The Asbury Park Press’s 11-page expose on Lakewood Public Schools, "Cheated," is (finally!) online. For those playing catch-up, Lakewood is an unusual district: while 5,600 children attend the public schools, the district spends almost ¼ of its $130 million annual budget on transportation and special education costs for 22,000 children who attend Hasidic private day schools. The School Board -- 8 of 9 members belong to the Hasidic community -- defers on all matters to Board Attorney Michael Inzelbuch who, until he was fired last week, made about $500,000 per year. The Board also just fired its Superintendent, Lydia Silva, and has been through a multiple high school principals and business administrators in just the last few years. A new community group, Lakewood UNITE, has attempted to shed light on distressingly low performance among the all-minority kids who attend Lakewood Public Schools and Board member shenanigans.
Here's some of my previous coverage here, here, here, and here.
Here’s a few highlights from the Asbury Park Press series:
- "63 percent of [the Lakewood High School junior class] failed the math portion of the state’s mandatory assessment test. Little wonder, since state monitors discovered that students hadn’t been provided with algebra and geometry textbooks they could bring home. Teachers were passing kids regardless of how poor their grades were, the monitors also found, evidence of what they called “a culture of low expectations"
- "Among other signs of turmoil, an investigation by the Press uncovered a test cheating scandal; a glaring error in the high school’s graduation rate; and a former elementary school principal who says he misled the parents of disabled students to control special-education costs and save his $139,000-a-year job."
- "The district has had three superintendents since the 2007-08 school year, though some critics of the school board believe Michael I. Inzelbuch, the longtime board attorney, has been the one in charge all along, which Inzelbuch says is untrue… He remains on the district’s payroll through June 30 as a special-education consultant, which pays him an annual salary of $122,655 per year."
- Shoddy record-keeping and poor oversight among school officials between
2006 and 2008 resulted in routine overspending, under-budgeting, missing
equipment and wasted money, according to a state audit triggered by a
$1.1 million deficit.
"Like magic, the Lakewood High School Class of 2010 disappeared in its freshman year… The October enrollment for that class in the 2006-07 school year stood at 328. The number of freshman dropouts reported by Lakewood that year: 328."
"A similar mistake — nearly the entire sophomore class disappeared on paper — yielded a nearly identical, low graduation rate for the Class of 2009... Michael Inzelbuch says “Let me make it clear. There are data entry concerns.”