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Monday, May 26, 2014

The Gill Commission Report (1990) and the Denial of Due Process Rights By the "Investigators" in the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) Office

Anyone in the NYC public school system today must read an article I wrote in 2009 for my website Parentadvocates.org on the establishment of the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI). The way that Mike Bloomberg and his appointed non-Attorney, Richard Condon, family friend of Rose Gill Hearn and her dad James Gill, have used their authority to destroy lives and fracture due process is astounding and, in my opinion, ugly.

SCI office at 80 Maiden Lane

Parents, teachers, administrators, and children are made victims by so-called "investigators" who are given immunity as they falsify records, change careers and commit fraud.

My highlighting these agents of doom is part of my expose of the harm that the Department of Education continues to do to innocent people, all for political/financial gain.

By the way, former Department of Investigation head Rose Gill Hearn now works for Bloomberg Associates, of course......and the Campaign Finance Board. She's really busy.

More to come.

Betsy Combier

Dear Mike and Joel: Give Us the Money
The Arrogance of Immunity and Fraud Behind Rose Gill Hearn, Richard Condon, SCI, OSI, and OEO
Lawrence Scott III, Agent of the NYC DOE Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Sexually Assaults Teacher Natalya Sokolson-Gordon at Her School, PS. 329 in Coney Island, Brooklyn
Secret Emails About Office of Special Investigations Being in Chaos

Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon
Two Reports, "Investigating The Investigators", and 'The Gill Commission Report' (1990) Dont Improve New York City Public Schools

LINK
Editorial: Every person of any age or title who is involved with the NYC public school system is in danger, as long as Richard Condon is Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City Public Schools. I have finally copied two books published in March and April 1990 which show the corruption inside New York City's education department: "Investigating the Investigators" and "Findings and Recommendations of the Joint Commission on the Integrity of the Public Schools". Nothing has changed...in fact, the corruption is worse than ever. Betsy Combier





James Gill



On March 15, 1990, Mr. James F. Gill, the appointed Chairman of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public schools, wrote a letter to New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins, the Honorable Robert F. Wagner, Jr., President of the Board of Education, and the Honorable Joseph A. Fernandez, Chancellor, in which he expressed his dismay at incompetence of the Board of Education’s Inspector General, Michael P. Sofarelli:

“I am sad to report that the Commission found the Inspector General’s operation woefully inadequate. The office wastes scarce resources that should be devoted to investigating serious crime on ineptly-run investigations of internal management matters. The office lacks experienced personnel and meaningful supervision. The office does not keep track of it’s own work accurately or generate reliable statistics that would enable the public to assess it’s effectiveness.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the office has forfeited the confidence of the system’s employees: 41 percent of the teachers and supervisors who responded to our survey reported that they believed the Inspector General was either minimally effective or completely ineffective. This pervasive distrust of the system’s watchdog is a devastating indictment of the office’s performance and a critical impediment to effective policing.

Because of these findings, the Commission recommends that the Mayor immediately appoint a Special Commissioner to Investigate the Public School System. The new Commissioner should attack crime and corruption with the goal of building solid, prosecutable criminal cases against real criminals. The Commissioner’s staff should be an effective strike force ofcriminal attorneys, police officers, and investigators. The Commissioner’s office should – at least temporarily until it earns the confidence of parents, employees and the public at large – be independent of the Board of Education.”

(Yes, Mr. Sofarelli was removed, but he was then hired by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate Medicaid fraud in NYC, and the work was so bad that Pataki ordered an overhaul in 2005. Mr. Sofarelli 'retired' from investigating Medicaid in 2003. - Ed)

Mr. Gill then published his findings in a book, “Investigating the Investigators”, which I copied and have made available below:

Investigating the Investigators (Introduction – p. 43)
Investigating the Investigators (pp. 44 – 86)

One month later, Mr. Gill wrote to the same people a letter that became the introduction to his final report:

“Dear Sirs,

This is the final report of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public schools, and it contains the Commission’s findings and recommendations I regret to report that we found serious corruption or impropriety almost wherever we looked”…

Findings and Recommendations Of The Joint Commission On Integrity In the Public Schools (Introduction – p. viii)
New Tammany Hall pp. ix – xviii
New Tammany Hall pp.1-37
New Tammany Hall pp. 38-77
New Tammany Hall pp. 78-102
New Tammany Hall pp. 103-163
New Tammany Hall pp. 164-193

Executive Order No. 11 was issued on June 28, 1990 by NYC Mayor David Dinkins, creating the office of the new Deputy Commissioner.

Rose Gill Hearn
Rose Gill Hearn
The facts of the corruption of New York City public schools was very much in the media in 1989-1990:

Panel Urges Watchdog Agency for N.Y.C. Schools
By Ann Bradley, Education Week, Published: June 13, 1990
LINK

A commission charged with investigating corruption in the New York City schools has released a final report calling for the establishment of an independent investigatory agency appointed by the mayor to monitor wrongdoing in the district.

The final report of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, released May 31, summarized findings that had previously been made public.

But it also contained new criticism of the board of education's procedures for disciplining teachers and principals, and fresh disclosures of $94,000 worth of missing computer equipment in one community school district. The report revealed, in addition, that the same community district had spent $17,000 to give its employees electronic paging devices.

In a news conference held to announce the report's release, James F. Gill, chairman of the commission, blamed Robert F. Wagner Jr., president of the board of education, for many of the system's failings.
Mr. Gill called the board a "sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing."
When asked who was to blame for the situation, Mr. Gill responded: "I'll say it--Bob Wagner. He's the president of the board of education. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner."

However, Mr. Gill said in an interview last week that he had "no intention of attacking Bob Wagner personally."
"I hold him in high regard," he said. "The board of education is the group that has overall responsibility for everything in the system, and it should be accountable."

Inspector General's Powers
Mr. Wagner said last week that he attributes Mr. Gill's comments to the fact that the two disagree over what powers an independent inspector general should be given.
The board president said he favors giving the inspector general special prosecutory powers; Mr. Gill said such powers would conflict with the duties of the regular prosecutors' offices.

Mr. Gill charged that the board of education's current inspector general, Michael Sofarelli, has been lax in conducting investigations. "It's an investigatory failure, not a prosecutorial problem," he said last week.
Mayor David Dinkins is expected to make a recommendation on the issue within a month.
Mr. Wagner also noted that several of the commission's criticisms, including the charge that the board had failed to discipline teachers, were in areas affected by state regulations that were not within the board's control.
The commission was appointed by former Mayor Edward I. Koch and the board of education in 1988. The most dramatic moment of its investigation came last year, when the board of Community School District 27 was suspended following allegations of corruption made by Colman Genn, the district's superintendent.
Mr. Genn, who had secretly taped conversations with board members and school employees, testified that board members had made it clear his contract would not be renewed unless he agreed to hire their friends and political associates. (See Education Week, Nov. 1, 1989.)

The report recommended that the New York legislature give district superintendents, rather than community school boards, the power to hire teachers' aides and paraprofessionals. It did not endorse Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez's proposal to take away local boards' power to appoint school administrators.

June 1, 1990
Wagner Faulted for Schools' Failures by Inquiry Panel Head
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES

LEAD: The chairman of a commission investigating New York City's schools yesterday called the Board of Education a 'sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing' and singled out its president, Robert F. Wagner Jr., for blame.

The chairman of a commission investigating New York City's schools yesterday called the Board of Education a 'sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing' and singled out its president, Robert F. Wagner Jr., for blame.
'I'll say it - Bob Wagner,' said James F. Gill, chairman of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, when asked whom he was holding responsible for the school system's continuing failures. 'He's the president of the Board of Education. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner.'

In a telephone interview later, Mr. Gill said: 'I don't mean to single him out, but a lot of these things happened on his watch and he is the chief executive officer. So he along with the entire board has to share responsibility when things go wrong, particularly when we make revelations that they haven't acted upon.'

Mr. Gill made his initial remarks at a news conference at the midtown office of his law firm to release the final report on the commission's 17 months of work. The 193-page document contained fresh disclosures about $94,000 of missing computers in one Bronx district and new criticism of the central board for what it said was an inability to discipline teachers.

'An Excuse for Failure'
Mr. Gill, whose commission was created by former Mayor Edward I. Koch and the Board of Education in the wake of a series of disclosures about school corruption, attacked the central board, its bureaucracy and its leadership for what he said was a desire to use the decentralization of the system 20 years ago into 32 local districts 'as an excuse for failure.'
'They seem to have believed that they could just let those districts stew in their own juices, just send them a memo or directive once in a blue moon and then let them sink or swim on their own,' Mr. Gill said.

