| P E Y T O N W O L C O T T |
| Sacramento Valley Mirror |
| Dallas morning news |
| CLEBURNE TIMES-REVIEW |
| Waco Tribune-Herald |
| Web watchdog keeps eye on school spenders |
| Wolcott: Keep an eye on educators Philip Navarrette Cleburne Times-Review Sunday, July 23, 2006 Constant vigilance and curiosity into every decision are needed to properly monitor and control a school board for the benefit of the taxpayers, special speaker Peyton Wolcott said Thursday night at a presentation organized by the Concerned Citizens of Cleburne. (Continued below--See "Keep an eye on educators") |
| GCOE: Brown Act? We don’t need no stinking Brown Act! By Tim Crews, Publisher Sacramento Valley Mirror Sept. 24, 2006 Willows — As national education reformers began to notice the hubbub here, an attorney was hired Wednesday night by the Glenn County Board of Education to represent it in a lawsuit filed by this newspaper — but terms of the engagement, a public contract, remain secret. The matter was not on the agenda, as required by the state’s open meetings law. Nationally known education and records bulldog Peyton Wolcott posted (Continued below--See "GCOE") |
| Some say Bremond school investigation didn’t go far enough Dan Genz/Waco Tribune-Herald Saturday, July 29, 2006 Some say justice was served, others say one conviction wasn’t enough after the end of a three- year investigation into a credit card scheme involving more than $250,000 that shocked the Robertson County (Continued below--See "Some say Bremond") |
| Photo by my granddaughter |
| By Scott Parks Dallas Morning News 04:55 AM CDT, May 8, 2006 Peyton Wolcott is either a lone voice crying in the wilderness or the vanguard of a revolution sweeping through school districts across America. (Continued below--See "Web Watchdog") |
| Lynn Woolley Radio Show |
| Sept. 21, 2006 (9-10 p.m.) It was fun and my great honor to be interviewed by Lynn Woolley on his radio show which airs in California, Texas and Minnesota. |
| THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION |
| San Antonio Express-News |
| Radio host Lynn Woolley |
| Education News.Org |
| 'A' for Accountability Award |
| Bloggers In The Mainstream Education News -- Finally This Week in Education Alexander Russo May 10, 2006 With three examples in just the last week, it seems like mainstream education editors and reporters may finally be getting more comfortable crediting, covering, and citing websites and bloggers for their contributions -- two or three years after their colleagues on the politics and media beats. Read More... The examples below illustrate that, for reporters and editors, maybe it's time to think about crediting and including blogs in your reporting rather than ignoring them (or, even worse, mooching off them for tips & story ideas you know who you are). Blogs sometimes break news, push ideas forward, and provide commentary as good as any other expert or pundit you would otherwise call. Go on, try it. For bloggers, it may be worth noting that all three of these examples come when the blogsites provide otherwise-unobtainable information or breaking news. Brilliant commentary probably ain't going to get you there unless you're also an academic or part of an organization or advocacy group. The only exceptions I can think of include Jay Mathews and Greg Toppo, who have included me or my site once in a while. Are there others? Now on to the examples: ....The second instance is about the edusphere's own version of the Smoking Gun, Peyton Wolcott, who was just written up in the Dallas Morning News (Web watchdog keeps eye on school spenders). "Peyton Wolcott is either a lone voice crying in the wilderness or the vanguard of a revolution sweeping through school districts across America." (via Jimmy K) 2 Comments: Ed Researcher said... Do bloggers really want the corporate media to start treating us like colleagues? Seems like a mixed blessing. I'd be content just knowing that they feel some pressure from bloggers to not f--- up because the world is watching. 5:54 PM Alexander Russo said... colleagues? i didn't mean to suggest that. what i did say is that so far the media has ignored education blogs, at least publicly, either because the blogs weren't good enough or because of the taboo in some newsrooms against dealing with them. and how do you know that the media feels "some pressure from bloggers not to f-- up" if they don't ever cite or quote from the education blogs? 6:25 PM posted by Alexander Russo at 5/10/2006 10:08:00 AM This Week in Education (Continued at right--See "Smoking Gun") |
| Strange Bedfellows By Lisa Sandberg May 08, 2006 The public school curriculum culture war Few things inflame the culture wars as much as who controls the public school curriculum. The fight is rearing its head again in Texas, as social conservatives draw their guns on a school curriculum provision, obscure until now, tucked into House Bill 1. |
| BeLogical.com Lynn Woolley May 9, 2006 Peyton Wolcott is becoming well known as an education watchdog--now having been written up in the DMN. She is busy exposing school boards as rubber stamps for school superintendents who are nothing more than head cheerleaders. |
| An Interview with Peyton Wolcott : Shining the Light on Education Thursday, March 9, 2006 Michael F. Shaughnessy Eastern New Mexico University Portales , New Mexico EducationNews.org Thursday, March 9, 2006 1) You have recently launched a "conservative school reform website." What led up to this? Volunteering at my daughter's high school led to wanting to do what I could to help improve public education. I'm writing two books; in the meantime www.peytonwolcott.com offers practical information--how to organize as parents to get a decent dress code and drug testing, how to get candidates elected to a school board, how to file public records requests, and so on. The website also seems to be becoming a rallying point--we just launched February 23 and already the response is amazing. What great people there are involved in this cause, people with a lot of heart and soul. 2) What are the main concerns that you would like to address? Our kids deserve a far better education than our public schools are delivering, and our parents and taxpayers deserve a better financial break. And all of us are entitled to more accountability--most school districts and state and regional edu-agencies appear to want the best of both worlds, to operate with the secrecy of a private corporation but funded by our taxes. 3) Why the focus on paper records? It's interesting to remember that the feds got Al Capone on income tax evasion. |
