed to flag accounts at high risk for fraud.

That allowed parents whose children were enrolled in the Empowerment Scholarship Account program to make numerous improper purchases on state-issued debit cards, even after the accounts should have been frozen or closed.

The program began as a way to help parents of children with special needs find the educational services best suited to their kids. In 2017, Republicans in the Legislature expanded the program to make all of the state’s 1.1 million public-school students eligible to use tax money for private school tuition.

A grassroots group of parents and public education advocates who oppose the expansion collected tens of thousands of signatures to refer the law to the ballot as Proposition 305…

A “yes” vote on Proposition 305 keeps the newly expanded program in place. A “no” vote rolls back the 2017 expanded law….

The Auditor General found some parents used the ESA cards for transactions at beauty supply retailers, sports apparel shops and computer technical support providers. Auditors also found repeated attempts by some parents to withdraw cash from the cards, which is not allowed and can result in getting kicked off the program.

The audit also concluded education officials did not properly monitor parents’ spending, even after questionable purchases were denied, including on music albums deemed noneducational, Blu-ray movies, cosmetics and a transaction at a seasonal haunted house.

Categories Arizona, Education Reform, Fraud, Vouchers

Ohio: Before You Vote, Watch This 3-Minute Video

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
6

This video is about the ECOT scandal, which siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from Ohio’s public schools.

When you vote, think about the politicians who let this happen.

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

California: The Out Of Town Billionaires Who Want to Buy and Privatize Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
22

California has more charter schools than any other state. In part, this is because Governor Jerry Brown is a charter school ally, having opened two charters when he was mayor of Oakland. This great progressive governor had a blind spot about charters and ignored the proliferation of charters that were fraudulent and openly embezzled money from taxpayers to fatten their own wallets.

The study linked below lists the billionaires who bought the LAUSD election in 2017.

These are the same billionaires who are now bankrolling Marshall Tuck in his bid to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In that role, he would manage the growth of the charter industry and the decline of public schools. This is exactly the goal of Betsy DeVos.

A vote for Tony Thurmond is a vote to stop privatization and to improve public schools.

See the entire report on “out of town billionaires” here.

Learn the names of those who want to purchase the public sector and hand it over to pother entrepreneurs.

Will the voters be hoaxed?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud

Mike Pence’s Fake Rabbi Was a Defrocked Fake Rabbi: A Fake Fake Rabbi

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2018 //
39

We will never find out how low they will go.

This one, at least, is funny.

Mike Pence held a rally in Michigan. He wanted to show his respect to the victims of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The “rabbi” invited to speak was not Jewish. He was a convert to Christianity and part of a group called “Jews for Jesus,” which seeks to convert Jews to Christianity.

But now it turns out that he was defrocked as a “rabbi.”

He was not only a fake rabbi, he was a fake fake rabbi.

There was a burst of semi-bewildered outrage this week when Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, attempted to pay respects to the 11 Jewish victims of an explicitly anti-Semitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue two days earlier by appearing with a fake rabbi at his rally in Michigan on Monday. The “rabbi” in question, Loren Jacobs, subscribes to Messianic Judaism, a belief system that sees him spend most of his time essentially trying to convert Jews to Christianity. After all, if you think Jesus was the Messiah, you sound a lot like a Christian, and mainstream Jewish groups do not recognize Messianic Judaism as a Jewish faith.

It was, in general, a gesture of profound ignorance and disrespect. Jacobs, who reportedly attended “the Moody Bible Institute, a conservative Christian institute in Chicago,” invoked Jesus by name in his rally oratory and asked God Himself to back the Republican Party in the midterms. All God’s children, and all that.

But the tragicomedy only continued Wednesday, when NBC News came out with a stupefying new layer to the story. Jacobs is not, in fact, just a Fake Rabbi. He’s a Fake Fake Rabbi, which somehow doesn’t make him a real rabbi.

“Loren Jacobs, who was invited onstage by Vice President Mike Pence to speak at a rally in Michigan for a GOP congressional candidate, was defrocked 15 years ago, according to a spokeswoman for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations.”

Whatever Pence’s intentions, he certainly did not pay respect to the 11 Jews who were massacred in Pittsburgh, who were real Jews.

Categories Fake, Fraud, Pence

Denis Smith: The Five Most Common Words in Charterdom

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2018 //
17

Denis Smith worked for many years for the Ohio Department of Education. When he retired, he was employed in the office that oversees charter schools. He has written many articles about the scams and frauds that charter operators get away with in Ohio, as well as some that they don’t get away with.

