Some Education Reformers Defend Crooked Barbara Byrd Bennett

Education reform criminal going to jail:

Even before she was hired to run Chicago Public Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett set up a scheme to get a 10 percent kickback on all the CPS contracts she could steer to a former employer, in part to set up a college fund for her twin grandsons, authorities said Thursday.

The feds found damning, detailed emails between her and her ex-boss, Gary Solomon — apparently so damning that Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty in the case involving $23 million in CPS contracts. U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, in an unusual move, announced Byrd-Bennett’s intention to plead as he announced the charges.

“I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit :)” the feds say Byrd-Bennett wrote in one of many emails discussing the alleged kickbacks.

Nice, huh?

The damning evidence and indication that she will plead guilty to the charges hasn't stopped some reformers from defending her, however: 

So what will her legacy be?

Attorney Fred Nance worked with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and was involved in the process of interviewing Byrd-Bennett.

"It depends on how much information you have, we know that people have short memories and may not recall all the terrific work that went on here, that would be a shame if they didn't," said Nance. "I got to know her as a tireless worker. Somebody who brought innovation, someone who understood urban education, what it takes to motivate our kids, bring our kids along and who, most importantly, let our kids know that somebody cares about them. She started that process, and it's a tough job, and it's a tough job to do for a very long period of time. You have to remember going back into the 1990s, Cleveland schools were in terrible shape, and Barbara Byrd-Bennett was the beginning of the transformation."

Her legacy will be that she was a crook who shook down contractors for kickbacks and job promises in return for a $20.5 million contract and ended up going to prison.

She did this all the while doing her best to destroy the public school system in Chicago and shed as many teachers and schools as possible so that money could be diverted to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's charter allies.

That's her legacy.

Good luck in prison, Barbara.

Preet Bharara Launches Probe Into Homicide At State Prison

This news should throw chills into Cuomo:

ALBANY — U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is investigating the death of an inmate at the state's Fishkill prison.

The Manhattan-based federal prosecutor said in a statement that a joint probe with Dutchess County District Attorney William Grady is investigating the death of Samuel Harrell, who died after several prison guards beat him, according to affidavits from more than a dozen other prisoners first reported by The New York Times.

State officials announced Tuesday that Fishkill was getting a new superintendent whose mandate would include reviewing “all safety concerns” in the building where Harrell died. The Correctional Association, an advocacy group with a legislative mandate to inspect state prisons, had called on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a probe of conditions in the state's prison system, citing a “pervasive culture of violence and abuse.”

Spokespeople for the state's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The NY Times has reported over the past few weeks that there have been 60+ abuse allegations levied against guards at Clinton Correction Facility since June as well as allegations that a group of corrections officers known as the "Beat Up Squad" had beaten a prisoner to death at Fishkill prison, then covered the murder up by claiming he died of a complications from synthetic marijuana use.

Other than the Times and the Times Union, the abuse allegations and homicide were ignored by news media around the state.

The Daily News ignored the abuse allegations and the homicide even as they blasted Bill de Blasio and his handling of Rikers Island two days in a row on the front cover of the paper.

Same goes for New York politicos - for example, Criminal Justice Reform Warrior Hakeem Jeffries, who had just given Cuomo an award from the Urban League for his "leadership" on criminal justice reform issues, completely ignored the Clinton/Fishkill allegations.

With Bharara picking up the probe into the Fishkill homicide, the story ought to be ignored no more.

It's a big story and it needs to get the same attention that the Rikers abuse has gotten.

We'll see if it does.

Given that the story affects Cuomo and not de Blasio, I have a feeling it won't get the attention it deserves from either media or politicos.

That's how things have gone so far and I see no reason for any of that to change.

Hope I'm wrong - what's going on in the state prison system is horrendous, needs to be stopped and those responsible need to be brought to justice.

Fresh From Giving Prison Abuser Andrew Cuomo An Award, National Urban League Doubles Down On Testing

You just can't make this stuff up.

Self-appointed de Blasio watchdog Hakeem Jeffries gave Governor Andrew Cuomo an award from the National Urban League for his work on criminal justice reform:

.@RepJeffries on behalf of @NatUrbanLeague presents award to @NYGovCuomo for leadership in criminal justice reform. pic.twitter.com/WuOeMxsdYI

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 10, 2015

A day later, the NY Times connected criminal justice reformer Andrew Cuomo to a prison abuse scandal at Clinton Correctional Facility that saw 60+ prisoners allege they had been beaten, choked, threatened with waterboarding and otherwise tortured by corrections officers.

Cuomo himself set off the beatings by "staring down" a prisoner who was housed next to the cell of one of the escaped prisoners the state spent weeks trying to track down - this prisoner was beaten by guards hours after Cuomo left the prison, choked and threatened with waterboarding if he didn't tell what he knew about the prison escape.

