“Driving Value within a Changing Network of Schools through Learning and Development: The Use of a 360° Feedback Tool To Drive Change and Bring Value in Public Education.”

Terrence Carter (right) and his attorney.

We are on our way from our family’s August vacation rental in Rhode Island to a stop-over with more family on Long Island. This required getting on the ferry from New London, Connecticut to Orient Point, New York.

New London.

The home of a story I have been covering involving The phony doctor Terrence P. Carter.

Carter, whose education leadership background is in Chicago directing CPS turnarounds for the Academy for Urban Leadership, was picked to be superintendent for the New London schools.

Then the local newspaper did what newspapers used to do and looked into Carter’s background. His claim of having earned a doctorate from Stanford University turned out to be a lie.

As did so much of his resume.

The appointment was put on hold pending further investigation.

Now as the New London school year begins, the Courant is reporting that Carter’s latest claim of a doctorate from Lesley University is not happening. They are hinting that his claim of a dissertation, “Driving Value within a Changing Network of Schools through Learning and Development: The Use of a 360° Feedback Tool To Drive Change and Bring Value in Public Education,” may be bogus as well.

“I can confirm that Terrence Carter does not have a degree from Lesley University,” director of communications John Sullivan said in an email.

 

 He was then asked whether other candidates received their degrees on Monday’s long-scheduled “conferral date” of Aug. 25, and whether it’s still possible that Carter would receive his doctorate.

 

“Degrees have already been conferred today. He does not have a degree from Lesley,” Sullivan said in a subsequent email. “Beyond that, I have no further comment on his or any other student’s academic information.”

 

Carter did not respond to Courant messages seeking comment Monday.

 

Carter was selected by New London’s school board in June to be its next superintendent, but the board postponed a vote on awarding him an employment contract in late July.

 

The postponement came in the wake of newspaper revelations that Carter had used Ph.D. and Dr. with his name for at least five years without having a doctorate from an accredited college, and that large portions of his New London job application essay were identical to language in articles published on the Internet.

 

Lesley University would not discuss why Carter’s degree was not awarded.

 

Questions about Carter deepened when a national research organization provided The Courant with a copy of a bio that it says Carter submitted in 2011, including the claim that he had a Ph.D. from Stanford University, which he does not. The Courant also reported that Carter got a Ph.D. in 1996 from “Lexington University” — which doesn’t have a campus and had a website offering degrees for several hundred dollars with the motto “Order Now, Graduate Today!”

 

The school board commissioned an investigation into Carter’s background after the disclosures in July. The report on that probe by the Hartford law firm of Shipman & Goodwin, the board’s legal counsel, is due to be presented at a meeting Thursday night. It’s unclear whether the board will go through that night with its previously scheduled vote on whether to enter an employment contract with Carter.

 

Carter had told New London officials during the application process that he was due to receive a Ph.D. in education from Lesley this summer — and, in a letter dated June 10, Carter’s senior adviser at Lesley verified that he had “successfully defended his dissertation” on May 28, and would officially be awarded his Ph.D. on the “next degree conferral date, August 25, 2014” — which was Monday.

 

Last week, former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, whose wife is a pre-doctoral candidate at Lesley, walked into the president’s office at the university and delivered a letter advising the school to think twice before awarding Carter a Ph.D.

 

“Numerous local and state newspaper stories show Mr. Carter to have lied about his accomplishments [and] he has plagiarized substantial portions of his application for a job in Connecticut,” the former 2nd District congressman wrote to school President Joseph B. Moore.

 

Simmons said he was concerned about Lesley’s reputation on behalf of his wife, a retired New London teacher now studying at Lesley.

 

“I strongly suggest that Lesley examine his course work and papers carefully before giving him any degree much less a Doctorate,” Simmons wrote, adding that failure to do that “could lead to real embarrassment for you, the faculty and the University.”

 

Simmons, of Stonington, who served in Congress from 2001 to 2007, concluded his letter by saying: “We remain strong supporters of Lesley University and consider a Lesley Degree of any sort a high honor not to be earned easily or dishonestly.”

 

The Ph.D. that Carter had been scheduled to receive was for a dissertation entitled “Driving Value within a Changing Network of Schools through Learning and Development: The Use of a 360° Feedback Tool To Drive Change and Bring Value in Public Education.”

 

Carter told The Courant in July he would be willing to send a copy of the dissertation, but he has not done so. Lesley has declined to release a copy.

While the scandal in New London is worthy of attention, so is the role that Terrence Carter played in Chicago’s corporate reform movement led by AUSL among others. 

And the silence on that issue remains.