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Tough Time for Schools in Camden: Crime Probes and a Test-Score Scandal Are Bringing Calls for Superintendent's Resignation

Posted on: Sunday, 18 June 2006, 03:00 CDT

By Melanie Burney and Frank Kummer, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Jun. 18--For the Camden school system, a tumultuous year ends when summer vacation begins this week, leaving a district rocked by scandal and officials trying to figure out how to repair the damage.

Superintendent Annette D. Knox faces a criminal probe, with state officials subpoenaing financial and performance records from her five years on the job.

With calls streaming in for Knox's resignation, her tenure could end as early as this week, leaving South Jersey's largest school system without a leader to pick up the pieces.

"The district is completely in chaos," said former school board member Dwaine J. Williams.

At least two other investigations are reviewing cheating allegations and unusually high state test scores at two elementary schools and an elite magnet high school where the principal contends that an assistant superintendent tried to pressure him to rig 2005 math results.

Three principals have been suspended. A cafeteria worker is charged with stealing food, and two other employees admitted embezzling funds.

The district suffered another blow when preliminary 2006 state test results released last week showed elementary school scores had plummeted.

David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which has advocated on behalf of Camden and the state's poorest school districts, blamed the state for the turmoil in Camden. The state has oversight over the district and its $300 million annual budget.

"It should have never gotten to this point, given the authority the state has," Sciarra said. "There's no question that the children are not getting the education they deserve."

School board president Philip E. Freeman acknowledged that the recent upheaval "doesn't represent a district that is stable right now." But he said the board had taken corrective steps.

With the school year ending Friday, Sciarra said the district should focus on the 2006-07 school year, and hiring personnel and implementing programs. If necessary, the state should intervene, he said.

The next order of business for the school board could be searching for a superintendent, a painstaking process that could take months.

The board is expected to decide this week whether Knox should remain at the helm. She has been schools chief since 2001. Her three-year contract expires June 30.

Supporters and critics have taken sides on Knox, the first woman and first outsider to run the district. She previously worked in Cleveland and New York.

"I really think she should step down," said Charles Wilson, 39, who has five children in the Camden schools. "Our children are being swept under the rug."

Said William Sanchez, 39, the father of four: "We need better leadership for our kids."

City Councilman Ali Sloan El, a former school board member, and other Knox backers suggested a more sinister motive behind any attempt to remove Knox.

"The key is that the county [political] bosses want Ms. Knox gone so they can put in their person to control the millions of dollars that flow through the district each year," Sloan El said.

Freeman plans to discuss at a special meeting Wednesday whether Knox should be removed in light of a wide-ranging investigation by the state Attorney General's Office into the district and Knox. The board also is reviewing $17,690 in bonuses that Knox received without its approval or knowledge.

"The circumstances have risen to the level that discussions are necessary about whether she should remain the superintendent," Freeman said. The board could bring tenure charges against Knox or seek to buy out her $185,483-a-year contract.

Knox, 60, is the latest in a string of Camden school officials to face legal troubles.

Former Superintendent Arnold Webster was sentenced to six months' house arrest for illegally helping himself to $20,000 from the district. And former board president Elaine Bey spent five months in jail for misusing $24,000 in district funds for meals, vacations and personal expenses.

A subpoena served on the district last week seeks a wide range of records on Knox's spending and actions over the last five years.

The three-page subpoena, obtained by The Inquirer, also wants documents that back up why Knox received $17,690 in bonuses for 2004 and 2005 without the board's knowledge or approval.

In addition to the criminal investigation, Camden faces mounting outside pressure as one of the state's 31 so-called special-needs, or Abbott, districts.

It received $244 million in state aid last year under a State Supreme Court case aimed at leveling the playing field between needy and wealthier districts.

With nearly 17,000 students, Camden spent $14,339 per pupil in 2005-06, while Cherry Hill, with 11,615 students and a higher-income district, received $15 million in state aid, and spent $10,924 per student.

With state aid frozen, resentment among suburban districts against the special-needs districts, especially Camden, has escalated. Gov. Corzine has said the Abbott districts should be held more accountable, and ordered audits and program reviews.

Critics have questioned whether the state should continue to pump millions of dollars into the district when test scores generally remain chronically low.

In preliminary results released by the district last week, scores at two once-shining examples of elementary schools, H.B. Wilson and U.S. Wiggins, plunged in the wake of an investigation into possible test cheating.

Their principals, Michael Hailey and Juanita Worthy, remain suspended amid accusations that they attempted to defraud the district of $28,000 through phony pay vouchers.

Fourth-grade math scores at Wilson Elementary dropped 77 percentage points, from 100 percent proficient in 2005 to 23 percent proficient this year.

An Inquirer analysis found that among the state's elementary schools, the biggest decline in math scores from 2003-04 to 2004-05 was 27 percentage points. Statewide figures have not yet been released for this year.

Districtwide, fourth-grade math and language-arts scores generally fell this year. Results decreased at 17 of 19 schools in language arts and 16 of 19 schools in math. Third-grade results also dropped at more than half the schools.

Scores also tumbled 17 percentage points this year at Brimm, where 75 percent of the 11th graders passed math.

Brimm principal Joseph Carruth, who was fired by the board on Knox's recommendation, said he hoped things would change in the district next year. His last day is June 30.

"It's corruption from the top, and at this point the state or somebody has to step in and correct it," he said.

"The kids are the ones who ultimately suffer. You have kids thinking they actually passed these tests legitimately, and they didn't."

Contact staff writer Melanie Burney at 856-779-3876 or mburney@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writer Dwight Ott contributed to this article.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

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