Ironically, no other prisoners have been implicated in the prison escape - only prison employees have.

So far politicians in New York, included self-appointed de Blasio watchdog Jeffries, have stayed silent on the Cuomo prison abuse scandal, as have civil rights organizations like the National Urban League.

It seems criticizing Andrew Cuomo for overseeing systemic prison abuse isn't fashionable among the civil rights orgs, though coming down on the side of standardized testing is - the National Urban League couldn't let the release of the Common Core test scores in New York go without a statement:

In the newly released statistics, education officials framed the opt-out movement as more prevalent in white middle- and upper-middle-class districts, with Long Island a particular hot spot. In New York City, the refusal rate was less than 2 percent. Many civil rights groups have expressed concern about the movement, saying it risks eroding the integrity of data necessary to ensure that all students, especially those from disadvantaged communities, are being educated in decent schools.

“As much as people may not like testing, it’s the only way available for us to document and to hold schools and school districts accountable,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. “We can’t close the achievement gap unless we know what it is and where it is and how big it is.”

The National Urban League is squarely on the pro-testing Gates Foundation payroll, having taken millions from Gates, so it's not a surprise that they came out yesterday to back testing.

I do think it says a lot about the soul of an organization like the National Urban League that it could give an award to Andrew Cuomo for criminal justice reform, ignore a prison abuse scandal that is reported upon by the NY Times a day later with Cuomo at the epicenter of it, then hail standardized testing a day after that.

Harris Lirtzman left this comment on another post I wrote about the Dannemora prison abuse scandal and the silence emanating from criminal justice reform advocates like Hakeem Jeffries and the National Urban League that puts some perspective on things:

Let us never forget that Dennis Walcott was President of the New York City Chapter of the National Urban League for many years before becoming Michael Bloomberg's Deputy Mayor for Education and then Schools Chancellor.

Sometimes the pieces of the puzzle fall ever so neatly into place that there's no need for conspiracy theories or paranoia. It just is what it appears to be and nobody feels the need to deny any of it.

This all isn't "hiding in plain sight." It's right there in plain sight for anyone with a bit of intelligence and memory to see.

Indeed - just something to think about the next time you see or hear something from a civil rights organization like the National Urban League.

Their civil rights advocacy comes with a price tag that says "For Sale" on it - something Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo know very well.

That's why they were happy to make a statement backing the Endless Testing regime yesterday while ignoring a prison abuse scandal that saw CIA torture tactics introduced in Governor Cuomo's Department of Corrections.

Cuomo Complicity In Beating, Torture Of Dannemora Prisoners?

NY Times with a damning expose of the harsh treatment of prisoners at Clinton Correctional Facility after two prisoners escaped in June:

For days after the June prison break, corrections officers carried out what seemed like a campaign of retribution against dozens of Clinton inmates, particularly those on the honor block, an investigation by The New York Times found. In letters reviewed by The Times, as well as prison interviews, inmates described a strikingly similar litany of abuses, including being beaten while handcuffed, choked and slammed against cell bars and walls.

They were also subjected to harsh policies ordered by the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision: Dozens of inmates, many of whom had won the right to live on the honor block after years of good behavior, were transferred out of Clinton to other prisons. Many were placed in solitary confinement, and stripped of privileges they had accrued over the years — even though no prisoners have yet to be linked to Mr. Matt’s and Mr. Sweat’s actions.

Indeed, it is prison employees who have been implicated: One has pleaded guilty to aiding the escape; another faces criminal charges; nine officers have been suspended and the prison’s leadership has been removed.

More than 60 inmates have filed complaints with Prisoners’ Legal Services, an organization that assists indigent prisoners. And 10 members of an inmate council at Clinton signed a letter last month to state corrections officials making similar allegations.

“We have been daily getting complaints along these lines from around the state,” said Michael Cassidy, a lawyer for Prisoners’ Legal Services.

One of the prisoners was beaten just hours after Governor Cuomo spoke to him and "stared him down":

It would be several hours before the first details of the escape were made public. Around 11 a.m., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo toured the honor block and inspected the holes that the inmates had cut in the backs of their cells with hacksaw blades.

The governor then stopped to question Mr. Alexander.

“Must have kept you awake with all that cutting, huh?” Mr. Cuomo asked, according to video of the exchange. Then, Mr. Alexander said, the governor “gave me his best tough guy stare and walked off.”

Later, the governor said he would be “shocked” if any correction officers were involved.

Twice during the day of the escape, Mr. Alexander said that he was questioned by investigators from the State Police and Corrections Department inspector general’s office.