| What an unexpected honor! |
| 'A for Accountability' Award - to those who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-education al complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. They ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up. These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions. The winners of our "A" work to expose wrong-doing not for themselves, but for others - total strangers - for the "Greater Good"of the community and, by their actions, exemplify courage and self-less passion. |
| Edspresso |
| Tracking edu-corruption, Texas-style Ryan Boots/Edspresso June 27, 2006 Once again, Peyton Wolcott does edureporters' jobs for them . . . . |
| Florence Shapiro |
| Conservatives say several lawmakers, including a Republican (Sen. Florence Shapiro), are trying to usurp the power of the State Board of Education, an elected body controlled by conservatives, and hand it to appointed (and liberal) educators. How would they do so? By creating teams of college professors and public school teachers to evaluate and recommend curriculum standards. Conservative activist Peyton Wolcott calls it "a power grab" by bureaucrats "to seize what little power the elected State Board of Education still has." State School Board member David Bradley said the offending language in question would thwart everything (conservatives) have worked for. "Only liberal educrats would be allowed to set the (curriculum) directing textbook criteria and selection, with no voter input, testimony or recourse." Shapiro's office says Article 5 of the tax bill would leave the state board with all the power it had before (and that includes having the final word on the curriculum for Texas public schools). But the provision would establish committees made up of professors and public school teachers who would weigh in on redesigning curriculum standards. Shapiro says the amendment is designed to raise standards, not take power away from an elected body. Someone from her office even cited language in the bill that reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the State Board of Education retains the board's authority of the required curriculum. . ." That doesn't satisfy Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum who said: "This makes our State Board of Education almost without a job to do. What value is there in meeting . . . to sing KUMBAYA?" And so for another day, social conservatives took to the blogs. "The Legislators cannot have it both ways," one woman wrote. "Either the elected Texas State Board of Education has the authority over the P-12 curriculum, or the unelected (appointed) Texas Commissioner of Education has the authority over the P-12 curriculum. Riding the fence on this issue will only result in total confusion down the line." Liberal advocates said the amendment was good news for elevating academic standards. "Getting real academic experts to provide advice and recommendations seems a lot more worthwhile than getting politicians on the state board trying to make their personal beliefs what students are supposed to learn," said Dan Quinn, spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a group which monitors the religious far right. |
| Al Capone |
| Parent Advocates. org PEYTON WOLCOTT Peyton Wolcott, frustrated and angry at the corruption and fraud in our nation's public school education system, starts a website to expose the perpetrators: http://www.peytonwolcott.com/: How we take back our children's education: one person, one question, one school at a time. www.parentadvocates.org |
| 4) Are there going to be regular columns or regular writers or will this just feature recent news? Right now we're publishing email newsletters to alert folks to breaking news posted on the website, including larger-picture stories such as Sunday's connecting the dots between Colorado geography teacher Jay Bennish and Monte Moses (AASA National Superintendent of the Year for 2005) and Monte's older brother Mike, former education commissioner here in Texas who was also America's highest-priced supe while at Dallas ISD. Jimmy Kilpatrick's doing such a great job publishing daily newspaper articles and commentaries every morning it's hard to imagine the need for another similar source. 5) Will you be discussing "NO Child Left Behind"? Have touched on NCLB along with NAEP on the website; will have more including the exclusions issue in my book, "David v. Goliath: How America's Moms & Dads are taking on Education, Inc." 6) I am not sure if anyone notices, but I believe the number of parents who home school their children has increased. Any thoughts on this trend? Bravo and hats off to parents who choose to home school; as Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said last December, "With private and government estimates showing that home-schooling is growing at a rate of 7-15% each year, most people recognize home-schooling as the fastest-growing education trend today." Here's hoping public schools are paying attention; these numbers coupled with parents' eagerness to send their children to charter schools indicate at the very least a certain amount of customer dissatisfaction with traditional public schools. We've forgotten that home schooling was once widely accepted; to name just a few examples, eleven presidents, Patrick Henry, Thomas Edison, Mary Baker Eddy, General George S. Patton and Andrew Carnegie all learned at home. 7) Some of your recent articles on your web site refer to skullduggery, graft, and corruption in the American Educational system. Other than your web site, who is monitoring the goings on in the American schools? While almost none of the official agencies we've assumed were monitoring public education are doing so, more people than can be named here are involved at the individual level; imagine if you will a great big puzzle with everybody tackling the piece closest at hand. We're seeing parents and grandparents, taxpayers filing public records requests and circulating their findings in various ways, often via the Internet in the form of community updates and round-robin emails; there are listserves, websites on block scheduling and a myriad of other subjects, a cable access network, a series of videos. So much creativity, so many ways of getting the word out! There's the anonymous Home Depot clerk in New York who picked up the phone and helped expose the $11.2 million Roslyn schools scandal with a single call, the Miami teacher who exposed an enormous phony credentials scheme involving more than a thousand teachers, the Massachusetts dad who was willing to spend the night in jail to protect his parental rights regarding how his local schools educated his kindergartener. There are just so many folks involved in this effort--lots of signs of good-doing, to quote from "Clueless." Donna Garner is a one-woman cottage industry. Look at this marvelous series of interviews you're doing--another way of shining the light on education! EducationNews.Org |
