Search Page

A federal lawsuit accuses New York City and thousands of other school districts of defrauding special needs students by depriving them of hands-on therapies during the pandemic. According to a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Education, city educators obtained the consent from special needs parents before swapping distance learning for hands-on therapies. Nevertheless, many parents have not received any services whatsoever, not even remote services.

A high-ranking Department of Education employee used his position to rip off $5 billion from the Government money that should have been spent on public schools. According to the State's anti-corruption, watchdog IBAC, for 7 years he covered his tracks by organizing fake invoices sent from companies owned by him and his friends and family that did not do any work.

Roslyn New York school principal and her assistant were involved in a case of embezzlement that misappropriated some $11 million from students. At the New Orleans Public School, 30 convictions were recorded, including a former school board president who took more than $140,000 in bribes. According to reports from the Inspector General of the Department of Education, the office receives more corruption reports than it can investigate.

Data from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights shows that 29 per cent of teachers were considered chronically absent, missing more than 10 days of school in 2015-2016. This is near twice the 15 per cent of students who are chronically absent. As a result, a number of school districts included teacher and student absence measures in their school accountability system.

Ohio Auditor’s opponent in the state attorney general’s race said that he should immediately have referred to authorities a whistleblower’s allegations that the state’s then-largest online charter school intentionally inflated attendance figures. The Education Department previously found that the school significantly over-reported its number of full-time-equivalent students and owed the state $60 million for the 2015-2016 school year. Another $19 million penalty was assessed for 2016-2017.

KXAS-TV was awarded a 2017 Peabody Award for its extensive NBC 5 Investigates series, “Big Buses, Bigger Problems: Taxpayers Taken for a Ride”. NBC 5’s investigation exposed a web of corruption, staggering financial mismanagement, hidden personal relationships and conflicts of interest inside Dallas County Schools, a public agency responsible for transporting more than 75,000 school children daily in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.