Philly Online Schools Head Charged With Corruption
Tuesday, August 27, 2013, 9:51 pm
When engaging in the debate about charter schools, we hear a lot about online education being public schools' salvation, because apparently children need no actual teacher to help them as long as the computer is there. Oh, and a connection. This myth continues to permeate the debate about public school funding because online education interests want them to, which is why it comes as no surprise to hear that the largest provider of online education to Philadelphia public schools is now facing federal fraud charges.
Raw Story: On Friday, the founder of Pennsylvania’s bigger charter school — PA Cyber — was charged with fraud, for funneling $8 million of the school’s funds into his personal companies and holdings.
Nicholas Trombetta allegedly used the taxpayer money to purchase a plane, houses for his mother and girlfriend, and a million dollar Florida condo. Reading through the indictment, one can't possibly imagine how such a noble operation could be corrupt. Nicholas Trombetta was the CEO of PA Cyber, a non-profit entity that provided online education services to the Philly public school district. As the indictment notes, PA Cyber was treated as its own public school district, receiving federal, state and local funds for students enrolled.
But Trombetta wore many hats. He was also the CEO of an organization called the National Network of Digital Schools (NNDS) Management Foundation, another non-profit which provided curriculum and other services to online charter schools. That organization conveniently had a contract with PA Cyber which supplied a majority of its income. According to the federal indictment, between $22 and $50 million per year flowed into the NNDS entity from 2006-2011. To complete the pyramid, Trombetta created a third entity called Avanti Management Group, which had a contract with NNDS, where management services were provided to NNDS by...Trombetta!
Avanti received $900,000 in 2008 all the way up to $9.2 million in 2011. Those are stunning numbers, particularly when we recall that Governor Corbett was threatening to shut down Philly's public school opening over $50 million if the teachers didn't shoot themselves in the foot by giving away all of their collective bargaining rights. Yet here we have a guy who was paid a six figure salary by PA Cyber, plus skimming off money into two other "management entities" and setting things up so he could collect from Ohio online schools and New Mexico online schools to line his own pockets
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