You've got to give these two fellows high marks for ingenuity.  As the New York Times reports:

The primary beneficiary of the scheme appears to be Tridon Radef, a full-time custodian at the Theodore Roosevelt Educational Campus, which has quite a history of its own.  The South Bronx high school first opened its doors in 1918, and was renamed Theodore Roosevelt High School shortly after its namesake's death in January of the following year.  Over the decades, the school experienced a series of ups and (mostly) downs that culminated in its closure at the conclusion of the 2006 school year, when Roosevelt's graduation rate stood at a mind numbing 3 percent.  The school grounds were preserved, however, and are currently home to six small high schools, established as part of former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's reform initiatives.  But I digress.

In the evenings, Mr. Radef ostensibly worked a second job as a custodian at the Harry S. Truman High School, also located in the Bronx.  For reasons that have not been disclosed, investigators began quietly checking up on Mr. Radef in March, 2010.  Over the course of a three-month period, they periodically followed the custodian after he had clocked off of his day job at Roosevelt at 4:00 p.m.  One one occasion, Mr. Radef drove to the Truman campus, where he was supposed to work from 5:00 - 11:00 p.m., dropped off a passenger, and drove home to Queens.  On other occasions, he was followed to restaurants.  Using automated toll pass records, investigators were able to ascertain that Mr. Radef had crossed bridges leading from the Bronx to Queens during work hours on more than 550 work days.

But wait, there's more!  Apparently, Mr. Radef had an accomplice in the person of Nicanor Fernandez, the main custodian at Truman and the individual responsible for signing off on Mr. Radef's time cards.  Not only did Mr. Fernandez give Mr. Radef a free pass, he also set up part-time "ghost jobs" for a number of people whose actual work consisted of servicing nine properties owned by Mr. Radef, in Queens.  According to New York City Schools Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard J. Condon, the "ghost" workers were also providing kick-backs to Mr. Radef, who, according to this New York Daily News article, was paid $170,000 last year by the school district (not counting the kick-backs).

That's not all!  Mr. Radef didn't limit his caper to Truman High School.  He also created phony jobs on the Roosevelt Campus, and at Public School 158 in Queens, where he was formerly employed, and which is undoubtedly situated closer to his properties. 

According to the NYT article, Commissioner Condon was said to have remarked, "There were 9 or 10 people who were either not working at all, or were working for Mr. Radef personally.  It's hard to envision how some supervisor did not pick up on that." 

As a final kicker, while all the "ghost" workers have been fired, and Mr. Fernandez has resigned, union safeguards would appear to have made it difficult for the city to terminate Mr. Radef, who has been reassigned while the city tries to part company with him.

Ravitch Ravages Vouchers

Writing in Education Week's Bridging Differences blog, New York University Professor Diane Ravitch questions why school vouchers seem to be making a comeback.  Her take: it's all about money:  "Imagine that: voucher schools may not educate kids better, but they can do the job at half the cost. That's powerful, and it reveals what matters most these days: not improving education, not encouraging creativity and innovation, but cutting costs."  Her thesis evoked the following response from Stuart Buck:  "Yes it's a powerful argument. Put it the other way around: You want to deny Milwaukee poor kids choice and freedom, not to improve their education, but just for the sheer sake of spending twice as much money as necessary. How does that make sense?"  Does it not occur to Professor Ravitch that if private schools can secure the same results at less cost to the public, the resulting savings could be used to fulfill her public school wish list?

Following the melodramatic, eleventh-hour denouement of last week's federal budget wrangling, one is left to wonder whether our nation has ever been so politically riven.  The answer, of course, is that we have.  It was 150 years ago, yesterday, on April 12, 1861, that Confederate troops under the command of General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter, marking the beginning of the American Civil War.  The War Between the States produced over 1 million casualties - about 3 percent of the total U.S. population at the time - equivalent to 9.2 million persons, today.  It is estimated that the Civil War was responsible for roughly as many casualties as those suffered in all other U.S. wars, combined.

• the provision that all public school students were to achieve proficiency in reading and math by the year 2014;
• the requirement that a school or district's adequate yearly progress was to be measured by examining achievement test data that was disaggregated to spotlight the performance of specific sub-groups;
• the imposition of punitive measures for schools and districts that consistently failed to demonstrate sufficient improvement;
• the provision of supplementary educational services by providers external to consistently underperforming school districts, and,
• the mandate that all teachers become "highly qualified."

What is, perhaps, most noteworthy about the creation of NCLB is that the drafting, crafting and passage of the new law was accomplished in less than one full year after President George W. Bush was sworn into office.  The White House had changed parties.  Not only had Republicans captured the Presidency, they held majorities in both houses of congress, as well.  And yet, NCLB was very much a bipartisan accomplishment.  If a picture tells a thousand words, this photo underscores that observation.  The photo was taken as NCLB was signed into law by President Bush.  In the background, the late Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman George Miller can clearly be seen.  The two men, who at the time served as the ranking Democratic members of the Senate and House committees overseeing education, respectively, flew to Ohio for the occasion.  (The signing ceremony was conducted in the home district of Representative John Boehner, who then chaired the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.)

How were they able to do it?  The answer, I think, comes with a somber realization.  The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law on January 8, 2002.  Which means that the key compromises and crucial votes on the law took place in the shadow of the 9/11/2001 attacks.  For an all-too-brief period of time, Democrats and Republicans were able to set aside their differences, and find common cause.  Sadly, it may have taken a national tragedy for our elected leaders to bridge their differences and display genuine collaboration.  Let us hope and pray that today's leaders can muster the resolve to realize similar achievements, absent another calamity.  To prolong the current acrimony is a tragedy in its own right. 

Ron Reynolds