| Austin American- Statesman |
| May 2, 2005 HB 2264 Hearing - Texas Lege, Austin (PHOTO--Peyton Wolcott) |
| Women after Todd Baxter’s hide By Rich Oppel Austin American- Statesman| Thursday, May 5, 2005, 01:26 PM Susan Bushart of West Lake Hills and Peyton Wolcott of Horseshore [sic] Bay, women using public records requests to get school district information. You’ll recall I wrote about Todd Baxter’s HB 2264 and putting up records on the Internet Wednesday. (The two women referred to in the blog were Bushart and Dianna Pharr, but Wolcott is involved in opposition to the Baxter bill too.) Bushart and Wolcott write: “ While we appreciate your drawing attention to HB 2264, today’s article is misleading in that opposition to HB 2264 is not limited to two moms from Eanes ISD. Moms and dads throughout our entire great state are objecting to the fact that this bill threatens to limit open records requests — the one tool parents and taxpayers have in uncovering fraud and misdeeds in our local school districts. “Passage of this bill would mean that we can only get 50 pages per month at 10 cents per page. Anything after that the districts can charge the moon and the stars for. We’re already being charged stiff prices to view public records of how our taxpayer dollars are being spent; right now, we are in receipt of a statement for $1,027.50 (exhibited at Monday night’s hearing by Peyton) to view spending records for a board president and vice president in another district. One can only imagine the charge had HB 2264 already been passed. “ When Eanes ISD board president Clint Sayers testified Monday night on behalf of HB 2264, he mentioned that in his job as a Realtor he expected to pay open records costs. We are not businessmen expecting to profit from a business transaction. We are parents looking at how the money we’ve already contributed is being spent in our kids’ schools. “For school districts to claim they are being harassed by parents is like Goliath claiming he’s being harassed by David. The school districts hold all the cards; they have the records — and know where and how to hide them, as Representative Martha Wong mentioned at Monday night’s hearing. The districts can hire large education law firms for legal advice, which advice the taxpayers wind up paying for. The districts can also go to TASB or TASA, whose dues and expenses the taxpayers also pay for. The bottom line is that districts are only incurring costs for public record production because they’re stonewalling and looking for ways to avoid producing the public records all taxpayers have a right to, or because the districts have sloppy record keeping. There are no other reasons for districts to run up huge legal and other bills. “Make no mistake, HB 2264 is bad legislation which will drastically impact the ability of moms and dads across Texas to access the spending and other public records to which they are entitled without excessive fees or other hindrances. Public records requests are the only tools we have to find instances of noncompliance and fraud in our schools, and Education Inc. isn’t happy with us or with what we’ve found.” |
| Alexander Russo |
| C O N T I N U E D |
| Waco Tribune- Herald |
| THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION |
| dALLAS MORNING nEWS |
| Cleburne Times- Review |
| Web Watchdog (continued) I hope it's the latter, but I fear it's the former. Ms. Wolcott, 59, is an empty-nester who dedicates long days to busting up Education Inc. – her metaphor for school district officials, consultants and companies whose top priority is getting their hands on public money rather than educating kids. Education Inc. could be operating in each of Dallas County's 15 public school districts. But probably no one would know, according to Ms. Wolcott. There was a time when communities depended on their elected school boards to be watchdogs over school policies and spending. But the permanent bureaucrats of Education Inc. have defanged them, according to Ms. Wolcott. Today, in Texas, board members no longer see themselves as independent elected officials who oversee the superintendent. Instead, they believe they have no power as individuals but must function only on "a team," which usually features the superintendent as head coach. Board members who publicly raise tough questions about school district policies and practices risk being branded as mavericks or micromanagers. This means that a grass-roots movement of watchdog organizations is needed to fill the void and push parental involvement way beyond bake sales and the PTA, according to Ms. Wolcott. "The truth is that a lot of parents are afraid to become activists and challenge their school's decision- makers because they fear that school officials will take it out on their kids," she said. A hundred years ago, Ms. Wolcott would have been ink stained and sweating over a printing press, cranking out broadsheets that ask impertinent questions of powerful people. Today, however, she swings a more modern publishing hammer – a Web site called www. peyton wolcott.com. "The point is to clean up the messes that school districts get into," she said. Ms. Wolcott, wife of a retired Marine, lives in Horseshoe Bay, a Texas Hill Country community northwest of Austin. Her two daughters are grown and out of the house, which has made space for a home office. Her Web site examines superintendent expense accounts. She