Demi-Billionaire and Consultant v. Parent Advocate (I Think This Is a New One…)

In an article today Debra Rubin (she's been busy with all of these Hebrew charter dramas) reported on the fourth denial of Tikun Olam.  And in it she dropped a couple of bombshells!   


The first was from the Hebrew Charter School Center (HCSC).  We'll get to that bombshell in just a moment, but first let me tell you about the HCSC.  They describe themselves as "a nonprofit organization created by the Areivim Philanthropic Group in 2009 to help advance the Hebrew language charter school movement."  


So what's the Areivim Philanthropic Group you ask and who runs it?  


Why, it's run by none other than Michael Steinhardt, who was called a luminary of the hedge fund world by New York Magazine in their 2007 rankings of the hedge fund elite.  What's a reform movement without a billionaire backer, right?  Although to be fair, Steinhardt is only described as a demi-billionaire by Forbes.  Poor guy.


How crazy is it that here in tiny Highland Park we are fighting off the direct impact of the billionaire boys club on public education?  


Julie Weiner of the New York Jewish Week reported in February of 2010 that:

The fledgling Hebrew charter school world has two major players right now, although only one — the newly launched Hebrew Charter School Center — is actively seeking to build the movement beyond Florida.

Quietly launched over the past year by the Areivim Philanthropic Group, a Jewish funding partnership established by Birthright Israel co-founder Steinhardt and the late William Davidson (whose estate Areivim is currently suing), the $3.2 million Hebrew Charter School Center is providing seed money and free consulting to aspiring Hebrew charter schools throughout the country.

HCSC gave Tikun Olam a $30,000 start-up grant in 2009.  When I reached out to them they would only go on record as saying that they were no longer working with high schools.  However, after Michael Winerip's NY Times column about the misrepresentations in the application, the HCSC sent Ms. Rubin an unsolicited statement confirming that the HCSC:

“is not involved with Tikun Olam, we do not support their application, and we share many of the concerns that the Times and others have raised about it.”


Whoa.  They really couldn't put any more distance between themselves and Tikun Olam, could they?  


Ms. Rubin's second bombshell was a quote from Tikun Olam "consultant" Jeffrey Lischin, who claims that:


founders have been “harassed through misinformation and disingenuous traditional district leaders who love their monopoly.” They are flouting the spirit of the charter school law, he said, which envisions the concept as establishing vehicles for “educational improvement through competition and choice. Sadly that vision is being harmed and most sadly students are being harmed.”

Lischin, an associate of the NJ Charter School Resource Center, said Tikun Olam’s founders are “committed to a multicultural, ethnically diverse, economically diverse secular school.”

He added he would “not address the accusations of misconduct because of legal implications other than to say it is my personal opinion that the founders were slandered.”

Monopoly!  Competition!  Choice!  Man, that's a lot of reformy speak for one quote!!!

Every claim that has been made by our community is backed up with documentation.  Enough documentation that the NY Times was able to run with our story.  The HCSC, who is not exactly a friend of our cause, seems to be saying they noticed some stuff too and they share the concerns in the NY Times. 

 

Yet Mr. Lishcin, who by they way is not just a random consultant, he's their grant writer, sees fit to state that "it is his personal opinion that the founders were slandered."

That is quite a claim, sir.  You got anything to back that up?

Anything I have told reporters regarding Tikun Olam is based on written documentation from individuals and organizations.  Nothing has been based on my "personal opinion."  I and other members of the Highland Park community like Chris Rodda, did the due diligence that the state and federal governments did not see fit to do. 

Apparently, neither did Mr. Lischin.  

Arne, can you hear me?

So many things to love about Mike Winerip's column in today's New York Times.  What it really boils down to is a cautionary tale.  


A cautionary tale of an unaccountable applicant, Sharon Akman:


Ms. Akman has repeatedly refused to talk to reporters. She did not respond to a dozen e-mails and voice mail messages left at the real estate office where she works, Century 21 J. J. Laufer in Highland Park. When I called the personal cellphone number she listed on the state application, a woman answered. “Who’s calling?” she asked, and when I explained that I was a reporter, she said, “I’ll tell them you called, thank you,” and hung up.


A cautionary tale of an unaccountable Acting Commissioner of Education, Chris Cerf:


An applicant with a $600,000 pledge in her pocket may be seen in a new light by state officials. In mid-October, Ms. Akman wrote to the state’s acting education commissioner, Christopher D. Cerf, requesting assistance in winning approval for her fourth application. “We were just granted a substantial federal charter school grant,” she wrote him, and would “love to have a meeting to better strategize and prepare for our reapplication.”

How Mr. Cerf responded is not known. E-mails between Ms. Akman and Mr. Cerf’s office were released after a request under the state’s Open Public Records Act. While Ms. Akman’s string of e-mails was made public, responses from Mr. Cerf’s office were redacted.

And a cautionary tale of an unaccountable Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan:

How could federal oversight be so lax?

Part of the answer is that charter schools are a top priority for the Obama administration, making federal officials predisposed to support them.

And part of the answer, as Justin Hamilton, an Education Department spokesman, explained in an e-mail, is that federal officials see their oversight role as limited. The department hires private consultants to rate the quality of a charter applicant, but those consultants “cannot use information not included in the grant application,” he said.

In other words, if Ms. Akman writes that Assemblyman Peter J. Barnes III supports the charter, the federal consultants are not permitted to interview Mr. Barnes, who would have been happy to tell them that he does not.

This prohibition against using outside information is intended to ensure that no special measures are taken to either favor or hinder an applicant, although what it really invites is fiction writing.

And that is EXACTLY what the Tikun Olam applications, both the state application for a charter and the federal application for a grant, are.  Fiction.  

Justin Hamilton goes on the say that "if the Education Department “becomes aware of material factual misrepresentations,” it could terminate the grant."

But they already know!  We have provided the Office of Innovation and Improvement's Charter School Program with more information than we provided Mike Winerip.  Not only that, we have had numerous phone conversations with the Director of the Charter School Program, Stefan Huh, and LaShawndra Thornton, the Non-State Education Agency Grants Intern Manager, who actually signed off on the grant.  In addition, numerous members of our community have emailed and called alerting the office to the misrepresentations.  

They have also been contacted by Congressman Pallone and Senator Lautenberg's offices but have not stated anything more substantial than that they are "aware there are issues with this particular grant award and are looking into it."  

Perhaps a NY Times expose will be enough to make lead applicant Sharon Akman pull her application?

If not, perhaps it will be enough to make Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf deny the application? 

If not, perhaps it will be enough to make Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pull the grant?  

I'm not holding my breath.  I think we probably still have a lot of work to do.