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9486 in the collection
Pr. George's Superintendent Is Leaving
After Less Than Three Years at Helm, Deasy Says School System 'Is in Incredibly Good Shape'
Deasy is a graduate of The Broad Superintendents Academy. He was superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District before taking the Prince George's County job. The legitimacy of his doctorate degree is in dispute.
Deasy's Resume Shows Questions, Doctorate Remains Under Investigation
By ALLYSON DICKMAN
WASHINGTON (Sept. 24, 2008) -- Prince George's County Schools Superintendent John E. Deasy has two anomalies on his resume, according to a review of the document by Capital News Service.
Deasy is already under scrutiny for receiving a doctorate from the University of Louisville with only nine credit hours. He was awarded his doctorate two years after giving the research company owned by his adviser, Robert Felner, a three-year, $375,000 contract. Felner is under federal investigation for misappropriation of funds.
Deasy listed a faculty position in the doctoral program of Educational Leadership and Social Justice at Loyola Marymount University, Calif., from 2003 to present. The university's human resources department could not find him listed as a current or former faculty member.
There also was a date discrepancy on the resume he had on file in the Prince George's Schools office of the superintendent.
Deasy received his master's degree on May 21, 1989, according to Providence College records. However, his resume says he received the degree in 1987, the same time he became director of personnel at Coventry Public Schools, R.I.
Deasy did not claim to have his master's when applying for the personnel director position, according to Coventry Public School records.
University of Louisville recently impaneled a six-member, blue ribbon committee to investigate Deasy's doctoral degree.
In a letter to the university's accrediting agency, University of Louisville President James Ramsey said the blue-ribbon panel found no violations of the accreditation agency's residency requirements for Deasy's degree, said John Drees, a university spokesman.
The committee met Wednesday to investigate other aspects of Deasy's degree, Drees said. The meetings are confidential.
Deasy declined to comment by phone or e-mail. In a news release he said he will accept the university's decision regarding his doctorate.
Deasy was elected unanimously in February 2006. He is the county's fifth superintendent in 10 years.
Deasy has worked for progressively larger school districts: Coventry Public Schools has 5,600 students, Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) Unified School District has 12,800 students and, most recently, Prince George's, which contains 133,000 students.
Deasy was chosen to lead the Prince George's school system over two candidates with experience in larger counties. According to an article by The Washington Post, Deasy ran for superintendent claiming he was "free of ethical taint."
"I am proud of all of the credits I earned to achieve my doctorate," Deasy said in the news release. "However, I am most proud of the phenomenal achievements of Prince George's County public school students since I joined this community two years ago."
The release also mentioned the Alumni Fellow Award Deasy received in 2007 from Louisville.
The county is not investigating Deasy because a national search firm did a resume check during his candidacy for superintendent, said John White, spokesman for the county.
"The requirements for superintendent were a master's degree and the doctorate was preferred, so it was not a requirement," said White. "As far as Dr. Deasy is concerned, he feels like he did the work required of him so we have to see if the university did not follow its own procedures."
Rising test scores and a closing achievement gap may cause the board of education to overlook Deasy's doctorate.
"The Board of Education stands united behind our superintendent in his leadership of Prince George's County Public Schools," said Verjeana M. Jacobs, chair of the school board, in a press release. Jacobs and the other board members declined to comment by phone or e-mail.
The release states the board will continue to work with the university, but its focus "remains on the most important work of closing achievement gaps for all students."
Capital News Service contributed to this report.
By Nelson Hernandez
John E. Deasy, the superintendent of Prince George's County schools, will leave his post as the head of Maryland's second-largest school system to take a job as a deputy director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Reached at home last night, Deasy said, "I have been offered a job, and I will make a public announcement of it tomorrow." He declined to give further details, saying only that he had been in "an ongoing conversation for several months" about the job.
Deasy told the board yesterday that he was leaving the 130,000-student Prince George's system for one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Deasy will leave around February, the source said.
