Over $640,000 stolen from DOE accounts: why the delay in reporting?

See news stories here and here about the electronic theft of $644,313.69 from a DOE account that went on for four years, before someone unconnected with the case complained to the bank, who alerted the special investigator. The full report from special investigator Condon is here. Excerpt from the report:

Excerpt: It is difficult to understand how the DOE accumulated years of account statements, reflecting hundreds of thousands of public dollars spent to pay bills, but did not review them. A cursory examination would have shown that the charges were not normal school expenses.

This is not the first time that SCI has found serious lapses in fiscal oversight within the DOE. Just last year, SCI reported substantiated findings about a clerk assigned to the unit then known as the Division of Assessment and Accountability who was able to steal more than $60,000 because no one looked at statements which reflected that he made thousands of dollars worth of personal purchases, including flying his family around the world.

Last month, SCI issued another report which pointed out the lack of financial oversight in a number of DOE schools.8 [ I can’t find it]

It is once again the recommendation of this office that the DOE take whatever steps necessary to address these serious and continuing problems.

This is the just the kind of story, revealing lax oversight of pervasive corruption, that in an earlier era and under another administration would have triggered the resignation of high level DOE officials. Especially in the days when Special Investigator Eddie Stancik would hold press conferences.

Here in NYC, it is just one more piece of evidence of Klein’s pervasive incompetence.

The question why this report is being released almost two years after the person in question was arrested for the theft. Why the delay?

To ensure that the findings would not hamper the mayor’s re-election, and/or the renewal of mayoral control?

Or is Condon finally fed up with the lack of proper oversight at the DOE?

You won't believe this one!

Every time you think that things couldn’t possibly get worse in terms of the wacky and wasteful use of funds at the NYC Department of Education -- it does.

If the DOE were a Wall St. firm it would have crashed years ago. See what high-priced consultant George Rabb, late of the bankrupt Bear Stearns brought to Tweed last year, ostensibly "to save money" and to improve employees' "ability to adapt to change."

Though Rabb has since left DOE, this is further confirmation that lunatics have been running the asylum at Tweed.

What People Are Saying…

About Mayoral Control

“The president of the pro-business Partnership for New York City …. acknowledged that parents are frustrated and want more of a role in the school system…..A group called the Parent Commission …. said the law should be changed so the mayor can't have ultimate power over school policies.” ----WNYC radio, March 20, 2009

“[Comptroller] Thompson also echoed critics of mayoral control in calling for more channels for parental participation, an independent body to audit data and more power for local education councils. “The current administration has sought to avoid debate and public scrutiny,” Mr. Thompson said, “while fundamental decisions regarding education reform have been made by executives with very little education background.”

As the day progressed, city officials sparred with lawmakers over test scores, class size, test preparation and no-bid contracts. Parents booed, hissed and applauded, flashing signs and passing out pamphlets… Laura Acosta, an organizer for Learn NY ... said that every parent she had spoken with agreed that parents should have more of a voice in education decisions.” –NY Times, March 21, 2009

“Hundreds of parents and community leaders turned out for the last state Assembly hearing about mayoral control over city schools. …Patricia Connelly, of a group called the Parent Commission, told lawmakers the Department of Education routinely makes decisions about opening and closing schools without community involvement. CONNELLY: The parent commission rejects the condescending autocracy that currently masquerades as parent engagement. …: Connelly's group called for a partnership with the mayor, by diluting his power over an existing panel on education policy.”- WNYC radio, March 21, 2009

“The strong thrust of Friday’s hearing, the last of five that have taken Assembly members on a tour through the boroughs, was that lawmakers are not happy with the system they created. Some have become even less happy during the hearings in every borough over the last few months… Lawmakers repeatedly raised concerns that charter schools are causing a “two-tiered system” where some students get excellent educations while others languish in failing schools.” – Gotham Schools, March 23, 2009

About recent poll results

“Chancellor Klein’s approval rating continues to fall – 7 points in the last month alone. And even though he often claims to be a civil rights hero, his disapproval ratings are highest among blacks and Hispanics.” – NYC Public School parents, March 24, 2009

“One person who is not particularly popular, though, is Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who is Mr. Bloomberg’s point man on the issue of mayoral control of the schools. Voters approve his job performance by 37 percent to 35 percent, but that figure has slipped several percentage points over the last few months.” – NY Times City Room, March 24, 2009

“Approval for how Mayor Bloomberg is handling the public schools has also dropped, to 47 percent from 50 percent a month ago, giving him the lowest approval rating on his education efforts since May 2003. Just 46 percent of New Yorkers said they thought the mayor’s takeover of the public schools has been a success. Public school parents rated the mayor the worst: Just 41 percent of them said they approved of the job he’s doing, and 54 percent said they disapproved.” – Gotham Schools, March 24, 2009

“When voters were asked if the mayor should share power over the schools with the City Council… 53 percent support joint authority, and 37 percent don't...”-New York Post, March 25, 2009

About DOE spending practices

“A cost-cutting plan to close city day-care center classrooms will actually cost taxpayers almost $7 million, according to insiders and a Daily News analysis…. insiders say the average cost to the city for each kindergartner in public school is about $4,000. Tack on $2,800 apiece for after-school care, and the tab for 3,200 kids comes to $21.7 million. …

Evelyn Segura's 4-year-old daughter Ashley Nicole Triz will have to leave the Williamsbridge NAACP day care in the Bronx to attend Public School 21, a school that buses its kindergartners to other schools because it is overcrowded. "My daughter is very happy where she is now," said Segura, 40. "With the economy today, I don't understand why this is happening." -- Daily News, March 26, 2009

“City Councilman Bill DeBlasio released a report accusing the education department of wasteful spending, especially on testing.... DEBLASIO: We're going far beyond the federal requirements and the basics and spending a lot more on additional testing and pre-testing that we don't need in the middle of a fiscal crisis…. DeBlasio singled out an $80 million computer network for tracking data, and more than $20 million a year in benchmark testing. He also complained about the department's $1.3 million communications budget.” .- WNYC radio, March 26, 2009

About 2,000 teaching jobs could be cut if the state denies the city its fair share of federal stimulus funding, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein warned Thursday….Teachers union chief Randi Weingarten railed against the suggestion that cutting teachers and school staff is a necessary evil. "We need to cut things that ... aren't core," she said. – Daily News, March 27, 2009

On Charter schools and the lack of community input on their siting

The biggest uproar has been sparked by DOE's aggressive policy of putting new charters in existing public schools without seeking parent approval. "It's the same in every neighborhood," said Monica Major, president of the Community Education Council in District 11 in the Bronx. "The DOE just tells you they're putting a new charter in your building and you have to force them to even have a conversation about it." ….

Public school parent leaders say they don't oppose charters. They just want the DOE to abide by state law and consider the views of the local Community Education Councils, the successors to the old community school districts, before making those decisions. "They continually create this atmosphere of animosity toward parents," Major said. That's why she joined the Parent Commission on School Governance, a volunteer group that just released a proposal to sharply curb mayoral control of the schools. -- Daily News, March 24, 2009

The United Federation of Teachers and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday charging that the city’s Department of Education violated state law by moving to replace traditional public schools with charter schools without proper consultation of neighborhood school boards….The lawsuit accuses the department of “utilizing its powers over school creation to alter attendance zones unilaterally without the consent or involvement of the people the community school serves,” and adds that it “continues to act by fiat.”…

Since the mayoral takeover, the local school boards have declined in influence, with zoning among their few remaining powers. “This is our last shred of authority,” noted Jennifer Freeman, a member of the education council that represents much of Harlem, and a plaintiff in the suit. – NY Times, March 25, 2009

Paul Hovitz on the incompetence of Tweed

Part III of the downtown forum "Demystifying Mayoral control" featuring Paul Hovitz, member of Community Board 1 , former teacher and official in the Auditor's General. Paul describes the incompetence and mismanagement at Tweed, including the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicaid funds, because of DOE's failure to properly document the special services they said were being provided to special education students.

Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, and Paul also answer questions from the audience, about who will make the final decision on Mayoral control, charter schools, and other issues.

Performance bonuses: DOE throws away money to benefit adults rather than our kids

In the DOE press release yesterday about the teacher performance pay program that will cost $20 million of taxpayer money this year, amidst budget cuts to schools, that are causing the loss of critical enrichment and intervention programs, Klein claimed that “The biggest winners, though, were the students in these high-needs schools, who received the instruction and support they needed to reach new levels of performance.”

Yet despite these encomiums, today’s Gotham schools has an analysis showing very little difference in test score gains between the elementary and middle schools participating in the program and schools throughout the city as a whole; and no difference at all for high schools.

Sure, teachers who are receiving the bonuses may be happy, but I wonder how many of them actually believe in the integrity or the efficacy of the program. See Gotham schools here: Teachers are happy with bonus program, but questions remain.

In short, another way in which this administration seems intent on throwing money away in ways that may benefit adults, but not our kids.

No Test Left Behind--Courier it!

Thanks to Juan Gonzales’ sleuthing, we learn that DOE has become a client of private courier services to the tune of $5 million a year (see today's Daily News). What needs to be transported so urgently and securely? The periodic assessments mandated by Klein, for one. The Office of Accountability will be spending $2 million or so this year alone to pick up the tests from schools and deliver them to DOE for processing.

One of those tests was delivered to Stuyvesant High School, where yesterday students took an assessment of their “readiness” to take the Integrated Algebra Regents (successor to Math A). The Office of Accountability deemed this necessary even though Stuyvesant's New York State School Report Card shows not a single one of the 2756 Stuyvesant students who took Math A during the reported 3-year period got below 65; indeed, depending on the year, 98%, 99% and 100% of students got 85 or better. This kind of performance, basically repeated for all Regents, had spared Stuyvesant students from the mindless Tweed assessment machine. No more—it seems they will now be taking “readiness assessments” for all the required Regents.

Absolutely no educational purpose is achieved by measuring Stuyvesant students’ readiness to take any Regents test. Even if they were sent by pack mule, tests cost the system real money and this utter waste at a time of fiscal emergency is unconscionable. Ironically, as the kids were dutifully taking the superfluous assessment, Stuyvesant's Principal was informing the School Leadership team that next year’s budget will not have enough money to allow students to register for the 8 or 9 classes they traditionally take.

What are Klein’s priorities? Educating our kids or lining the pockets of private contractors?

Paola de Kock

hand delivery of G and T letters: more waste by DOE

After all the fiascos and late arrivals of preK and middle school admissions, there are lots of comments on Insideschools blog that the Gifted and Talented letters have finally arrived – hand-delivered on Saturday and Sunday to parents throughout all parts of the city -- by drivers in vans!

As one commented, “No postage; totally WEIRD!!! I appreciate the care in sending it, but the cost has to be INSANE!!”

I hope some reporters are looking into this…what a way to run a school system.

Update: see this follow-up article by Eliz. Green in the NY Sun.