SCHOOL CORRUPTION

During his combined 17 years as superintendent of schools for the towns of Branford and Hadley, Massachusetts, Armand A. Fusco, Ed.D. began to question what he felt was a “legacy of corruption” in the operation of public school systems. Five years ago, the Guilford resident, who also has 35 years experience in the education field, began compiling hard evidence to back up his suspicion that many forms of what he labels corruption exist within nearly all public school systems in the nation, cheating taxpayers out of money and children out of a better quality of education.

This September, Armand published his findings in School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. (2005, iUniverse). Armand's book exposes corruption in public schools and related agencies like PTA/PTOs by compiling overwhelming evidence of cheating, deceit, waste, mismanagement, fraud, and stealing occurring in the public school realm. “Nobody will believe what's happening. This book is just the tip of the iceberg; what's hidden is what I couldn't find,” says Armand.

Armand delves into tough questions including, “why corruption and political correctness leads to poor student achievement, disgraceful school outcomes, and failing schools.” He also sheds light on inept school government, which he says is allowing corruption to “flourish.” Armand adds he did not write School Corruption to stir up controversy. By including his idea for a “remedy,” applicable within any school district, people can begin to change the system for the better, he says. “I want to see positive change, not stir up a lot of controversy. This has to get out now, so it's discussed as a hot topic, or like the Catholic Church [priest sex scandal], it will explode and cost us dearly—all because they wanted to hide the facts instead of protect the children.”

Armand was writing an education column for local newspapers between 1999 and 2003 when he began a six-part series touching on ways corruption surfaces in public school districts. His research continued after the series ended. It developed into the idea for School Corruption, when Armand realized such a book did not yet exist. As he uncovered story after story, Armand shared them with his wife, Constance. An experienced educator and education administrator, Constance M. Fusco, Ed.D. recently retired after 30 years in education. Constance served her last four years in the field as assistant superintendent of Madison Public Schools. “My wife, as I was writing this book, would say 'That can't be,' because she doesn't think that way,” says Armand, who dedicated his book to her.

From the Long Island school superintendent who somehow stole $11 million of public school money to an administrator who took candy money from a school fundraising drive, Armand can back up each example of greed and corruption with corresponding news stories painstakingly culled from national news archives. “It covers a 20-year span, but a lot of it is recent,” he points out.

His book offers page after page of examples, state by state, including a Connecticut test-tampering scandal at Stratfield Elementary School in Fairfield. The school, one of nine in the town, scored 40 percent higher than other schools and tested highest in the state. “In fact, it was the envy of other schools and even captivated educators from India and Japan, who visited the school seeking the secret for its success. The community and parents revered the principal,” writes Armand. The acclaim continued until an analysis of the school's standardized test scores showed five times the number of erasures than on tests by other schools; 89 percent of the answers were changed from wrong to right. As a result, a probe by the Connecticut Department of Education also found evidence of tampering in state tests taken at the school between 1993-95. An investigation, which cost taxpayers $200,000, followed. The state Department of Education resolved the principal couldn't be excluded from suspicion, as he had access to test materials. However, the principal denied the charge and even passed a lie detector test. Then, he made what Armand found to be a “secret” deal with the school board, and retired. When the students were re-tested under strict security, scores dropped below other schools.

In School Corruption, Armand calls such examples of cheating and deceit “CheDe” (cheaty). Armand also identifies waste and mismanagement as a form of corruption, calling it “WaMi” (whammy). WaMi typically follows CheDe's decay of value and ethics, opening the door to complacency, which allows school resources to become mismanaged. While it doesn't typically involve personal financial gain, personal gains come in the form of less work, less effort, empire building, and more.

As the Hadley superintendent of schools (1972-80), Armand encountered WaMi first-hand, when the district hired a speech therapist. “The first year, we had her as a part-time speech therapist. At the end of the year, she asked for full-time status, because of her caseload. She had the numbers [to show need] and she was made full-time. Beginning in the third year, she said she needed an assistant,” he recalls. Armand felt the numbers weren't making sense. “When you are working with students in speech therapy, you should have turn-over, not an increase; and I told her so,” he says. Armand called in an independent speech therapy consulting group from neighboring UMass, and asked for a review of the needs of students in his district's speech therapy program. Meanwhile, the speech therapist went to parents and the press, until “they were ready the hang me at tenure time,” he says. But Armand was able to prove the expense of adding an assistant to the speech therapy program was unnecessary. “The [UMass therapists'] report came back saying two-thirds of the kids didn't need therapy. She was building an empire,” says Armand of the therapist.

WaMi violates what Armand feels is an “...implied sacred covenant between the taxpayers and the schools,” to spend money effectively and efficiently. As Branford superintendent of schools (1985–92), Armand says one instance of coming up against WaMi occurred during an attempt to save money by consolidating teacher hiring. “While I was there, we consolidated five elementary schools to three schools. The principals of each school wanted an art teacher. I said, 'What do you want covered?' They told me, and I worked out a schedule where two teachers could cover the three schools. Each principal then went to the school board to say they weren't getting an art teacher; and the board gave them three art teachers.” Astounded, Armand recalls asking the principals, “What will you do with the extra time those teachers will have? They said, 'We'll think of something,' and the board agreed to that!”

