15 NYC Employees Are Busted For Unemployment Fraud

Who is watching the city bank?

15 NYC Employees Busted For Unemployment Fraud
Posted on Tuesday, 21 of June , 2011 at 9:20 pm
northcountrygazette.org/2011/06/21
NEW YORK—Fifteen current and former employees of the City of New York, most of whom were City “seasonal” employees, who fraudulently obtained a total of approximately $79,840 in unemployment insurance payments, have been arrested.

The Department of Investigation’s investigation found these defendants falsely claimed to the New York State Department of Labor they were unemployed, when in actuality they were working for a City agency and receiving City wages.

The individuals are charged with stealing amounts that range from $3,107 to $14,432. The City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS”) reimburses DOL for unemployment insurance benefits paid to City employees and did so in these cases.

Since 1998, and including these arrests, DOI has arrested 121 City employees on charges of illegally collecting more than $430,000 in unemployment insurance benefits. The majority of those arrests have been of “seasonal” employees who work for City agencies for part of the year. They are entitled to collect unemployment insurance benefits when not working during the off-season but may not lawfully claim and collect unemployment benefits while actively employed and collecting City wages.

The arrests include individuals who worked for the City Department of Parks and Recreation (“DPR”), Human Resources Administration (“HRA”), Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (“DOITT”), New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), Board of Election (“BOE”), Department of Health and Mental

Hygiene (“DOHMH”), Department of Sanitation (“DSNY”), and the Department of Transportation (“DOT”).

Nine of the individuals arrested currently work for the City and their cases will be referred to the appropriate agency for disciplinary action.

Each of the 15 individuals arrested is charged with third degree grand larceny, a class D felony. Upon conviction, a class D felony is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Following are brief descriptions of the charges. In each case, the defendants falsely claimed to DOL they were unemployed, DOL paid unemployment benefits, and DCAS reimbursed DOL for each amount disbursed:

* • ORQUIDIA WADE, 30, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between January and November 2009, when in fact she was working as a DOITT call center representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $14,432 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • EARLEY WATFORD, 45, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between May 2009 and July 2010 when in fact he was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations Watford allegedly illegally collected approximately $8,506 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WATFORD has been working as a City seasonal aide since July 2007, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour.

* • WILLIAM LENNON, 51, of Manhattan, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between August 2009 and February 2010 when in fact he was working as a DOHMH Public Health Advisor during that period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,974 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. LENNON began working for DOHMH as a Public Health Advisor in November 1993 and currently receives hourly wages of $20.68 in that position.

* • JOHN BLACK, 54, of Manhattan, is charged with certifying he was unemployed between November 2009 and May 2010 when in fact he was working as an HRA Job Training Participant and, then, as a DPR seasonal aide, during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,242 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • CALVIN WARD, 39, of Queens, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between March and December 2010 when in fact he was working as a DOT Assistant City Highway Representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,075 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WARD began working DOT in March 2008 and is an Assistant City Highway Representative receiving an hourly wage of $22.03.

* • TONIA WALKER, 32, of Brooklyn, is charged with certifying she was unemployed between May and September 2010 when in fact she was working as an HRA eligibility specialist during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $5,950 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WALKER began working at HRA in May 2010, currently is an eligibility specialist, and receives an annual salary of approximately $36,602.

* • BEVERLY ATKINS, 45, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between November 2009 and February 2010 when in fact she was working as a DOITT call center representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $4,158 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. ATKINS began working at DOITT in November 2009, is currently a call center representative, and receives an annual salary of approximately $32,761.

* • MARGARET SCALISCE, 62, of Staten Island, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between May and September 2009 when in fact she was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $4,108 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. SCALISCE has been working as a City seasonal aide since June 2000, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour.

* • ESTHER CAMACHO, 55, of Manhattan, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between September 2009 and February 2010, when in fact she was working as a NYPD school crossing guard during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,798 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. CAMACHO began working as a school crossing guard in April 2000 and currently receives hourly wages of $12.90 in that position.

* • JOHN MCCLAIN, 53, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between January and June 2010 when in fact he was working as a DSNY Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,485 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • ARTHUR WANNER III, 35, of Queens, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between October 2009 and January 2010 when in fact he was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,366 in
unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

WANNER has been working as a City seasonal aide since August 2004, currently works at DPR, and receives $15.78 an hour.

* • DELORES GRAHAM, 55, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying to DOL she was unemployed between May and September 2009 when in fact she was employed as a DPR Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,266 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • ANTHONY HALL, 25, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between May and July 2010 when in fact he was working as a BOE clerk during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,192 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • JOYCE BENSON, 46, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between May and October 2009 when she was in fact working as a DPR Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,179 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • SANDRA DIAZ, 39, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between September 2008 and August 2010 when in fact she was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,107 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. DIAZ has been working as a City seasonal aide since July 2007, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour. 6-21-11

Education Next 2005 Asked Sol Stern and Joe Williams To weigh in On Mayoral Control in NYC

Sol Stern

Six years later, my vote goes to Sol Stern. I have written before about Joe, who in my opinion should have helped all the teachers, children and parents who discussed with him their horror stories when he was a reporter for the Daily News by publishing the stories. He did not and then came out with his book. Assistance to those in need must be timely.

my 2 cents

Betsy Combier

Education Next published an article in 2005 on how we should look carefully at exactly what we want in NYC public schools, cause we might get it (i.e. Mayoral control):

In one of the more extreme examples of ancient wisdom proved true, many education reformers are wondering if they should have been more careful about what they wished for in New York City. Please let the mayor run the schools: that was the mantra.

Mired for decades in Byzantine bureaucracy that wasted untold millions of dollars and incalculable numbers of student academic lives, the New York City school system was wrestled to the ground by a billionaire mayor, and almost everyone applauded.

Four years later, where are we? Not far, says Sol Stern, an early supporter of the new regime. Joe Williams, however, is more inclined to give the Bloomberg bunch a pass, at least for now.

A Negative Assessment by Sol Stern

Minority kids soar in reading,” screamed the banner headline on the New York Post’s front page earlier this year. Along with its rival tabloid, the Daily News, the Post supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s education reforms and now has credited those reforms for a “record setting” 10 percent improvement in the city’s scores on state-administered 4th-grade reading tests.

Actually, it’s anyone’s guess why the 4th-grade scores rose so sharply this year at the same time that the 8th-grade reading and social studies scores went from bad to worse (with only 32.8 percent of city 8th graders meeting state standards in reading and 20 percent in social studies). It could well be due to broader educational forces or to changes in testing procedures. Either could explain why 4th-grade scores were up throughout the state, and student gains in Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers were even more impressive than in Gotham (see Hanushek, “Pseudo-Science”).

In any case, no reputable researcher would rely on a one-year bump in some test scores to judge the efficacy of a new program. In the absence of independent confirmation by testing experts, one should remain highly skeptical of the claims of Mayor Bloomberg and his supporters that his instructional initiatives are working.

Unfortunately, this is also an election year, which means that political spin is likely to drown out reasoned debate about what policies are most likely to work in inner-city classrooms. The premise of mayoral control was that the public would finally be able to hold someone accountable for the schools. But the billionaire mayor has almost unlimited resources to win an electoral spin war, regardless of the reality in the classroom. In addition to dipping into his private fortune for unlimited campaign ads touting his test score gains, he has total control of a $15 billion education empire that doles out jobs and no-bid contracts to potential critics and spends millions on a well-oiled public relations machine, but spends nothing on independent research or evaluation of classroom programs. This has consequences for the national education debate as well. If Bloomberg is reelected, his model of reform through dictatorial mayoral control will surely be urged on other troubled urban school districts.

Before that model is exported anywhere else, however, serious thought ought to be given to what the mayor promised and what he has actually delivered.

City Hall Rules

It once seemed to be a good thing for education reform that Mike Bloomberg was so rich. Having financed his first election campaign completely out of his deep pockets, Bloomberg was unencumbered by debts owed to the system’s entrenched interest groups, including the powerful union representing 80,000 teachers. In this favorable political climate, the new mayor was quickly able to persuade the state legislature to vest him with total control of the schools. Even the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) supported the reform legislation after Mayor Bloomberg gave the teachers a 16 percent across-the-board wage hike (plus an extra 5 percent for beginning teachers).

