By Colbert I. King
Saturday, August 18, 2007
It is a large and powerful creature. Known by many names (most of them unprintable in a family newspaper), it bears the official title "Central Office of the D.C. Public Schools."
Through the years, the central office has done terrifying deeds to public education. It has kept schools from opening on time, swallowed repair orders by the thousands, made teachers' paychecks disappear, consumed tax dollars by the millions without producing any discernible results and, ultimately, acquired a well-deserved reputation for treating schoolchildren as if they are nuisances.
But the central office's chief enemy, for whom its most hostile behavior is reserved, is the reform-minded superintendent. In the battle against change, the central office, which consists of an unknowable number of human parts, remains undefeated.
Yet there are always challengers to its reign.
The latest is Michelle Rhee, who entered the fray a few weeks ago bearing a fancy new title, public schools chancellor. Rhee, a former teacher and highly praised teacher trainer and headhunter for urban public schools, was thrown into the ring without much preparation by her handler, Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Rhee, however, makes up for her inexperience with feistiness, a gift for fancy footwork and a good head for the urban fight game, all of which should keep her standing, at least for a while.
Rhee's chief focus is the classroom. That's where she hopes to bring about needed improvements in teacher quality and student achievement.
But during lunch this week with her and former D.C. Council member Kevin Chavous, it became clear to me that after weeks of looking, listening and probing, Rhee realizes the central office could be the chief obstacle to the reforms she wants to achieve.
Rhee is right about that. The central office fervently believes that the status quo is a blessed concept to be defended against all comers.
Most likely it views Rhee, with her strict emphasis on holding people -- not offices -- accountable, with wry amusement. That hydra-headed monster thinks it has seen it all.
In a sense, it has.
The central office has outlived superintendents, elected and appointed school board members, a congressionally created financial control board, an Army general, auditors and a rotating corps of inquiring reporters. Through it all, the central office has remained an incubator for incompetence, obstruction, cronyism and corruption.
Exhibit 1 of which I speak is Brenda Belton.
Belton is the former charter schools oversight chief who pleaded guilty this week to four felony counts of stealing from the school system over a three-year span and not paying federal and D.C. taxes on the loot she pocketed.
To be sure, Belton brought all the necessary ingredients for success: greed, deceit and a powerful disposition to defraud. But the school system made it possible for her to live out her dreams (or schemes, as the case may be). Chancellor Rhee and her team of change agents should retire to a quiet place and read about the pre-indictment plea agreement and the statement of offenses accepted and signed by Belton, her lawyers and the U.S. attorney's office on Aug. 7.
It's all there: how Belton forged signatures, fabricated invoices, stashed public dollars intended for public education in her private bank account. She wasn't a Lone Ranger, either.
Belton awarded sweetheart contracts to her friends, who in turn rewarded her with kickbacks. When she wasn't directing more than $400,000 in business to her pals and a relative, she stuffed more than $200,000 into a phony company that she ran.
But even before she embarked upon her taxpayer rip-off, which prosecutors said began in March 2003, when she became executive director of the public schools' Office of Charter School Oversight, and lasted until May 2006, Belton was already going at it hot and heavy with the central office.
In January 2002, Belton created a company to obtain a contract to monitor charter schools. The next month, someone in the system gave her company a no-bid contract worth $63,000. While serving as a public school contractor, Belton was also hired to work as a consultant to the chief academic office from June through September. From September 2002 through February 2003, Belton worked in the central office as a grant writer in the office of early childhood education. Nothing like having friends on the inside.
Which gets us back to Michelle Rhee.
A hint to her: Hundreds of contractors and vendors make a good living off the school system. Follow the millions of dollars that flow from the central office to their destinations. Find out whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth.
But a warning, chancellor: Gird yourself for unbelievable blowback. The central office fancies itself not to be messed with.
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