follow the money

[Susan Ohanian <SOhan70241@AOL.COM>]

June 1, 2000


School Board Member Investigated for Conflict

By EDWARD WYATT
   

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Forum
• Join a Discussion on New York City's School System
 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
 
he special investigator for the New York City school system has opened an 
inquiry into potential conflicts of interest involving Irving S. Hamer Jr., 
the Manhattan representative on the Board of Education, and TestU Inc., a 
test-coaching company where he is co-chairman, education officials said 
yesterday. 
They said the office of the investigator, Edward F. Stancik, had requested 
information from the Board of Education and had started interviewing school 
officials to determine whether Dr. Hamer's position aided TestU in placing 
its Internet-based test-preparation tutorials in more than two dozen New York 
City high schools. Dr. Hamer has about 5 percent of the stock in the 
privately owned company. 

Only a few of the investigations by the office, which was established in 
1990, have focused on a sitting member of the Board of Education. 

Mr. Stancik would not answer any questions about the case yesterday, 
including whether an investigation had begun. 

The education officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said 
the city's Conflicts of Interest Board was looking into the matter. 

The opening of an investigation does not mean that any laws have been broken 
or that anything inappropriate has been done. Dr. Hamer did not return 
telephone calls seeking comment yesterday. A spokeswoman for the Board of 
Education said yesterday that Dr. Hamer had not been contacted by either Mr. 
Stancik's office or the city's Conflicts of Interest Board. Officials of that 
board, a city advisory agency, would not comment. 

Last week, Dr. Hamer said he thought his role as a board member did not 
conflict with his position as an officer of TestU because there was no 
contract between the school board and the company. 

In addition, he said, he played no part in arranging for the tryout of the 
TestU materials in city schools. Rudy Crew, the former schools chancellor, is 
also a director of TestU, and Dr. Crew said in an interview last week that he 
had played no role in the company's New York tryout. Former Board of 
Education officials are barred from doing business with the board for a year 
after they depart. 

TestU does hope to sell its test-coaching products to New York City schools 
and their students, company officials have said. That has led competing 
test-coaching companies to protest that TestU has received something of great 
value, access to the nation's largest school system, based not on the merits 
of its product but rather on Dr. Hamer's connections. 

TestU is less than a year old. Dr. Hamer, who joined it in September, also is 
chairman of a Board of Education task force overseeing plans to expand 
Internet access and the use of technology in the city's schools. 

For students to be able to use TestU's product, they need access to the 
Internet, either at home or in school. While all New York City schools now 
have Internet connections, the recommendations of the task force headed by 
Dr. Hamer, which were unanimously approved by the Board of Education in 
April, include a plan to provide laptop computers at a low cost to all 
students beginning in the fourth grade. 

Dr. Hamer has said that when TestU seeks a contract with the Board of 
Education, he will recuse himself from any vote on the issue. In addition, he 
said he would then seek a waiver from city officials allowing him to remain 
on the board while retaining his ties to TestU. 

Dr. Hamer said last week that he had asked the Board of Education's ethics 
officer this spring whether he needed to request a waiver now. He said he was 
told that none was needed until TestU sought a contract with the board. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L
to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU.