GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A 2010 decision about how to grade Regents exams that a Bronx assistant principal made under pressure has landed him and a teacher in trouble with the city and state.

The decision, to have a teacher grade her own class’s Regents exams when no other teachers were available, has also drawn scrutiny to the scores. After state officials regraded the exams, they found that nearly half had received inflated scores and a quarter of students passed when they should have failed.

The findings are detailed in a report released today that sheds light on the inner workings of the state’s investigative unit, until this year an opaque component of the State Education Department. It also suggests that efforts to tighten test security could run into roadblocks in the form of individual schools’ practical realities.

The investigation began at the state level when David Abrams, the state’s testing director at the time, received a letter about “suspicious patterns in the students’ scores” from a former principal at the school in question, Bronx Collegiate Academy. The state department receives hundreds of allegations per year that are either logged through an anonymous hotline or directly to the Office of Assessment. Beyond that, there is no clear chain of responsibility.

In this case, Abrams asked Richard Condon, the city’s special commissioner of investigation to look into the matter. SCI in turn referred the case to the DOE’s Office of Special Investigations.

According to the report, Darryl White, an AP and testing coordinator at Bronx Collegiate, gave the go-ahead to Emso Asemota to grade her students’ 2010 Integrated Algebra Regents exam without the assistance of a co-grader. Investigators concluded that White violated state regulations in issuing the instruction and Asemota violated the rules by following White’s orders. (more…)

Friday was the last day of school for Henry Rubio, the principal of A. Philip Randolph High School, but he’s leaving behind more than just memories.

Two weeks ago, Rubio announced to his staff that he was resigning as principal after five years at the school to take a job with the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. We reported that an open investigation into fraudulent credit accumulation at Randolph under his watch was closed. But it turns out that the information came to us - inaccurately - from a spokeswoman for the principal’s union.

An investigation into Rubio concluded on Thursday and found no evidence of wrongdoing on his part, according to Chiara Coletti, a CSA spokeswoman. She said the union had waited until Rubio was cleared of suspicions before giving him the job, as a member of the union’s “supervisory support panel” that helps the Department of Education mentor principals. A prerequisite for that job, Coletti said, is that candidates must be “standing principals,” and the investigation had put Rubio’s status temporarily in jeopardy.

Since then, we’ve confirmed that no investigations have been closed with the office that is probing the school, the Special Commissioner of Investigation. Today a SCI spokeswoman confirmed that an investigation is still very much open at the school, but declined to comment further on the case. (more…)

Today’s news about a contractor accused of stealing $3.6 million from the Department of Education comes from a report by the Special Commissioner of Investigations. We’ve pasted the full report below.

The report paints a picture of contractor Ross Lanham’s straightforward scheme: he billed the DOE at a high price, and paid his subcontractors at a lower price. The difference, allegedly, went into a lavish lifestyle that includes three houses on Long Island.

More surprising, though, is the extent to which IBM and Verizon turned a blind eye to Lanham’s accounting. For instance, when an IBM staffer noted irregularities in Lanham’s billing, Lanham protested that the DOE was “okay with it.” IBM, perturbed, shuffled Lanham and his consultants into a different subcontracting company with a different name, but said nothing to the DOE.

Next, Verizon accepted Lanham’s subcontractors after he threatened to take the DOE contract to IBM. Puzzlingly, Verizon found out that Lanham was not giving his subcontractors the full amount that Verizon was paying out, but only went into action after the DOE contacted them with their concerns. (more…)

The city is cracking down on a New Jersey family that illegally enrolled their daughter at two of the city’s most competitive public schools.

Jill Schifter and Anthony Maulello’s daughter won a spot in the Professional Performing Arts School in 2005 and was accepted to the ultra-competitive drama program at LaGuardia High School two years later. But according to a report released today by Special Commissioner of Investigations Richard Condon, Schifter and Maulello live in North Bergen, N.J., not New York City, meaning their daughter wasn’t eligible to attend the schools.

Investigators responding to an anonymous tip last fall found that the couple had briefly placed utilities accounts at a friend’s apartment under their name in order to establish residency after enrolling at PPAS. It was only six months into the investigation, in February 2010, that Maulello signed a lease on an apartment in Manhattan.

The city is moving to collect nearly $25,000 from Maulello and Schifter, the art teacher at a Jersey City charter school, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg. That figure represents five years’ worth of the tuition the city requires from public school parents who live outside of the city. (Last year, the city collected $692,895 in tuition, Feinberg said.) According to the regulation about non-resident enrollment, Schifter and Maulello’s daughter could also be thrown out of LaGuardia.

The story is an extreme example of a not-uncommon phenomenon. (more…)

The receptionist at the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigations, Richard Condon. Condon's staff takes up more than an entire floor at its financial district building.