Crammed with thousands of redundant bureaucrats and patronage appointees, the Board of Education’s labyrinthine headquarters building at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn was the most notorious symbol of the old regime. The mayor seized control of the building, cleaned out the time-servers and the patronage nests, and then sold off the property to the highest bidder. A few hundred top administrators who survived the purge were relocated to the newly renovated Tweed Courthouse building a few hundred feet from City Hall, where the mayor could keep a close eye on them.

The mayor seemed equally bold in his selection of Joel Klein, former chief of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, as schools’ chancellor. The highlight of Klein’s career to that point was his prosecution of the Microsoft Corporation for antitrust violations. Bringing in a “trust buster” to help reinvent a monopoly public school system was hailed by many education reformers (myself included) as a stroke of genius and more proof of Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to radical change.

Bloomberg and Klein then created what appeared to be a streamlined structure for efficiently managing the city’s 1,300 schools. Instead of overlapping administrative layers operating through 32 separate school districts, there would now be one clear chain of command extending vertically from the mayor’s office to the chancellor, then down through ten regional superintendents, and finally to the principal of every school in the system.

So much for the Management 101 part. What happens in the classroom of the new order?

The mayor presented his master plan, called Children First, in an inspired Martin Luther King Day speech in January 2003. Standing in front of a portrait of Reverend King at the Schomburg cultural center in Harlem, he described the effort to improve the schools as a “civil rights” battle. The administration’s new approach, Bloomberg said, was to allow the chancellor’s office to “dictate the curriculum and pedagogical methods,” including a reading program with “a daily focus on phonics.” The mayor also promised, “Our teachers will all employ strategies proven to work.” A few days later Chancellor Klein announced that the mainstay of the new citywide literacy curriculum would be a program called Month-by-Month Phonics.

The references to phonics and “strategies proven to work” seemed like a calculated hint that the businessman mayor would favor a return to “basics.” This was music to the ears of education traditionalists bemoaning the use of unproven progressive methodologies in inner-city classrooms. Still, Bloomberg also offered plenty of red meat to those reformers pushing for school choice, competition, and incentives in education. Vouchers remain off the table in New York, but Chancellor Klein soon came out for the next best thing: charter schools. He also pressed for reform of the onerous work rules in the teachers’ contract, including eliminating the seniority provisions, making it easier to fire incompetents, and establishing a system of merit pay.

For pushing these market-style initiatives, Klein and Bloomberg have been celebrated in the media and the business community as courageous visionaries, even revolutionaries. Two of the nation’s most influential education philanthropies, the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation, are deeply invested in Bloomberg’s structural reforms and see them as national models of reform. The same Bill Gates whose company was prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein has given Chancellor Klein at least $70 million for creating hundreds of new small high schools and charter schools. And California billionaire Eli Broad, who helped finance the Children First planning phase, predicted that Bloomberg and Klein would soon succeed in turning around the schools.

Calamity of the Lams

The only reform that ever matters in education is doing whatever it takes to lift student academic achievement and reduce the scandalous racial gap in learning. Unfortunately, somewhere along the road to the brave new world of charter schools and market incentives, Bloomberg and Klein either forgot, or never comprehended in the first place, that all good education, and, even more so, education for disadvantaged children, starts with systematic and explicit instruction in the basic skills of literacy, numeracy, and other foundational academic subjects. By that standard, there is nothing at all revolutionary about the progressive pedagogy that now rules New York’s schools. Even worse, the administration’s authoritarian attempts to impose a single instructional approach throughout the system have so demoralized and frightened rank-and-file teachers that it is now virtually impossible for the city to get much-needed reforms of work rules in the next teachers’ contract.

The selection of Month-by-Month Phonics in January 2003 provided the first clue that there was an instructional void at the heart of the Bloomberg/Klein reforms. Not only has this program never met the “proven to work” standard set by the mayor; it isn’t even a systematic phonics program, despite its name. Even the authors of the program concede the point. Phonics, they argue, is only “one-quarter of a well-balanced literary diet.”

The authors’ invocation of “balance” was a giveaway. Real phonics instruction teaches children about the sounds of spoken language and how letters represent those sounds. “Balanced literacy” is the brand name for an instructional approach that adds a dollop of phonics to an otherwise whole-language reading program in which children are encouraged to “construct” or decipher meaning from so-called authentic texts. It’s a clever marketing ploy that allows school districts to appear to be responding to growing pressure from lawmakers and parents for explicit phonics instruction while doing the opposite.

Mayor Bloomberg likely was never told that Month-by-Month Phonics was part of a stealth whole-language program. The same excuse can’t be made for Chancellor Klein, who chose to surround himself with a palace guard of progressive educators who all hate phonics. The key managerial decision in this regard was Klein’s selection in August 2002 of Diana Lam as deputy chancellor for teaching and learning at $250,000 per year, the same salary as his own, surely one of the most embarrassing hiring decisions in the history of New York City government. Lam flamed out in less than 18 months after she was caught in a nepotism scandal, but the education damage she caused during her brief tenure was incalculable.

As schools’ chief in Providence, Rhode Island, Lam assiduously promoted balanced literacy and “fuzzy” math programs, but the results were nothing to write home about. Fifty-four of the 55 schools in the district were listed by the state as “low performing” when she got there. After she left, three years later, only one of those schools had moved up a notch. Nevertheless, Klein gave her control over curriculum and pedagogical decisions during the planning stages of Children First. It was Lam who convinced Klein that balanced literacy, with its phony phonics component, should be used in virtually all schools.

With Klein’s approval, Lam also managed to wipe out one of the few instructional programs that actually met Mayor Bloomberg’s “proven to work” standard. It’s an explicit phonics program called Success for All that was put into 50 of the city’s lowest-performing schools in the late 1990s. Reading scores went up in those schools for four consecutive years. Yet despite the program’s good track record and the $27 million that the city had invested in it, Lam dumped it without even so much as a phone call to the program’s developer, Robert Slavin. “She decided on the first day not to listen to other voices,” Slavin said.

Klein and Lam launched their jihad against phonics at a rather inopportune moment. The National Reading Panel commissioned by Congress had concluded, based on an analysis of 52 randomized scientific studies, that effective reading programs, especially for kids living in poverty, require “systematic and explicit” instruction in phonics. Because of this converging scientific consensus, the No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to demonstrate that they are using reading programs that have been tested for their efficacy through scientific studies in order to qualify for federal reading funds.

Mayor Bloomberg was warned repeatedly by federal and state education officials that Month-by-Month Phonics wouldn’t qualify for the $34 million annually in reading funds available to the city. In a letter to Bloomberg, Klein, and Lam, seven noted reading specialists, including three who had served on the National Reading Panel, said that Month-by-Month Phonics is “woefully inadequate,” “lacks a research base,” and “puts beginning readers at risk of failure in learning to read.” The federal government would be guilty of malpractice if it funded a reading program that its own experts said “puts beginning readers at risk of failure.” That alone should have led Bloomberg and Klein to reverse course immediately in the interests of the children and to fire Diana Lam.

Instead, the Bloomberg administration treated the scientists’ letter as a political and public relations problem. Enter Professor Lucy Calkins of Teachers College, the doyenne of balanced literacy in New York, with $6 million in city contracts to train teachers for the program. Although the experts’ letter was private, Calkins rounded up a posse of 100 ed-school professors, most of whom had nothing to do with reading instruction, to write a counter-letter made public by the administration. It was hardly hot news that education school professors hate phonics. Nevertheless, the administration tried to persuade the public that the letter with 100 signatures outweighed the one from a mere seven reading scientists, as if an educators’ plebiscite could resolve the evidentiary questions about the effectiveness of the reading program.

After stonewalling for almost a year, Chancellor Klein found a way out of the dilemma. He agreed to install a phonics program called Harcourt Trophies in only 49 schools in order to qualify for the federal funds. Klein’s gamesmanship was unnecessary and tragic. It should have been a no-brainer for the city to pick up more than $200 million in federal funds over six years for something it should have been doing all along. So why would an education administration that claims to care only about the interests of kids decide to use a reading program, Month-by-Month Phonics, that does not meet the standard for effectiveness established by a broad consensus of scientists?

