Fired Official Jeopardized Students' Educations and Futures, Prosecutors Say
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 26, 2007
While D.C. charter schools executive Brenda Belton was stealing and illegally steering $800,000 in charter funds, she was jeopardizing the futures of 3,500 District students, prosecutors argued yesterday.
Belton, who was fired last year, was responsible for monitoring 17 charter schools for the D.C. Board of Education from 2003 to 2006 and was stealing throughout her tenure, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, 52 to 95 percent of each school's students were below proficiency in math and reading last year, prosecutors note.
Now they are arguing to a federal judge that Belton, 61, deserves a significant prison sentence for shortchanging those students -- and they are taking the unusual step of citing the test scores to make their case. Belton, a D.C. native, pleaded guilty in August to four counts of theft and tax evasion. She faces a prison term of 24 to 46 months at her sentencing next month.
The charter schools overseen by Belton had been billed as offering a better opportunity for a decent education to primarily poor African American children, an alternative to failing D.C. public schools. But statistics show they were among the city's worst schools during Belton's years at the helm.
Belton, who has a doctorate in education, has admitted in court that she steered $446,000 in no-bid contracts to friends and a cousin, sent $203,000 in school money to a dummy consulting firm and took $180,000 in kickbacks and gifts from contractors she helped win school business.
Belton rarely came to work and steered contracts to friends who did cursory reviews of the charter schools' performance, according to records in the case.
Most students weren't achieving. Figures presented by prosecutors indicated that on average, 77 percent of the children in the board charter schools were below proficiency in math, based on schools that reported data in 2006, and 70 percent were below proficiency in reading.
"Dr. Belton was given the honors and privileges of public office and the comforts of a good salary with benefits," prosecutors wrote yesterday in documents filed with U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina. "Yet she stole educational opportunities from young, predominantly African-American boys and girls, the vast majority of whom were at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder . . . so she, her family, and her friends could enjoy the trappings of wealth and conspicuous consumption."
In his filing to Urbina, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch listed all the test scores for the board charter schools from 2003 to 2006 and called them "heartbreaking for anyone who cares about children." They included data showing that:
¿ 95 percent of 170 students at Washington Academy Public Charter School were below proficiency for math in 2006.
¿ 90 percent of the nearly 300 students at Booker T. Washington Public Charter School were below proficiency in reading in 2005.
¿ 86 percent of the more than 200 students at Young America Works school were below proficiency in mathematics in 2006.
Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso also wrote a statement for Urbina on behalf of the city, urging a stiff sentence. Students in board charters could have had a tangibly improved classroom experience if Belton had not siphoned off public funds, Reinoso wrote.
"[T]he charter schools could have hired 17 additional teachers or specialists for the year," he wrote. "They could have purchased an additional 17,000 textbooks or instructional DVDs for the students. They could have paid for thousands of hours of professional development for teachers."
Ramona H. Edelin, executive director of the charter-advocacy group D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, disputed that Belton was negligent in her oversight.
"Many of the school leaders with whom I've had conversations said . . . she had been responsive and helpful, and they did not feel they were not being monitored," Edelin said in an interview yesterday.
Norman Johnson, executive director of Integrated Design and Electronics Academy Public Charter School (IDEA) in Northeast Washington, agreed that Belton was helpful. But he said he later learned that Belton had neglected to provide the school much-needed services. Johnson said he learned last year that a company, which prosecutors later said was run by Belton, received $76,250 to train math and reading teachers in boosting student achievement, services Johnson said the school never received.
"It was devastating to us and our staff" to learn about the phony invoices, Johnson said yesterday. The training "would have been very helpful. Our school [made academic targets] in reading and was close to making it in math. Those resources would have helped push us over the top."
The investigation of Belton in part prompted the board to give up its authority to open charter schools, leaving them to be absorbed by the city's second charter authorizer, the independent D.C. Public Charter School Board; that board now has oversight of all 56 charter schools in the city.
Staff writer V. Dion Haynes contributed to this report.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.