writes about those who publicly poor mouth about their district's lack of money and then leave town for junkets at expensive hotels on the taxpayers' dime. She looks at districts across Texas and the country. One headline next to a photo of Mick Jagger reads, "Superintendents: The Rock Stars of K-12 public education." "The superintendents loved that one," she said. "But I was trying to say that we want public servants who are modest and thrifty and who don't stay in four-star hotels just because they can. I don't know about you, but I sure don't consider it my divine right to stay in four-star hotels." Ms. Wolcott's fascination with back- room shenanigans began innocently enough when she started volunteering at her daughter's high school several years ago. She wondered why the choir kids had to raise money for their gowns while the school paid for costumes and uniforms for other extracurricular activities. She asked herself what makes a superintendent attend an out-of-town conference and come back touting an expensive contract for a new program that no one else thought necessary? She questioned why the school's dress code was enforced so unevenly. "When you are just a mom and bringing cookies and sandwiches to school, they discount what you say," Ms. Wolcott said. So, she became a political activist and found like-minded people who also questioned the way things were run at school headquarters. She helped form a community group that fielded a slate of five candidates for school board. They campaigned on a pledge not to develop personal business ties to the school district they were supposed to be governing in the public interest. It seemed that incumbent school board members were selling insurance, furniture, appliances and plumbing services to the school district. Ms. Wolcott's slate won all five seats. "People did not want to see trustees writing themselves checks anymore," she said. "It was one of those perfect storms that come together behind a powerful idea." Last February, she unveiled her Web site. It includes her reporting of original stories as well as links to other publications. One set of postings explores whether principals and superintendents should be required to live in the district where they work. The Web site gives advice about how people can organize to change the things they don't like about their school district. Readers learn about filing open records requests to get more information from secretive school administrators. My thought is this: Wouldn't it be nice to see more Peyton Wolcotts pop up across the American landscape? "Most parents are too busy," she said. "Our working moms have horrendous days. But some of us are in a position to do this work. Other than being a wife and mother, it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done." sparks@dallasnews. com or call 469-330- 5617 |
| Some say Bremond (continued) town of Bremond. Former school district superintendent Kenneth Johnson received a five-year prison sentence in June for a felony charge of theft of more than $100,000 and was ordered to repay $207,000 to the district. As more governments across Texas face revelations that employees have illegally used credit cards for their own purposes, the Bremond case shows that the people who do the spending can face punishment, while others who may have benefited from the illegal spending are difficult to prosecute. One of the initial Bremond whistle- blowers isn’t satisfied with just one conviction. “I feel much more was left to be discovered and more people should have been prosecuted,” said Pat Yezak, a Bremond parent who helped uncover the theft with a series of public records requests in the summer of 2003. Furious about tax rates and investigating rumors of financial abuse, Yezak, her husband, Maurice, and friends Nancy and Robert Gadbois asked to see the district’s credit card bills and other financial documents that eventually led to Johnson’s resignation and the criminal investigation. A district audit later showed spending on fuel, liquor, travel and jewelry, and other irregularities for nearly five years, from 1998 to 2003. “Johnson wasn’t alone when he went to the World Series, Las Vegas, the Horseshoe (in Bossier City, La.), dog races, Cancun, the fishing trip in California . . . Those people know who they are, and we know also,” Yezak said. Special prosecutor Jim James counters that expectations were too high. It’s too difficult to prove that everyone who benefited from the credit card purchases knew the holders were cheating the school district, he said. “I am extremely satisfied with both the investigation and the outcome,” James said. “It started out with people saying that nobody’s ever going to get arrested on this, then they said there’s never going to be a conviction, then they said he’ll never go to prison.” Although he understands that others benefited from the misspent tax dollars, he said the standard of proof is high. Former business manager Sandra Nolan died in January as she awaited trial for thousands of dollars of questionable purchases on a credit card in her name, while charges against Johnson’s son, Jason Johnson, for the purchase of diamond jewelry worth more than $6,000 in October 2002 were dropped as part of the plea. Johnson’s attorney did not return several calls from the Tribune-Herald, and Jason Johnson’s attorney, Craig Greaves, said the punishment against his client’s father was stiff. ‘Seems like justice’ “It seems like justice to me,” Greaves said, noting Kenneth Johnson was forced to pay $70,000 in restitution on top of $137,000 he already paid the district. “My client wasn’t really involved in this deal; his father was.” Peyton Wolcott, an Internet journalist who investigates and covers fraud cases like this one, says she still has questions about the case, adding that hundreds of thousands of dollars were not fully accounted for. “While it’s appropriate that . . . Kenneth Johnson has been brought to a degree of justice by being sentenced to five years in prison, it’ s concerning that additional monies are still unaccounted for,” she said. For some, the verdict was a welcome relief. “People feel vindicated a bit,” said former school board president George Yezak, a cousin of Pat Yezak’s husband. “I think the fact that (Johnson) was the only one in the end that was convicted . . . when it came down to it, he was the guy who was crooked.” Johnson will not be eligible for parole until he serves at least nine months of his sentence. When released, he faces 10 years’ probation and may not be able to work in public education again. The Texas Education Agency is considering revoking Johnson’s license, according to court documents. Town residents say that despite concerns, they are ready to move on. Yezak, who was elected to the school board in May 2004, said the case is a signal that parents should be free to raise questions about public spending. “Let’s take back our public schools and public offices,” she said. “Use the open records law.” |
