- D.C. officials allege improper diversion of charter funds [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS and Options PCS mentioned]
- Allegations against Community Academy PCS raise larger questions [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS and Options PCS mentioned]
- D.C. Parents of Black, Latino Students to Hold Protest
- The education-reform movement is too white to do any good
- Schools get road map for improving discipline practices
D.C. officials allege improper diversion of charter funds [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS and Options PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
June 2, 2014
Kent Amos, founder of one of the oldest and largest D.C. charter school networks, allegedly funneled millions of school dollars to a for-profit management company he owns, according to a legal complaint filed Monday by D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan.
Amos founded Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter School, or CAPCS, as a nonprofit organization in 1998. About four years later, Amos and two colleagues founded a for-profit management company that was, according to the complaint, “a chimera created by Amos to effect distributions” of the school’s operating profits.
The company received millions of dollars in fees for work that “could have been performed, and in many cases was actually performed, by direct employees of the school,” according to the complaint, which was filed in D.C. Superior Court.
D.C. charter schools are legally allowed to contract with for-profit management companies, including companies with which school leaders have financial ties. But the District’s complaint alleges that Amos violated the law by using a shell company to divert tax dollars meant for students to himself and his co-owners.
“Under the District’s Nonprofit Corporation Act, a public charter school may not distribute millions of dollars of operating revenues — in this case derived from District tax dollars — to benefit private persons,” Nathan said in a statement, vowing to “fight manipulation and abuse of the Charter school system that cheats the District and federal taxpayers.”
Nathan is seeking to impose a constructive trust over all money that was “improperly distributed.” The District also seeks to end the management agreement between Amos’s company and his school. An initial hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 5.
Amos’s attorney, Frederick D. Cooke Jr., said that his client is a leader in the charter school community whose business agreements are legal.
“Our position is that the claims made by the attorney general are without merit,” Cooke said, adding that city regulators have long known of the contracts between Amos’s company and the school. “We believe that there is a significant and philosophical difference of opinion between the Office of the Attorney General and Mr. Amos and his lawyers about the interpretation of the public charter school law and the District’s not-for-profit act.”
Community Academy serves more than 1,600 elementary students at four campuses and one online-only school. One of the schools is rated Tier 3, or low-performing, while the others are rated Tier 2, or mid-performing.
This is the second D.C. charter school in the past year to come under scrutiny for allegedly funneling tax dollars to a management company with ties to school leaders. The District sued Options Public Charter School in October alleging that its three former leaders diverted millions of tax dollars to for-profit companies they owned.
Defendants in the Options case have said that while city officials might not have liked their business agreements, the contracts did not violate any law.
Amos’s company — Community Action Partners and Charter School Management LLC — has received $13 million in school funds since 2004, including $4.4 million in 2011-12 and 2012-13, according to the complaint. The company is “on track” to receive another $2 million this school year, court documents say.
Community Academy first contracted with Amos’s company in 2004, according to the complaint, and the following year, the company employed 12 people and received $784,349 in fees to run the school.
Over the years, annual fees paid to the management company have more than doubled but the number of company employees has decreased. By 2012, when the company received more than $2 million from the school, both of Amos’s co-owners had left the company and there were only four remaining employees, according to the complaint: Amos, his wife, his longtime secretary and one other person.
Cooke said that the company lived up to the terms of the contract, which does not specify how many people the company must employ.
The complaint says that in 2011 and 2012, the management company used its fee from the charter school to lend $70,000 and $39,000 to one of its co-owners, who used the money to make payments to creditors, according to the complaint, which did not identify the co-owner.
The management company also used its fees to make monthly loan payments of $1,148 on a 2010 Lexus CX 460 sport-utility vehicle, according to the complaint, which says that the vehicle was registered to Amos and assigned the specialty license plate “KIDS.”
The school is not named in the lawsuit. The board of directors is cooperating with city lawyers and has hired a law firm to conduct its own investigation, according to a statement released late Monday.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board gave Community Academy a clean bill of financial health for 2012, finding “no patterns of financial mismanagement.”
But by the following year, the charter board was asking questions about the contract with Amos’s company, specifically asking the school to provide information about the salaries of its management company’s officials. The school would not provide that information, according to the complaint.
The charter board does not have the legal authority to require schools to provide information about how tax dollars are used once they are transferred to a for-profit management company.
Charter board officials identified that as a loophole in their oversight power earlier this year, and D.C. Council Education Committee Chairman David A. Catania (I-At Large) said he was open to helping push through legislation that would give the board the power it said it needed. Since then there has been no public movement on the issue.