He wrote me recently to say that the five most common words in charterdom are:

“The defendant will please rise.”

Isn’t it interesting that the pro-charter candidates, no matter which school district or city or state they live in, do not admit they are pro-charter.

Apparently the public is catching on, and it is not a good thing to admit that you want more charters.

Suddenly, everyone—even the execrable governor’s Scott Walker and Doug Ducey of AZ—call them selves “the Education Governor” and boast about (lie about) have they have helped public schools. Don’t believe them.

Any candidate funded by the Koch brothers, The Walton Family, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, or Michael Bloomberg is a Pro-Charter Candidate. They are coming to privatize your public school and replace it with a national corporate chain school.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Stephen Dyer: The ECOT Scandal Was Even Worse Than We Knew

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2018 //
17

Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio, a lawyer and former Ohio legislator, reports that the ECOT scandal is worse than previously known.

He writes:

New state funding reports indicate that ECOT had nearly 8,000 fake students in its last full year of operation. According to the Ohio Department of Education, its last year of operation, ECOT couldn’t account for about 20 percent of its students. However, the monthly finance reports ODE puts out suggests the number may have been closer to 55 percent.

First of all, the last year ECOT was fully operational was in the 2016-2017 school year. So I’m using that as a baseline for comparison.

In the 16-17 school year, ECOT received $103.6 million for 14,208 students. This year, it’s zero dollars. A lot of news stories have tried to figure out what happened to all those students. One of the challenges appears to be that they may not have actually had all those students….

ECOT graduated about 2,000 students in 2017, but even subtracting out those students from the 7,791 “missing” students means 40 percent of the ECOT total is unaccounted for — about double the rate that was found by ODE.

So there seems to be something going on here.

I would sure like to know how many, if any of the 7,791 students ECOT claimed it had in 2016-2017 that aren’t in charter schools anymore were actually ever there to begin with. Because it looks like the state’s 20 percent assessment may be significantly lower than first thought.

Follow him as he connects the dots.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Fraud, Ohio, Scandals, Virtual Charter Schools

Jan Resseger: The Good News About Resistance to Fake Reform

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2018 //
11

Jan Resseger sums up the many reasons to be optimistic about resistance to corporate education Reform.

Among them are the teacher walkouts this spring.

And much more.

The Reformers are no longer making grandiose claims. The evidence is in. They have no secret sauce. Just money. Lots of it.

Summary: Democracy beats billionaires.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud

Disgrace in San Antonio as Charter Vultures Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2018 //
27

This article by Tom Ultican tells the sordid story of rich elites who have cynically decided to destroy public education in San Antonio.

They have cumulatively raised at least $200 million to attract charter operators to San Antonio, a figure which includes funding by the U.S. Department of Education and local plutocrats. The lead figure is a very wealthy woman named Victoria Rico, who sits on the boards of multiple charter chains. Rico and her friends have decided to re-engineer and privatize public education in San Antonio. Rico is working closely with Dan Patrick, the State’s lieutenant governor, who loves vouchers, hates public schools, and was the Rush Limbaugh of Texas before winning election to the State Senate.

Was there a vote taken in San Antonio? No. Was the public asked whether they wanted to abandon public education? Of course not. The titans don’t believe in democracy. They know what’s best for other people’s children.

They have hired a superintendent, Pedro Martinez, who was “trained” by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, which encourages school closures, privatization, and top-down management. Martinez has worked in school districts but was never a teacher or a principal and apparently knows nothing about pedagogy. Martinez is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which promotes privatization and technology in the classroom. He is also a big fan of the faux Relay “Graduate School of Education,” which specializes in charter teachers training new teachers for charter schools and has no professors or research programs.

As a native Texan, this whole deal made me physically ill. It stinks to high heaven. Everyone facilitating this private takeover of public schools should be ashamed of themselves.

They are not “doing it for the children.” They are doing it for their own egos. There are more failing charter schools than failing public schools. What right do they have to destroy the public schools of San Antonio? Who elected them? They have won plaudits from Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and ALEC. They should be held accountable for their assault on democracy. I noticed that the Texas philanthropist Charles Butt refused to participate in this unholy cabal; he prefers to invest his fortune in supporting public schools.

I take this opportunity to name Victoria Rico, Pedro Martinez, and all their rightwing enablers to the Wall of Shame.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, San Antonio, School Choice, Texas, U.S. Department of Education, Wall of Shame
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