The Daily News reported today that, very quietly, the DOE is set to award a $669,375 contract to an ex DOE administrator for a program that he developed as an employee for the City. In fact, the Ex DOE Administrator, Joel Rose, called it "The School Of One" and the DOE allocated an astounding 9 million dollars to develop and fund the program. The program has been shown to be a failure and a colossal waste of money as only 4 schools throughout the City are actually using the :School for One program. Yet, the DOE is set to approve the renamed program. as a Math program called New Classrooms.
This is just an example of why it was necessary for Chancellor Carmen Farina to "clean house"of the Bloomberg policymakers at Tweed but failed to do so. Hopefully,when the proposed contract goes to the PEP at the end of the month, the blatant "conflict of interest" and apparent favoritism will push the PEP to refuse to approve the contact. The statement by Leonie Hainson of Class Size Matters in the article is a must read and listed below.
“The city is paying hundreds of thousands for these programs. Why do these things hang on at the Department of Education for no reason? These crony contracts,” said Leonie Haimson, founder of the advocacy group Class Size Matters. “It’s inexplicable.”
I certainly agree with Ms. Hainson