The charter board also raised concerns about the school’s decision to award a new contract to Amos’s company in 2013 even though company’s proposal did not contain a budget, a list of personnel or a salary scale, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Despite those concerns, the charter board renewed Community Academy’s charter for another 15 years. Scott Pearson, executive director of the charter board, said in a statement Monday that the board will “evaluate these allegations over the coming days.”
“No action concerning the school will be taken over the summer, so CAPCS families and students should be confident school will operate as planned next year,” Pearson said.
Allegations against Community Academy PCS raise larger questions [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS and Options PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 3, 2014
Yesterday, the Washington Post's Emma Brown revealed that D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan has charged Kent Amos, founder of the Community Academy Public Charter School, with steering millions of dollars in public money from the school to a for-profit company that he controls. Ms. Brown states that Mr. Nathan is attempting to place a "constructive trust" over the money that was paid to Community Action Partners and Charter School Management LLC, the firm Mr. Amos heads, and to end the relationship between it and the charter.
As the Post reporter accurately explains charter schools have the right to contract with Charter Management Organizations to provide operational services. In this case, however, the Attorney General claims that Community Action Partners was reimbursed for work that “could have been performed, and in many cases was actually performed, by direct employees of the school."
Of course, this legal action bears a close resemblance to the recent problems at Options PCS. Just like Options, Community Academy received a clean bill of heath on the most recent financial Charter Audit Resource Management (CHARM) Report. The school currently serves about 1,600 students in four elementary schools and an on-line elementary and middle school.
A couple of points. First, the Public Charter School Board, while going along with the relationship between the Community Academy founder and the CMO, has appeared never been quite comfortable with the arrangement. I've been to charter board meetings in which Mr. Amos has attempted to speak for the school while he has no official capacity over its control. Second, these new allegations may cast a cloud over relationships schools have with outside firms hired to assist in running them. There are no clear guidelines to say whether the fees paid to these companies are reasonable or excessive, and the specific roles these organizations may play has never been spelled out.
Mr. Amos is challenging the Attorney General's actions, and his attorney, Frederick D. Cooke Jr., has asserted he did nothing wrong. Ms. Brown quotes him as saying “Our position is that the claims made by the attorney general are without merit. . . We believe that there is a significant and philosophical difference of opinion between the Office of the Attorney General and Mr. Amos and his lawyers about the interpretation of the public charter school law and the District’s not-for-profit act.”
Mr. Cooke is well known to followers of District politics. He has defended Marion Barry, Harry Thomas, Jr., Kwame Brown, and several of Mayor Gray's staffers who have been associated with the shadow campaign organized by Jeffrey Thompson.
The charter for Community Academy was recently renewed for another 15 years. Scott Pearson, the Pubic Charter School Board's executive director, issued a statement on Monday saying that the PCSB is looking into the allegations. He did add, however, that no action would be taken against the school over the summer. Let's see if, based upon the almost certain additional news stories, he can keep his word.
D.C. Parents of Black, Latino Students to Hold Protest
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
June 2, 2014
Parents of African-American and Latino students in D.C. public schools will hold a demonstration Monday evening in protest of what they say is the systematic denial of their participation in education-related matters, particularly the mandated closings of 15 schools in low-income communities.
The event, which is sponsored by community advocacy organization Empower DC, will take place 7 p.m. at McKinley Senior High School in Northeast.
The gathering will include a press conference, during which parents will share their stories of being unjustly denied the opportunity to participate in the education of their children, according to an Empower DC statement.
"Parents of color are being pushed out of their schools' for exercising rights bestowed to them under the constitution of this country," said Daniel del Pielago, a spokesman for the group.
Empower DC, which last year filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of parents opposing the school closings, contend that parents of color are increasingly denied the basic vestiges of grassroots democracy.
"Expressing [their] voice, meeting to organize and plan and having any divergent thoughts or goals from school administration, are now offenses that could end up having [parents] removed from a school," del Pielago said. "If they step out of line [black and brown parents] are labeled troublemakers and forced out of their school. This is starkly different to the rights parents enjoy in more affluent neighborhoods in D.C."
The education-reform movement is too white to do any good
The Washington Post
By Andre M. Perry
June 2, 2014
At this point, it seems like everyone agrees what “education reformer” means. The phrase conjures Teach for America: messianic, white Ivy Leaguers wearing thick-rimmed glasses and speaking in questions, or the Maggie Gyllenhaal vehicle “Won’t Back Down.” For some, the hallowed education reformer battles the forces that are reluctant to change — which, in too many minds, looks like black and brown families under the hallucinogenic spell of labor unions, unwittingly fighting against their own interests.