But even more startling was the attack on Mr. Wagner. The son of a former New York City Mayor, the grandson of a former United States Senator and a confidant of Mr. Koch, Mr. Wagner has been been one of the city's most prominent political fixtures for two decades and played a key role in appointing both the commission and Mr. Gill. By picturing himself as a reformer intent on overhauling a shabby school system, he has generally been able to elude the criticism that regularly befalls that system. His term as board president, a part-time position for which he is paid $20,000 a year, expires at the end of this month. In an interview yesterday, Mr. Wagner, board president since January 1986, dismissed much of the criticism as unfair, saying Mr. Gill was attacking failings that he and the other board members can do little about. He spoke of his battle for legislation that would abolish the Board of Examiners, the agency that tests and licenses teachers, and give the chancellor a greater role in choosing district superintendents.

Mr. Gill said Mr. Wagner was 'very dedicated' and his 'heart was in the right place.' But, he said, he and the rest of the board were 'lumbering' along and had not even responded promptly to repeated findings by his commission of corruption and inefficiency within the school system.

Criticism on Sofarelli
Mr. Wagner, he said, did not dismiss his Inspector General, Michael Sofarelli, even though the commission revealed significant inadequacies in how the office conducted its investigations of wrongdoing by employees. 'Why would you want to continue a guy who has run the office in the way he had run it,' Mr. Gill said in an interview. Mr. Wagner, he said, also did not 'exert his influence' to obtain the removal of the chief investigator for the Board of Examiners after the commission exposed serious flaws in the screening process for new teachers. That process, Mr. Gill said, permitted a teacher convicted of sexual abuse to get appointed to a Bronx junior high school.

More than a year ago, he said, his commission revealed that the board was not certifying parents for eligibility to vote in school board elections, thereby exposing the balloting to fraud.
But the officials responsible, Mr. Gill said, were never disciplined. Eight months ago, he said, the commission tape-recorded a Queens teacher, Richard Lipkowitz, as he boasted of his ability to influence the appointments of the district's administrators. The charges against that teacher, Mr. Gill said, are 'still pending.'
'This kind of inertia, stagnation and inaction is extremely distressing,' Mr. Gill said. 'The kids deserve better. They deserve leaders who will act on their behalf and act in a timely way.'

Roots of the Problem
In response, Mr. Wagner said the disciplinary process for teachers is controlled by state laws and union contracts that carefully protect teacher rights and salaries until the proceedings have run their course. The response to the election certification, he said, was bedeviled by a faulty legal opinion, and, he said, affected only a few voters in any case. The Board of Examiners, he said, is a independent agency that is not under the control of the Board of Education.

Mr. Wagner speculated that Mr. Gill's harsh words have roots in their disagreement over what kind of office should police corruption within the schools. Mr. Gill would like to see the present Inspector General replaced by a Special Commissioner appointed by the mayor who would have subpoena power and a staff of professional investigators. Mr. Wagner prefers an independent special prosecutor who would also be able to bring cases to trial. Mr. Gill thinks Mr. Wagner's proposal impractical since it would be opposed by the city's district attorneys.

Mr. Wagner has also expressed displeasure with the personal attacks on the Inspector General, Mr. Sofarelli, in an earlier report by the Gill Commission.
'It's a reflection of Jim's impatience about the pace of change within the system and how difficult it to make things happen,' Mr. Wagner said.

New Disclosures
In contrast to the criticism of Mr. Wagner, Mr. Gill used only complimentary language in talking about Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez. But Mr. Fernandez was said by aides to be unhappy with the Gill Commission's refusal to endorse his effort to strip the 32 community school boards of their power to appoint principals and assistant principals.

These aides, who asked for anonymity, said Mr. Gill had personally indicated to Mr. Fernandez that the boards, many of which have been implicated in patronage, should not be permitted to appoint school administrators. But the aides said Mr. Gill then found himself outweighed by three members of the commission and sought to preserve its unity. The account was confirmed by two officials familiar with the Gill Commission's deliberations.

The report was largely a review of the commission's findings over its 17-month life. But there were several new disclosures. On a single day last September, the commission's investigators visited 17 of the 33 schools in School District 9 in the southwest Bronx and found that 80 computers, or 17 percent of those purchased for the schools, and 37 printers, or 26 percent of those purchased, could not be located. Many of these, the investigators later discovered, were moved to other districts but no records were kept of the transfers.

Others 'were left sitting in storage' and went unused by students. Still others, the report said, 'simply disappeared,' though the investigators could not determine whether they were stolen or misplaced.
The commission also found that District 9 spent $17,000 a year so that 68 officials could have beepers, or paging devices. It also found that the district became embroiled in a scheme to allow 40 relatives and friends of district employees to have beepers, but that in many cases the district was not repaid for their use.

The commission also took issue with the school system's unwillingness to discipline teachers. In the 1988-89 school year, it said, 99.7 percent of the system's 65,000 teachers were rated satisfactory, a level of quality that Mr. Gill, a lawyer in private practice, said sardonically could not be matched by any other profession, even his own. Only 12 teachers were dismissed or forced to resign as a result of disciplinary proceedings.

In its recommendations, the commission asked the State Legislature to give district superintendents, rather than local school boards, the power to hire teacher aides and paraprofessionals. It asked the central board to articulate clear policies about discipline 'so that those in charge of discipline are no longer left at sea about what they should consider misconduct and what punishments they should seek.'

March 16, 1990
Investigators For Schools Are Criticized
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES

LEAD: In a stinging report issued yesterday, the commission examining the New York City public school system said the work of the Board of Education's chief investigative arm was 'reminiscent of the Keystone Kops' and deserved blame for much of the corruption and crime within the system.

In a stinging report issued yesterday, the commission examining the New York City public school system said the work of the Board of Education's chief investigative arm was 'reminiscent of the Keystone Kops' and deserved blame for much of the corruption and crime within the system.

The most dramatic example of ineffectiveness by the school system's Office of Inspector General, the Gill Commission charged, came in the case of Matthew Barnwell, a Bronx principal arrested by the New York City police in November 1988 on charges of buying crack. The Inspector General, the commission said, learned that Mr. Barnwell was using drugs a year before the arrest, but bungled its investigation with 'aimless, lethargic and sporadic' work.

'The investigation was so shoddy that it could be a textbook example of how not to conduct a criminal investigation,' said the report by the commission, which is known formally as the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools.

Unit Established in '80

The arrest of Mr. Barnwell set off a wave of investigations into allegations of corruption in the school system. This week, three former Bronx school officials who were indicted in one of the inquiries were acquitted of charges stemming from the removal of a baby grand piano from a school. [Page B3.] In its report yesterday, the Gill Commission recommended that the office be replaced with a 'special commissioner to investigate the public schools' who would be appointed by the mayor, be in charge of a squad of police officers, and be given the power to issue subpoenas and make arrests, powers the Inspector General's Office now lacks.

The Inspector General's Office was set up in 1980 to serve as the school system's internal watchdog and handle a wide variety of crimes and violations of school regulations, including thefts of property, political hiring and abuse of students.

In December 1988, after Mr. Barnwell's arrest and several newspaper accounts of corruption, the Gill Commission was created. One of its purposes was to look at how well the school system was policing itself.

The commission's study, titled 'Investigating the Investigator' constituted a 'scathing indictment' of 'bloated, largely ineffective operation whose investigations are often reminiscent of the Keystone Kops,' the panel's chairman, James F. Gill, said at a news conference.

'Significant Illicit Activity'

The Inspector General's 60 investigators, the report said, lack law-enforcement and legal experience, are hamstrung by poor supervision and are not scrupulous about protecting the confidentiality of their sources.

The office's $3.8 million dollar annual budget, Mr. Gill said, 'is squandered on trivial matters instead of focused on significant illicit activity' and more energy seems devoted to 'papering the file than to detecting wrongdoing.'

'I cannot escape the conclusion that some of the responsibility for the corruption that we have uncovered in the school system rests squarely on Inspector General Michael Sofarelli's office,' Mr. Gill said.

In a response, Mr. Sofarelli said the report was 'written in a sensational headline-hunting way' and took unnecessary 'cheap shots at him and his staff. He said his office's inquiries had led to 70 arrests since 1987, including the conviction of 26 school building inspectors charged in a kickback scheme and the suspension or indictments of three school district superintendents.

Low Salaries

He said his office, like the offices of the 26 other inspectors generals at city agencies, was hobbled by low starting salaries for investigators, who are paid about $25,000 to start, which made it difficult to recruit the best investigators or former police officers.