I just picked up the 600 pages of reports on wrongdoing and misconduct by city school employees that got sent to Chancellor Joel Klein in 2007 and 2008, but never surfaced publicly. The Post highlighted some of the contents: a Stuyvesant librarian’s unauthorized field trips to a Quiz Bowl, a substitute teacher who showed students a movie in which he appeared with a semi-naked woman.

But the biggest story is what is not in this file: Any investigations into top or even mid-level Department of Education officials, or any evidence of educators fudging student performance data to make their school look better.

The absence is matched by a similar drought among those investigations that have been publicized. The development suggests one of two conclusions. On one hand, the new reports could disprove critics’ concerns that growing pressure to produce higher test scores and graduate more students has led some educators to cheat. They could also squash the speculation that the Special Commissioner of Investigations, Richard Condon, somehow managed to cover up looks into higher-profile targets. On the other hand, the cynical conclusion is that high-level misbehavior and cheating are happening with little intervention from an office whose purpose is to investigate schools for misconduct. (more…)

We’ve been getting a lot of tips and comments about Special Commissioner of Investigations Richard Condon, the man charged with investigating the Department of Education for corruption and misconduct, but whose office often fails to publicize its findings.

We definitely want to look deeper into Condon, and, while our FOIL requests churn through the slow grind, we could use your help. Do you know of a case that Condon investigated that wasn’t publicized, but should have been? What about a case recommended to Condon that never got investigated? Or a case that you think led to an unfair verdict?

We are also interested in cases where Condon investigated allegations of cheating on tests and fudging of graduation rate figures — behaviors that critics say the new accountability system encourages.

As always, find our e-mails here or leave a comment.

The city office that investigates the Department of Education today released a statistical summary of its last year’s work, showing that it completed more investigations in 2008 than in any other recent year.

According to the report (pdf), the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation substantiated 327 cases out of 725 started, reflecting a slight uptick in both the number of cases opened and the number of complaints substantiated.

But the office issued only 17 press releases about its investigations. (more…)

An update on my post earlier today, about whether the school system’s Special Commissioner for Investigations should have to send his reports to more than just the schools chancellor. As I reported, the city’s position is that the acting Board of Education, the Panel for Educational Policy, shouldn’t receive the reports, even though SCI’s charter dictates that it should.

I first reported that I didn’t know why the city took that position. I just spoke to a spokeswoman at the city law department, who filled me in a bit more: The reason, she said, is buried in a little place you’ve probably never looked called education law section 2590-g, which governors the “Powers and duties of the city board.”

Here’s how the law begins:

The city board shall advise the chancellor on matters of policy affecting the welfare of the city school district and its pupils. The board shall exercise no executive power and perform no executive or administrative functions. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to require or authorize the day-to-day supervision or the administration of the operations of any school within the city school district of the city of New York.

I’m no lawyer, but I guess the argument goes that because the Board of Ed — e.g. the PEP — is no longer an executive power it also shouldn’t receive SCI reports? Or, alternatively, they’re arguing that reviewing SCI reports is a matter of “day-to-day supervision” or operations administration?

I’m not sure. The law department spokeswoman, Connie Pankratz, wouldn’t get into details.

110 Livingston Street, home of the old Board of Education, now houses condominiums. But the Board of Education lives, however quietly.

Earlier this month, I wrote about all the investigations into the Department of Education that happen every year but are never publicly reported. (In 2007, the Special Commissioner of Investigations into the DOE filed almost 300 reports that never became public knowledge.) A key to the reports’ remaining outside the spotlight: The only person besides the investigator who gets copies of them is the chancellor.

But it turns out that there’s another city group that might have the right to look at the reports: The Panel for Educational Policy, the 13-member group charged with voting on policy changes proposed by the chancellor.

The logic behind that possibility is buried inside the law that created the investigator in the first place, an executive order issued by Mayor David Dinkins in 1990. Here’s an excerpt from the order (PDF):

(e) The Deputy Commissioner shall, at the conclusion of any investigation that results in a written report or statement of findings, provide a copy of the report or statement to the Commissioner of Investigation, Chancellor, and the Board of Education.

What’s the Board of Education in an age of mayoral control? (more…)

The report that surfaced on Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf last week, coming to public light months after it was written, is one of hundreds that investigators who study the Department of Education did not publicly release in 2007.

The office that generates the reports — overseen by Richard Condon, an attorney who serves as the special commissioner of investigations for the city schools — last year investigated hundreds of alleged violations of law and department regulations, from accusations of sexual misconduct to concerns about fraud and embezzlement to allegations of cheating on tests. More than 300 of these cases were substantiated, according to SCI’s year-end statistical report (PDF). But the office only put out 26 press releases highlighting its investigations, a ratio of about 8%. The pattern was similar in 2006 and 2005: (more…)