This is ludicrous. There’s not quite yet an internecine war within the current crusade, but black education reformers are beginning to revolt. A group of us convened on the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education this month to identify the most pressing challenges in the reform movement — and to reclaim the brand and identity of “reformer.”
Let’s stipulate that, yes, change is badly needed. Call it “reform” if you like: Charter schools, curriculum changes (Common Core), testing, and accountability are not inherently bad things. They can bring justice.
But let’s also stipulate that overwhelmingly white movements pursuing change for black and brown communities are inherently paternalistic. The great educator Benjamin E. Mays famously said, “I would rather go to hell by choice than to stumble into heaven.” Reform is being done to communities of color. That’s why saying you’re a black education reformer effectually elicits charges of “acting white” from black communities.
One of the meeting’s attendees, Sharhonda Bossier, co-Founder and chief fellowship officer of Families for Excellent Schools, believes black and brown communities want change, but those very communities are skeptical of tokenism and duplicity. She said parents essentially say, “Don’t think you can fool us just because you put a black face on a white agenda.” Bossier reacted, “Sometimes I have to look back and ask myself, ‘Am I causing damage to my communities?’”
It’s a legitimate question. Reforming through school closure has a disparate impact on communities of color. Even though African Americans make up only 43 percent of all Chicago Public School students, they represented 87 percent among the 50 schools that were closed last year. Why use it as a technique if it disproportionally harms the communities you endeavor to serve? In New Orleans, where I have worked, alumni and local community organizations struggled to get approvals for their charter applications. D.C. charter schools suspended students at much higher rates than their traditional counterparts (and that’s a bad thing).
Diversity removes doubt of racial bias, explicit or implicit. So when black and brown people are largely absent from positions of power, the entire reform movement loses credibility and accrues suspicion. Black education reformers struggle to connect with the very communities we’re members of. The overarching sentiment among attendees at the aforementioned meeting was that black leadership is missing from education reform. Consequently, “reform” has become a dirty word in some communities.
Again, parents of color want reform. Polls conducted by the Black Alliance for Educational Options demonstrate this. Nonetheless, the recent victories in mayoral races in Boston, New York and Newark appear to be referendums against education reform. Still, I believe the branding of “reform” by heavily funded, predominately white organizations as a “takeover” movement reinforces the notion that it actually is a takeover. In addition, teachers unions have leveraged the movement’s penchant for paternalism to further demonize the term “reform.” Parents of color want change; they just don’t want white reform.
Erika McConduit, CEO of the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, says, “Unfortunately, what happens all too often is that white organizations are heavily funded to do community engagement, but since [white organizations] lack the ability to effectively implement, they then come to black organizations to discuss the work.” Black organizations join efforts after the die has been cast. But black communities and educational leaders understand when “community engagement” is merely a euphemism for how to deal with black folk.
More research is needed on who receives funding in terms of race and geography. We need data on who categorically is fired and hired. Who’s awarded charter schools? Nevertheless, to be effective, black educators must differentiate themselves from white reformers.
I’ve never fully embraced the moniker of reformer because the legacy of black educators has been to innovate, expand options and recruit the next generation of teachers. The label of black education reformer is somewhat an oxymoron. Particularly in the South, public education is a direct result of blacks’ struggle for control of their own schools, of which blacks worked with multiracial coalitions of faith-based organizations, white philanthropists and industrialists as well as progressive elected officials to create a portfolio of independent, faith-based and publically funded institutions. Now that was reform!
Still, black educators always had to combat the paternalistic tendencies of our allies and antagonists. (The seminal reading on this topic comes from James D. Anderson’s “The Education of Blacks in the South 1860-1935.”) In fact, the large bureaucracies of giant urban school districts can be another variety of this phenomenon. Traditional urban districts make it difficult for teachers and leaders to develop intimate and responsive relationships with students, communities and parents of color. We need decentralization.
The status quo simply won’t suffice, but neither does the bombastic shouting of crusaders like Michele Rhee and Diane Ravitch. Between those two camps, black and brown families miss out on nuanced approaches for change. And, in the polarized debate, neither camp acknowledges its responsibility toward educational failure.