The Romance of Progressivism

The answer is that the progressive educators empowered by Chancellor Klein shudder at the thought that science confers validity on the practice of teaching young children to read through heavily scripted lessons in letter/sound correspondence. Their pedagogical starting point is the great Romantic idea, starting with Rousseau, that children learn naturally (including learning to read). Thus the role of the teacher is to facilitate this natural process through hands-on, “constructivist” activity in “child-centered” classrooms. This can be seen vividly in a CD video distributed by the chancellor’s office to all teachers in 2003 and that was still posted on the Department of Education’s (DOE) web site as of May 2005.

As the video opens, Klein announces, “This CD will walk you through the research upon which we based our decisions regarding our program choices.” The implication is that the city’s search for the “best practices” was intellectually serious. Not so. Otherwise, this instructional guide would not be dominated by the pedagogical principles of a radical education guru from Australia named Brian Cambourne, who believes that teachers ought to encourage their students to achieve a “literacy for social equity and social justice.”

Professor Cambourne says he came to his theories when he discovered that many of his poorly performing students were actually quite bright. To his surprise, almost all demonstrated competence at challenging tasks in the real adult world, including poker. This led to the brainstorm that children learn better in natural settings with a minimum amount of adult help. So important does Joel Klein’s education department deem Cambourne’s theories to be that it instructs all city teachers to go through a checklist to make sure their classroom practices meet the down-under education professor’s “Conditions for Learning.” Which of four scenarios most accurately describes how your classroom is set up? teachers are asked. If the teacher can claim “a variety of center-based activities, for purposeful learning using different strategies, and for students to flow as needed,” she can pat herself on the back. But if her classroom is set up “for lecture with rows facing forward,” she must immediately change her practice.

You might ask whether there’s any evidence for such pedagogy. It’s “weak to nonexistent,” according to Reid Lyon, former head of all reading research at the National Institutes of Health. “The philosophical and romantic notion that children learn to read naturally and through incidental exposure to print and literature has no scientific merit whatsoever.”

That hasn’t deterred Chancellor Klein in the least. Constructivist pedagogical guidelines are forced on classroom teachers in weekly “professional development” sessions that are closer to a military boot camp than any serious inquiry into the best classroom practices. No dissent is allowed. Teachers are given lists of “nonnegotiables,” a strange and embarrassing concept for any education enterprise. Thus students must not be sitting in rows. Teachers are forbidden to stand at the head of the class and do “chalk and talk” at the blackboard. There must be a “workshop” (students working in groups) in every single reading period. Teachers are also provided with classroom maps indicating the exact location of the teacher’s desk, the students’ writing stations, and exactly how much of the wall space should be set aside for posting student work. Also nonnegotiable is that every elementary school classroom must have a rug.

Is it surprising then that Chancellor Klein is facing a revolt from teachers like 13-year veteran Jackie Bennett, from a Staten Island high school? Ms. Bennett’s problem is that she believes it’s not a sin to bring her knowledge of great literature to her students, even if she occasionally lectures. After all, Bennett has a master’s in English literature from Columbia University, exactly the kind of academic attainment we supposedly want more of from our teachers.

“DOE administrators talk about balance,” Ms. Bennett recently wrote in an unpublished letter to the New York Times.

What they really want is all-group, all the time. What’s more, the message is clear: when we visit your classes and the kids are not in groups, you have one strike against you.

My recent experience at staff development is illustrative of just how clear that message is intended to be. After spending the morning working with my colleagues on a small group activity that entailed busywork that did nothing to further our development as teachers, we returned to a whole-class discussion to briefly assess what we had learned. I raised my hand and asked if there was any research tying group work to better test scores. The answer was no.

My behavior was reported to the Local Instructional Superintendent, and two days later, my assistant principal asked me to forgo attendance at the remaining meetings. I had, it seems, been kicked out of staff development. Had I made a ruckus? No. But I had asked uncomfortable questions. I had thought critically. Though the City’s Department of Education gives lip service to teaching kids to think critically, it is clear they want those critical thinking skills taught by drones.

Tyranny in the Classroom

Chancellor Klein has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on mandated professional development sessions of the kind that Jackie Bennett describes. Yet there’s no research evaluating the effectiveness of a program that is eating up so much of the city’s budget and its teachers’ precious time. New York City has nothing like the independent research consortium, based at the University of Chicago, which provides objective third-party evaluation and analysis of performance data supplied by the Chicago school system.

What’s indisputable, however, is that the intellectually vacuous nature of these sessions and the central administration’s tyranny over classroom instruction is demoralizing many excellent and successful teachers. The city will surely lose many of them. “There isn’t one teacher I know who doesn’t say they would leave if they could,” says Norman Scott, a 35-year veteran classroom teacher and publisher of an independent newsletter for city teachers. In the meantime thousands of teachers have taken to the streets in union-organized protests over Klein’s instructional dictatorship. “Let teachers teach,” say the placards carried at these demonstrations. At a recent UFT rally, union president Randi Weingarten said: “We knew that a top-down, command and control management and rigid, lockstep teaching mandates would be demoralizing. But I never imagined that guidelines for, say, the workshop model, complete with its limit of ten minutes of direct instruction, would devolve into orders to use it every day, for every lesson and every group of students.”

Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have countered that all the tumult in the street is nothing but posturing over a contract dispute. The UFT wants more money, they say, but no reform of the work rules. They are right that the existing contract is a lousy deal for everyone involved. I have been writing about the contract’s excellence-killing seniority rules, its lockstep pay schedules, and its other inflexible regulations for years (see “Façade of Excellence,” Education Next, Summer 2003). In fact, Joel Klein once told me he had read my critique of the contract, and from time to time he has even borrowed my quip that this is the ultimate “we-don’t-do-windows” labor agreement.

The problem is that, because Chancellor Klein has tyrannized all teachers with mindless directives about their classroom practices, he has forfeited any chance of getting significant work-rule changes. Why would any self-respecting teacher be willing to give Chancellor Klein even more power over his or her professional life? Come to think of it, Chancellor Klein has managed to incorporate one of the worst characteristics of the teachers’ contract into his own professional development regime. It’s the pernicious idea that all teachers are of equal value to a school and should be treated accordingly. Thus the contract mandates that the math teacher with a Ph.D. who teaches AP calculus is on the exact same pay scale as the 7th-grade gym teacher. The teacher who works 60 hours a week, spending extra time with students and parents, is equal to the teacher putting in the contractual minimum of 6 hours and 40 minutes per day.

But consider Chancellor Klein’s professional development program. It is meant to indoctrinate and remold virtually every teacher in the system, regardless of that teacher’s level of academic attainment, years of experience, established record of success, or personal teaching style. All are herded into professional development boot camp, the 13-year veteran with a master’s deg

-Sol Stern is the author of Breaking Free: Public SchoolLessons and the Imperative of School Choice.

On the Positive Side by Joe Williams

Principal From Hell Strikes Again: Howard Kwait, John Bowne High School

Howard Kwait

I know a teacher undergoing his "trial" (3020-a) right now, whom I believe was falsely accused by the principal, Howard Kwait. When this teacher was removed from his school and criminalized like so many other innocent victims of the Bloomberg-Klein-Black-Walcott regime, where was the outrage?

Principal Kwait made a huge error in allowing an arrest of the daughter of a diplomat from India, but he also made the false claims process of the Gotcha Squad an international issue. Krittika Biswas was accused of sending obscene emails to her teacher. Of course there was no real "investigator" on hand to ask what the facts in the case really were before arresting her, happens every day to an unsuspecting teacher. Now, the improper and scandalous violation of rights is international. Perhaps something will change? Richard Condon and his riot police may be investigated? It's certainly  time for that to occur.

Why cant the press expose principals who terrorize New York City public school teachers?

Round-Up: The Strange Case of Krittika Biswas
Wall Street Journal
LINK

India’s media erupted with indignation today over the case of Krittika Biswas, the daughter of an Indian diplomat serving at the Indian Consulate General in Manhattan, who claims she was wrongfully arrested after being falsely accused of sending obscene emails to her school teacher, according to reports.

The 18-year-old was reportedly kept in custody for more than 24 hours on Feb. 8 and also was sent for more than a month to a special suspension program by her school despite being cleared by investigators. She filed a notice of claim May 6 saying that she is suing New York City, among others, for $1.5 million.