| Keep an eye on educators (continued) Wolcott came to Cleburne to speak on the topic “How We Take Back Our Children’s Education — One Person, One Question, One School at a Time.” She lives in Horseshoe Bay and uses a Web site, www.peytonwolcott. com, and other avenues to influence public education. The Dallas Morning News characterized her as “either a lone voice crying in the wilderness or the vanguard of a revolution sweeping through school districts across America.” Throughout her presentation, Wolcott said citizens should use the Open Records Act to monitor the school board, and gave examples of how she helped expose wrongful spending in U.S. school districts. “Corrupt systems cannot stand exposure,” she said. “They will resist exposure at every opportunity. Corrupt systems cannon treat problems from within. It takes people like us from the outside saying, ‘Hey, let’s fix this.’” Wolcott also warned against turning a blind eye to Education Inc. “Education Inc. is the name I give to the messy intersection of education and business,” she said. “It’s just not pretty.” Education Inc. causes much corruption in the education system, when school administrators get greedy and begin abusing their power to make money for themselves in the name of the district, Wolcott said. Wolcott also praised the members of the CCC who were at the meeting, calling them “modern minutemen” because they are available at a moment’s notice to band together and stand up to corruption, just as the minutemen of the Revolutionary War stood up against King George. “You are the people that 250 years ago would have answered the call,” she said. “Y’all are the ones who would say, ‘When and where do I show up?” Concerned Citizens of Cleburne President Teresa Blackwell said she was very impressed with Wolcott and her presentation. “I was very pleased to have Peyton Wolcott come here,” Blackwell said. “I wish more people would have come. This is standard for our town. We have 19,014 registered voters and less than 3,000 vote. Hopefully we can affect some change in that as we work toward solutions to our CISD problems.” |
| 'The Smoking Gun': Just What Education Needs--Its Own Version (continued) This Week in Education Alexander Russo 4/27/2006 For almost a decade now, The Smoking Gun has dug up embarassing documents, photos, and transcripts about public officials and celebrities and posted them online before the rest of the press. Now, Peyton Wolcott has taken somewhat the same approach and applied it to education -- filling her site with scandalous tax returns, court filings, pictures of educators' mansions, and the like (Via Edspresso and EducationNews). The latest posts cover a suspicious-seeming technology vendor in Katy ISD Texas and news about some superintendents who live outside the districts (or states) where they work. She names names, gives addresses. It's intense -- I like it. Just what education needs. posted by Alexander Russo at 4/27/2006 02:08:00 PM 3 Comments: teachergrrl said... The link isn't working! How can I read Peyton? 8:49 PM Alexander Russo said... sorry about that -- now it's fixed 9:06 PM teachergrrl said... Thank you, link is dandy now. I approve of the take-no- prisoners approach! Someday I'll work up the energy to share my two cents on the ridiculous saga of tutoring "vendors" at my school.... |
| The Texas Lege-- representing taxpayers or in Education, Inc.'s back pocket? |
| Thank You to Bexar County Rough Riders |
| A Supporter Of The Bexar County Rough Riders Expresses Appreciation May 30, 2005 South Texas Republicans Newsletter Thank you for creating the Rough Riders meetings. You may or may not recall that I was the mom who came to the first one on March 30 with a very specific goal: I was looking for advice on defeating some proposed anti-sunshine legislation, HB 2264. Frank Guerra's comments were invaluable, and the feedback from interacting with your group helped refine our talking points on what was fairly arcane legislation. I took notes from everybody I talked to that night, and we ran with them. The Austin American-Statesman gave us terrific press, and they were kind enough to send a reporter to cover what turned out to be a 9:00 p.m. State Affairs Committee hearing on May 2 on the same short same-day notice we received (public notice rules were waived for the hearing). They also mentioned our cause multiple times in their new editors' blog which is quite the read in Austin just now, plus published our letters to the editor and comments from other parents throughout the state. Remember our "Good dog, bad dog" flyer? We wound up hand delivering copies to almost all Texas representatives and senators, talking with anybody and everybody who appeared at all interested over the course of three separate lobby days, with the last one May 11. I am happy to report that on Friday, May 13, the Austin American-Statesman quoted the bill's author that HB 2264 was "dead"; AAS cited "a network of Texas parents" as the bill's opposition. While almost until the very end the odds against us were staggering, I think our politicians did not want to be perceived as being pro-big-spending Education, Inc. and anti-Mom. Anti-open government forces have been held at bay for another two years, and our crucial open records legislation, the heartbeat of our great republic, is a bit stronger than it was a few months ago. Attending the Rough Riders meeting was well worth the three-hour round trip. Please thank all of your members for their contribution to our success. All things truly are possible. Many, many thanks for all the good you do. Peyton Wolcott Texans for Education Accountability P.O. Box 9068 Horseshoe Bay, TX 78657 |