The final fitting acronym for the third form of corruption covered in Armand's book is “FraSte” (frosty); fraud and stealing. “It should 'frost' all taxpayers because it's their dollars that are being stolen in some way,” he says. Just one FraSte example in School Corruption describes a middle school secretary who regularly stole money from student accounts set aside for activities such as field trips. By the time auditors uncovered the theft, she'd already left town, having embezzled an estimated $483,000. No matter what you call it, Armand says, “Where ever you find money, you're going to find corruption...they've even stolen grand pianos. It's not just little stuff; it's anything that moves.” Corruptions also comes in less tangible forms, such as stealing time or tweaking work loads to justify jobs and programs.

In addition to exposing the many types of corruption in public school systems, and its resulting diminished quality of education for students, Armand notes he wrote School Corruption to challenge school boards to re-tool and create a new beginning. He even provides what he calls “...a simple remedy,” to make the challenge a reality.....

More here




Political correctness trumps free speech

What do the Bible and "The Vagina Monologues" have in common? Not much. But surely we can all agree that both are covered by the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of religion and freedom of expression. Well, that's not so at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. At UWEC you can live in a dorm and watch a performance of "The Vagina Monologues," but you can't join a Bible studies group. Any resident assistant, or RA, as the live-in student counselors are called, can put on a performance of the play, and one has, but leading a Bible studies class in his or her own room and on his or her own time, is forbidden. Many students want such a class, but they're out of luck.

The director of university housing says the ban is necessary to enable the RAs to "share" the perspectives of the students, to make RAs "approachable." Vagina perspective trumps the perspectives of Moses and Matthew in behalf of "approachability." That certainly sounds postmodern enough.

Where have we found such empty-headed university administrators? This destructive silliness goes to the root of politically correct attitudes: feminist ideology, good; the Bible, bad. Reaching for moral equivalence, the housing director reassures critics that the Koran and the Torah are banned, too. The university is now considering an extension of the bans to forbid political and ideological discussions.

Such flouting of the traditions of free speech -- and good sense -- is typical of the disease of political correctness that in various forms infects many campuses, denying students a fundamental understanding of the meaning of free speech. "The First Amendment doesn't end with Bible study or with 'The Vagina Monologues' -- it guarantees a student's right to perform both," says David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a six-year-old watchdog organization and clearinghouse for the bad news of campus offenses against free speech.

This latest offense follows another objection at UWEC where the student senate barred funding to any campus organization that promotes a "particular ideological, religious or partisan viewpoint." That covers just about anything a curious student could talk to anyone about.

Not so long ago -- within the memory of Americans still alive -- universities set rules to inhibit sensual temptation, to protect young people at an age when they were particularly vulnerable to sexual promiscuity. Now sexual promiscuity is barely an elective, and Big Brother and Sister Nanny shield everyone from the temptation of intellectual debate of secular and religious philosophies. By banning free speech, the universities impose indoctrination in lieu of learning. The Founding Fathers are spinning, but they're only dead white men, after all.

FIRE's Web site (thefire.org) includes maps with ratings of colleges that routinely punish students and faculty for saying things that hurt feelings and threaten "self-esteem." Although some college administrators retreat in the face of challenges of these speech codes, a casual survey turns up a catalog of taboos on language and dumb jokes. Bowdoin College, for example, bans jokes and stories "experienced by others as harassing." Brown University prohibits "verbal behavior" that produces "feelings of impotence, anger or disenfranchisement," whether "intentional or unintentional." Colby College in Maine outlaws speech that causes "a vague sense of danger" or a loss of "self-esteem." The University of Connecticut prohibits "inappropriately directed laughter." Syracuse University nixes "offensive remarks . . . sexually suggestive staring . . . and sexual, sexist or heterosexist remarks or jokes."

West Virginia University tells freshmen to use language that is not "gender specific." So "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are out; "lover" or "partner" is in. The University of North Dakota defines harassment as anything that intentionally produces "psychological discomfort, embarrassment or ridicule." If a "person" comes out of the ladies room trailing toilet paper from the bottom of her foot, a la Gilda Radner in a memorable "Saturday Night Live" skit, make sure you don't tell her about it.

These speech codes would be laughable if they weren't so serious. But there's a larger lesson here. "If students on our nation's campuses learn that jokes, remarks and visual displays that 'offend' someone may rightly be banned, they will not find it odd or dangerous when the government itself seeks to censor and to demand moral conformity in the expression of its citizens," warns FIRE. "A nation that does not educate in freedom will not survive in freedom, and will not even know when it has lost." We need those FIRE alarms.

Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************