Mr. Sofarelli's deputy, Conrad W. Reitz, said investigators for the Gill Commssion had themselves bungled the arrest of a high school teacher who was buying drugs.

The Gill Commission saved its most vitriolic language for a case study of the Inspector General's handling of a complaint against Mr. Barnwell. On November 24, 1987, a year before Mr. Barnwell's arrest, the board received an anonymous telephone call from a teacher at Public School 53 who said Mr. Barnwell was 'discriminating against non-blacks' in hiring, was borrowing money from teachers without repaying them and was 'a drug user.'

One Interview a Month

Mr. Sofarelli, the report said, was informed of the call the following day, but the first interview to try to confirm the allegation was not conducted until March 10, more than three months later. A chronology provided in the commission's report indicates that the investigator on the case conducted interviews at the rate of one a month with parents, teachers and administrators.

Before any action could be taken by the office, Mr. Barnwell was arrested - without the office's knowledge or participation - by the New York City police as he tried to buy two vials of crack on a Manhattan street. He was convicted of drug possession in January and dismissed.

Mr. Gill said that the Inspector General should have begun a prompt surveillance of Mr. Barnwell, rather than concentrating on interviews with his colleagues. The office's investigator, he said, failed to consult the board's own files on Mr. Barnwell, which would have revealed earlier complaints that Mr. Barnwell 'sat in his office all day playing video games.'

In his rebuttal, Mr. Sofarelli said the original allegation of drug use was included almost as an 'afterthought' in the memorandum he received and so failed to trigger the appropriate urgency. Moreover, he said, the office handles 2,900 complaints a year and many of them are efforts to 'get back' at people.

Three Lawyers

His office's investigator was handling many other cases, he said. And his office, he said, did not try to shadow Mr. Barnwell because it was never told where he used drugs and 'we couldn't follow the man around for 24 hours.'

Mr. Gill's concerns about the Inspector General were more sweeping than just the Barnwell case. The office, he said, had only three lawyers, and only one of those - Mr. Sofarelli, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn - has any experience in criminal matters. Only one of the office's 60 investigators, Mr. Gill said, has a background in police work.

'Sofarelli was on the scene for nine years,' Mr. Gill said. 'He should have done something about it.'

'If he was working for me, he'd go,' Mr. Gill added. Mr. Sofarelli serves at the pleasure of the 7-member board of education and was not hired by the chancellor.

Mr. Gill also told of breaches in confidentiality, including one investigator who left his name and title at the school that was being investigated. Such breaches, Mr. Gill said may explain why Colman Genn, the superintendent of District 27 in Brooklyn, went to the commission rather than the Inspector General with his startling allegations of political hiring.

Mr. Gill said that a survey of school employees taken by the commission showed that 44 percent of those interviewed would feel 'uncomfortable bringing a complaint' to the Inspector General.

In responses to the commission, both Mayor David N. Dinkins and Robert F. Wagner Jr., indicate interest in or support for supportive the idea of creating an investigative agency totally independent of the Board of Education. Mr. Wagner, however, pointed out that unless salaries were raised, the independent office would also not attract the best law and police school graduates.

October 24, 1989
New York Times
Tapes of School Officials: Ante Becomes 'Little Higher'

LEAD: These are excerpts from conversations taped by Colman Genn, superintendent of School District 27 in Queens, with James C. Sullivan, the school board treasurer, Samuel Granirer, board vice president, and William Sampol, a former Republican state legislative aide seeking a $42,000-a-year district job, and others over a course of seven months.
These are excerpts from conversations taped by Colman Genn, superintendent of School District 27 in Queens, with James C. Sullivan, the school board treasurer, Samuel Granirer, board vice president, and William Sampol, a former Republican state legislative aide seeking a $42,000-a-year district job, and others over a course of seven months. The opening excerpts are from a conversation that generally revolved around Mr. Sullivan's and Mr. Granirer's complaints that Mr. Genn had hired too many black assistant principals and not enough of the people they wanted. Feb. 6, 1989
GENN: Jimmy, you're not going to take all the blacks off the list because . . .
SULLIVAN: Yes. If you're gonna put them in, we're gonna take them out. Yeah. If there was movement to play, I'd play. You know what I mean? (A few minutes later)
SULLIVAN: And a year from now, your contract is going to be up. And I'm telling you this, as your friend. As board members who'll probably be sitting here.
GENN: I'm sure you will all be sitting here.
SULLIVAN: O.K. Do you understand what the considerations become then? And how the ante becomes, becomes a little higher under those new guidelines?
GENN: I understand, but I can't let that become.
GRANIRER: (Unintelligible)
GENN: How I run my life . . .
SULLIVAN: I understand that. But you understand what our concerns are.
GENN: I understand that I would not get another contract.
SULLIVAN: It's possible. Sept. 13, 1989
SULLIVAN: You know, nobody's looking to fleece anybody. Honestly we're not, Cole.
GENN: Yeah, I understand.
SULLIVAN: If I thought, if I thought that they were really hurting instruction, wanting a whole (expletive) piece that would make a big, major difference, I wouldn't go for it. Honestly, at the end of the day, I'm a political leader - that's why I'm here.
GENN: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: And I make sure my people get (expletive) jobs. When I came into this district, and it's true, Cole, there were three Irish supervisors out of 157 people. Now, when the blacks come up, they say, 'Well, don't tell us that there aren't enough blacks that are qualified.' That's true.
GENN: Mmm-hmm.
SULLIVAN: But don't expect me to believe that about my own people either.
GENN: Mmm-hmm.
SULLIVAN: Except that the avenues were never there for them to participate, because Marvin (Aaron, former district superintendent) hired out of the synagogue. That's between you and I.' Sept. 18, 1989
GENN: You left a resume with Tony (an unidentified district worker) .
SAMPOL: Yes, I did.
GENN: O.K., you brought him the resume. The resume that you brought him is, really doesn't focus at any education kinds of activities.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: Umm, and it's my understanding that, according to Jimmy (Sullivan) , that he wants me to tailor it, the job description, umm, to meet you skills and your background.
SAMPOL: O.K. Or I can change my resume around a little if you like. What, whatever.
GENN: Yeah. I think I'll . . . if you could get me a current resume.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: And focus on the educational things that you've done.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: Umm, and deal with those kinds of issues, umm. I can then either sit with you or, umm, you know, work it out with you.
SAMPOL: O.K.

See also the NY Times' articles on District 27.
Ed Stancik investigated. (I love the last line of his report, in a footnote p. 9:"...Ms. Russell('s)...motivation was political self-preservation, not prejudice.")

Genn died at the age of 68 in July, 2004 - Editor

Ed Stancik was appointed as the first Special Commissioner of Investigation of the New York Public Schools in 1992. Hisindependence from the Board of Education and the Mayor bothered both Commissioner Hearn and Mayor Bloomberg, so when he died at the age of 47 on March 12, 2002, there was alot of talk about how to control this office...so that "favored" administrators, teachers, and parents would not be caught. Mayor Bloomberg issued EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 15 on June 18, 2002, which changed the Special Commissioner's required background from an Attorney to a person with "at least five years of law enforcement experience". Then, Rose Gill Hearn, the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, (and James Gill's daughter) appointed her dad's friend, Richard Condon.

Mr. Condon is not an attorney, as required in Executive Order No. 11, he was appointed by his friend Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn after Mayor Bloomberg changed EXECUTIVE ORDER 11 to EXECUTIVE ORDER 15, which opened the door to an individual who was not an attorney to fill the Special Commissioner's job. It is fair to say after speaking with parents, teachers, and administrators of NYC public schools that Mr. Condon has brought the NYC Public School system to a new level of lawlessness and corruption. The case of Teddy Smith is an example of this. By all accounts, he has created a reign of terror that will never be forgotton, nor, sadly for the current education administration, forgiven.

See also "Investigating the Investigators and the Gill Commission Final Report"

Betsy Combier
Editor

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Dear Mike and Joel: Give Us the Money


05/29/2008
Place Blame For School Cuts Where It’s Due
Queens Chronicle Editorial, 5/29/08
LINK

As the July 1 deadline for approving Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (picture at right) executive budget creeps closer, it has become apparent in recent weeks that the city’s public schools will not be exempt from the belt-tightening Bloomberg has been warning us about for months.
Citing rising operating costs, the most recent estimates by the city’s Department of Education put the budget shortfall at roughly $299 million — $99 million of which would have to be absorbed by individual school operating budgets. This is unfortunate and unacceptable. Parents and educators have rightly been up in arms over the proposed cuts; the mayor and the DOE would do well to listen to them while there’s still time to keep the promise to our city’s children.