| Llano ISD SBDM meeting February 2004 |
How we take back our children's education: one person, one question, one school at a time. |
| Copyright 1999-2009 Peyton Wolcott |
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| H O M E |
| Austin American- Statesman |
| 80TH LEGISLATURE Horseshoe Bay woman's crusade for openness gets help from lawmaker Bill calls for school districts to post spending online By Mark Lisheron AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, March 23, 2007 Peyton Wolcott, a veteran agitator who encourages school districts to be open and honest with parents and taxpayers, features something on her watchdog Web site she calls the National School District Honor Roll. With the help of State Rep. Bill Zedler, Wolcott's honor roll could swell with the names of more than 1,000 Texas school districts that would be required by law to post on the Internet every check they cut. Zedler, R-Arlington, said he was moved to draft House Bill 2560 by what he recognized as a groundswell of Texans who want to know how all of their taxing authorities are spending their money. The bill has been referred to the House Public Education Committee, where Zedler serves as vice chairman. Zedler's House colleagues have filed bills mandating that all state agencies post their spending online. Spending disclosure has the support of Gov. Rick Perry. The state comptroller's office, which began posting expenditures this year, is one of several agencies that do so. The Texas Education Agency, which posts its check register, is making plans to provide a brief explanation for each payment, spokesman Robert Scott said. Wolcott, of Horseshoe Bay, feels as though she were prescient in her quest to prod school districts to voluntarily set up sites outlining their spending. "I think something very interesting is happening. Basically, this is a populist movement by people who want to see their school districts succeed and are concerned when they see evidence of waste in school spending," Wolcott said. Wolcott said she made a commitment to open her home school district in Llano after making what she said was a broad and clumsy request for school records a few years ago. The district rewarded her a $426 bill for copying records, which Wolcott declined to accept because of the cost. After harnessing the open records issue to a school board race in 2004 that resulted in the election of five new members, Wolcott turned to creating a Web site that would monitor school issues not just in Texas, but nationally. On Oct. 1, she posted the National School District Honor Roll. Making the roll are 19 of the state's 1,032 districts and the Texas Education Agency. The Dallas school district, the state's second largest, is among the honorees. Houston, the largest district, has set a goal to post its spending on line by April, Wolcott said. Marble Falls is the only district in Central Texas on her list. Zedler's bill would ease Wolcott's task, but she said the current momentum favors districts posting their expenditures on their own. The Arlington school district has announced its intent to create a Web site for spending regardless of the fate of the bill filed by their representative. "I think this whole movement is driven by people's concern over the explosive growth of government," Zedler said. "I think something like this forces all of us to be a little more careful in how we spend the public's money." mlisheron@statesman.co m |
| Friends, it's nice given the serious nature of so much of my photog- raphy to be able to publish an image like this redbud at the Texas Lege in Austin. --PW |
| Texas Governor Rick Perry (L) formally swearing in new Commissioner of Education Robert Scott (R) December 2, 2007 |
| Meet The New Press |
| I like this Sarah Palin more & more By Skip Murphy Sept. 8, 2008 This just adds to it! We had Peyton Wolcott on Meet The New Press a while ago to talk about check registers (e.g., check manifests, check book, vendor check lists -- pick a name). Her mission in life, given the advent of and the ease of use of the Internet, is to promote greater openness and transparency of govern- ment run school districts by posting their check registers on their websites. (More here) |
| ABOUT THIS WEBSITE: Friends, I do this work as a full-time volunteer and turn down vendor offers, along with ads and donations for the site; I have not formed a 501(c) as it seems absurd to me for think tanks to press for school transparency when they themselves are not transparent as regards donor identities and their salaries and expenses. My agenda is simple: to help our schools educate our kids better and for less money; it is my hope that by their learning to do both they can remain strong and free and locally governed. Thank you for visiting; I hope you find what you're looking for. If not, please email me. --P W |
| C o m m e n t a r y - A b o u t / P r e s s |
| Sam Adams Alliance Hall of Fame inductee (Spring 2007) More here |
| Upton Sinclair Award (December 2006) 1. John Stossel 2. Jan & Bob Davidson 3. Peyton Wolcott |
| Jan. 2009 WEMJ podcast here |
| Austin American- Statesman |
| AMERICA, SO GLAD YOU'RE FINDING THIS WEBSITE USEFUL ! Google & Yahoo! # 1 Keywords: online check registers public school district - Rankings for www.peytonwolcott.com as of April 2009 |
| Schools post their spending online By Andrea Billups Sunday, April 19, 2009 |
| Schools across the nation are posting district checkbooks and other financial documents online as part of a national trans- parency trend for communities seeking a little taxpayer sunshine on public spending . . . . . In Horseshoe Bay, Texas, journalist and education activist Peyton Wolcott is spearheading a national effort to encourage districts to open their financial books to the public. In October 2006, she jumpstarted the nation's transparency movement by compiling a national roster of districts who open their check registers. She now counts 450 districts in 31 states. "We've achieved so much by asking people to do this voluntarily," she said. "It's been very encouraging to see how many people around the country are interested in this kind of transparency now." In Texas, 309 districts are now online, including such large school systems as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. "Public school spending is out of control. Our kids' curriculums are not good. Before check registers went online, all districts would show us other than budget projection totals were bar graphs and pie charts of where the money was going," she said. "But you can't have meaningful conversation about a bar graph and pie chart. "As former Texas speaker Gib Lewis used to say, ' Politics is local but school politics is localer,' " she laughs. FULL ARTICLE BELOW IN GREY. |