Ms. Biswas had reportedly tried to claim diplomatic immunity. But a U.S. State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, was quoted by NDTV as saying that the immunity does not extend to family members of diplomats.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in New Delhi said in an emailed statement: “We are aware of press reporting regarding filing of a lawsuit by the daughter of an Indian consular officer. However we have no comment on this ongoing litigation.”

The Deccan Herald reported that Krittika felt ill-treated in custody, saying: “Krittika alleged that she was not allowed to use the bathroom for a long-time”. It added some other unsavory details, “that she couldn’t drink water from a water fountain because it had another person’s vomit, and although it was really cold, she could not use the blanket because it was really dirty.”

In addition to the lawsuit, the girl’s lawyer also suggested that the City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, give her a key to the freedom of the city. But Mr. Bloomberg seemed unlikely to grant the request, according to The New York Post (which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.)

Ms. Biswas is gaining some support for her plight on Facebook. A group called “’Krittika Biswas’-Price of Every Tear Will Be Paid” was set up this morning. The group as of Thursday afternoon had 86 “likes.” But it remains to be seen what broader ramifications her case may have. “We don’t know if such strange kind of events will really have an impact on India-U.S. relations,” said one Indian official.

Indian diplomat's daughter claims she was falsely arrested for obscene emails

By YOAV GONEN, NY POST, May 24, 2011
LINK

An Indian diplomat’s daughter who claims she was falsely arrested and suspended for sending obscene emails to teachers at her Queens high school is suing the city for a whopping $1.5 million – and even a key to the city, her lawyer said today.

In a notice of claim filed on May 6, John Bowne HS senior Krittika Biswas, daughter of the vice counsel at the Consulate General of India in Manhattan, Debashish Biswas, said her claims of diplomatic immunity were ignored when she was cuffed and locked up for more than 24 hours on Feb. 8 after a shoddy probe by administrators into the emails.

Even after the Queens DA dropped the charges and expunged her arrest from the record, school officials booted the 18-year-old girl to an offsite suspension center for more than a month, according to the claim.

It was only after principal Howard Kwait found the real perpetrator that Biswas was allowed back into school.

“The basis for this targeted inquiry was as criminally malicious as it was reckless,” Biswas’s lawyer Ravi Batra said during a news conference.

In addition to unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, Batra curiously suggested that Mayor Bloomberg could perhaps give “a key to the City to Krittika Biswas as a token of heartfelt sorrow for the unbecoming pain inflicted upon her.”

Batra also claims that officers failed to read Biswas Miranda rights and "continued to inquire about her computer usage."

The Joel Klein-Wireless Generation-No-Bid Contract-New Deal

Now we can all see how this works:

Joel Klein

Joel Klein ("JK") is brought to New York City by Mayor Mike Bloomberg to be the Attorney-in-fact, "Chancellor-in-name-only", and then JK proceeds to deny all rights to all groups protesting what he says and does, as required. Then, when too many people get angered by Joel's gruff manner (Bloomberg wants only smooth operators, because it is by sugar-coating the "I despise you and I'm going to hurt you" procedure that things get done quickly) he suddenly - and without any search for qualified candidates -  appoints a person who is being let go from her publishing house for incompetence (Cathie Black) because he can, then realizes

Robbie Newman, Denise and Dennis Walcott

his mistake and appoints as "Chancellor-in-name-only" smooth operator Dennis Walcott. Meanwhile, JK is allowed to pursue business prospects that reek of conflicts of interest  over at the NY Daily News, where he, JK, is revered as the guru who changed the face of public education in America (see below, where John Merrow - whose boss is the same as JK's, is, in my opinion, delusional):
Love or loathe him, Joel Klein is the person most responsible for shaping U.S. schools today
BY JOHN MERROW, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER, Sunday, June 05, 2011

Who is America's most influential educator? Some would probably name Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education and cynics might suggest Bill Gates, because of his foundation's heavy involvement in education policy, or a teachers' union leader like Randi Weingarten.

In this parlor game, other names would emerge: Oprah Winfrey, anyone? Other competitors for the title would be Big Bird and friends on Sesame Street and Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. Millions of young children learn from the former and by now hundreds of thousands of students have been - and are being - taught by Teach for America corps members.

But the evidence suggests that our most influential educator is a lawyer who only very briefly taught in public school and never had the formal credentials to lead a public school system. Even now, as he earns megabucks working for a media giant, his influence is felt across the nation - in New Jersey, Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, Conn., New Orleans and elsewhere.

This man is a believer in public education - which, he says, transformed his life. His father had to quit high school and he grew up in public housing. He credits his teachers in Queens for giving him "a worldview and a sense of opportunity and purpose."
 
That's why, when in 2002 Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked him to run the city's schools, Joel Klein turned his back on his million-dollar law practice and budding career as a media executive at Bertelsmann, Inc. to become New York City's schools chancellor.

Much has been made of Klein's influence on the city's public schools over his nearly nine years as chancellor. Most of the words have been kind and deservedly so. After all, he took on a huge and hidebound system and began whacking away on day one, pausing only occasionally to catch a breath.

Combative by nature, Klein could bristle rather easily. Always well prepared, Klein dazzled with numbers and, when the numbers didn't support his case, he found other ways to attack.

His critics - and there are many - discount the academic achievements Klein boasted about, particularly after the flabby nature of state tests was exposed and scores were recalibrated, leading to significantly lower gains for many public schools on his watch. They say he was obsessed with test scores and didn't pay enough attention to genuine learning. He maintains that he was the first to raise doubts about the tests.
 
One critic, the anti-testing group FairTest, accuses Mr. Klein of leading New York and the country in "dangerous directions." In a statement, it charges that he "promoted the overuse and misuse of standardized tests to judge students, control curriculum and instruction and rate schools, teachers and principals - even though the tests are inadequate for all these purposes. In doing so, he undermined teaching and learning even while claiming to improve them." It adds that Klein - and by extension his protgs - are "part and parcel of a larger trend, exemplified most by No Child Left Behind, that reduces schooling to test prep."

A more comprehensive critique comes from Weingarten, who clashed with Klein when she led the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and who has continued the arguments now that she is president of the national union, the American Federation of Teachers. In response to my question, she offered this analysis:

"Joel had a great opportunity when he became chancellor. He is bright, he had the mayor's trust and he had the power. He had an infusion of new funding from the equity lawsuit, the city's growing revenues and a new teachers' contract that lengthened the school day and significantly increased teacher pay, including new teachers."

But, Weingarten concludes, he failed to take advantage. "He led through divisiveness and as a result, we lost the opportunity to make this school system an example of sustained and growing student achievement for all to emulate. He disregarded the public schools that were working, preferring instead to focus on charters. He dismantled programs that worked, like the Chancellor's District and apropos of that rather than using the flexibility embedded in the DOE-UFT contract, he often ridiculed it, even after he negotiated its terms. When his actions did not produce results, he re-organized and pointed fingers, blaming teachers and their union."

However, even his critics ought to give Klein credit for longevity, tenacity and some genuine improvements. The bureaucracy has been streamlined, graduation rates are up and thousands of adolescents are now attending high schools where they are more than just a number. On his watch, the New York schools opened about 125 small high schools, in the process shutting down dozens of "dropout factories," scary huge places where most students were poorly served. Because he encouraged charter schools, thousands of kids, mostly poor and minority children, are now better served.

But what distinguishes Klein from other reformers - a point far too rarely forgotten when observers are assessing his legacy - is his influence beyond the system he ran.

His geographical influence is vast:

School superintendents in Chicago (Jean-Claude Brizard), Baltimore (Andres Alonso), Newark (Cami Anderson), Montgomery County, Md. (Joshua Starr). South Orange, N.J. (Brian Osborne), Christina, Del. (Marcia Lyles) and New Haven (Garth Harries).

Then there's the State Superintendent in New Jersey, Chris Cerf; and the Superintendent of Louisiana's "Recovery School District" in New Orleans, John White, who is rumored to be in line to become that state's superintendent.

It doesn't end there. Two other leaders were nurtured by Klein, although neither reported to him directly. One is the current New York City chancellor, former Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, whom Klein often refers to jokingly as "my other wife." The other is Michelle Rhee, the controversial former chancellor of the schools in Washington, D.C. She is unstinting in her praise.