The board held a closed session "to discuss a personnel matter" at 5 p.m. yesterday; public notification of the session was given almost half an hour after the meeting had begun. After the meeting ended, the board's chairman, Verjeana M. Jacobs (At Large), said that she had "positive news" and that a statement would be issued today.
Several other board members reached last night declined to comment.
Since Deasy was hired in 2006, scores on state tests in Prince George's, the most commonly used measure of a school system's performance, have improved significantly. But when Deasy leaves, he will be departing less than three years after taking over, contributing to a history of rapid turnover in the district's leadership.
Four superintendents -- Iris T. Metts, Andre J. Hornsby, Howard Burnett and Deasy, in that order -- have run the system in a permanent or acting capacity since 1999. None has lasted in the job more than four years.
The board fired Metts in 2002 but was itself subsequently dissolved by the state legislature. The new appointed board rehired Metts, who decided not to seek a new contract in 2003. The appointed board hired Hornsby, who resigned under the cloud of a federal investigation in 2005. Hornsby was convicted July 23 of wire fraud, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice.
With Burnett as acting chief, the board searched for someone to stabilize a system that generally ranked second from the bottom, ahead of Baltimore, among Maryland's 24 jurisdictions in state test scores. The board unanimously chose Deasy, who took office in May 2006 with an annual salary of $250,000 after beating out rivals from Kansas and New York.
He was in some ways an unlikely choice. The Prince George's school system, with about 130,000 students, was almost 10 times as large as the 14,000-student Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, where Deasy had been superintendent. Deasy also noted himself that he was white, succeeding three black school chiefs in a predominantly black county. He asked Prince George's officials whether his race would pose a hurdle, and they said no.
Deasy had a reputation as someone who fought to close the gap between schools serving rich and poor residents, a problem familiar to Prince George's. He was comfortable talking about race. He said he was free of ethical taint, challenging anyone to scour his record. And he said he would stay between four and eight years, the length of time it would take to make a difference.
"People want stability and the best candidate -- black, white or purple," Beatrice P. Tignor, then the school board's chairman, said soon after choosing Deasy.
In December 2006, the appointed board gave way to an entirely new board elected by county voters.
Deasy attacked the county's problems aggressively, proposing a series of initiatives aimed at turning the system around. He transferred extra personnel to low-performing schools, expanded high schools' Advanced Placement offerings and this year began a pilot program offering extra pay to teachers who perform well on evaluations and teach in critical subjects.
Other initiatives never got off the ground. An idea to create smaller schools teaching a variety of specialized subjects has yet to come to fruition. Another plan to make elementary schools run from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade was put on hold because of tight budgets.
Overall, his effort seemed to make a difference. The county's results on this year's Maryland School Assessment, a state test of elementary and middle school students' reading and math skills, improved at every grade level. The number of schools on a state watch list for poor academic performance has declined from 76 in 2006 to 58, and many more schools are poised to leave the list. The pace of test score gains in Prince George's has been faster than the state average.
In the meantime, Deasy has gained a presence on the national stage, speaking at think tanks in Washington and before the Democratic National Committee in August. In an Oct. 9 speech, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, mentioned Prince George's by name as a system with a promising pay-for-performance program.
Deasy's relations with the elected school board remained publicly cordial. Deasy strongly opposed the board's decision to purchase a $36 million headquarters building, but the controversy from that seems to have died down in recent weeks. In its last formal evaluation, in July 2007, the board gave Deasy "excellent" ratings, increased his annual salary to $273,000 and gave him a $16,666 bonus.
And when Deasy's PhD in education from the University of Louisville came under investigation by university officials this month -- the question is whether he was properly allowed to transfer credits to the school -- the board rallied behind the superintendent, and only a handful of members of the public came out to criticize him.
"The Board of Education stands united behind our superintendent in his leadership of Prince George's County Public Schools," Jacobs said in a Sept. 11 statement in reaction to the investigation.
Last night, Deasy said the school system's health was strong going into the future.
"I think that the organization is in incredibly good shape," Deasy said in an interview last night. "Every single metric is at the highest level it has been in years. I think the structures are in place to continue this."
— Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post
2008-09-30
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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