Metroview; Cei-Pea Luncheon With Featured Speaker Edward F. Stancik

. Welcome to Metruvue. I'm Ed Rogowski. For this edition of Metruvue, we've taken our cameras once again to the Harvard Club in Midman Hatton for a luncheon meeting of the Center for Educational Innovation, Public Education Association. The featured speaker, Edward Stansick, the special commissioner of investigation for the New York City Board of Education, reporting to those assembled on 10 years of work by this unusual office. By his own definition of impact, that is a concentrated force compelling change. Stansick's work certainly has had an impact

on the New York City's school system in a series of investigations, revealing corruption in local school boards and contracting processes in purchasing and in related matters. Stansick will be introduced by Coleman Genn, who is the assistant director of the Center for Educational Innovation himself, a hero and legend the New York City school system when he was the community superintendent in District 27, he helped earlier investigate his to uncover and to document widespread patterns of attempted corruption in his school district, contributing therefore to significant change and improving public education for the kids in that district and throughout the city of New York. Let's listen out to Edward Stansick as he describes the work of his agency over 10 years and its impact on the New York City's school system. Some of you may recall, a number of years ago, there was a superintendent in Queens who carried a wire for eight months for the Gil Commission and indicted his corrupt school board and got them suspended.

He then received a medal from the mayor of the city of New York and then joined the Center for Educational Innovation and how this is called again. So I thought it would make sense. Since he's responsible because it was the result of the Gil Commission that the special investigators law was made and that Ed Stansick became that inspect special inspector. So why should I take the heat fed, Stansick? I figured let Coleman again who was partially responsible for that office being created. Let him introduce Ed Stansick. So it was my pleasure to introduce our good friend, Coleman. Thank you, Si. And good afternoon, everybody. It's pleasure to be here and to introduce somebody

that I am fond of and whose job I think I understand is slightly slightly. I was sort of a dillotone and investigation, a very much a dillotone being handled by professionals at that time for that eight month period. I lived with a detective in my home. And I learned a great deal. I especially learned the most important lesson, which was the difference between allegations and evidence. And it is something that our press and everybody doesn't always follow through on. A lot of us don't follow through on it. We love allegation. We love sorted stories. We rarely spend the time to dig up evidence. The investigator does that. But they created the job, a special commissioner of investigations, which he has been in from 1990

until now. He has a very difficult job. And in New York City, and the only political issue that I will raise, is that sometimes, especially with investigators in certain areas, we love to kill the messenger. Don't kill the messenger, folks. We have a few minor problems in the city's school system of corruption. And we do need somebody to keep the horizon. But anyway, enough of my pilot checking, it is my pleasure to introduce a man who has suffered all these slings and arrows. And yet consistently, they have today performs his job in an incredible way and does a lot for the children of New York and Stansing. I want to talk about impact today. Specifically, the impact the special commissioner's

had office has had over the last 10 years. It was a long time ago. Some ways very different. Some ways the same giants were about to win the Super Bowl. In defining the impact, Webster's third dictionary speaks of a concentrated force compelling change. Change in education results from a dynamic, however. It has never been. It will never be the work of a single individual. The impact my office has had is no exception. We have had help, lots of it, and oftentimes from the people in this room. And with that help, we have helped

to produce some real change. Impact is hard in there. Unpleased, then the last 10 years our investigations have resulted in 134 criminal convictions or a little more than one for a month over that period. That our conviction rate is 81.7% which is higher than the district attorney's offices throughout the city. That our work has resulted in disciplinary proceedings leading to 390 firings or resignations. But impact cannot be felt through numbers alone. Consider the school governance legislation in 1995. Before my job even existed, Jim Gill on his condition

with the help of Coleman laid out the first clear picture of when a patronage mill was in District 27. When we did our District 12 investigation, we again painted a vivid picture of the Gammett School Board corruption does to the education of children. Board members who picked principles based on political contributions and support and sometimes even demeaning personal errands, who divided up principal ships in back room meetings. The principles were referred to as pieces and their sponsoring board members as their godfathers. And some of those applicants paid thousands to their godfathers for principal's position.

