Just when you think things can’t get worse in Connecticut,
another “reform” scandal pops up.
Civil rights attorney Wendy Lecker writes here about
the clear pattern of hiring unqualified people to run impoverished districts.
Their way of operating: cut services, bring in Teach for America, install
unproven programs.
She writes:
“It is becoming painfully clear that in Connecticut, the refrain that education reform is “all about the children,” is a sad joke. To Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor and his allies, children are merely collateral damage.
“Recently, there was the scandal involving Hartford’s Milner school, in which the children were used as pawns in a scheme to expand the charter empire of now-disgraced Jumoke/FUSE CEO Michael Sharpe. Pryor never bothered to discover that Sharpe is a former felon and falsified his academic credentials. Instead, while Milner was floundering under Sharpe, Pryor, a longtime Sharpe supporter, handed him two additional schools. The fate of public school children was clearly the last thing on Pryor’s mind. Currently, the FBI is investigating Pryor’s, Sharpe’s and Jumoke/FUSE’s connections.”
The latest drama is playing out in impoverished New London,
where the state is pushing to hire a superintendent with a phony doctorate.
Connecticut is one of the nation’s highest performing states. It
didn’t get that way by turning children over to inexperienced, unqualified
teachers and superintendents. The achievement gap is a direct result of the
opportunity gap. It won’t be closed by experimenting on children but by
reducing the poverty that creates obstacles for children.
