Owner of dubious private school collected over $800,000 from controversial Jeb Bush voucher program

[seafan]

Here is yet another case in point that illustrates the danger of ripoff artists getting at that delicious private/religious school voucher money, courtesy of the Jeb Bush Devious Plans to destroy public education in the state of Florida.


Socrates Maradiaga, the most recent fly-by-nighter who ran "Cornerstone Christian Academy" since 2006 and had his school evicted from at least four locations for nonpayment of rent, has collected more than $800,000 from one of Jeb Bush's controversial school voucher programs.

Socrates Maradiaga was also recently fired 'after a short and contentious stint' as president and headmaster of financially troubled Summit Christian School, as he harbored a decade-long history of financial and legal problems.



Here's the story of this next thief of private school voucher funds:



Educator sought, received state money well after school was evicted

By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post

March 12, 2011

Socrates Maradiaga received tens of thousands of dollars from the state to continue to run a school for disabled children even after it was evicted from its home and, from all accounts, had ceased operations.

Maradiaga, who was fired this month after a short and contentious stint as president and headmaster of Summit Christian School, hasn't operated a school at St. Mary's Orthodox Church since at least April 1, said attorney Robert Shalhoub, who successfully sued Maradiaga for failing to pay the church roughly $12,500 in rent.

However, according to state records, Maradiaga received $12,124 from the Florida Department of Education as recently as February, claiming he was teaching disabled children at the church on Florida Mango Road in suburban West Palm Beach. In all, Maradiaga received roughly $45,000 in state education vouchers for operating Cornerstone Academy at the church after it evicted him, records show.

He also planned to continue to receive state money. He late last month filed an affidavit with the department so the school could continue to receive McKay Scholarship money for teaching disabled children at the church. State education officials suspended him from the program last week after The Palm Beach Post alerted them of the eviction. They confirmed it with church leaders.

.....

For some background on these "McKay Scholarships" for disabled children, as summarized from above article:


1. $138 million is spent annually by the Florida Department of Education for McKay Scholarships.

2. ~20,000 students are receiving these scholarships, with annual per student payments as high as $19,000, with the average payment per student of $7,000. (Last year, the public school per-student funding was $6,843.51. That other giant sucking sound is money leaving the public schools.)

3. The Department of Education sends the checks to the parents, who then sign them over to the schools. It is unclear whether the Department of Education routinely compares the parents' signatures on the checks with those on file at the Department. (Let's drive a train through this loophole.)

4. There is no random inspection of these schools to assess whether they are continually qualified to accept McKay Scholarships after they have been approved. (Jeb Bush hates regulations, you see.)

5. By Florida law, only three of the roughly 950 private schools in the state may be inspected each year. (Don't need no steenkin' inspectors.)


More about this shady character:



New Summit Christian School boss has litany of financial missteps

By Jane Musgrave
February 26, 2011

When Summit Christian School students assembled for chapel last week, Socrates Maradiaga was introduced as their new leader.

On Monday, the newly minted headmaster and president of the financially troubled suburban West Palm Beach school will face a felony charge in Palm Beach County Circuit Court for allegedly writing a bad check.

The 61-year-old dismisses concerns about the bad check charge and other financial missteps.

Why, he asks, should people care about unsubstantiated and unfair claims when he has a plan to help the school escape a $9.3 million foreclosure suit and pay off nearly $800,000 in IRS liens for unpaid payroll taxes?

"God has given me the tools to bring the school help no matter what," he said. "I believe in six to eight months we will have everything healed."

.....

In an email sent to parents, Summit's leadership was very excited about the arrival of Maradiaga:

"Praise the Lord!" they wrote in a letter to parents last week. "New management is in place at Summit Christian School to stabilize our financial situation."

"Mr. Socrates and our new Board of Directors are diligently working towards satisfying the IRS and the ($9.3 million Evangelical Christian Credit Union) loan," the letter stated. "Praise the Lord that we are going forward with great excitement, and our future is secure!"

The future is coming fast. A final foreclosure hearing is set for March 22.

Maradiaga was fired from the president/headmaster job a week later, on March 2.



Another interesting thing about the Summit Christian School is noted in this graphic, as it involves former Palm Beach County Commissioner Tony Masilotti, now in prison for 5 years:


via Palm Beach Post


Mr. Jeff Lee just might be an interesting investigation by itself. Oh, well, a thread to pull on later..



Methodically and ruthlessly starving public schools of dedicated public money by steering it into private/religious school coffers has been the single-minded mission of Jeb Bush since the early days of his administration beginning in 1999. Under a set of corrosively authoritarian policies that battered everyday Floridians for eight interminable years, Jeb Bush has steadily dismantled the century-old constitutional pillar of Florida's public education.


