Tweed Dismantles Networks Before Crimes and Corruption Exposed

Protect Portelos in 

Rubber Room Journal reports this from the rubber room today:

Found some network offices are being broken down and dissolved. Even our cluster2.net site seems like it doesn’t exist anymore. Something is brewing. What’s a network office? Some info here.

O'Mahoney

Ah, those networks. I heard a story that Eric Nadelstern, one of the architects of the failed network system about to be dismantled, always claims they don't have any real power over the schools, just service them. He claims that when questions arise as to the accountability of networks for the actions of a principal. Nadelstern is a liar. Talk to people at any school and they will tell you the truth of the power the shadowy networks where no one has to take responsibility, have held over the schools.

The Gotham Schools report on John O'Mahoney -- Former network leader fined for helping teacher wife get hired --- exposed how deep the corruption:

John O’Mahoney was in charge of the Children First Network #208 in February 2011 when he met with the principal of one of the schools he oversaw to discuss a state audit of the school’s federally-funded academic intervention services program. It was at that time that O’Mahoney determined that the principal needed to create a teaching job for the program and “discussed my wife’s qualifications” for the position, he admitted in a signed deposition released by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.
Shortly after, O’Mahoney’s wife got the job.

Now I know all about this O'Mahoney character. He used to work at a middle school in Queens. One thing you should know about that school. The last 3 UFT Middle School VPs come out of there and O'Mahoney was a pal. He was even part of a conspiracy between the Unity people at the school to trump up charges against an ICE candidate for chapter leader and put that teacher in the rubber room for 6 months, effectively ending his career.

So I wasn't surprised at this:

Later that year, O’Mahoney learned that his wife’s position would be eliminated at the school, which was not named, because of budget cuts. He then instructed his network’s director of human resources to “inform the Principal that my wife’s position could not be excessed.”
Both acts were a violation of the city’s ethics laws and O’Mahoney is required to pay a $4,000 fine, the board ruled. 

 That's it. Four grand for extortion while teachers charged with the most minimal acts get fined 10 or 15 grand by hearing officers.

Or worse, fired and then suspended for two years without pay.
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Network operatives have been part of every coverup of the actions of principals. Francesco Portelos tells once such story about his corrupt principal and for telling this story he sits in a rubber room while the kids at his school are denied his considerable talents.

Knowing the networks are kaput, the rats are scurrying to grab a principalship wherever they can. John O'Mahoney, now principal of Sheepshead Bay HS, has brought his level of corruption to that school.

There are 35 comments at the Gotham article. Here is one example:

This is hilarious. This has been going on for ages. Check Sheepshead's Network leader WENDY KARP. She was a failed principal at Madison and got bumped UP to Network leader. While there, she has hired friends of hers such as failed Principal Amy HOROWITZ as superintendent and put in her long time Dewey friend and corrupt COOKING TEACHER, REESA LEVY as Principal. Its all the same.

Yes, the networks, bastions of corruption and failed recycled principals, now being recycled once again.

Here is one more story that exposes O'Mahoney for what he is but you will never see his pals at the UFT say a word:

The New York Post

June 24, 2012 Sunday

NYC teacher: Bosses made me doctor grades

A Brooklyn geometry teacher with a remarkable record of academic success says she was pressured into giving passing grades to two failing seniors so they could graduate.

The inflated scores allowed the students to get their diplomas from Sheepshead Bay HS on Friday, despite both having flunked her class.

Erica Bloom, 36, says administrators used threats to pressure her into changing the final marks for the two, raising their scores from a failing 55 to a passing 65.

"They said if I didn't change them, I could expect another '3020' [disciplinary hearing], which would mean the removal of my license," Bloom said. "So I lose my job, my insurance, my pension - everything, after 14 years."

She says she signed off on the changed grades, hurled the new paperwork at an assistant principal and stormed off.

At issue was the students' poor performance on the geometry Regents exam on Wednesday.

Bloom says new school Principal John O'Mahoney had insisted that all students take the Regents - and that their scores should count for 10 percent of their final grades.

One of the students notched a 53 on the test. The other failed to show up.

"A guidance counselor [for one student] came in and asked me to change his grade," she said.

He was followed by the assistant principal "who came in and kept asking, 'Why are you failing him?' "

Another asked about the second student.

"I was pressured by everybody," she said.

She then went to O'Mahoney's office but he refused to intervene. "He didn't say a thing," she said.

Bloom says she suffers from an eating disorder and exceeded her allowable sick days in 2009 and 2010, leading to an unfavorable attendance rating.

In 2011, she took 10 days, the approved limit.

"But they went back and found one day where I left early, so they said I took 10.33 sick days."

Which would mean a third straight year of excessive absenteeism - and a likely termination, Bloom says.

"I was hysterical," she said.

Faced with that threat, she says, she signed off on the grade changes.

The Department of Education said O'Mahoney did nothing wrong.

"The principal acted properly," said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. "This was not an issue of changing grades."

brad.hamilton@nypost.com