True to form, the Department of Education has been waging an intense smoke-and-mirrors media campaign in recent weeks in an attempt to shift blame to the state. At issue is roughly $63 million in new state aid that was promised to the city as part the “Contract For Excellence” program, which Schools Chancellor Joel Klein could use to help reduce the pain of budget cuts around the city.
Per an agreement reached by the state following a 1993 lawsuit, the aid is restricted, and is to be used only for specific programs in struggling schools to reduce class size, among other things — a serious concern for Queens schools, which are the most crowded in the city.

Now Klein is asking for control over that $63 million — part of an already generous package from the state that granted around $600 million in new funds to the city for the coming school year. If the city had control over the funds, his argument goes, that $99 million shortfall for school operating budgets could be lessened equitably among schools, resulting in a 1.4 percent cut citywide. If Albany will not grant the city flexibility in how it uses the $63 million, the burden for the full $99 million cut would be shifted to the city’s best-performing schools — 107 of which would suffer cuts of over 5 percent, with hundreds more facing cuts of 3 percent or more.
Klein is right to argue that the city’s best schools should not have to bear a disproportionate burden while struggling schools suffer fewer cuts — or, in some cases, actually see budget surpluses of up to 4 percent. Parents often buy homes based on their proximity to good schools, which keeps property values growing. More broadly, our city needs to protect its marquee schools as shining examples of the potential for excellence in New York City education.
But Klein is wrong in shifting the blame to state legislators, who allocated that $63 million as extra funding for struggling schools. Were the city to have kept its end of the bargain by meeting that $99 million dollar shortfall in the first place, that state funding could be used toward its intended purpose: helping struggling schools. Instead it is being leveraged as a political tool to close a gap the administration has created for itself.
Despite the budgetary hysteria of recent months, a recent report by the city’s Independent Budget Office predicts that the current fiscal year will end in a budget surplus of $4.6 billion. Given this, and the size of the nearly $60 billion city budget, meeting a $99 million shortfall seems like a small sacrifice for our children. If cuts must be made, we can think of plenty other places to begin. City Council discretionary and individual member funds would be a good start. Our schools, in any budget, should be the last place to make cuts.
Parents and educators rightly feel they are being forced to choose between inequitable cuts and short-changing special needs schools because of the mayor’s Band-Aid approach. Keep the blame where its due. In this era of ostensibly increased accountability in schools, our students deserve as much.

NY SUN's Andy Wolf on Funding Public Schools, Transparency and Accountability

Mr. Wolf, (picture at right) whose articles in the NY SUN has consistently held Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg accountable for their actions, says that problems in New York City public schools will not be solved by giving more money, and he notes that currently more than $20 billion is spent every year for education in the NYC school district.

Folks, when there is this much money, and at the same time kids without books trying to learn while paint drops on their heads from exposed pipes, we can surmise that indeed the money is going somewhere else, and not where it should. Re-read the

James Gill (pictured above)

Gill Commission report (not available online because it is too explosive - James Gill is DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn's dad - Ed) by making a visit to the Municipal Library in the lobby of 31 Chambers Street, conveniently right across the street from Tweed (NYC BOE headquarters).
Commissioner of the Department of Investigation is James Gill's daughter, Rose Gill Hearn, pictured at right.
Joel Klein and his colleagues I am sure do not want you to read the Gill Commission report, as the corruption described inside is as true today as it was in 1990. The Gill Commission recommended that the city fund a new investigative office under the Department of Investigation (whose Commissioner is Rose Gill Hearn) which became "The Special Commissioner of Investigation" currently Richard Condon. While you are in the Library, ask to read the second report, "Investigating the Investigators" - unless it has already been removed from the shelf.

The point is, we, taxpayers and constituents, want to know where our public funds are going and we want to have a say in where our money goes (stop the no bid contracts and giving IBM money for ARIS instead of to our classrooms - see story below - to name a few items that need to be changed) and bring back transparency to the public school funding and budgetary processes. And, give our kids this money.

Do we need Tweed at all? See "More Than 620 People Work in One Building For New York City's Department of Education and "Earn" Millions" for the salaries of all the Tweed folk in 2005. Also see "Salaries of All New York City Employees are Public Information, and the Total Paid Out is $29 Billion, With a "B"". An updated version of both lists should be available at the Municipal Library, and all the salaries may have already doubled. I called more than 30 people on the Tweed list to find out what they did, and I did not get an answer. I asked one person what an 'ADMIN ED ANALYST' was, and she laughed, saying "I have no idea". But she is listed as just that and her salary is $76,194.00 (2006).

Let's get rid of "Central" headquarters, make Tweed once again the public building it once was so that we can all visit anytime (ok, charge an entrance fee), give the money to District offices with the mandate to put every dollar spent into a public, online database, and re-vise the Chancellor's Regulations to include a school board ELECTED BY NYC CONSTITUTENTS. The current "NYC school board" is the Panel For Educational Policy, which, except for the intelligent voice of Patrick Sullivan, is a puppet show with Joel I Klein as Director. It is not a 'legal' entity and no decision is legally binding, as all the members are appointed

The Phoney War
By ANDREW WOLF, NY SUN, May 30, 2008
LINK

The specific issue in New York City's public schools that has caused the most recent brouhaha is how much we spend on teaching our students. In this dust-up, all parties manage to come out on the wrong side.

Expenditures for education already have risen to more than $20 billion a year from $12.5 billion six years ago, without any objective indicator that would suggest that we are on the path to success.

There was a time when the mayor himself would criticize the $12.5 billion figure, asking not for more money, but questioning why such a huge expenditure didn't yield satisfactory results. While campaigning to be given control of the schools back in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg suggested that business-like management combined with a "back-to-basics" curriculum would tame the perceived chaos in our schools.

This is the kind of talk that drew many of us, myself included, to support mayoral control. But once assuming control, Mr. Bloomberg's initial precepts were abandoned, and the mayor joined in supporting the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, apparently convinced that with just a few billion more, all would be right.

By that time, the lawsuit had morphed from one that questioned whether the formula by which state money earmarked for schools was apportioned was fair to the city to one that asked whether enough money was being spent to provide a "sound, basic education," a phrase that means something different to anyone you ask. Considering that the Empire State already boasted the highest per capita spending in the nation, a new definition of just how much is enough was sure to emerge.

The case concluded with agreements on future levels of spending, with the mayor and chancellor willing participants in the process. That was before the mortgage crisis, $4 gasoline, and the souring of the local economy. Now the mayor is reaping what he sowed. He played the CFE money game, and is still finding himself allegedly short of money.

The department of education has come up with a plan that proposes the deepest cuts to the schools that do the best. These schools disproportionately serve middle class and politically active segments of the population, who, the mayor thought, would reliably line up behind him. It didn't work out that way.

This came to a head on Tuesday when the chancellor appeared before the Council's education committee, and was flayed for "breaking his word" on school spending. With a well-orchestrated "Keep the Promises" press campaign (picture below: UFT President Randi Weingarten joins Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan and other union and elected officials to speak out against the city school cuts on Jan. 31.) financed by the unions hitting the airwaves, and a membership eager to end the headlines over their own spending scandals, the committee members eagerly eviscerated the hapless chancellor.

Mr. Klein has a point in wanting to restore control over his own budget. But he willingly participated in the process by which that control was compromised. He is right in wanting to insulate successful schools serving the middle class from disproportionate pain, but didn't seem so concerned about these schools when he proposed his "fair school funding" plan that calls for cuts in many of them far deeper than anything now on the table.

Fair school funding was deferred as part of an agreement with the United Federation of Teachers last year, and the upcoming budget will be the last one in which these besieged schools will be "held harmless" from the Draconian cuts previously proposed. Is the chancellor now willing to back off, permanently, from the ill-conceived fair school funding plan, or is the newly found concern for the middle class schools nothing more than a short term ploy to win political support for a larger agenda?

In Tuesday's hearing everyone offered different figures as to the extent of the cuts and even the amount of the education budget itself. There is plenty that can be cut in the city's education budget — too many high priced administrators at the Tweed Courthouse, a bloated public relations operation spending more than 10 times as much as the old Board of Education spent on spin control, too many no-bid contracts, hiring pricey British evaluation teams to "rate" schools (not to mention their hotel bills), and on and on.

