By Christen Smith
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Oct.6) — Auditor General Eugene DePasquale’s long-awaited performance audit levied some harsh criticisms Tuesday against the state Department of Education and the state Board of Education.
In the 80-page report, DePasquale says “misguided leadership” and a “dereliction of duty” at both agencies left 561 under-performing schools without any help recovering from academic distress and the state, itself, without a master education plan for the last 16 years.
“The details of this audit should serve as a wake-up call for all Pennsylvanians because all of us have a connection to education in one way shape or form,” he told a room full of reporters Tuesday. “It is mind boggling to me how an agency charged with educating our children could be the least cooperative in helping to effect change in Pennsylvania, but that’s what we had.”
The audit analyzed five years and three administrations worth of data and found that between 2010 and August 2015, the department violated retirement code and lost track of special advisers – including Ron Tomalis, a former special adviser on higher education who stepped down amid allegations that he was nothing more than a “ghost employee.”
Meanwhile, the board ignored its statutory obligation to update the state’s educational master plan every five years — a task that hasn’t been completed since 1999.
Larry Wittig, chairman of the State Board of Education, in his written response to the audit findings, said increased mandates — not the unfounded claim of “misguided leadership” — prevented the board from updating the master plan as required by state law.
“While the board recognizes that a timely update to the master plan is required by the School Code, the board had to establish priorities for its agenda in order to carry out the new responsibilities placed with the board in light of its reduced capacity,” he wrote. “In doing so, the board focused much of its recent efforts on executing the new responsibilities to it, many of which came with pressing deadlines for completion.”
DePasquale says Wittig’s response is contradictory and “difficult to comprehend.”
“Moreover, like many of the new responsibilities that the Board of Education claims were assigned to it, the (master) plan too had a ‘pressing deadline’ for completion,” he said. “It’s every five years.”
The board isn’t the only one shirking its duties, either, said DePasquale.
During Tuesday’s press conference, DePasquale chastised PDE’s failure to intervene in schools where federal improvement funds weren’t available, but academic achievement was still classified as sub-par by state standards. About 16 percent of the state’s 3,500-plus schools fit into this category, according to audit documents.
“The previous administration developed the School Performance Profiles and they decided anything 70 or above was considered passing. These were the schools that didn’t score at least a 70,” DePasquale said. “To then sit there and say ‘okay, that’s bad’ and then do nothing, to me, is a dereliction of duty. Whether you want to call it overlooked, neglected, leaving them out in the wilderness to fend for themselves, whatever you want to use, whether its tough love, whatever term you want to use, those 561 schools received zero help from the Department of Education.”
In a written response to the audit findings, Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera blames the department’s shortcomings on “a lack of adequate resources devoted to education in the commonwealth.”
“It is my hope that this report will help demonstrate the pressing need for the commonwealth to properly invest in the educational resources of the commonwealth, including the internal resources and capacity of the department,” he wrote.
DePasquale isn’t surprised by Rivera’s defense.
“I get why that answer was put in there and I get the timing of this and that is what it is,” he said. “There needs to be a plan implemented for these 561 schools and it’s not just about money. It has to be about other things. Money is part of the discussion, but you gotta have a plan to deal with this. Just pushing money out to these districts isn’t going to solve it either. Is money part of the answer? Yes. Is it the whole answer? No. This is a comprehensive thing.”
Tim Eller, a former PDE spokesman under Gov. Tom Corbett, criticized the audit — and DePasquale’s characterization of the department as uncooperative — during an interview Tuesday.
“I think the auditor general is being very disingenuous, actually. It’s easy to always play this game,” he said. “It’s 20/20 vision after the facts or Monday morning quarterbacking. More can always be done for schools that are struggling.”
Eller said former Acting Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq “put in place some amazing things” for academically struggling schools.
“The whole concept that the department ignored these schools is very concerning because that was not my experience,” he added.
During the auditing process, Eller said PDE asked DePasquale’s staff to substantiate the auditor general’s claims that the department was being “uncooperative.”
“The staff said they were not aware of what he was talking about,” he said.
DePasquale said Tuesday the department’s behavior was “isolated and rare” and not a reflection of the Corbett administration, but rather the culture of its leadership.
“Any time I asked Gov. Corbett if there was some little roadblock in some agency, it was taken care of immediately,” he said. “This was the one exception. I think he was even frustrated by the department.”
Eller and former Corbett spokesman Jay Pagni said they were “unaware” of any discord between the governor and the department at the time.
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