"Like many of the new superintendents across the country now, I got my position as chancellor of the Washington D.C. Schools in large part because of Joel Klein," she wrote in an email. "His best piece of advice to me was, 'Lead from the front, don't get mired in the middle.' His intolerance and impatience for low expectations and low academic achievement of kids put the fire into a lot of us and certainly helped to keep me motivated."

Although Rhee has moved on to found a national organization, Students First, her policies apparently remain in place and Walcott has changed little since taking over in New York City.

So are these men and women disciples who wear "What Would Joel Do?" buttons on their lapels? Not likely, because he says he looked for "people who were tough-minded, independent and would tell me what they think (not what they think I want to hear)." Regarding discipleship, Klein wrote in an email, "I hope they ask WWJD but in the end make up their own mind. After all, they're accountable."

In at least two districts, Baltimore and New Haven, the leaders have moved away from Klein's antagonistic posture toward unions. Both have forged new relationships and, coincidence or not, are showing improvement in student performance and graduation rates.

Still, even as the personal stamps are inevitable, Klein's powerful imprint is unquestionable.

As for Klein, he has not left education entirely. He's now working on education technology projects for the News Corporation - with an ambitious plan to modernize, among other things, the delivery of lessons to students and assessment data to teachers and administrators. That could be a sweet spot given that his new boss, Rupert Murdoch, recently derided public schools as "Victorian" and inappropriate for today's world.
**************************************

It's all baloney, except the part that says that JK denied all rights to all people in New York City. The education take-over is the result of $millions spent on marketing policies and concepts that have never been successful. The partners he always had (the Clintons) and the new allies bought for him while "Chancellor-not" (by "allies" I mean everyone who has, or wants to do work with Bloomberg) now are rallying behind him as the guru of a New Deal (see below). NYSUT, the legal arm of the UFT here in NYC, pretends to object. When will JK and Bloomberg be throwing NYSUT and the UFT another bone?

NYSUT blasts no-bid contract to company headed by Joel Klein
NYSUT Media Relations - June 9, 2011
LINK

ALBANY, N.Y. June 9, 2011 - New York State United Teachers today expressed outrage at a Daily News report that the state Education Department appears ready to award a $27 million no-bid contract to a company headed by former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and owned by News Corp., publisher of the New York Post.

“When a deal smells as bad as this one, you have to ask: Is the push to use standardized test scores to evaluate teachers really about improving teaching and student achievement? Or, is it about finding ways for Wall Street and big corporations to cash in on Race to the Top?” asked NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi.

Iannuzzi said NYSUT would ask the state comptroller to reject the contract, and the state attorney general’s office to investigate any conflicts of interest in the awarding of the Race to the Top contract, less than a month after the Board of Regents rushed through new regulations that allow school districts to potentially double the weight of standardized tests in teacher evaluations.

NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira questioned why the state Education Department tried to quietly award the contract to the Wireless Generation/Klein/News Corp. enterprise. “The Regents chancellor and state Education Department leaders demand ever-increasing transparency and accountability from teachers, but pay lip service to transparency and accountability when it comes to awarding lucrative contracts to their friends and political allies,” she said.

The Daily News reported today that Wireless Generation, a company purchased for $360 million by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in November 2010, was in line to receive the no-bid contract. Wireless Generation has developed software to track student test scores and is one of Murdoch’s first forays into for-profit education technology. In a speech in Paris last Month, Murdoch said Wireless Generation could be a gateway to a $500 billion education technology market, according to The Wall Street Journal.

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

NYC Council President Christine Quinn Makes a False Plea For Ed Funds

Christine Quinn

Christine Quinn voted for Mayor Bloomberg's third term, over the protests of her constituents. She obviously, in my opinion, thinks that the slight nudge in the direction of reducing the budget of the DOE will pacify the New York City public school parents who have been, for 9 years, fully informed by my co-contributors to my website Parentadvocates.org and blog NYC Rubber Room Reporter as well as the other excellent blogs such as Chaz's School Daze, NYC Educator and JD 2718, into believing that she is defending our children and teachers. We are not fooled.

If Quinn was a true advocate for the children, parents and teachers of NYC, she would blast Mayor Boomberg for his 8 years of attacks on tenured teachers without researching whether or not all the tenured teachers who are now fired deserved this fate while spending millions of dollars to the Gotcha Squad, attorneys, and arbitrators to produce false claims about innocent people; would blast Bloomberg and Klein, Black and Walcott for violating Public Services Law, Civil Rights and due process of children, parents and everyone else in order to control the factory formerly known as the New York City public school system.

There is money in NYC to keep every teacher in his/her job. Do away with the people at Tweed, execpt for 5 people: An accountant, a Federal program compliance officer, a special education director, a Records Access Director, and an elected Chancellor WITH a contract who can be fired if he/she doesnt do the job.
Why do our teachers have to be the fall guys for the Deutsche Bank scandal, the CityTime scandal, the special education and medicare fraud, etc? We are angry and we are not going to take it anymore.

Ms. Quinn, you lost our vote years ago.

Betsy Combier, Editor

June 1, 2011, 1:18 pm
Quinn Proposes $75 Million in Education Budget Cuts
By FERNANDA SANTOS
LINK

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn on Wednesday proposed roughly $75 million in cuts to the Department of Education’s budget to help avert the elimination of 6,100 teachers through layoffs and attrition for the school year that begins in the fall.

It was Ms. Quinn’s first specific pronouncement on education spending since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed balancing the city’s budget by reducing the number of teachers the city employs, and it sends a clear signal that there are still big differences between the City Council and City Hall over how to bridge the city’s multibillion-dollar budget gap.

Ms. Quinn plan includes cuts to technology and transportation spending, and to the Education Department’s public-information and legal staff. In addition, it recommends reducing the number of people assigned to the Office of Family Information and Action, which has been the target of much criticism because of its flaws in running the elections for parent representatives in citywide councils that play a role in decisions like school rezoning, construction and budgets.

"We’re not just saying, ‘No,’ ” Ms. Quinn said in an interview. “We’re saying, ‘No to layoffs and here are our suggestions.’ ”

Ms. Quinn’s office distributed a statement with her suggested cuts just as Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott had begun his testimony at a City Council hearing on department’s general expenses, where he offered a staunch defense of the spending decisions it has made and once again affirmed the need for teacher layoffs.

Ms. Quinn acknowledged that $75 million is only a fraction of what is needed to avoid the cuts to the city’s teaching staff, but, she said, “that’s a step in the right direction.” She said the Council would continue to scrutinize the budgets of other city agencies to come up with additional savings, but she did not ultimately make the promise that many parents and teachers had been hoping she would make: to pass a budget that would not include teacher layoffs.

“I’m going to do everything in my power” to avoid the layoffs, Ms. Quinn said. “I’m going to fight as hard as I can.”

Here are Ms. Quinn’s proposed cuts:

The Department of Education spends $8 million every year in teacher recruitment. She proposed canceling the effort and spending half of that to train existing teachers on licensed specialties, like special education. Savings = $4 million.

Cutting three positions at the department’s press office. Savings = $280,000.

Eliminating 10 positions at the Office of Family Information and Action. Savings = $940,000.

Merging the Office of Family Information and Action with the Office of Public Affairs, which would enable the elimination of two additional positions. Savings = $375,000.

Reorganizing school-support staff by realigning responsibilities among the schools’ 60 network teams, which employ 12 to 14 people apiece, and reducing the number school superintendents, who make an average of $200,000 a year, by 10. Savings = $2 million.

Reducing what Ms. Quinn characterized as an overestimation of the projected growth in expenses in areas like special education, contract payments and prekindergarten, which would free up $35 million in the next fiscal year.

Scheduling a 1 percent cut to the pupil-transportation budget. Savings = $7.5 million.

Reducing legal-service contracts and possibly the number of workers in the Education Department’s legal office, which employs 133 people. Savings = $3 million.

Enacting a more modest increase in technology spending — 30 percent over the current amount, instead of 76 percent, as the department has proposed — and cutting technology contracts to fiscal 2010 levels. Savings = $13.2 million.

Use more in-house training to reduce the cost of hiring professional-development contractors. Savings = $9 million.

A Department of Education official rebutted some of Ms. Quinn’s suggestions, noting that school district superintendents are mandated by law. the official acknowledged that the department employs perhaps five high-school superintendents over the legal requirement; Ms. Quinn is proposing to cut 10 superintendents.