What we need is full budgetary transparency, encourage competitive bidding on contracts and public debate on the necessity of those contracts, and a full understanding that merely throwing money at the education system does not translate into results — the one thing that the experiment in mayoral control has proven beyond any doubt.
awolf@nysun.com

We all remember the A&M Scandal, dont we?
Well Past Halfway
BY ANDREW WOLF, NY SUN, July 21, 2006
LINK
We are now well past the halfway point in New York's great experiment with mayoral control of the schools, an experiment that appears to be a work in progress. When first passed, few commented about one curious provision of the law — it is due to sunset exactly seven years after it was first passed. Seven years seemed like an eternity back in 2002. But now we are only three years away from the day that if the legislature and governor do nothing, the old Board of Education and the 32 Community Districts will be reinstated, rising phoenix-like from the dead. Stranger things have happened.

It is now four years since Mayor Bloomberg made the surprising choice of Joel Klein as chancellor, and a full three years since his much-heralded "Children First" restructuring was put into place. What is there now is a creation of the current administration, which makes it all the more surprising that Chancellor Klein is not only engaged in dismantling the structure that he himself put in place to "reform" the system, but is hiring outsiders to do the job for him.
Mentioned casually in the press release first announcing the changes back in January is the participation of the firm of Alvarez & Marsal. The specialty of Alvarez & Marsal is turning around troubled companies, in their words "to develop and implement plans that unlock business value." Their clients include Formica Corporation, Parmalat, Timex Corporation, Winn-Dixie, Liquor Barn, and Levi Strauss. Now they have found another turnaround situation — troubled public school systems across America.
A&M has recently been granted an 18-month $17-million contract by the Department of Education to "support the implementation of budget reductions and reallocation of resources to drive cost savings to schools; assume interim management of financial operations; lead the regional and central offices in developing and providing quality services that schools could choose to purchase; and provide analytical support for long-term organizational improvements that will facilitate the expansion of the Empowerment Schools."
In earlier times, a contract such as this would have been put to a public vote by the Board of Education, a vote taken after a public hearing. All contracts over $100,000 were subject to a hearing and public vote. Had such a hearing taken place, this contract would surely have received scrutiny and debate. Instead it has received mention in just a handful of news stories. Alvarez & Marsal come to the table with a mixed and thin record in dealing with public school systems. The lead item on their resume is their "turnaround" of the St.Louis school system during the 2003-2004 school year. By New York standards, St. Louis is a tiny district with fewer students than several of Gotham's 32 community school districts. St. Louis has terrible schools and even worse management. When A&M arrived, the district was drowning in $73 million in red ink.
Alvarez & Marsal closed schools and slashed payrolls, even reducing the number of teachers. To run the system, they brought in William V. Roberti, whose previous job was running the Brooks Brothers Clothing store chain. Fixing instruction wasn't part of his mandate. It was all money. Unquestionably, Mr. Roberti and A&M brought the district's budget into line. Critics charge that any audit would have resulted in necessary budget cuts. With A&M's $5 million contract and huge salaries paid to top management, the reform came with great pain and much resentment on the part of parents and teachers. After the year spent on restructuring, St. Louis remains a profoundly troubled district.
Alvarez and Marsal were also hired to fix the practices of what may have been the nation's most corrupt school system, that of New Orleans. The A&M team hardly had time to unpack its bags when Hurricane Katrina struck, so A&M's work in New Orleans has been dwarfed by other problems.
New York's problem is improving academic performance by its students. As in many large government entities, the Department of Education could stand better spending practices. But much of the waste emanates from the mayor's and chancellor's own initiatives. Things like the $60 million or so that has been squandered on "parent coordinators." Or extra money spent to bus students from their home-zoned schools.There are the tens of millions spent on questionable professional development schemes. And then there is the $17-million going to Alvarez & Marsal.
Mayor Giuliani cut hundreds of jobs at the old Board of Education the old fashioned way — he reduced funding and forced their hand. Mayor Bloomberg, who tells us he wants to be accountable, can do the same, and he shouldn't have to hire a $17 million private firm to do the job.


March 16, 1990
Investigators For Schools Are Criticized
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES

LEAD: In a stinging report issued yesterday, the commission examining the New York City public school system said the work of the Board of Education's chief investigative arm was ''reminiscent of the Keystone Kops'' and deserved blame for much of the corruption and crime within the system.

The most dramatic example of ineffectiveness by the school system's Office of Inspector General, the Gill Commission charged, came in the case of Matthew Barnwell, a Bronx principal arrested by the New York City police in November 1988 on charges of buying crack. The Inspector General, the commission said, learned that Mr. Barnwell was using drugs a year before the arrest, but bungled its investigation with ''aimless, lethargic and sporadic'' work.

''The investigation was so shoddy that it could be a textbook example of how not to conduct a criminal investigation,'' said the report by the commission, which is known formally as the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools.

[By the way, there is a great deal of controversy about whether or not Mr. Barnwell was framed -
August 19, 1989
Judge Approves Retrial For a Bronx Principal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LEAD: The principal of a Bronx elementary school whose trial on charges of crack possession ended in a hung jury may be retried, a judge ruled yesterday.

The principal of a Bronx elementary school whose trial on charges of crack possession ended in a hung jury may be retried, a judge ruled yesterday.

Justice Walter M. Schackman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan found that the principal, Matthew Barnwell, 55 years old, would not face double jeopardy, as Mr. Barnwell had claimed in a petition to block his retrial on misdemeanor charges of possessing two $5 vials of crack.

Mr. Barnwell, the principal of Public School 53, was arrested Nov. 9 at 148th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and charged with buying crack from a drug dealer who was under police surveillance.

At Mr. Barnwell's trial in Manhattan Criminal Court in May, his lawyer, William Kunstler, said the police had planted the crack on Mr. Barnwell.

Judge William Leibovitz dismissed the six-member jury on May 8 after it had deliberated for 18 hours over three days. The jurors sent out two notes saying they were deadlocked and the judge had directed them to keep trying.

The jury later said it was deadlocked 4-2 for acquittal, and Mr. Kunstler said that showed that Judge Leibovitz had dismissed it prematurely. Mr. Kunstler said that if the jury had been allowed to continue deliberating, Mr. Barnwell would have been acquitted, and that it would be double jeopardy to retry him.
- Ed]

Unit Established in '80

The arrest of Mr. Barnwell set off a wave of investigations into allegations of corruption in the school system. This week, three former Bronx school officials who were indicted in one of the inquiries were acquitted of charges stemming from the removal of a baby grand piano from a school. [Page B3.] In its report yesterday, the Gill Commission recommended that the office be replaced with a ''special commissioner to investigate the public schools'' who would be appointed by the mayor, be in charge of a squad of police officers, and be given the power to issue subpoenas and make arrests, powers the Inspector General's Office now lacks.

The Inspector General's Office was set up in 1980 to serve as the school system's internal watchdog and handle a wide variety of crimes and violations of school regulations, including thefts of property, political hiring and abuse of students.

In December 1988, after Mr. Barnwell's arrest and several newspaper accounts of corruption, the Gill Commission was created. One of its purposes was to look at how well the school system was policing itself.

The commission's study, titled ''Investigating the Investigator'' constituted a ''scathing indictment'' of ''bloated, largely ineffective operation whose investigations are often reminiscent of the Keystone Kops,'' the panel's chairman, James F. Gill, said at a news conference.

'Significant Illicit Activity'

The Inspector General's 60 investigators, the report said, lack law-enforcement and legal experience, are hamstrung by poor supervision and are not scrupulous about protecting the confidentiality of their sources.

The office's $3.8 million dollar annual budget, Mr. Gill said, ''is squandered on trivial matters instead of focused on significant illicit activity'' and more energy seems devoted to ''papering the file than to detecting wrongdoing.''

''I cannot escape the conclusion that some of the responsibility for the corruption that we have uncovered in the school system rests squarely on Inspector General Michael Sofarelli's office,'' Mr. Gill said.

In a response, Mr. Sofarelli said the report was ''written in a sensational headline-hunting way'' and took unnecessary ''cheap shots at him and his staff. He said his office's inquiries had led to 70 arrests since 1987, including the conviction of 26 school building inspectors charged in a kickback scheme and the suspension or indictments of three school district superintendents.

Low Salaries

He said his office, like the offices of the 26 other inspectors generals at city agencies, was hobbled by low starting salaries for investigators, who are paid about $25,000 to start, which made it difficult to recruit the best investigators or former police officers.

Mr. Sofarelli's deputy, Conrad W. Reitz, said investigators for the Gill Commssion had themselves bungled the arrest of a high school teacher who was buying drugs.

