The Crescendo cheating scandal in Los
Angeles is old news (see here,
here,
and here).
All of Crescendo’s schools have since been closed, their teachers let go, and
their 1,400 students forced to relocate as a result of the 2010 scandal in
which teachers were given advance copies of the state standardized exams to
help better prepare their students. However, two separate investigations have
now blamed the organization’s founder and CEO, John Allen, for ordering his
schools’ principals to implicate the teachers in the scam.
The Los Angeles Times quoted an anonymous former Crescendo
administrator who said, "He [Allen] said anyone who doesn't get with the
program, this will be their last day at Crescendo." The Times article went
on to say that most principals complied, according to an unreleased internal
Crescendo report. The scandal broke when teachers reported the cheating
attempts to LAUSD officials.
Despite LAUSD’s knowledge of the
scandal, Allen was kept on as head of the charter network due to the help of
Marguerite Poindextor LaMotte, a friend of Allen’s and a member of the Los
Angeles School Board. LaMotte even got then Supt. Ramon Cortines (who is now
enmeshed in his own sexual
harassment scandal) to back Allen and keep the Crescendo schools open.
However, once the scandal became public, LAUSD had to do damage control and
gave Allen a 6-month, unpaid suspension, while still allowing him to come back
as an administrator. The principals received wrist slap suspensions of 10 days.
While Allen supposedly admitted his
guilt to a Crescendo trustee, he apparently did not admit guilt publicly and
has since sued for wrongful dismissal, arguing that the allegations of testing
irregularities were "unfounded." In April, he settled with Crescendo
for $245,000 of their remaining assets.
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