City Paper - Deep Dive into TenSquare, charter 'turnaround' consultant

[Anonymous]

This is a pretty damning article.

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/21006459/behind-the-consulting-firm-raking-in-millions-from-dc-charter-schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a pretty damning article.

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/21006459/behind-the-consulting-firm-raking-in-millions-from-dc-charter-schools

wow. dcps wastes money but at least we can see it happening.

[Anonymous]

I fricking love City Paper.

[Anonymous]

The smugness of Pearson’s and Kern’s “we know best” is gross. And the changes to the 2015 Act and the recent increase in $ amount of contracts to be submitted smack of plain and simple corruption.

[Anonymous]

"As a result, unlike virtually every other charter management organization operating in D.C., the PCSB still does not have the legal authority to go into TenSquare’s books to see how it’s spending public dollars." This is appalling and makes the Ellington residency "scandal" peanuts in comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"As a result, unlike virtually every other charter management organization operating in D.C., the PCSB still does not have the legal authority to go into TenSquare’s books to see how it’s spending public dollars." This is appalling and makes the Ellington residency "scandal" peanuts in comparison.

Can't we agree that both are bad?

[Anonymous]

Scott Pearson should resign. This is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fricking love City Paper.

They are great. I need to send them some money.

[Anonymous]

From the article - "I think the larger concern is that the PCSB has opened so many charter schools that struggle and then turn to TenSquare or other outside consultants for help."

This is the core of the issue. Throwing spaghetti at the wall of school openings in hopes that something will stick. It hobbles DCPS and the schools aren't necessarily better on an individual level. Instead of closing them (which is hard for families and makes PCSB look bad) they have a private company prop them up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the article - "I think the larger concern is that the PCSB has opened so many charter schools that struggle and then turn to TenSquare or other outside consultants for help."

This is the core of the issue. Throwing spaghetti at the wall of school openings in hopes that something will stick. It hobbles DCPS and the schools aren't necessarily better on an individual level. Instead of closing them (which is hard for families and makes PCSB look bad) they have a private company prop them up.

Yes, except they are not really propping them up. Just spending more of our taxpayer money and the schools have worse outcomes than when the consultants started.

[Anonymous]

Great article. But this shouldn't be a surprise if you've been following the PCSB and the various scandals that keep cropping up. Many seem to have forgotten that former PCSB CFO Jeremy Williams promoted the private companies that paid him - all under the not-so-watchful eye of Pearson. Williams entanglement at Options charter school was part of that school's demise. Who got the contract to turn Options around? TenSquare of course, leaving the school worse off financially than when they started. Lots of shading dealings. The deeper you dig, the more you'll find. Don't be surprised when the next articles show how Pearson knew all of it directly and even helped to engineer it. It also isn't surprising that the PCSB is inept at producing documents and being transparent yet regularly berates charters that to the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great article. But this shouldn't be a surprise if you've been following the PCSB and the various scandals that keep cropping up. Many seem to have forgotten that former PCSB CFO Jeremy Williams promoted the private companies that paid him - all under the not-so-watchful eye of Pearson. Williams entanglement at Options charter school was part of that school's demise. Who got the contract to turn Options around? TenSquare of course, leaving the school worse off financially than when they started. Lots of shading dealings. The deeper you dig, the more you'll find. Don't be surprised when the next articles show how Pearson knew all of it directly and even helped to engineer it. It also isn't surprising that the PCSB is inept at producing documents and being transparent yet regularly berates charters that to the same.

What is surprising is that the PCSB board does nothing to reign the PCSB staff in. Perhaps they need a crash course in governance.

[Anonymous]

Yikes. What do the pro charter folks think about this? Are you willing to clean house of the corruption?

[Anonymous]

Time to clean house. Watching the school expansion “governance” process for our charter made me realize the oversight for charters in DC is terrible.

[Anonymous]

So who governs or oversees the PCSB?