The official, who requested anonymity so as to speak candidly about Ms. Quinn’s proposal, pointed out that the press office eliminated two positions two weeks ago, and that some people on its staff are not assigned to media relations. One employee, for example, staffs Panel for Educational Policy meetings, among other duties. As for her proposed cuts to projected spending, the official said it comes with great risk because the department could run out of money in the middle of the year to finance a certain expense.
the complete coverage prepared for Friday’s print editions.


How the Council Members Voted [Chart and Map]

Judith Hederman, NYC DOE Director of Financial Operations, Resigns Under Investigation

Education Dept. official who oversaw $43M contract resigns amid corruption investigation
Juan Gonzalez - News, Friday, May 13th 2011, 4:00 AM
LINK

A Department of Education executive who supervised a major computer consulting firm that is under investigation for possible corruption has suddenly resigned.

Judith Hederman, the $168,000-a-year executive director of the DOE's division of financial operations, submitted her resignation on May 4, DOE officials confirmed.

That was the day the Daily News reported that Richard Condon, the schools' special commissioner of investigation, had filed court papers saying a "high-level" executive at the DOE with "oversight" over the $43 million contract of Florida-based Future Technology Associates, had a "personal relationship" with one of the owners of FTA.

FTA, which has not been charged with wrongdoing, is under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest," the court papers say.

An affidavit submitted by Condon's deputy, Gerald Conroy, as part of a court dispute over the agency's subpoena power, did not identify the DOE official. A source at the DOE has since confirmed it was Hederman.

The affidavit said the unnamed official, who was interviewed under oath on April 14, initially denied having a personal relationship with either of FTA's owners, Tamer Sevintuna or Jonathan Krohe.

Four days after that interview, the official's lawyer called Condon's office and retracted the original denial of a personal relationship.

Hederman worked at the DOE since 1995. For nearly two years, until last November, she supervised the FTA contract.

She did not respond to phone calls and email requests in the past week for comments. Sevintuna and Krohe have repeatedly declined to respond to questions.

For more than a year, Condon's office has been probing a web of companies that Sevintuna and Krohe secretly controlled and utilized as subcontractors for themselves, including two that supplied consultants in Turkey and India to service the DOE computer system remotely.

FTA's contract bars the company from subcontracting or using outside consultants, and officials say the firm never told them about the practice.

Some of the Turkish workers, The News has found, were paid as little as $3,370 a month by a separate firm Sevintuna and Krohe owned in Turkey, yet FTA billed the DOE $22,400 a month for the labor of those workers. At least six were still on the DOE payroll as recently as March.

Nearly two years ago, The News began asking DOE officials about the unusual aspects of the agency's contract with FTA.

For example, the firm has never had any established offices, even though it has supplied as many as 80 consultants at a time to the DOE and has received close to $100 million from the school system over the past decade.

FTA headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., is a mailbox in a UPS store. So is a second address in Brooklyn.

Another FTA subcontractor, MERA consulting, which received $14 million from the DOE contract, was wholly owned by Krohe. MERA's main address was another mailbox in the same Florida UPS store.

Only weeks after Condon's investigators began asking questions about MERA, Krohe dissolved the company.

Much of this appears to have happened while Hederman was supervising the contract. Hederman is gone, but the probe continues.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

Below is the information available on Google:
Cortera Company Profile For:

MERA CONSULTING
7037 COMMONWEALTH AVE, STE 9
JACKSONVILLE, FL 32220-2833
view map

COMPANY DETAILS
Location Type: Single Location
Ownership: Private
Have fresher information?
Update now
CURRENT NEWS
There is currently no press for this company.

COMPANY OVERVIEW
MERA CONSULTING in JACKSONVILLE, FL.

Pay for each of the FTA employees is equal to that of Schools Chancellor Joel… Computer geeks at Future Technology Associates earn more than Joel Klein does
BY JUAN GONZALEZ - NEWS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
LINK

Taxpayers shelled out an average of $250,000 last year for each of 63 computer consultants a little-known Florida-based firm supplied to the Department of Education.

That's more than $15.7 million of our money going to Future Technology Associates, which landed a DOE contract in 2005 - the same year the company was founded. The company's job is to integrate the school system's financial accounting system with other city agencies.

That contract began at $2.5 million a year. Since then, it has been repeatedly extended - mushrooming to $15.7 million in fiscal year 2009

Story from The New York Post:

Schools $candal gal quits

by SUSAN EDELMAN and YOAV GONEN, May 13, 2011

The Department of Education's chief of financial operations has quit amid a probe into her relationship with a contractor under investigation for overbilling, sources told The Post.

Judith Hederman, executive director of the Division of Financial Operations, was making $168,000 a year when she abruptly resigned last week, according to education officials.

The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation confirmed that it is investigating Hederman, 42, but declined to provide further details.

Court records show that the commissioner has been engaged in a lengthy probe of Future Technology Associates, a computer consulting firm that Hederman had overseen and shared offices with since as early as 2005.

FTA has a three-year, $43.2 million contract to integrate the DOE's payroll and finance system with that of the rest of the city's agencies.

Documents show the probe of the firm involves "allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest, unethical conduct or other misconduct."

That includes accusations that FTA has been hiring its workers through multiple contracts so that the "hourly fee for the consultant's services was marked up before being passed on to the DOE."

However, the breadth of the probe was so wide that a Manhattan Supreme Court judge granted a petition by the co-owners of FTA, Tamer Sevintuna and Jonathan Krohe, to quash a subpoena requiring them to appear before probers.

City officials are still challenging that determination.

Hederman's husband, also is a highly paid DOE accountant, when reached by phone said his wife had no comment.

She joined the DOE in April 1992 as an accountant and was a payroll administrator when FTA landed its first contract in 2005.

She was also listed as the contract manager when the firm signed its latest three-year deal.

A lawyer for Sevintuna declined comment, and Krohe's lawyer was unavailable.

The allegations against FTA echo recent charges filed against another DOE contractor, Willard (Ross) Lanham, who allegedly bilked the city of $3.6 million by using layers of subcontractors to jack up costs.

Additional reporting by Andy Campbell and Dareh Gregorian

susan.edelman@nypost.com

The XEROX Machine Incident at The Gotcha Squad

The picture above is a copy machine. This particular copier is located in the left corner of The Gotcha Squad's sixth floor waiting room, right behind the receptionist where people arriving for grievances or 3020a arbitration sign in. Today, May 10, 2011, about eight people were sitting in this room in addition to me and the respondent of the case in which I am assisting the private lawyer as his paralegal, when an incident involving this very machine occurred that is too good not to pass on.

The backstory is, as I have written previously, since 2003 how I have sat in on public hearings of tenured teachers when asked by the respondent tenured employee to do so, and I have observed the lawyers, witnesses, arbitrators, and guests. No one has ever paid me to be there, so my mountains of material written about the 3020-a process in New York City is my material and mine alone.

I have helped teachers calm down - teachers should be in the classroom and not on trial - and helped investigate Principals, Assistant Principals, and any other administrator as to what they are doing in their schools - for example, complying with federal special education laws, financial recordkeeping, harassment, etc. Someone has to do it and hold these people accountable for their actions. I do that. I look at their collaborators too (non-administrators who help the bad guys/gals) .

The personnel of the New York City Department of Education Administrative Trials Unit and TPU hate me for my diligence in appearing 2-4 times per week, and staying all day until the last word has been said. Almost all NYSUT Attorneys no longer speak with me even to say hello, because of my research into cases they have lost. In fact, when I worked for the UFT part-time, (I no longer work for the UFT) Leroy Barr, Ellie Engler and Gary Sprung told me to stop attending hearings at 51 Chambers Street because "this was bad for them". As I had a clause in my agreement to continue doing whatever I had done in the past in my own time, I gently told the UFT that as the members were being tortured at the 3020-a, someone had to be there to protect the members' due process rights, so I just kept going whenever asked. The issue that I will be addressing in the future is the possible collusion of the UFT and NYSUT with The Gotcha Squad at 3020-a hearings. But for now, I have my trusty disposable pen (at TD Bank, they are free!), and I like pads that have graph paper instead of lines. Why, I dont know. And no, Theresa (Europe), I never have brought a tape recorder to the hearings even though in New York State it is legal to  secretly tape anyone with whom I am in a conversation.

