Public Dollars Going to Private Schools

Last summer I got a tidbit from a CMSD employee in an airport waiting area. I was told that Dr. Morgan and a handful of CMSD administrators were waiting to board a plane back to Cleveland. I was also told that they were talking loudly about sticking some guy named Paul into a position and doing it quietly to avoid dealing with the overzealous school parents. Additionally, the administrators were all wearing matching CMSD polo shirts. This tidbit was later confirmed by the news that Paul Fiely would be named principal of the doomed Campus International High School and photos from LinkedIn.

That’s Nick D’Amico, massager of data, Anna Turner who failed to get textbooks to all students until after a full quarter into the school year, Erin Frew who runs around student protests telling children to disperse, Dr. Morgan, Jose Gonzalez the wearer of may titles and hats, Selena Turner who has unified the curriculum at all schools, Megan Traum who attends five hour Friday meetings, and JR Tomkinson, chief of staff to the CEO with little to no education background.

They were attending a program at Harvard that most added to their LinkedIn profiles before the ink dried on their certificates.

I never got any information about this expenditure from CMSD. I had kind of forgotten about it until I received records from the ESC. These Harvard program costs were paid for out of the ESC subsidy funds, which Dr. Morgan requested from his magic lamp of state funds.

Thirty-seven thousand dollars for this PELP program comes to about $4,600 per attendee. In my head, when I did the math, it made me think of how much money a student gets for the Cleveland Scholarship. That would be $6,165 (k-8) for a full year at a private or parochial school.

Public school administrators, the Cleveland Teachers Union, many parents, and Sara Ealaqad, appointed school board chair, do not like that public dollars go to private schools. While most of the decline in CMSD enrollment is attributed to the decline in birthrates, over 8,000 students use the Cleveland Scholarship each year to attend private school instead of Cleveland public schools.

At the City Club forum in May, Sara Elaqad brought up the state funding for private schools as a negative. “Elaqad also noted the state is spending more than $1 billion per year to fund private-school vouchers now. She said the $8,408 scholarship that high-school students receive to attend private schools is more than what the state provides per-student to CMSD.” Her understanding of the numbers doesn’t seem to be quite accurate. It was primarily interesting because it was the second time she had brought it up publicly.

It remains unclear if Sara Elaqad would like to deprive students using the John Peterson and Autism scholarships of their educational opportunities.

In April, at an appointed school board meeting, Elaqad brought up not only the “costs” to CMSD of public money going to tuition at private schools, but she also mentioned that CMSD is required by law to pay for the transportation of these students to their private school. That is done through RTA passes or PILO for up to $600.

In the past, CMSD officials have chosen to remain silent on vouchers. It probably would have been wise for them to remain so. Since they have chosen to speak up, we should ask: why should poor children in Cleveland be denied the opportunity to use public dollars for private schools when Dr. Morgan and other members of the district administration, made wealthy by our property tax dollars, get to use public dollars to attend private universities?

This isn’t the only record of Dr. Morgan asking for public money to pay for a self enriching program at Harvard, a private university.

The money that funds the Educational Service Centers comes from the Ohio legislature. It is public money. Dr. Morgan, who makes $299,000 from the collection of property taxes of poor Cleveland residents. Surely he could have written a personal check for this resume fluffer. No child in CMSD benefits from this expenditure. Why does our appointed school board allow this?

It’s not just Harvard getting our public dollars. Cornell does, too. We hired a bunch of people for the Equity and Talent department (before they changed their named to please President Trump) and gave them salaries for their expertise. The people we hired were not experts in equity and needed to bone up on the subject at public expense. They chose to attend classes through Cornell’s online program.

These eCornell certificates were also quickly added to the very thin LinkedIn profiles of several employees.

Why should we use public dollars so that Anna Turner can add Harvard to her resume and Nicole Tomkins can add Cornell to hers? Even if these administrators needed these educational enhancements to perform their jobs, the same programs are offered at Cleveland State and Ohio State, both public universities.

How does spending public dollars at private universities create a justifiable benefit while sending public money to Birchwood, Urban Community School, Hawken, St. Ignatius, or Our Lady of Angels is seen as taking money away from CMSD schools?

"We're not operating with the same level of resources for our public school kids who are going to need to rely on our public schools, and we've got a responsibility as a district to do the best we can with those dollars that we do get, but we are in a little bit of a tough situation in Ohio," Elaqad said.

Sure, she said it, but what is she going to do about it in the one area she and other appointed school board members can control?

Transparency note: my daughter attends a private high school that does not accept vouchers and our family does not take the PIL transportation dollars.