For example, no bloc owns the teacher racial gap problem. Woodrow Wilson reports that if current trends hold, the percentage of teachers of color will fall to an all-time low of five percent of the total teacher workforce by 2020. At the same time, the percentage of students of color will likely exceed 50 percent in the fall of 2014.
Union-based, Teach-for-America-led, and traditional as well as non-traditional districts proudly tout what they’re doing to address teacher-racial gap, but all have shown limited results. Teachers of color should not blindly support any one faction when racial privilege looks the same in every camp. Yet, if a person of color speaks out against injustice, he or she is branded as a defector or collaborator.
A teacher at a charter school revealed at our meeting that she was thoroughly ostracized by her mostly white organization for simply bringing up diversity issues that parents of her students expressed. Now this teacher feels she has to leave her organization on her own terms. This example is a metaphor. Speaking truth to power can have serious repercussions on funding, professional advancement and political appointment.
Herein lies the burden of the black educator. Black educators will continue to improve the craft of teaching and leadership, provide quality options, make more equitable systems and teach many of our white counterparts about privilege. Exclusivity, inequitable funding and bad public relations got us to our current state of education.
We need less “reform” and more social justice.
Schools get road map for improving discipline practices
The Washington Post
By Donna St. George
June 2, 2014
A national report described as a first-of-its-kind road map for improving discipline practices in U.S. public schools was released Tuesday, with 60 recommendations intended to help schools reduce suspensions and create better learning conditions.
The 460-page report, the result of a three-year, bipartisan effort, urges that suspensions be used as a last resort, proposes targeting support to help students with behavioral issues and suggests specialized training for police officers on the nation’s campuses.
The Council of State Governments Justice Center spearheaded the School Discipline Consensus Report, which is based on more than 700 interviews and reflects agreement from a core group of about 100 school administrators, teachers, lawmakers, advocates, parents, students and criminal-justice leaders.
“What we have now is a comprehensive vision from the field,” said Michael Thompson, director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center. “I think this a breakthrough development.”
The findings come as a bookend to a landmark Texas study in 2011 that followed nearly a million school children for six years or more and found that almost 60 percent of secondary students had been suspended or expelled at least once. The study’s authors said the research documented the impact of zero-tolerance practices in public schools.
Following the Texas study, federal officials stepped up their focus on harsh discipline measures in schools and issued the first set of national guidelines earlier this year, highlighting racial disparities in punishments. The federal attention came amid a broader rethinking of discipline nationally, with changes debated by states and school districts from Colorado to Maryland.
The report’s findings will be presented at events this week in Texas and California, states where suspension rates have dipped and efforts have been made to change policy or law, the authors said. Texas has seen a 28 percent drop in expulsions and a 9 percent dip in overall suspensions since 2011.
Thompson and others emphasize a need for both fewer suspensions and more classroom engagement for all students.
“Just driving down suspensions in and of themselves is not success,” Thompson said. The goal is to shift from a reactive to a preventive approach to student misbehavior, not to tolerate greater levels of disruption in U.S. classrooms, he said.
Texas state Sen. John Whitmire (D), who chaired the national consensus project, said he hoped the report would touch off change in states and local districts. In a Texas high school, he said, administrators recently sent 170 students home for dress-code violations.
“I appreciate dress codes, but do you have to send them all home?” Whitmire said. “Suspensions and expulsions ought to be the very last resort.”
Millions of U.S. students are suspended each year for minor misconduct, with increased risks of losing ground academically, dropping out and entering the juvenile justice system, the report says. Students most affected are nonwhite, disabled, or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The 60 recommendations for change cover a number of topics and suggest that suspension be used only after taking other steps: peer conferences, referrals to support teams and restorative practices that help make up for harms done. The report cites the need for a graduated response to disciplinary problems, as well as partnerships between educators, police and court officials.
One of the project’s advisers, Karen Junker, a teacher in San Rafael, Calif., who coordinates school culture and climate programs, said that restorative practices led to a steep drop in suspension rates at her middle school over a four-year period. The school also saw a marked increase in academic performance.
The report said school-based police should not be used to address issues of classroom management and need proper training, supervision and evaluation. It pointed to Denver as a city where school leaders and police have worked well together.
Darrel W. Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and also a project adviser, said the report’s guidance would be useful for communities in determining whether police presence is needed in schools.
“I think there is a consensus that following the recommendations in this report would make a difference in the lives of all children,” Stephens said.
The report focused on court referrals, too, and recommended measures for cutting back on referrals for minor infractions. Authors say that the report is a comprehensive catalogue of ideas and that schools are not expected to adopt them all at once.