The Gill Commission saved its most vitriolic language for a case study of the Inspector General's handling of a complaint against Mr. Barnwell. On November 24, 1987, a year before Mr. Barnwell's arrest, the board received an anonymous telephone call from a teacher at Public School 53 who said Mr. Barnwell was ''discriminating against non-blacks'' in hiring, was borrowing money from teachers without repaying them and was ''a drug user.''

One Interview a Month

Mr. Sofarelli, the report said, was informed of the call the following day, but the first interview to try to confirm the allegation was not conducted until March 10, more than three months later. A chronology provided in the commission's report indicates that the investigator on the case conducted interviews at the rate of one a month with parents, teachers and administrators.

Before any action could be taken by the office, Mr. Barnwell was arrested - without the office's knowledge or participation - by the New York City police as he tried to buy two vials of crack on a Manhattan street. He was convicted of drug possession in January and dismissed.

Mr. Gill said that the Inspector General should have begun a prompt surveillance of Mr. Barnwell, rather than concentrating on interviews with his colleagues. The office's investigator, he said, failed to consult the board's own files on Mr. Barnwell, which would have revealed earlier complaints that Mr. Barnwell ''sat in his office all day playing video games.''

In his rebuttal, Mr. Sofarelli said the original allegation of drug use was included almost as an ''afterthought'' in the memorandum he received and so failed to trigger the appropriate urgency. Moreover, he said, the office handles 2,900 complaints a year and many of them are efforts to ''get back'' at people.

Three Lawyers

His office's investigator was handling many other cases, he said. And his office, he said, did not try to shadow Mr. Barnwell because it was never told where he used drugs and ''we couldn't follow the man around for 24 hours.''

Mr. Gill's concerns about the Inspector General were more sweeping than just the Barnwell case. The office, he said, had only three lawyers, and only one of those - Mr. Sofarelli, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn - has any experience in criminal matters. Only one of the office's 60 investigators, Mr. Gill said, has a background in police work.

''Sofarelli was on the scene for nine years,'' Mr. Gill said. ''He should have done something about it.''

''If he was working for me, he'd go,'' Mr. Gill added. Mr. Sofarelli serves at the pleasure of the 7-member board of education and was not hired by the chancellor.

Mr. Gill also told of breaches in confidentiality, including one investigator who left his name and title at the school that was being investigated. Such breaches, Mr. Gill said may explain why Colman Genn, the superintendent of District 27 in Brooklyn, went to the commission rather than the Inspector General with his startling allegations of political hiring.

Mr. Gill said that a survey of school employees taken by the commission showed that 44 percent of those interviewed would feel ''uncomfortable bringing a complaint'' to the Inspector General.

In responses to the commission, both Mayor David N. Dinkins and Robert F. Wagner Jr., indicate interest in or support for supportive the idea of creating an investigative agency totally independent of the Board of Education. Mr. Wagner, however, pointed out that unless salaries were raised, the independent office would also not attract the best law and police school graduates.

March 22, 1990
Corruption 'Prosecutor' Urged by School Board
By DENNIS HEVESI, NY TIMES

LEAD: The New York City Board of Education, going further than the recommendation of an investigating commission, proposed yesterday that the school system's inspector general be granted ''the full powers of a special prosecutor.''

Last week the Gill Commission, which has been investigating corruption in the city schools, issued a report stating that the inspector general's office was ''reminiscent of the Keystone Kops'' and deserved blame for much of the corruption. The commission recommended that the office be replaced by a special commissioner independent of the central board.

Yesterday, after a closed session of the seven-member board, its president, Robert F. Wagner Jr., said, ''We accepted the Gill Commission recommendation, and we proposed that the new inspector general be even stronger than recommended by the commission.''

Subpoenas and Surveillance

''He should have the full powers of a special prosecutor,'' Mr. Wagner said. ''That would include subpoena power, wiretapping capability and other kinds of surveillance reserved for district attorneys.''

Mr. Wagner said the board unanimously agreed that the appointment should be made jointly by Mayor David N. Dinkins and State Attorney General Robert Abrams, and that the Gill Commission should screen candidates.

The commission, formally known as the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, cited the case of Matthew Barnwell, a Bronx principal arrested in November 1988 on charges of buying crack, as the most dramatic example of ineffectiveness by the inspector general's office. The panel said the office had learned that Mr. Barnwell was using drugs a year before his arrest but that it bungled its investigation with ''aimless, lethargic and sporadic'' work.

The arrest set off a wave of investigations into allegations of corruption, leading to the creation of the commission in December 1988. One of its goals was to determine how well the school system was policing itself, and in its report it said that the inspector general's 60 investigators lack experience in the law and law enforcement, are hamstrung by poor supervision and are not scrupulous about protecting the confidentiality of their sources.

Yesterday the commission chairman, James F. Gill, a prominent New York City lawyer, said he was ''delighted'' that the board had called for ''an independent watchdog.'' But he said that giving the investigator full prosecutorial powers would be ''unnecessary.''

''Our examination,'' he said, ''has left us completely satisfied that the prosecutors' offices have been carrying out their end of these cases as they should. It is the investigators and not the prosecutors who have been at fault. And so we do not see any need for a proliferation of prosecutors.''

Mr. Dinkins said, ''We welcome their suggestion and want to give it careful consideration.'' Edward Barbini, a spokesman for Mr. Abrams, said the Attorney General would examine the proposal.

Support From Chancellor

James Vlasto, a spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez, said: ''The Chancellor is certainly supportive of this. We have essentially advocated that the inspector general be independent, with some relationship with the Chancellor and the board, of course, but no control.''

There are inspectors general for 25 mayoral agencies in the city, and all report to the Commissioner of Investigation, Susan E. Shepard. Other agencies - the Health and Hospitals Corporation, the Housing Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Board of Education - have independent inspectors general.

Under the City Charter, the investigations department has subpoena power but cannot conduct wiretaps. ''We are not a prosecuting agency,'' Ms. Shepard said, pointing out that criminal charges must be handled by district attorneys.

The powers of the independent inspectors general vary, but Ms. Shepard said, ''It is the practice of the Board of Education's I.G. to come to us and ask us to issue a subpoena on their behalf.''

Mr. Wagner said the board believed that ''despite what the Gill Commission said,'' the current Inspector General, Michael Sofarelli, ''has done a good job, given the limited powers.'' The board's proposal, he added, ''would make the I.G.'s office stronger than those for any other agency.''

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Colman Genn, The Gill Commission, And School Corruption In NYC - Let's Never Forget

Many people remember Colman Genn, a man who courageously exposed the corruption of the NYC Board of Education. The Gill Commission was set up, and Ed Stancik became the lawyer who finally went after educators who violated their mandates and responsibilities as public employees. The Special Commissioner of Investigation office was changed by Mayor Bloomberg so that Rose Gill Hearn, James Gill's daughter, and family friend - and not an Attorney - Richard Condon  ("Dick") could be put in place after Stancik died. Then, everything changed, and SCI became a tool for destroying the careers of teachers (see here, here, and here). We need to do another "investigation of the Investigators".

Betsy Combier

Colman Genn
July 17, 2004
New York Times
LINK

Colman Genn Is Dead at 68; Exposed School Corruption


By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Colman Genn, a career educator who exposed corruption in New York City schools by secretly recording conversations about political and ethnic considerations in filling jobs, died on Thursday night at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. He was 68.

The cause was respiratory failure, said his son, David.



Mr. Genn was the superintendent of Community School Board 27 in southeastern Queens when, in the fall of 1989, he became the star witness in hearings to investigate allegations that elected school board members had awarded dozens of unnecessary jobs to friends and political supporters at a cost of more than $1 million a year.

Mr. Genn became celebrated as the Serpico of the public school system after volunteering to wear a recording device and tape hours of conversations over a period of eight months in his office, at board meetings, in cars and restaurants and on the phone for the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, informally known as the Gill Commission, appointed by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1988.

''I'm a political leader; that's why I'm here,'' James C. Sullivan, a member of the community school board and former Republican district leader, was heard telling Mr. Genn on one such recording. At another point, discussing jobs ranging from assistant principal to school aide, Mr. Sullivan complained that Mr. Genn's predecessor had ''hired out of the synagogue,'' to the detriment of Irish-Americans, and instructed that any black person hired had to be ''pliable,'' and not ''a Mau-Mau.''

The city's 32 community school boards grew out of a 1969 state law aimed at giving community leaders and parents, especially in minority neighborhoods, a voice in the running of public schools. The conversations recorded by Mr. Genn, who became the highest-ranking official willing to discuss corruption publicly, led gradually to state legislation recentralizing the school system over the last few years.