| FARMINGTON, Mich. | Schools across the nation are posting district checkbooks and other financial documents online as part of a national transparency trend for communities seeking a little taxpayer sunshine on public spending in the midst of the country's fiscal crisis. . . . . In February, the Farmington Public School District paid $859.68 for Dell printers, $14.95 for a book copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and $182.50 for glass repair. Residents of this 12,000-student Michigan district can see online exactly where each dollar is going, down to every last eraser, uniform and case of bottled water. "It connects them with their taxpayers in a trust relationship and shows that we are spending your money wisely, and we're not afraid to show you," says Kenneth M. Braun, who serves as director of the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy's "Show Michigan the Money" project. His center has asked all of the state's 551 school districts to make a move toward more accountability by putting their check registers on their school Web sites. It also has been contacted by other states who'd like to participate. "I'm not presuming there is great malfeasance in these districts," Mr. Braun adds of the center's efforts. "It's more of a good community relations thing. We think everyone should do it, not just school districts, but other levels of government. It establishes trust within a community in a situation and time when the trust is kind of shaky." Indeed, one Michigan district signed on after a payroll clerk embezzled more than $1 million before being brought to justice. In another Michigan school system that now complies with the checkbook project, the FBI and Justice Department prosecuted two employees for stealing, he said. Now, the marketplace for those communities has been opened to scrutiny, even creating a little competition that allows new vendors to offer a more cost-effective deal. Trends of favoritism are exposed, making the process more fair. The move dovetails with President Obama's vows to use the Internet to make government more open by, for example, putting online a detailed accounting of his nearly $800 billion economic-stimulus bill. In Horseshoe Bay, Texas, grandmother and education activist Peyton Wolcott is spearheading her own effort to encourage districts there to open their financial books to the public. In October 2006, she started a personal crusade to compile a national roster of districts who open their check registers. She now counts 450 districts in 31 states. "We've achieved so much by asking people to do this voluntarily," she said. "It's been very encouraging to see how many people around the country are interested in this kind of transparency now." In Texas, 309 districts are now online, including such large school systems as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. "Our school district spending is out of control. Our kids' curriculums are not good. Before the check registers went online, all the district would show were bar graphs and pie charts of where the money was going," she said. "But you can't have meaningful conversation about a bar graph and pie chart. The numbers are so big." "There is this saying that I love: Politics is local but school politics is localer," she laughs, quoting one of her friends. [NOTE: This quote is from former Texas speaker Gib Lewis whom I've never met.] Not all states are buying into such an idea, however - at least the notion of making such a posting mandatory for schools. In Colorado, legislators killed the School Finance Transparency Act in an education committee last month. The bill would have required all districts to post a searchable version of the district checkbook online. Opponents argued that posting checkbooks on the Internet was time-consuming and a burden on existing staff, although the Colorado measure offered state school systems two years to implement the open-document law. But Mary Reynolds, Farmington schools' executive director of business services, said personal payroll information is simply sifted out and the district's Web master posts the rest on their Web site. "This is an easy thing to do, and I just think that it's the right thing, since we are a public entity that takes in public dollars. We're online 24-7 ... and we're available to discuss it with anyone who has a question." A measure similar to Colorado's was rejected by Texas lawmakers two years ago and yet another is before Michigan legislators this spring. In Illinois, where about 42 districts have posted checkbooks online, Paul Miller of the "to-do tank" Sam Adams Alliance is applauding such efforts for open school finance records - and shaking the trees for even greater government scrutiny. "With transparency, you are going to have more school districts accountable to children and the parents instead of unions and special interests," Mr. Miller said. "It's a huge no-brainer. Parents have a right to know how their money is being spent on their children's education." His organization is spearheading a Wiki-based project called Sunshine Review, a comprehensive analysis and transparency evaluation of all 3,140 counties in the United States. The Alliance uses a 10-point checklist that measures budgets, taxes, contracts and lobbying efforts, as well as provides information about elected officials and administrators. The details are compared around the country, with Arizona earning highest marks for transparency while Arkansas came in last. The site has had 1.5 million page views since it started in July 2008 and more than 18,000 pages of records have been created by contributors Wiki-style, Mr. Miller said. The Review will soon turn its attention on school districts after its project with county governments is complete. |
Public records update
Op-Ed by Peyton Wolcott
January 12, 2009
Life can be pretty amazing if
we let it.