I am, of course, writing a book.

All the people who work for the Gotcha Squad now or in the past have a very good chance of appearing in my book, but one person is definitely going to be in there: NYC Department Attorney Victor Muallem. I have sat in on several hearings where Victor was the DOE Attorney. In my opinion, he is one of the most incompetent attorneys I have seen, and the DOE does dig their attorneys up from the bottom of the barrel. I have asked many people why Victor acts like he owns the place, and everyone there simply shrugs and says that that's the way things are. Same with Ms. Sylvia Cheeks, who assigns hearing rooms. If she catches you in a hallway and you look like you dont know what is going on, Sylvia will tell you you have to sit in the waiting room (see picture above), sorry. According to sources she has no title, but took on this role because she can now tell people where to go. Literally.

So, lets get back to this morning, May 10, 2011. I arrived early like I usually do, around 9:30AM for a 10 o'clock start time for the teacher's hearing. The teacher showed up and we, I as the paralegal,  started going over the documents that were going to be used in the hearing at which Assistant Principal Francine Palmer-Mullings would be testifying today about how this math teacher was criminally incompetent and must be terminated. About a month ago more than half the school walked out in protest of this teacher's removal Fordham Leadership Academy For Business and Technology located in the Bronx, but AP Palmer-Mullings remembered none of that. She did not see all the students wearing t-shirts with this teacher's name on them, either. Nope, totally zoned out of everything except that this teacher must be terminated. Palmer-Mullings has quite a few skeletons in her closet, but the DOE Attorney on this case, Ms. Dilia Travieso, objected strongly to Arbitrator Roy Watanabe whenever any of that was brought in. (In Watanabe's favor, he did allow testimony about Palmer-Mullings being found guilty of pocketing $7000 that belonged to the robotics club, substantiated by Special Commissioner of Investigation or SCI. (Now we'll see whether Watanabe allows the issue of her taking excessive per session pay or not, and whether she was on more than one budget line at the school, and even whether she has a green Card).

So, there I and the teacher were, looking through documents in preparation for cross examination of Palmer-Mullings by the teacher's Attorney, who put me in the record as his paralegal, and Watanabe accepted this. The teacher needed a few pages copied, so I went over to the copy machine (the one in the picture at the top) and put the papers in the feeder and pressed start.

The new receptionist (she has been in her job a few months, Monday-wednesday) came up behind me and told me that the copy machine was only for lawyers, and I could not use it because I am not an attorney. I asked her if this was a new policy, and if it was written down, but all she knew was that I had to move away, pronto. That was news, as I and everyone else have used this machine since it appeared  I believe in September. I nicely told her that I was assisting the attorney in the 3020-a as his paralegal, and he needed the papers. She left the room, I finished one set, and went back to the far end of the room to sit down next to the teacher.

Suddenly, everyone in the room jumped out of their chairs as round little Victor Muallem came running into the area screaming at the top of his lungs (well, I dont know that for a fact, but he was VERY loud),
"if THAT woman (pointing his outstretched arm and finger at me) uses the copy machine, or tries to use it, I will call security and have her escorted out of the building."

He was so mad that he was shaking with rage. The room was completely silent (although I admit to  giggling). If I had not been part of the teacher's team at the 3020-a hearing on for today, I would have possibly told Victor that I saw no written policy, and therefore would use the machine until a written policy was produced. But I knew that Victor would escort me out with security and then I would have some media coverage for being thrown out of 51 Chambers street for using - or attempting to use - the copy machine on the sixth floor (is it public funds that pays for the upkeep and buys the paper???), but I'll have to get thrown out on another day - specially set up with the proper cameras outside to catch everything.

Victor is serious about throwing people out. The teacher whose hearing was today wanted to talk to his previous attorney at the beginning of his hearing, and they both went into an empty small room to discuss the case. Victor found them and screamed that they must leave immediately, the rooms belong to the Department and cannot be used by anyone else (the teacher is still an employee). The lawyer said that he wanted to stay, to discuss the case, and Victor called security and had the lawyer escorted downstairs and out of the building. From that day on, the Attorney was not allowed upstairs to the sixth floor without a security guard with him. He withdrew from the case and told the teacher to resign.

This is how they run things at The Gotcha Squad.

Gary - thanks for your help.

Betsy Combier

There Can Be No Change Under the Reign Of Bloomberg (Except In Ourselves )

Patrick Walsh writes the truth as he sees it and as I do too.

Betsy Combier

Raginghorseblog

The truth as I see it.

There Can Be No Change Under the Reign Of Bloomberg (Except In Ourselves )
April 15, 2011

LINK
In a sense, insofar as she so perfectly embodied the hubris, idiocy and recklessness of so much of the education reform campaign and particularly the educational vision of Mike R. Bloomberg, I, for one, am sorry to see the back of Cathie Black. Of course, she was appalling and an embarrassment to an entire city. But that misses the point.

No matter how hard Bloomberg and his trained seals tried, Black, unlike Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein or Arne Duncan or Chris Christie, could not be somehow transformed into an heroic figure fearlessly taking on all powerful teacher’s unions, the status quo, and the selfish teachers; those evil foes who were not only damaging the nation’s children (thus hindering them from “winning the future”), but bankrupting the American economy to boot.

Even aside from her tasteless public comments there was something in Cathie that people could not stomach. More to the point, there was something so grotesque and so obscene about Bloomberg naming Black the Chancellor of Education and then doing whatever it is that Bloomberg does to bend people to his will to secure Black a waiver that disgusted those generally indifferent to politics. I heard astounded reactions from people who never gave a thought to education before. And to some extent it galvanized them. Black’s mere presence at Bloomberg’s insulting Panel For Educational Policy meetings (in which a panel dominated by Bloomberg zombies would pretend to listen to the heartfelt testimonies of parents, teachers, students and community activists before rubber stamping whatever Bloomberg had ordered) created an instant carnival atmosphere where the hapless Black sat like a mute queen, now haughty, now pouting, in silence, surrounded by her praetorian guard (including Dennis Walcott) absorbing heaps of abuse, wholly incapable of answering even the most basic questions of policy. Her most memorable moment at such “panels” was mimicking the sound of the crowd who jeered when Black protectors grabbed their mics to answer yet another question asked of Black and Black scolded her questioners.

Such moments were at once surreal, illuminating and emancipating. They exposed, as much or more than the most well crafted argument, the idiot logic guiding not merely Bloomberg but all the well heeled narcissistic imbeciles whose imaginations are so paralyzed and egos so bloated that they believe to the core of their beings that corporate business people (like themselves) have somehow attained the highest form of human intelligence and therefore that all human institutions — libraries, hospitals, governments, schools, whatever –should be subordinated to the corporate business model.

Like no one else, on an almost daily basis, Black revealed this thinking to be the insanity that it is. More, as Mike Bloomberg was surely the only man in the entire world who would even consider a person as stunningly unqualified as Black to be the Chancellor of Education for the City of New York, Black revealed Mike Bloomberg to be an arrogant fool.

This, of course, was her undoing. As Bernie Kerik instantly became to Bloomberg’s predecessor Rudy Giuliani the moment people outside of Giuliani’s orbit looked into him, so Cathie Black was daily becoming to Bloomberg: an embarrassment that called Bloomberg’s very judgment into glaring, garish question.

So in the blink of an eye, dilettante “super star manager” Cathie Black was out and soft spoken Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott in. One might think such a self-created disaster as Black would humble a man, at least for the moment. But not Bloomberg. Not even for a moment. Even as he was stating that he “ accepted full responsibility” for the Black debacle, he sounded pissed that he actually had to say such stuff. Lost in the shock of the announcement was the fact that Bloomberg proved again that he is incapable of learning anything as he pulled the same stunt with Walcott that he pulled with Black.

The first sign that nothing will change under Dennis Walcott was the process of selecting Dennis Walcott. Which is to say, there was no process. There was no search, no consultation with the United Federation of Teachers, no reaching out to parents, no discussion whatsoever with anyone anywhere over who should replace the disastrous Black and assume responsibility for the education of over one million children in a school system that, from the inside, feels as if it is being held together with dental floss.