In January 1991, Mr. Genn, then 56, retired from his superintendent's job with two and a half years remaining in his contract. He said he was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, his asthma had worsened, his weight was fluctuating and he was under police guard for fear of retribution.

''I'm tense and worried that I've made a lot of enemies, that people whose toes have been stepped on will come at me in one way or another,'' he said at the time.

He said he found comfort in riding his motorcycle on the beach.

He found a sanctuary of sorts with a friend and former colleague, Seymour Fliegel, who had helped create small, experimental public schools in East Harlem and who invited him to become a senior fellow at a research institute supporting public education, now known as the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association. The group was initially part of the Manhattan Institute, the conservative research center, but later split to become independent.

Mr. Genn was born on Dec. 11, 1935, in the Bronx. His father, Bernard, was a ritual slaughterer preparing kosher meat, a diamond cutter and later the director of a children's camp. His mother, Fannie, was a homemaker who never finished high school but was well-read in Talmud. Mr. Genn, one of five children, was educated at Yeshiva Etzchaim and Yeshiva University High School in Brooklyn, where he recalled spending a lot of time on the street looking for fights with a gang of youths in Bensonhurst, and being a ''very poor'' student.

He earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education from Brooklyn College, then a master's degree in the same fields from Michigan State. He got his first job, teaching math at Brownsville Junior High, in 1958, then went on to teach physical education and social studies in East Harlem. During the 1970's and 80's, working with the local superintendents, Anthony Alvorado and Carlos Medina, and the deputy superintendent, Mr. Fliegel, he helped start three alternative schools in East Harlem: the Academy of Environmental Sciences, the Harbor School for the Performing Arts and the Manhattan Center for Science and Math.

Mr. Genn became the superintendent of District 27 in July 1987, and realized from his first months on the job that something was amiss, as board members inquired about hiring and promoting friends and cronies.

Just two weeks before Mr. Genn died, he traveled to Israel to help create a school for immigrant children, Mr. Fliegel said.

In addition to his son, David, of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., Mr. Genn is survived by his wife, Brenda, of Hewlett; a daughter, Shari Shapiro of Lawrence; three brothers, Reuven, of Israel; Mordechai, of Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and Manny, of Tenafly, N.J.; and four grandchildren.


SCHOOLS AND POLITICS: CHANNELS OF POWER - A SPECIAL REPORT: New York Schools and Patronage: Experience Teaches Hard Lessons

By JOSEPH BERGER with ELIZABETH KOLBERT, Special to The New York Times
Published: December 11, 1989

LINK


Guy Velella


Two decades after the New York City school system was decentralized to encourage local participation, many school boards are allied with neighborhood political clubs and exploited by politicians seeking power and patronage.

Many teachers and administrators say their colleagues, eager to get ahead, are compelled to join the clubs and give their time and money to election campaigns because politicians' allies on the school boards have the power to grant promotions.

And despite recent efforts in Albany to build barriers between education and politics, a seat on a local school board is often seen as a stepping stone for budding politicians.

In dozens of interviews, politicians, school board members and educators agreed that they are creatures, and sometimes victims, of the elective system created by decentralization.
The lessons that New York is learning about this perilous mixture of education and politics are of national significance because cities like Chicago and Miami have begun experimenting with various forms of decentralized schooling.


Decentralization gave control over the hiring of administrators in the city's elementary and junior high schools to 32 local school boards. It was prompted by concerns in the 1960's that the central adminstrative staff was not responsive enough to teachers, students and parents.

Self-Interest and Reluctance

There is wide agreement that the local boards have failed the city's 940,000 schoolchildren. More than a third of these bodies have been shaken by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Seven board members have been indicted in roughly a year. But the boards have become so enmeshed in the city's political web that many educators say they are skeptical that the 83 state legislators who represent parts of New York City can make dispassionate decisions about reform.

''Political self-interest,'' said Robert F. Wagner Jr., president of the Board of Education, has made many legislators ''reluctant to deal with the issue.''
The injection of politics into running the schools, he added, ''shifts the focus away from kids to the political agenda of individual politicians and there are times that decisions, rather than being made on merit, are made on political connections.'' Other critics note that teachers who refuse to get involved in politics are passed over for promotions and can grow demoralized.

Dr. Fred Goldberg, superintendent of District 10 in the northwest Bronx, said that among teachers and administrators, ''there was a perception that it was an asset to be a member of a political group to enhance the probability of being considered'' for promotion.
Political affiliation has become so important in advancing an educational career that in certain parts of the city, teachers and school administrators are as common as lawyers at meetings of local political clubs. Teachers and administrators are considered intelligent campaigners who have afternoons and summers off to do political work.

Voters decide who the nine members of a school board will be; political clubs may field or back candidates. But because turnout is low, the number of votes needed to win is sometimes no more than several hundred. So the influence of political clubs on the contests can be significant.

Buying 'Insurance'

During the mid-1980's, the board of District 10 was divided between factions connected to Stanley Simon, then the Bronx borough president, and G. Oliver Koppell, a Democrat State Assemblyman from the Bronx.

At least eight people appointed assistant principals in District 10 were affiliated with one of two political clubs. A community newspaper, The Riverdale Press, found that 25 of the 48 principals and assistant principals who were appointed between 1982 and 1986 were affiliated with political clubs or were relatives of politicians.

In almost every case, the administrators were regarded as highly qualified. But, district officials say, the administrators believed they needed to ''buy insurance'' for their promotions through political club support.

In an interview, Mr. Koppell said he had been compelled, as a matter of political survival, to ''support a few people for assistant principals and principals.''
''The whole school establishment was being used to try and defeat me,'' he said. ''There were people on the streets campaigning against me. They carried petitions. They were standing on street corners handing out fliers at polls urging people to vote on primary days. Many of these were teachers and assistant principals.

'' How It Works 'How You Build Loyal Troops'

The widespread impact of politics on the school system has been documented by a survey of school personnel conducted by the Gill Commission, headed by James F. Gill, a lawyer. The commission was appointed by Mayor Edward I. Koch to investigate school board corruption. In what commission officials believe are understated results, 41 percent of the 1,099 respondents said that political affiliation is a factor in the hiring of principals.

A major focus of the commission was District 27 in southwest Queens. At the commission's request, Coleman Genn, the district's superintendent, wore a concealed tape recorder and recorded the school board's treasurer, James C. Sullivan, asking him to hire 11 friends and political supporters to unnecessary jobs as paraprofessionals. This was at a time Mr. Genn was seeking a one-year extension of his contract from the board.

In a recent interview, Mr. Genn asserted that one principal and three assistant principals in his district were active in a local Republican club and had been promoted to their positions through Mr. Sullivan's influence.

''He built an entourage,'' Mr. Genn said of Mr. Sullivan. ''That's how you build loyal troops.'' When Mr. Sullivan ran an election or a fund-raiser for a candidate, Mr. Genn said, ''these people responded. If he had to get signatures on petitions or campaign literature, they responded.''

Mr. Sullivan and Samuel Granirer, the board's vice president, were indicted on Dec. 1 and accused of improperly using their influence to force Mr. Genn to hire their choices. Mr. Sullivan pleaded guilty to mail fraud and coercion. Mr. Granirer pleaded not guilty.

'On My Own Time'

In District 4 in East Harlem, according to a confidential 1988 report by the Board of Education's Inspector General, most of the district's 20 principals and several top-level district officials attended a fund-raising party in 1985 for Robert Rodriguez, then the school board president, who was trying to regain the seat he once held as City Councilman. The report also said Carlos Medina, the district superintendent, had been seen at the Board of Elections helping Mr. Rodriguez fend off challenges to his City Council petitions. The report said that created a conflict of interest because Mr. Rodriguez would be voting on Mr. Medina's contract.

In an interview, Mr. Medina said he admired Mr. Rodriguez for his support of district programs, which have been widely praised for their innovation and, in some schools, notable success. He acknowledged having appeared at the Board of Elections, but said he did so ''on my own time'' because ''as superintendent it was important for me to know who was winning and who would be the people in my district.''

Mr. Medina was discharged as superintendent on Nov. 8 by the District 4 school board after an arbitrator found that he had created an improper ''special projects fund'' from district money, and used it in part to lend $6,788 to subordinates and to contribute small amounts of money to political fund-raisers.

Mr. Rodriguez, 38 years old, argued that principals should be involved in a variety of community activities, including council races.

