The Politics Of Audits [Updated]

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli is opening an audit into the practice of the New York City Department of Education of entering into “no bid” contracts with private contractors, the New York Times reports. Over the past five years, the DoE has spent over $315 million in this way, without the public transparency and checks and balances that are required for other city and state agencies. Perhaps most notorious of these contracts was the one with the controversial Alvarez & Marsal consulting firm that produced last winter’s school bus debacle.

In the past, Edwize has criticized the DoE’s practice of awarding “no bid” contracts. We believe that the expenditures of public, taxpayer-financed monies must be done in an open, accountable way that keeps the trust of the public. We have also taken note of the extraordinary cost overruns associated with these contracts.

What is interesting about the current focus on this issue is not that the State Comptroller is doing an audit of this practice, as it cries out for fiscal oversight from a public authority. Rather, what is extraordinary is the way in which the New York Charter School Association has weighed in on the side of the Department of Education.

According to a New York Sun article, a number of New York City charter schools chartered by the NYC DoE are suing the Comptroller’s office to stop a related audit of the DOE’s oversight of their schools. The Comptroller wanted to check to see how well the DoE is keeping track of the school’s admission practices and whether the schools’ academic performance met the targets and commitments made in their charter applications.

NYCSA policy director Peter Murphy told the Sun that the Comptroller “wanted to start going into all the schools and asking for non-financial information. It’s just more regulatory creep that we believe is completely unwarranted.”

This is the very same NYCSA that said not a word when the NYC DoE announced it was going to do school progress reports on all NYC charter schools, including those it did not charter. It is the same NYCSA that remained completely silent when the NYC DoE declared that if a NYC charter school chose not to do its school quality review, it would still do a school progress report and give it a lower grade. It is the same NYCSA that turned its head the other way when one of the very best charter schools in the city and state, whose students have consistently scored at the top of every standardized exam, received a ‘C’ because the metrics of the DoE’s progress reports could not take into account the unique characteristics of a fully integrated K-12 school.

That’s not regulatory creep; it’s a regulatory run away train. If there is any principle which is at the core of charter schools, it is educational autonomy from the local school district. NYCSA has surrendered that to the NYC DoE without so much as a whimper.

But just as the NYCSA has consistently put its anti-union agenda before representing New York’s charter schools, it now puts its political alliance with Tweed before the interests of New York’s charter schools.

UPDATE:

Since we wrote this post, it has gone from an under the radar, insider story to one highlighted on the editorial pages of New York City tabloids. See the Daily News editorial and the op-ed by DFER’s Joe Williams. Someone in a position of influence was working this past weekend.

We are flattered that Joe Williams took our side over that of his wife, but don’t teacher unions get blamed for enough without having the end of domestic bliss at the Williams’ household on our shoulders?

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