Unfortunately for one of them, but fortunately for New York City, she paid her bid and a car in which we had a hidden camera and captured the entire transaction on a color film. I will never forget that woman's words as she colored out the $100 bills. I'm giving you my resume for the job, she said, and chuckled. I'll never forget writing the recommendations that became the core of the proposed school reform, wondering what anything would really happen. Well, things did happen. The public embraced their recommendations. Though we had had our battles over the years, the teacher's union stepped up and became full partners in the struggle for school reform. In all honesty, it would not have been possible without them.

The editorial boards, titled advocacy and good government groups joined in Mayor Dinkins and then Mayor Giuliani, the central board, including Irene and Palazzari and Infacegara, who are with us here today. And for our part, we just kept doing case after case. District 10, District 7, District 9, District 21. Individual reporters, the devastating stories on school board scams. And finally, the school governance bill was signed into law. And that law is an historic landmark. And I'm proud to have played a role. Proud to have worked with so many others to achieve that impact. Now, of course, by no means is school reform done. That's one of the real lessons of this business.

A friend of mine years ago, back in the days when they called people typists, lost their position as a typist. And she said she was told that the typing she was hired to do was done. She couldn't believe this, because as she said, typing doesn't get done. There's not a point where a corporation finishes the typing it has to do, and then doesn't do any more. Well, I think the same is true of school reform. It is a battle. It is an ongoing battle. But the school governance law was a watershed in that battle. Then there were the custodian cases. Remember, the guy lying on his yacht when he was supposed to be in school? That was always one of my favorites.

How about the custodian who was not in school, because he was always in court tending to his legal practice? Or the flying custodian who was a charter pilot could always be counted on to be flying some executive around the country whenever the school's pipes backed up. There were many custodians in our first investigation, and many were arrested on the day we announced it. But what was really important about that investigation was that we laid out how the custodial system made those abuses possible. Mayor Giuliani took a firm stance in the next contract negotiations and forced the union to accept most of our recommendations into the labor contract. Let's turn to the sexual abuse of students.

Over the past 10 years, we substantiated hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse or harassment. We secured 41 convictions and 160 terminations of employment of BOE staff for sexual abuse. Now, these cases were rarely heard of before our office was created, and it's not that there was an outbreak of sex abuse in the early 1990s, there was an outbreak of investigation. In doing so, we created the first real return to the sexual abuse of children in schools. Before that return existed, a school staff member, and mind you, I'm talking about a very tiny minority,

but those they could engage in a sexual relationship or assault and be confident that no one would ever know about it, well, not anymore. But doing those cases is only a part of our work in this area. We submitted to the central board a proposed resolution known as the sex abuse directive, which established clear procedures for handling abuse allegations, children, parents, and staff for the first time knew there was a place to go with their allegations where they would be taking seriously. And the resolution passed unanimously in Fenn Irene, we're part of the board that passed that resolution. We also invited them Chancellor Ramona Portina's

to form a joint commission with our office to develop best practices for balancing the many interests involved in this delicate area. We brought together the teachers union, the principals union, child advocacy groups, law enforcement officials, and medical experts to develop a comprehensive set of recommendations for dealing with these issues. School safety has always been an important area to us. We did several investigations into the division of school safety. In 1992, we exposed a series of improprieties involving the three leaders of the division. They included a $3 million double dipping scheme, the cover-up of a criminal conviction of one of the division's executives,

and the employment of some 20 relatives of Deputy Chief. All three resigned in the face of those allegations. We didn't set it out originally to change the division of school safety. But again, the cases kept coming. Long-sharking drugs, sexual relationships with students. We even found a safety officer who was a leader of the Latin king's freakin' and advocated recruiting gang members in the schools. We uncovered a scheme where prospective safety officer candidates pay bribes to supervisors to get slots in their training academy. Eventually, the police department assumed responsibility for safety in the schools. We were not by any means the lead player in that shift, of course. And I know that it was a very difficult decision

for many within the board of education. But our cases played a role. And I think it was an important role. It's long been well known that school staff while not, of course, responsible for child abuse in the home, were often in a position to see the telltale signs of abuse, most notably bruises and burns. It's also true that abuse of parents often keep children at home for long periods of time because they don't want school staff to see the signs of abuse. School officials need to be alert to long periods of unexplained absences. We investigated four deaths of children