Whether Jeb Bush's attacks on public education were via a right wing-controlled legislature manipulating educational funding;

...or attempts to plant stealth amendments on the ballot to trick the people into losing their rights to a first class public education;

...or pushing for repeal of amendments for smaller class sizes that the public wanted;

...or manipulating an obscure taxation and budget committee to push for school vouchers;

...or sniping bitterly from the sidelines as a more moderate Republican governor Charlie Crist vetoed an extreme bill that would have stripped teachers of their ability to be rewarded for their years of service and advanced degrees, and forced them into the uncertainty of FCAT scores and destroyed tenure;


...all the while he touts himself "The Education Governor", he insults all Floridians and their children.




Governor (Jeb Bush) preparing plan to save vouchers (defying FL Supreme Court), November 17, 2005

Jeb Bush agenda to resurrect school vouchers and repeal small classes re-emerges, July 22, 2007

Jeb Bush allies put pro-voucher plans on ballot (guts constitutional separation of church/state), April 25, 2008

Florida teachers union to file lawsuit against Jeb Bush's stealth school voucher amendments , May 18, 2008

Voucher deception on ballot for November, 2008 (Jeb Bush's devious plans again), May 20, 2008

Jeb Bush's attempt to obliterate FL's church-state separation in November has national ramifications, June 3, 2008

Jeb Bush And His Cronies Have Big Plans for Govt.-Funded Religious Schools in Florida, June 21, 2008

Florida Supreme court tosses 3 amendments from ballot (Jeb Bush's school voucher amendments), September 3, 2008

FL House votes to strengthen Fla. school voucher program, April 23, 2009

Once again, Jeb Bush's legacy of educational failure slaps Florida in the face., June 19, 2009




March, 2011: Now, Jeb Bush's school voucher schemes are being renamed "Education Savings Accounts"


FL legislature likely to consider "education savings accounts", says Jeb Bush operative, March 2, 2011


So, the Jeb Bush school voucher/constitutional separation of church and state battle rages on:

In 2009, the operator of a private school in St. Petersburg was sentenced to nearly 69 years in prison for stealing more than $150,000 from the McKay and another state voucher program. The same year the state kicked a Coral Springs private school out of the McKay program and sought to be reimbursed at least $37,000, claiming the school had forged parents' signatures on state checks. In June, a Miami-Dade schools administrator was charged with forging records to receive $19,000 in McKay Scholarships that she used to send her children to a private school.

We must not allow this calculated and relentless ideological assault on public education to continue.

[midnight]

1. This is why these lawless criminals need to destroy the unions.

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[Snoutport]

3. Woah....so incredibly blantant!

3 schools a year??!!! that's all the schools they can visit? insane?!

[jpak]

4. This is what school privatization is all about - $$$$$ for GOP cronies

yup

[seafan]

5. Jeb Bush, the private/religious/digital school voucher pusher. And not only in Florida.

Joining the Amen Chorus in heaping praise on the efforts of the US Republican House and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and his Republican-controlled legislature in their push for a statewide school voucher system, is Jeb Bush via Twitter:

Great editorial in WSJ - Opinion: Beyond Charter Schools http://on.wsj.com/gJZ6eX #edreform about 2 hours ago via web

From that bit in the Journal that has Jeb so excited:

March 14, 2011

The U.S. is enjoying a new spring of education reform, with challenges to teacher tenure and "parent-trigger" for charter schools. So it's natural that the mother of all school choice reforms—vouchers—is also making a comeback.

Last week a House committee voted to restore Washington, D.C.'s opportunity scholarship program, which lets kids in persistently failing schools attend a private school of the family's choosing. Joe Lieberman is pushing similar legislation in the Senate, where it enjoys bipartisan support. The White House and teachers unions killed the program in 2009, despite clear evidence of academic gains.

Meanwhile, more states are realizing that true educational choice extends beyond charter schools. The most promising development is occurring in Pennsylvania, where a state-wide voucher bill supported by new Governor Tom Corbett is moving through the Republican-controlled legislature.

.....

Opponents turned vouchers into a devil word a decade ago, and no doubt they'll try to do it again. But another decade of public schools failure has made more Americans open to change. The best solution would be for education money to follow every child to whatever school, home school or Internet classroom he wants to attend. But the Pennsylvania and D.C. proposals would liberate kids in the worst schools, and that's a start.

People, this is the next big battle. Forced school vouchers for EVERYONE.


It is all very methodical and unidirectional.


Kill the unions, and then kill the long-standing tradition of public schools.



And Jeb Bush is leading the charge across the country.



Public schools are the next target of these radicals.

[Bluebear]

7. Jeb, the big 'champion' of education reform

[madfloridian]

6. Kick for great research. It is outrageous.

They have expanded the voucher programs here, so there is no telling what happens next.

[MaeScott]

8. Kicked