Today’s installment of the Inspector General’s report on the issues surrounding the approval of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School paint a picture more worthy of Oliver North than our Commissioner and Secretary of Education.
Seriously, this damning document should do two things: cement the justification to revoke this charter (allow the applicants to reapply with a proposal that passes CSO muster if they choose) and 2: offer both Chester and Reville the opportunity to explore other employment opportunities.
http://www.gloucestertimes.com…
The opening of Part Two: Additional Findings
“PART TWO: Additional findings.
The second part of the report contains investigative information developed during the course of the review that is not directly related to the issue of whether the GCACS charter was validly awarded, but which otherwise is responsive to your request.
A synopsis of the findings of the second section of this review is as follows:
1) The OIG finds that Commissioner Chester’s answer to a key substantive question asked by a member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Education is contradicted by evidence and testimony in this case;
2) The OIG finds that DESE and CSO officials apparently implemented a policy of disposing of virtually all documents containing the written records of individual DESE and CSO evaluators in determining whether the GCACS charter school application had met the criteria of the final charter school application; and
3) The OIG finds that DESE was not fully responsive to document requests made by the OIG and by legislators for records of DESE and CSO evaluators in determining whether the GCACS charter school application had met the criteria of the final charter school application.
That has a certain ring to it, doncha think? Cronyism! Shredding public documents! Lying to the Committee and the public at hearings! Timelines that don’t match up and lies, lies lies! It’s like an airport novel but no one is attractive.
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p>Man, how much deeper does this thing have to get before someone pulls the plug on this school? Who at this point would possibly want to attend the ST. Chester School of the Shredded Assessment?
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p>Can this be good for charter schools in general? Why are they hanging on to this turkey? Cut it loose folks! It’s only going to get worse once the AG starts sending over subpoenas and the hard drives get emptied.
…either the school’s dead or the administration’s integrity is.
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p>If Chester still has a job on January 31st, his boss shouldn’t have a job on February 1st.
http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
Check out this letter to the editor in today’s Globe. Interesting how they want to remove themselves from the center of this story.
wasn’t decided on its merit, but on the political worth to the Administration. For the man who ran on “no more business as usual,” this sounds an awful lot like “business as usual.”
Round up the usual suspects.
vote for Governor Patrick. I did some work on his last campaign, not a lot by some standards, but some.
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p>I find his education policy embarassing, (though Obama’s is arguably worse), but his administration (his appointees and poor management) offends me even more. This issue combines the worst of both worlds.
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p>I won’t vote for Baker or Mihos or Cahill, but I won’t vote for the governor either.
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:46 PM
Subject: ADMINISTRATION GETS BEHIND BID TO REVOKE GLOUCESTER CHARTER SCHOOL
By Kyle Cheney
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE BOSTON
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p>JAN. 5, 2010…..Hours after the release of a scathing report from the state inspector general, the Patrick administration on Tuesday night threw its weight behind an effort to repeal a Gloucester charter school that critics say has been tainted by politics.
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p>”While I do not agree with all of the conclusions reached by the Inspector General, I do believe that the report and the preceding controversies make the continued existence of the [Gloucester Community Charter Arts School] charter not in the best interests of the school or the community,” wrote Education Secretary Paul Reville, in a letter to Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D-Gloucester) and copied to legislativeleaders.
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p>Ferrante had requested the inspector general’s investigation after emails surfaced in September in which Reville appeared to lean on Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester to approve a charter school application to avoid alienating political allies. In his letter, Reville offered backing to a Ferrante amendment to an education bill scheduled for House consideration Wednesday. The amendment reads, “The Legislature, having made a finding that the grant of the charter to Gloucester Community Charter Arts School is unlawful … hereby renders the charter void.”
Destroying evidence simply is not acceptable. And as much as I want a Democrat in the Corner Office, I’m going to have a difficult time opening my checkbook if Patrick doesn’t set a deadline for resignations of both Reville and Chester.
I heard a radio ad (WHMP Northampton, on Stephanie Miller) from a group backing more charters, urging me to ask my legislature to lift the cap on the number of charters and claiming that Obama will give the state $300M if and only if they do so.
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p>It’s clear we have some very sketchy charter schools out there, but the one in our area that’s been around for a while, Pioneer Valley Performing Arts MS/HS, strikes me as a very good thing, and we’ve just had a Chinese immersion elementary school started here that also looks like a real contribution.
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p>So what is the practical effect of this cap that the radio ad wants to get rid of? Is it preventing more good charters from being established, or more bad ones. And is this $300M business accurate?
here is the study that came out in June. It was from a think tank that actually is in favor of market-based solutions to education. The conclusion is essentially that only 15.5% of charter school students score better on comprehensive math and English testing, while 37% actually do worse. The rest do about the same.
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p>I couldn’t find any good regional results for MA, but we did participate in the study.
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p>The conclusion: You pay more for charters and you get less. Not a good bargain IMHO.
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p>http://credo.stanford.edu/repo…
The cap is just what it says…it promotes competition among charters to receive licenses to open such a school. Private companies think such competition is bad, and want to be able to open charters once they get an application approved.
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p>As for the $300 million, that is in a way true. President Obama has somehow reserved a large amount of money for education, but only if states realign their education departments to favor more charter schools, and place more emphasis on standardized tests. It’s a way to change education policy that doesn’t require an actual vote from Congress — and it’s cheap, too — for about 5% of a state’s education budget, the feds get to dictate about 100% of its policies.
Since the charters I like are from legitimate grassroots organizations, they’re going to win the competitions you speak of. The only reason to have private for-profit companies get licenses is if they can improve the outcomes, so jamesdowd’s study is an important one to look at. Are there good ways to control for the population? If admission to the charters is by lottery, you can compare the ones who got in with the ones who wanted it and didn’t get in (remembering to count the ones who got in and then dropped out, etc.)
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p>In any case, that explains who was paying for the radio ad…
I believe the respondents in the study were all kids who had applied for the lottery. Those that made it in were compared against those who did not.
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p>That controls for “application bias”
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With all the controversy about the the corrupted process, the political machinations and the internal agenda of Chester and Reville, DO NOT FORGET that the Charter School Office, nationally respected for their thorough and rigorous review process found this school lacking the qualifications to move forward.
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p>These professionals who were PRAISED by BESE member Thomas Fortmann (prior to his affirmative vote) for their respected due diligence DID NOT RECOMMEND opening this school. Repeat – They DID NOT RECOMMEND moving the application forward. Had Chester the same respect for his staff and the review process that the rest of the world seems to have, he’d have done the right thing at the beginning and not put this school to a vote.
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p>How he or anyone else can justify allowing this school to move forward vacuuming up precious tax dollars when the application was flawed and lacking, the process was corrupted and hijacked and the community in which it is being forced does not welcome it is unfathomable.
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p>Commissioner Hubris has lost his credibility. Secretary Reville has lost his credibility. And if the BESE doesn’t act to revoke this charter, they too will have lost their credibility.
I thought it was eerily disconnected from all this.
Which makes it properly representative of Deval’s approach to education. Then again, you gotta admit the guy is working from a place of ignorance — the only times he’s ever been in a public school in Massachusetts were for photo ops.