where this came into play. Justine Morales, who slipped through the cracks and it was dead a year before school officials even knew she was missing. Sabrina Green, whose autopsy was the most horrifying that I have ever read in 20 years in law enforcement. We don't forget those names at my office. And these and other cases led to, excuse me, stricter scrutiny of long unexplained absences. They also led to a very important agreement between the Board of Education and the Administration of Children Services to communicate and move quickly when a child has these long absences. That agreement will save lives, and it probably already has. We've gone four investigations into educator

initiated cheating on standardized tests in all wave implicated 65 educators at 42 schools around the city. Now, this was an area where the Board of Education's internal investigators had primary jurisdiction for years. We only got involved when teachers at a Bronx school told us that the internal investigators were dragging their feet. And that school, the principal and his staff, were pressuring teachers into cheating to achieve higher test scores. Many different methods were used to inflate the scores. And these cases are coming up with more frequency in schools around the country. Our first cheating investigation is still

the largest in terms of educators and schools. And already, our investigation has led to tightened security procedures and more careful scrutiny during the exams themselves. Now, some of you may have heard that the U.F.T. is disputing some of those findings. That's their right. But I can assure you that after building the record, we have built over the last 10 years. We didn't wake up one morning and say, let's go out and frame a bunch of teachers today. There is a problem here, and it needs to be faced squarely on. Many of the cases we did were brought to us by teachers. And the problem isn't limited to just cheating. There are very real questions going forward

about the wisdom of the amount of test preparation going on. First, how billing are the tests? If children with no preparation are being compared to those prepared for the specific exam for months. Second and more fundamentally, do we really want to be devoting so much time and money into test preparation instead of the subjects that are being tested? And they talk about purchasing a little bit. Really sudden, said that you got thanks because that's where the money is. If he were alive today, he would hone in on computer purchases for schools around the country because billions are being spent. And there's no sign of slowing up. Now, of course, that is a good thing,

but it is going to attract bad people. We've gone several purchasing cases. Most recently, the massive bribery scheme for computer purposes that led to the indictment of several high ranking officials in District 29, including former superintendent Celestine Miller. District 14 were the schools kept on 100 no shows for years costing the district millions as part of a cynical deal to obtain support for the local superintendent from one segment of the community. Hiring practices, dangerous practices for hiring substitutes, improved fingerprinting, requiring fingerprinting for custodial workers, whistleblower protection, when I got here,

the border that did not have whistleblower protection like other city employees do. I went to the board and they passed that protection. Why are we able to have the impact that we do? Well, it's not because of our size. We have fewer than 60 employees and a budget of tests over $3 million. The board of education has over 100,000 employees and a budget over $11 billion. It's not because we have unprecedented awesome powers as some in charge. No, my authority is exactly the same as the Commissioner of Investigation has for other city agencies. I don't have a job for life, as some people say. I can be removed at any time for cause by the city's Commissioner of Investigation.

In order I function as judge and jury, each time we use to oppress release, it is backed up by one of those reports. And that is backed up by our investigative files, which detail every step we took. We don't determine the final outcome of our investigations. If it is a criminal case, we report to a prosecutor. If it is a disciplinary case, we report to the board of education. They decide whether to bring charges. If charges have got, they are ruled on by a judge or jury in a criminal case or an arbitrator usually in disciplinary matters. Now, we succeed because, first of all, because, first of all, our cases. And because of the top-notch investigators who make them, we also succeed because the office is independent

and non-ploodable. In 10 years, I have not attended a mayoral staff meeting. We don't take directions. Anyone on what to investigate or what not to investigate. I had a fine working relationship with two very different mayors, one Democrat and one Republican. I have no idea what in any political affiliations people on my staff have. Over the years, our work has focused on what matters. The most serious, fun, and misconduct effect in children. I must tell you again how much it means to me. You got a chance to speak with you here today. This very organization is a tribute to the dynamic I spoke about in one of the reasons why New York, I asked her for fluid and active school reform

in the community. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.