The principal of Little River Elementary School wears sneakers to work. Armed with a walkie-talkie and clipboard, she patrols one of the poorest schools in Miami-Dade County, monitoring classrooms, comforting children, and assisting teachers. She also prepares grant applications and solicits corporate donations to buttress the meager resources available for her school, which scores at the bottom on Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test.
The cigar-chomping lobbyist wears expensive suits to work. Using political connections with school board members and a powerful union chief, he scored nearly $300 million in school business for his clients, including a questionable contract that landed him a $4 million payday. Investigative reporting revealed how taxpayer dollars often benefit lobbyists, contractors, and former school board members rather than the district's 365,000 children.
The Herald reviewed a decade's worth of district spending helping explain why morale is low and how politics pervades the school system. A database was created pulling in ten years of paper campaign contributions, forming a new database from school district lobbyist registration forms, and obtaining a purchasing database from the school district revealing influential connections and large financial payouts, clouding the goal of school funding for bettering student education.