Tolleson has had a busy few weeks. Just last week, she contacted the Arizona Daily Independent and attempted to argue that it was violating FERPA laws in the District’s effort to hide evidence of their use of children for political purposes.
In the matter of the consulting contract with Center for Reform of School Systems, owned by Sanchez’s good friend by Cathy Mincberg, Tolleson found, in her review of her boss’s actions, that the District did not violate state law or district policy.
Tolleson did not consider the fact that the district staff only solicited bids from CRSS and two other firms that were not “education consulting companies.” Governing Board member Mark Stegeman told constituents, “Those firms, McKinsey and Bain, are two worldwide consulting giants who occasionally do educational work but do mainly corporate management consulting. I would have been astonished if either firm had shown interest in this contract.”
As far as TUSD is concerned they are saying it is over, but it is not over for me, “ said Board member Michael Hicks, who filed an inquiry with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Hicks said he was grateful to the legal department for their work, but he believes the Board should withhold judgment until a complete investigation is completed.
Hicks says the situation is further proof that the District must hire an independent auditor. Hicks also is concerned that the legal staff currently works for the superintendent and he believes that the Board should have their own counsel. As it stands, the lawyer is clearly representing the administration and not the public’s representatives.
The Arizona Daily Star reported Sunday that “Sanchez and other TUSD staffers had conversations with Mincberg about the district’s future and how to foster community support for district initiatives months before the contract went to bid. The contract would ultimately reflect services that were similar to those discussions, including a community forum that called on participants to help shape the direction of TUSD over the next five years.”
However according to Tolleson’s finding, Mincberg’s work did on strategic planning did not begin until after the contract was awarded.
Since, neither statute nor the Arizona Auditor General have any guidelines for the board-approval threshold for contracts, the district’s policies govern. Shortly before the contract was awarded to Mincberg, Sanchez had asked and was granted by the Governing Board the right to award contracts up to $100,000 without Board approval.
Hicks has asked for that new policy to come back to the Board for consideration.
Educators say that the way this particular contract was issued does not pass the red-face test. Mincberg’s was the only company that was asked to bid on this contract that could reasonably have been expected to bid since it was the only one of the companies that really provided that service.
Mincberg and Sanchez have worked closely with disgraced former US Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Mincberg and Paige were involved in creating the so-called Texas Miracle when Paige was superintendent of the Houston Independent School District.
When Paige was Houston’s superintendent the test scores of Houston students miraculously soared. Later it was discovered that the increase in performance was not an increase in performance at all, but a decrease in participation. Officials had deliberately not tested many of the poorly performing students who they were required to test.
Prior to that Mincberg developed Houston’s strategic plan for Paige.