Posted on 01/18/2004 1:39:09 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
Three sisters, including one who flunked a teacher certification exam seven times, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime to produce a set of Chicago public schoolteacher manuals that turned out to contain simple math errors and have since been scrapped, officials say.
One of the sisters, Judith Branch-Boyd, turned a hallmark school reform effort into an overtime gravy train that helped boost her 2001-2002 pay to $164,400 -- the highest of any public school teacher in the state that year, records indicate.
At the time, Branch-Boyd also supervised her two sisters, Toni Branch and Brenda Hambright, in a highly touted math curriculum-writing project -- an arrangement that violated the system's ethics policy, according to a new report by Chicago Public Schools Inspector General James Sullivan.
Over nearly three years, through the summer of 2002, the three sisters also racked up overtime payments totaling more than $450,000 -- much of it for curriculum-writing work -- that is now under investigation, officials said.
Branch-Boyd selected Toni Branch for the project, even though Toni Branch did not have a full teaching certificate at the time, investigators said.
But how could someone without a full teaching certificate be hired to write materials telling teachers how to teach math?
"That's a very legitimate question,'' said Chicago Board of Education spokesman Michael Vaughn. "I think that speaks to what we have investigated. . . . Now we need to take action.''
The manuals the three sisters worked on gave teachers wrong answers to some elementary-grade math problems, investigators said.
Even their overtime records submitted by Branch-Boyd on the sisters' behalf had arithmetic mistakes, Sullivan said. In some cases, his report indicated, the time sheets also showed at least two of the sisters in two different places at the same time.
The sisters and others have been under scrutiny for about year, since published reports about the state's top-paid public schoolteachers in 2001-2002. Branch-Boyd headed the pack at that time, followed by No. 3 Debbey Thomas, head of the reading-curriculum project, who made $152,000 that school year, and No. 8 Hambright, who made $143,000, state records show.
The board has created a warning system to guard against excessive overtime, but has taken no action, although Sullivan gave the system the results of his investigation in June.
Branch-Boyd resigned in May, and some discipline is expected against Toni Branch, Hambright and Thomas, who has been on sick leave since October, Vaughn said. Two other curriculum writers also are being investigated, he said.
The three sisters' activities are outlined in a new annual report that spotlights fraud, waste and mismanagement uncovered by the inspector general's office over the last school year. Its findings ranged from failure to seek federal reimbursement for $869,000 in emergency snow removal to the installation of some 180 school doors that pose fire hazards.
The three Branch sisters and others produced math and reading materials used by hundreds of teachers systemwide during after-school and summer school classes, a cornerstone of Mayor Daley's efforts to reform the system.
Yet math curriculum writer Toni Branch had flunked the exam for an elementary teacher's certificate on at least seven occasions, officials said. State records indicate she holds a substitute-teaching certificate. Under a new federal law, such a certificate triggers a warning to parents that its holder is "not highly qualified'' to teach.
Sullivan's report noted that some math manuals produced by Toni Branch, her two sisters and others contained "numerous errors, including basic computation errors and word problems where the solution given was the wrong answer.''
"It was likely that some of the ... manuals hindered, rather than helped, the teacher,'' Sullivan's report said. However, occasional textbook errors are not uncommon nationwide.
Also not adding up were some overtime hours in paperwork Branch filled out on the sisters' behalf, Sullivan said.
In some cases, Sullivan said, the addition was just plain wrong -- sometimes to an employee's benefit and other times not.
Also, officials said, some overtime hours overlapped with employees' other commitments. For example, Vaughn said, at least twice, Toni Branch claimed to be working for the board on days she was taking a teacher certification exam.
"Not only does the investigation indicate she was a non-certified teacher, but it appears she may have been billing us for taking the test while she was trying to get certified. It's very disturbing,'' Vaughn said.
Toni Branch, reached this past week at Chicago's Mann School, where she teaches math, declined comment except to say she did help write the teacher manuals. Curriculum writers told investigators that they worked all the overtime stated, but may have recorded the wrong times, Sullivan said.
Because three of the writers were sisters, Sullivan said, their overtime should have been strictly monitored. Instead, he said, oversight was "virtually non-existent.''
The teacher manuals and other books the project generated are now being replaced; some new books hit schools within the last few weeks.
Said Vaughn: "We felt we needed to make an improvement. ''
Like this one?
"That's a very legitimate question,'' said Chicago Board of Education spokesman Michael Vaughn. "I think that speaks to what we have investigated. . . . Now we need to take action.''
Non-answered like a true bureaucrat.
Scratch any portion of this fiasco and you sniff "Daley Crony"
Even their overtime records submitted by Branch-Boyd on the sisters' behalf had arithmetic mistakes, Sullivan said. In some cases, his report indicated, the time sheets also showed at least two of the sisters in two different places at the same time.
Heeheehee...
It might be difficult to prove they weren't just really stupid.
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