Then, at about 8 p.m., he was handcuffed and taken to a broom closet where, he said, three corrections officers whom he had never seen before interrogated him. An officer wearing a jacket with the initials C.I.U. — Crisis Intervention Unit — sat down and asked him, “Do you know the difference between this interview and those other interviews?” Mr. Alexander recalled.

This time, the officer warned, there were only uniformed guards in the room, Mr. Alexander said.

“The officer jumps up and grabs me by my throat, lifts me out of the chair, slams my head into the pipe along the wall,” he said. “Then he starts punching me in the face. The other two get up and start hitting me also in the ribs and stomach.”

With each punch, Mr. Alexander said, the officers shouted another question.

“The whole time he’s holding me up by my throat,” he added.

When Mr. Alexander repeatedly insisted that he had no information, one officer pointed to a plastic bag hanging on some pipes, asked if he knew what it was for and said, “You know what waterboarding is?” Mr. Alexander recalled.

The officer then put the bag over his head and started beating him again, Mr. Alexander said.

He said the interrogation lasted about 20 minutes, and he was then taken, bleeding, back to his cell.

Later, Mr. Alexander said, the same officer “began quietly taunting and threatening me, telling me, ‘Don’t worry, Fat Boy, we’ll be seeing you really soon.’  ”

Gee, how convenient that the prisoner next to Richard Matt, the guy Cuomo gave a tough guy stare down to, got beaten just hours after Cuomo left the prison.

Coincidence?

Clearly the message came from the top, do whatever you have to do to get information that will help track down the prisoners.

Did Cuomo order the beatings of the prisoners?

Probably not in so many words, no.

But the visit to the prison, the tough guy stance, certainly contributed to the disgraceful doings at Dannemora after the prison break.

There needs to be an independent investigation of this, one that is not controlled by Cuomo.

Louis Flores noted this on twitter:

Preet probed Rikers over inmate abuse. Now abuse at #Clinton ? @perdidostschool @N8TchsGr8 @sullio @CuomoWatch @danarubinstein @MercyMercyf

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) August 11, 2015

If the Rikers abuse needed a Bharara investigation, so does the Dannemora abuse.

Sounds Like A Job For Governor Cuomo

From the NY Times:

Shortly before 9 p.m. on Saturday, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin whose capture last year had been trumpeted by his country’s government as a crucial victory in its bloody campaign against the narcotics trade, stepped into the shower in his cell in the most secure wing of the most secure prison in Mexico. 

He never came out. 

When guards later entered the cell, they discovered a 2-by-2-foot hole, through which Mr. Guzmán, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, had disappeared.

Governor Cuomo re-enacted the prison break at Clinton Correctional Facility here in New York State a while back in order to help capture two escaped murderers.

Maybe the governor can head on down to Mexico and help re-capture El Chapo.

Governor Cuomo Gets To Know His Future Neighbors

From the NY Times story about the prison break in upstate New York:

In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” broadcast early Sunday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that investigators were trying to determine how the two men managed to acquire the tools – and use them – to drill through steel walls, pipes and stone walls in fashioning a subterranean escape route without detection.

But, even more pressing, the governor said, was the manhunt.

“The first order of business is to get these killers back,” the governor said.

The governor marveled at the particulars of escape, in which the two inmates had cut through a steel wall of their adjacent cells, shinnied down a series of internal catwalks, and burrowed their way more than a city block away before emerging from a manhole. Mr. Cuomo said that there had been a number of contractors working in the facility, and that the escapees’ work may have been safeguarded by the silence of other prisoners.

“I chatted with a couple of the inmates myself and said, ‘You must be a very heavy sleeper,’ ” the governor said. “They were heard, they had to be heard.”

I hope these two prisoners are caught quickly and without anybody getting hurt in the process.

But I have to say, Cuomo's trying to use the prison break to make news for himself and show himself to be in charge, with the Good Morning America appearance and the like, is too much.

Seriously, I think law enforcement can figure out what went wrong, how to make sure it doesn't happen again and capture these two prisoners without the governor's help.

That said, I am enjoying all the photos of Cuomo in prison:

Perhaps he's scouting out a route for his own future prison break?

Cuomo, Legislature Fight Each Other On Multiple Fronts

It seems the legislature is not happy with Governor Cuomo.

Three bills were introduced last night that all take aim at Cuomo:

Senate GOP pushes back on ethics: New bill would require financial disclosure by members of Cuomo's economic councils http://t.co/Bdi1q8YtwW
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) February 27, 2015

Another new ethics bill from Senate GOP: State agencies would be required to post travel expenses online http://t.co/iHnX7WMWun
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) February 27, 2015

New ethics proposal by Senate GOP would require Cuomo's girlfriend, Sandra Lee, to disclose her finances: http://t.co/4mhbHuFWdD
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) February 27, 2015

These bills come on top of the beating Cuomo's IT shill took yesterday over the Cuomo policy of deleting all government email older than 90 days:

ALBANY—Maggie Miller, the state's chief information officer, faced a barrage of questions from lawmakers at a budget hearing Thursday afternoon about the Cuomo administration policy of automatically deleting emails of state workers that are more than 90 days old.