Walcott is the man and that is that. Such is life under the reign of Bloomberg. As both Diane Ravich and Noah Gotbaum have pointed out Bloomberg treats the public schools as if they are his private property to do with as he will. Many, including friends, have greeted Walcott’s selection with something approximating approval. At any rate, there has been none of the incredulity that came with the selection of Black and remained with her for every one of her 96 days as chancellor. A great deal is being made of Walcott’s public school education, his two years teaching kindergarten, his grandchildren in the system and the fact that he does not need to be surrounded by four deputy chancellors lest some one ask him a policy question. Such banter reveals far more about how thoroughly Bloomberg has degraded the position of chancellor than it does any thing about the qualifications of Dennis Walcott to bear it. Indeed, just like Bloomberg’s previous selections for chancellor, Walcott does not have the qualifications.

If anyone has any doubts about why Wolcott was selected, just look at the reception he has received from those who have spent the last decade trying to destroy the public school system any way they can. Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone — he who pays the children in his program do do their homework — and as such a corporate confidence man extraordinaire, called Walcott a “brilliant choice,” adding, “I feel terrific about it.” Former Chancellor Joel Klein currently employed as CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Education Division called Walcott “a superb selection” and “ a fighter for kids.”

I, for one, disagree. I, for one do not hold Walcott’s selection to be a good thing excepting, perhaps, for Bloomberg whom Walcott will certainly fight for. While it is true that Dennis Walcott is, by all accounts, an intelligent and amiable fellow and one conversant with the nuts and bolts of the Department of Education, while it is true that long ago and far away he worked in the Urban League, while its true he is now declaring that the school system is “ all about a partnership,” the greater truth is that Dennis Walcott is Mike Bloomberg’s stooge.

After faithfully serving Bloomberg for nine years no man in New York has more intimate knowledge than Dennis Walcott as to what happens to any Bloomberg appointee who dares to think with his or her own mind, who dares to speak his or her own opinion: who dares, that is, to be a free and dignified human being.

Dennis Walcott is more aware than anyone in New York what he has got himself into. And Dennis Walcott, for whatever reason, has willingly accepted that role. Anyone who believes the replacement of Black with Walcott will make an iota of difference that is beneficial to students, teachers and the school system is delusional.

What Bloomberg has been permitted to do is shocking and deeply disturbing. Or, at any rate, it should be shocking and deeply disturbing. In nine years Bloomberg has degraded the political landscape of New York so thoroughly that he has rendered the Chancellorship of Education either irrelevant or a joke. While Bloomberg reigns it does not matter who is chancellor. Klein, Black Walcott, whomever, they are all there to play dummy to Bloomberg’s ventriloquist and they all know that the minute they speak their own mind is the minute their fates are sealed. What’s worse is millions of New Yorkers know this too and somehow it is accepted. Such is the degraded state of our “democracy.” Indeed, if Bloomberg had any integrity at all he would simply eliminate the position of Chancellor for the duration of his term (if, indeed, his term ever ends) and save the taxpayers the salary of this now ceremonial position.

How many teachers can be hired on a chancellor’s salary?

There is something diabolical about Bloomberg. He specializes in corrupting people by successful appeals to their basest impulses. Of course, all such appeals would be unthinkable without his absurd wealth. Consider City Counsel speaker Christine Quinn. No matter how long she lives Quinn will have to live with the horrible truth that she helped undermine the political will of millions and millions of New Yorkers when she helped orchestrate Bloomberg’s illegal and legally singular third term. And she should live with it. And she should be reminded of her treacherous and cowardly act every day.

Consider New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner, the son of the great literary critic George Steiner, who must live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he allowed Mike Bloomberg to somehow persuade him to throw his integrity to the gutter when he approved non-educator Cathie Black’s waiver to be chancellor with the preposterous stipulation that the job of “chief academic officer “ — i.e. someone who actually knew something about schools — be created to work beside her. Steiner had to know that what he was doing was wrong if not out right grotesques. Nonetheless, like Quinn Steiner debased himself to do Bloomberg’s bidding. And by dancing the humiliating dance Bloomberg demanded both did irreparable harm not only to their souls, but also betrayed the people they swore to serve.

Nothing will change for the better with Walcott. Indeed, Walcott will be far more effective in pushing through Bloomberg’s agenda of total destruction all the time than Cathie Black could ever dream about. He’s already begun. Speaking before last Friday’s City Council hearing on the mayor’s preliminary operating budget Walcott made the extremely dubious claim that, “By any measure the gains our students have made in recent years have been extraordinary – far outpacing the rest of the State and cities across the nation.”

As a New York City teacher I have no idea what Walcott can possibly be referring to here – but the language is extremely reminiscent of Bloomberg’s and Klein’s when they were crowing before Congress about the since-debunked miraculous gains for New York students under their since-debunked miraculous leadership.

Walcott dutifully went on to channel two other Bloomberg fallacies. The first was how the city had no choice but to lay off teachers, a claim thrice publicly contradicted by Governor Andrew Cuomo who is no friend of teachers. The second, offered with no evidence whatsoever from this data loving contingent, was how seniority laws (or LIFO as they are now moronically called) are depriving children of their most “effective” teachers.

In short, on the part of the DOE nothing has changed, and as long as Bloomberg is mayor nothing will change — least of all Bloomberg. He simply doesn’t have the moral strength to change or admit he’s wrong about anything. Bloomberg is a free market utopian as impervious to reality as was Milton Friedman if somewhat nastier in his manner.

When he first arrived at City Hall and for some time afterward, Bloomberg repeatedly stated that he wished to be judged on how dealt with education, which was, in fairness to Bloomberg, in many ways, a mess. For a while, Bloomberg successfully fooled many into thinking that his almost yearly reorganizations, “data based instruction”, high stakes testing, school closings and championing of charter schools were actually making things better rather than just different for New York City students. This began to change with news of the fraudulent or grossly inflated testing scores and evidence of doctored graduation rates. Confidence in Bloomberg’s handling of schools went further south with his ridiculous selection of Black and further still with Black’s darkly comical impersonation of a chancellor of education.

Even as blind a narcissist as Michael Bloomberg must by this point know that if he is judged by his handling of the schools he would be judged – at the very best — a mediocrity and by many, in fact most, a failure. (Most NYC teachers, I am convinced, would rank Bloomberg as a catastrophe, a point, I am equally convinced, that would not bother Bloomberg in the least.)

I believe Bloomberg’s response to his failure is to spend the remainder of his term accelerating what he and his fellow “reformers” across the USA have been doing for a decade now: altering the public school system beyond recognition, setting it up for failure, hastening its demise and setting in motion its rescue by corporate America. This requires the destruction of the UFT, whose power Bloomberg has been undermining since his arrival at City Hall. All pretense of a working partnership between Bloomberg’s DOE and the UFT is now laughable. Bloomberg would love to leave office as the man who destroyed the teacher’s union. He’d love that even if that meant, as it would, that teachers could be fired at the whim of any psychotic principal, that the profession would be degraded beyond recognition, that generation of students would be subjected to nothing but test prep. No matter. Power has made Bloomberg stranger, crueler, and dumber. Bloomberg has moved past being reckless and is now so ruthless he is seemingly willing to unnecessarily lay off thousands and thousands of teachers to try and alter public opinion on seniority laws and get his way.

This is sick.

And, if it is not, it should be criminal.

What to do?

Appealing to a figurehead like Dennis Walcott is a waste of time and energy. The combination of the power of Bloomberg’s obscene wealth and Bloomberg’s ruthless policies are something not seen for a long, long time if ever before in American politics. As such they call for a different kind of response, a different method of fighting, some way of not allowing this man to totally degrade our political system and totally destroy our school system before handing it over to his pals in the “free market.”

Bloomberg cannot change. We must. What we have been doing has not worked. It may mean massive acts of civil disobedience and massive amounts of consequent arrests. It may mean sick-outs on a scale unseen in New York history. It may mean something not yet imagined to match the almost unimaginable reality we are living, in which the richest man in New York is running New York with dictatorial control over almost every aspect of its school system. This is disgraceful. This is insane. We need to figure out how we got here and how we allowed this. We need to figure out how to get out of here and how to transcend this. We need to figure out how to keep people as venal and vicious as Michael Bloomberg as far away from political power as legally possible.