In District 9, a veteran social studies teacher said that when he applied for a much-coveted summer-school job in 1988, a district official asked him to spend several days helping collect petitions for candidates in local races. The teacher, who agreed to perform those chores, asked not to be identified because he is now seeking a job as an assistant principal.
In District 19 in the East New York and Bushwick sections of Brooklyn, political factionalism stalled the selection of a superintendent and seven principals and assistant principals for several months and delayed the approval of the budget. When Politics Divides A District In Trouble District 10 is the largest in New York City, roughly equivalent to Buffalo in student population. Taking in both the elegant homes of Riverdale and the burned-out tenements south of Fordham Road, it has 36,050 children in 35 schools.

From 1980 to 1986, two successive boards were divided into factions -one connected to the Riverdale Democratic Club, led by Mr. Simon, the Borough President, and the other to the Benjamin Franklin Democratic Club, whose founder was Mr. Koppell.
The Simon loyalists, board members said, were: Jeffrey Litt, who was director of community boards in the Borough President's office; Arnold Kideckel, then executive director of the State Insurance Fund and a close Simon adviser, and Robert Shaw, then a counsel to the city's Transportation Commissioner.

There were four Koppell loyalists at various times. They included James P. Sullivan and Evelyn Karfiol. Mr. Sullivan, who is no relation to James C. Sullivan in District 27, was the brother of Timothy Sullivan, Mr. Koppell's administrative assistant. Mrs. Karfiol is an aide to Mr. Koppell.

Target of 'a Cabal'

The political division was reflected in the choice of school administrators, district officials said. Mr. Kideckel said that he never favored an administrator because ''they came out of Simon's club per se, but if they came out of Simon's club and I may have known them and known their character, that may have been a factor.''

Under the decentralization law, school board members must appoint principals and assistant principals from among candidates recommended by the superintendent. Dr. Goldberg, the superintendent, said that in the early 1980's he was generally able, because of the split in the board and his popularity with independents, to gain support for almost all of his choices. But in 1982, when he refused to recommend as an assistant principal Alexander Castillo, a teacher in District 9 backed by Mr. Litt and Mr. Simon, he suddenly found himself the target of what he called ''a cabal.''

Dr. Goldberg said the Simon faction responded by joining the Koppell faction in closed session and voting to strip him of his powers to hire or transfer personnel, modify the budget or even talk to the press.

''The district could not function,'' said Sandra Lerner, Dr. Goldberg's deputy.

Appealing to Parents

A 1987 report by a Bronx grand jury that inquired into school board politics said the District 10 factions agreed to allow each member to choose one assistant principal.
But Mr. Litt said the factions united because they believed the superintendent was not giving members enough information to make decisions. He has never once, he added, ''been pressured by a political club or its leadership to make an appointment.'' Mrs. Karfiol and Mr. Kideckel were not members of the board at the time.

In response to the district paralysis, Dr. Goldberg, widely considered one of the system's best superintendents, said he was forced ''to consider a strategy that would enable me to run the district for the benefit of the children.'' He continued to recommend people he thought were best qualified to be administrators. He also included candidates whom board members might favor, but he worked to rally parents in support of his choices, and the board members heard from those parents.

''I became more sensitive to the dynamics of the board,'' he said.

Winning Almost All of Them

In almost every case, Mr. Goldberg said, the people he preferred were selected. Still, he added, many teachers and administrators interested in promotions continue to believe membership in a political club could bolster their efforts.

Among those who received appointments as assistant principals in District 10 were four officers or members of the Benjamin Franklin club: Michael Spivak, Emanuele Fontana, Alex Fermanis and Nadia Pagan.

Among those who worked in Mr. Simon's campaign in 1985 or were active in the Riverdale Democratic Club were Barbara Lofthouse, Robert Levy and Candido deJesus, who were named assistant principals; and David Parker, named a principal.

In interviews, Mr. Fermanis, Mrs. Lofthouse and Mrs. Pagan said they joined their clubs not to advance their careers, but because of their interest in community activities. Several agreed, though, that many of their colleagues believed political affiliation was needed for advancement.

Coming to People's Attention

''You had to be more politically involved with certain individuals,'' said Mr. deJesus, now the principal of P.S. 85. ''You wanted to come to people's attention. But I didn't like the climate and decided to get out.''

By the time of the next school board election in 1986, Mr. Simon came under investigation by the United States Attorney's office and, district officials say, he refrained from actively supporting school board candidates. In 1988, he was found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the Wedtech scandal and sentenced to five years in prison. The Riverdale club dissolved. Mr. Koppel said that with Mr. Simon's removal he, too, pulled out of school politics.

The Benjamin Franklin Club, which took over the Riverdale club's headquarters at 231st Street near Broadway, decided four years ago not to endorse candidates, but two club members are school board members. They are Richard Sanz Gonzalez and Sandra Ramos-Alamo, who made an unsuccessful bid for the State Assembly last year.

In many cases, the connections between school boards and New York City politicians are direct. Several school board members, for example, work in the offices of city and state legislators. In other cases, the ties are more subtle. Some board members often serve as unofficial proxies for political leaders on school boards, casting the votes that allow supporters to be hired.

Conflicts of Interest

Politicians defend these connections as inevitable, even desirable. It makes sense, they say, that people who are politically minded participate both in school board business and in local government.

In most cases the connections are within the law, but in many cases, they create the potential for significant conflicts of interest.

A law passed last year in Albany has eliminated some of the most obvious conflicts. The law makes it illegal for school board members to serve as political district leaders or to hold other elective office.

But the spirit of the law has proved easy to evade. Brothers and Husbands in Posts
In District 27 in Queens, the district investigated by the Gill Commission, Mr. Sullivan relinquished his Republican district leadership but arranged to have his brother succeed him. And in District 32 in Brooklyn, a Democratic district leader, Elba Roman, gave up her seat on the board but was succeeded by her husband.

The law does not prohibit spouses of political officeholders from serving on school boards. In the spring, Elizabeth Miller, the wife of the Assembly Speaker, Mel Miller, was elected to the board of District 22 in the Flatbush and Flatlands sections of Brooklyn. Campaign finance records show that Mr. Miller's Assembly campaign committee contributed $2,000 to his wife's campaign, and members of Mr. Miller's Assembly staff took off time from work to campaign for her.

Both actions were legal. Mr. Miller, Democrat of Brooklyn, said his wife had no political motive for running, and that he would have no influence over her decisions.
''My wife, this is her life,'' he said. ''She was a teacher in a district. Our two children went through public schools. It doesn't help me; she'll do what she wants.'' 'I Financed Her Campaign'

The law does not prevent politicians' staff members from serving on local school boards, and several do. They include Ernestine Washington, a member of school board 29, who is office director for Assemblywoman Cynthia Jenkins, a Queens Democrat; Maria Irizarry, a member of school board 19, who until recently served as a city liaison to Assemblyman Thomas F. Catapano, Democrat of Brooklyn, and Elinore Mandell, also a member of board 19, who is an administrative assistant to Assemblyman Anthony Genovesi, Democrat of Brooklyn.

Mr. Genovesi said he ''unabashedly'' supported Ms. Mandell's school board candidacy to prevent other politicians like Con gressman Towns from wielding control over the schools within Mr. Genovesi's partly overlapping assembly district.

''She wanted to quit this year,'' said Mr. Genovesi of Ms. Mandell. ''I financed her campaign. It's the only way I know what's going on. It's not a coincidence that she's there. That's why she runs. Ellie is the way I take them on,'' he said, referring to rival politicians. Political Careers School Boards As Stepping Stones By virtue of being elected, school board members are political officials, and it is not surprising that they frequently run for higher office.

Politicians who began their careers as school board members include Assemblyman Al Vann, State Senator Howard E. Babbush, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman William F. Boyland. All four are Brooklyn Democrats. Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene, Democrat of the Bronx, is a former member of school board 9, and was indicted earlier this year on felony charges springing from her involvement in the board.
City Council members Sal F. Albanese, Priscilla Wooten and Ruth W. Messinger are also former board members.

At least five former assemblymen and councilmen were once school board members. Three of these, Sam Wright, Israel Ruiz Jr. and Vander Beatty, were later convicted on charges of corruption -Mr. Wright for soliciting a $5,000 payment from a educational materials company, Mr. Ruiz for falsifying a bank loan application and Mr. Beatty for tax evasion.
Politicians who have served on school boards say that, far from being a disservice to the district, the desire for higher office insures that school board members will respond to their constituents' concerns.

''If anything, I see it as a positive sign,'' said State Senator Guy J. Velella, Republican of the Bronx, who was president of School Board 11 in between serving in the State Assembly and the State Senate.
''You don't want to destroy somebody's ambition,'' Mr. Velella added. ''If you do a good job, you'll be qualified for higher office.''