...

Asked again if she had any concerns that the email deletion policy would decrease transparency, Miller said, “I fully support the policy.”

“I think if the New York Assembly announced tomorrow they were going to pick up this policy, [U.S. Attorney] Preet Bharara would be at the court door making sure it did not,” Assemblyman Danny O'Donnell said, to nervous laugher from lawmakers and members of the crowd.

Also yesterday, Cuomo ratcheted up his efforts to privatize the public school system in New York State by releasing a report that ties "failing" schools to individual lawmakers:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo dropped a political bomb on state lawmakers Thursday — linking their names to chronically failing public schools in their districts in a provocative move to win support for his education reforms.

The governor issued a 200-page report outlining the performance of 178 low-performing schools around the state, including 91 in New York City.

The list includes the names of the state senator and Assembly member who represent each school in an implicit challenge: What are you going to do about it?

I'm not sure how effective this confrontational strategy Cuomo is pursuing on mutliple fronts is going to be.

He's shoved lots of policy proposals into 30 day budget amendments, forcing the legislature to either agree to the proposals or strip them from the budget, he's taking a "My Way Or The Highway" approach to ethics reforms that will only affect the legislature while leaving statewide pols like himself alone and now he's trying to publicly embarrass individual lawmakers by connecting them to his "failing" school list (a list that mirrors the one devised by Families For Excellent Schools, the hedge fund-backed pro-charter group, btw.)

He's pissing a lot of people off and he's got few friends to begin with - adding to his enemies list seems like a short-sighted strategy to me.

More and more Cuomo is coming to resemble Richard Nixon - nearly friendless, besieged on all sides, barricaded in his office and lashing out at everyone and everything.

It would be one thing if Cuomo was just taking on the teachers and the teachers union and cozying up to everybody else.

But that's not what he's doing.

He's made nice with a couple of private sector unions and of course he's very close with his hedge fundie/charter school friends, but other than that, can you think of any other groups that he isn't at war with?

I mean, can you think of another time when 15 different towns began pursuing a secession strategy for leaving New York and joining Pennsylvania?

No wonder Cuomo's going to Cuba.

They don't know him there yet.

Back here in New York, he may win some of these battles, so short-term, this strategy may work.

But there's four more years in his second term, barring something unforeseen, and I can't imagine things are going to get much better for him in the next couple of years after starting out the first year of the second term balls to the wall like this.

Charter School Prison

The Daily News details a charter school that parents say is run like Riker's Island:

She has served detention for slouching, humming and failing to look her teachers in the eye.

It's no surprise that former honors student Gianna Boone hates going to Achievement First Crown Heights Middle School.

The East New York Ave. charter school's strict rules have landed the 13-year-old girl in detention nearly every day this year. And her grades have dropped from an A average to a C.

"I get into trouble every time I turn around," said Gianna, an eighth-grader who has served detention at least four times every week since school began in August for humming, talking loudly in the bathroom and using a pen during math class. "It's killing me."

The five-year-old middle school hands out detention based on a system of demerits - which students earn for infractions such as putting their heads on their desks, not facing forward while walking in the hallway or going to the bathroom during class.

With every three demerits, a student must serve 45 minutes of detention.

Some behaviors are considered so bad - rolling their eyes, sucking their teeth or complaining after getting a demerit - students get an immediate 45-minute detention for committing them.

On an average day, one in six kids - about 50 - in the 300-student school stays after class, Achievement First officials said.

...

Charter school advocates say the strict rules maintain order for kids.

But a group of parents with children at Achievement First Crown Heights say the rules are overkill. More than 20 of them met last week at the Crown Heights public library to discuss protesting the policies.

The group agreed to speak out at the school's next board meeting Nov. 22.

"I understand that schools need to have rules, but this is like Rikers Island," said Sarah Dickens, who said she will be at the board meeting to protest her fifth-grade son's daily detention for things like dropping a pen and failing to address a teacher as "ma'am."

"They've gone too far," Dickens said.

Education experts say charter schools with tough rules are a growing trend.

"These schools may seem extreme, but the idea is to create an optimal learning environment," said Chris Wynne, co-author of "Inside Urban Charter Schools."

"If you don't address small problems, things can spiral out of control," said Wynne.

This is very rarely stated, but does anybody notice the race angle to the charter school/discipline issue?

Children of color attending essentially a segregated school that is funded by rich white people, often staffed by mostly white people, and run like Riker's Island.

And this is the education of the future?

This is the change we can believe in?

Nope.

This is Cool Hand Luke.