Thomas Ultican lays out the details of how one superintendent got in the way of some rich folks’ desire for charter schools. Reposted with permission.
July 10th the Christina school board voted, at 2:45 AM, to remove popular Superintendent Dan Shelton. The seven member board split 4 to 3. It seems that Shelton’s opposition to allowing charter schools to take over the district motivated the vote. The Christina school district serves the small Delaware cities of Wilmington, Newark and their outskirts. It is a modest sized district with about 14,000 students. The unseen force behind the ouster was the DuPont family.
The attack by billionaires on schools in Delaware is similar to harm visiting public education throughout the nation. The local rich guy sets up tax exempt “charities” and uses them to undermine local schools. The “charities” hire young ambitious and talented people to lead the effort. Looking behind the scenes in Delaware illuminates the undermining of public schools nationwide.
Board President Donald Patton was joined by Vice President Alethea Smith-Tucker, Y.F. Lou, and Dr. Naveed Baqir in voting to oust the Superintendent two months before the new school year begins. It is alleged that they are the compromised four. In a local pod cast, Highland Bunker, board member Doug Manley reported that Matt Clifford, who dropped out of the recent school board election, was offered support if he agreed to vote with Board President Patton. Manley also speculated that Y. F. Lou received the same offer.
Trustee Manley stated that in his view the only reason Shelton was removed from office was because of his opposition to letting charter schools parcel out the district. It is notable that in 2022, Shelton was named Delaware State Superintendent of the Year.
Longwood Foundation
The Longwood Foundation is not called the DuPont Foundation because it was originally established in 1937 by Pierre DuPont to support Longwood Gardens. A tax reform act in 1969 caused a change and, Longwood Gardens, Inc. was formed to finance the gardens. The Longwood Foundation remained in existence to “principally support charitable organizations” and push forward the DuPont agenda.
Over the last decade, the foundation has spent $1,812,200 to support Reading Assist Inc. whose web page says:
“Reading Assist provides high-dosage tutoring for students in grades K-3 in the lowest 25% for reading proficiency, with a focus on serving in schools where there is the highest need.
“We recruit, train, and embed AmeriCorps members – known as Reading Assist Fellows – willing to commit a school year of service to provide our accredited, one-on-one intervention program to struggling readers.”
Reading Assist is a science of reading (SoR) advocate whose founder has ties to the dyslexia community. AmeriCorps has helped provide Teach for America (TFA) training and recruits. In other words, these organizations come with privatization blemishes. Many researchers believe SoR is bad science promoted by wealthy people and publishing companies while TFA is their army.
Longwood is still a DuPont family run organization. According to the 2022 tax form 990PF (TIN: 51-0066734), John DuPont is the current president and Margaret DuPont is Vice President. The tax records also show that in the last decade they have provided the fake education graduate school, Relay Graduate School, $1,300,000.
The Foundation concentrates its spending into the Wilmington area and does very little spending nationally. So their spending of more than $15,000,000 on charter schools in the last decade has made a huge impact locally. Margaret and one other DuPont family member also sit on the board of the smaller Chelsea Foundation (TIN: 51-6015638) which also provides grants to charter schools. It is this drive to privatize the Christina School District that seems to have led to firing a respected and popular administrator.
In 2017, Indiana scholars Jim Scheurich, Gayle Cosby, and Nathanial Williams posted an article on Diane Ravitch’s blog that outlined the model used by billionaires to gain control of local schools. Point five of their rich guy privatization model is, “Development of a network of local organizations or affiliates that all collaborate closely on the same local agenda.”
First State Educate, Inc.
First State Educate’s 2019 form 990 (TIN: 84-2554991) reports its founding officers as President: John DuPont, Treasure: James Kelly and Secretary: Jocelyn Stewart. Since then, the Longwood Foundation has gifted it $731,100. In other words, First State Educate is fueled by DuPont money.
Their documents reveal:
“First State Educate/Action Fund (FSE/AF) were founded in 2019 to catalyze radical change in education by activating the power of Delawareans. In the four years since its founding, FSE/AF has helped 16 game-changing leaders be elected to school boards throughout the state, including five school board members enrolling 45,000 students who now serve in leadership positions. FSE/AF also helped propel numerous initiatives to change the conditions of teaching and learning, including the Wilmington Learning Collaborative, RISE UP Delaware and FaCE coalitions.
The reason there are two organizations is that First State Educate is the tax exempt “charity” and Action Fund is a political organizations that is not tax exempt.
There was only one change in the board leadership shown on the 2023 tax report; Jocelyn Stewarts position became Interim Executive Director. The form says she put in 40 hours a week in this position with no pay. She is a busy person. When she was appointed to the board of trustees for Delaware State University, the school reported, “Ms. Stewart is the chair of the board chairperson (sic) for Teach for America Delaware, the vice chair of the East Side Charter School, a trustee for Christiana Care Health Services and has served on a number of State of Delaware committees.”
Stewart comes from the banking industry where she worked in the Events Marketing Department of First USA Bank. In 2000, when Barclaycard US was founded she developed their community strategies.
This picture from the NPR affiliate Delawarepublic.org shows Delaware Senator, Chris Coons, on the left and Jocelyn Stewart on the right holding Barclay’s gift to EastSide Charter School. It is unknown why the Democratic senator is supporting public education privatization but he clearly is.
Stewart was replaced as director of First State Educate in July 2023 by Julia Keleher.
While serving as Secretary of Education in Puerto Rico, Keleher who is not Puerto Rican, secured a new law allowing for charter schools and vouchers plus the closure of hundreds of schools.
On December 28, 2016, Keleher was appointed Puerto Rico Secretary of Education by Governor-elect Ricardo Rosselló who became so hated he was driven from office in 2019. The appointment was just a few months before hurricane Maria hit. Keleher also became disliked as was demonstrated by San Juan protesters loudly chanting, “Julia go home!”
Things went sideways for Keleher. December 17, 2021, a federal judge in Puerto Rico sentenced her with six months prison, 12 months house arrest and a $21,000 fine. She plead guilty in June to two felony counts involving conspiracies to commit fraud. Almost as soon as she finished her prison term, she was hired by First State Educate. Now she is the executive director.
Conclusion
Rich people in Delaware are working to privatize the public schools in Wilmington and environs. The school board voting 4-3 to fire Dan Shelton is a result these efforts. It appears the school board has been completely corrupted with a compromised four.
WHYY reported, “[Naveed] Baqir and the private school he co-founded are under scrutiny concerning invoices submitted to the school district.”
Delawarpublic.org noted that in June the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated “that the board has made repeated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violations …”
On top of the state (DOJ) ruling, it seems that Dan Shelton has firm grounds for a lawsuit. The former Christina School District Attorney, James McMakin, severed ties with the board and said his firm is working to finalize a lawsuit against the district on the superintendent’s behalf. Shelton’s attorneys claim that he was discharged without a pre-determination hearing and he has constitutional rights. When still representing the district, McMakin told them “they’re acting lawlessly.”
It appears that the board members who voted to oust the superintendent are not protected from the lawsuit.
There is a good chance some of this injustice will be righted but damage has been done to the Christina School District. The people of Wilmington and Newark are in jeopardy of having their schools stolen by wealth neighbors including the DuPont family.