A bunch of us -- parents
and taxpayers -- had for
several years filed public
records requests in our
school districts to learn
more about their financial
operations; with so much
industry now offshore, in
most counties in America
public schools are the
largest single budget and
employer.
After a while we began
running into a series of
brick walls. For me, it was
detainment in August 2006
by three armed school
district police officers
whose superintendent
hadn't liked my taking
pictures of misleading
signage on his front door
and main lobby wall.
The great thing about
metaphorical brick walls is
that they can have hidden
doors, the trick being to find
them.
For me, the hidden door
was to start compiling a
national roster of school
districts posting their check
registers online as a
means of giving form,
energy and substance to
the barest beginnings of a
grassroots movement
promoting transparency.
As a practical matter, back
then I couldn't get anyone
else interested in online
public school check
registers. Although there’d
been encouraging
beginnings at the state level
with Governor Perry’s
executive order calling for
schools to spend at least
65% of their dollars in the
classroom, it’s still not the
law, plus the formula had
been diluted such that an
option for those failing to
meet the mark -- posting
their check registers online
-- was not likely to be
utilized by many; as of this
week, only six have applied
to TEA for their three
Schools FIRST points.
There was something else.
Local superintendents with
whom I’d been talking while
they privately supported my
efforts had made it clear
that that they viewed
receiving public records
requests as something
akin to being attacked with
a stick. Part of this was a
fear of the unknown, that
villagers would attack the
admin. building in the dead
of night with pitchforks and
lanterns. The online check
register movement, being
completely voluntary, gave
them an opportunity to do
the right thing. You could
say the carrot won over the
stick.
To those first 30 Texas
superintendents, and to
Commissioner Robert Scott
for putting TEA‘s checks
online, I will always be
grateful; their willingness to
venture into unknown
territory has literally
jumpstarted the nation‘s
public school transparency
movement. In our tanking
economy, with constant
news about deficits and
fraud in our schools, for
them to remain strong, free
and locally governed they’re
going to have to streamline,
and this starts a real
dialogue.
Texas has 302 school
districts (of 1,031)
voluntarily posting check
registers online, with a
national total of 422 in 28
states, and over $50 billion
in annual transparency.
Pretty amazing, huh?
Op-Ed by Peyton Wolcott
January 12, 2009
Life can be pretty amazing if
we let it.
A bunch of us -- parents
and taxpayers -- had for
several years filed public
records requests in our
school districts to learn
more about their financial
operations; with so much
industry now offshore, in
most counties in America
public schools are the
largest single budget and
employer.
After a while we began
running into a series of
brick walls. For me, it was
detainment in August 2006
by three armed school
district police officers
whose superintendent
hadn't liked my taking
pictures of misleading
signage on his front door
and main lobby wall.
The great thing about
metaphorical brick walls is
that they can have hidden
doors, the trick being to find
them.
For me, the hidden door
was to start compiling a
national roster of school
districts posting their check
registers online as a
means of giving form,
energy and substance to
the barest beginnings of a
grassroots movement
promoting transparency.
As a practical matter, back
then I couldn't get anyone
else interested in online
public school check
registers. Although there’d
been encouraging
beginnings at the state level
with Governor Perry’s
executive order calling for
schools to spend at least
65% of their dollars in the
classroom, it’s still not the
law, plus the formula had
been diluted such that an
option for those failing to
meet the mark -- posting
their check registers online
-- was not likely to be
utilized by many; as of this
week, only six have applied
to TEA for their three
Schools FIRST points.
There was something else.
Local superintendents with
whom I’d been talking while
they privately supported my
efforts had made it clear
that that they viewed
receiving public records
requests as something
akin to being attacked with
a stick. Part of this was a
fear of the unknown, that
villagers would attack the
admin. building in the dead
of night with pitchforks and
lanterns. The online check
register movement, being
completely voluntary, gave
them an opportunity to do
the right thing. You could
say the carrot won over the
stick.
To those first 30 Texas
superintendents, and to
Commissioner Robert Scott
for putting TEA‘s checks
online, I will always be
grateful; their willingness to
venture into unknown
territory has literally
jumpstarted the nation‘s
public school transparency
movement. In our tanking
economy, with constant
news about deficits and
fraud in our schools, for
them to remain strong, free
and locally governed they’re
going to have to streamline,
and this starts a real
dialogue.
Texas has 302 school
districts (of 1,031)
voluntarily posting check
registers online, with a
national total of 422 in 28
states, and over $50 billion
in annual transparency.
Pretty amazing, huh?
| Freedom of Information Foundation Texas |
H o w w e t a k e b a c k o u r c h i l d r e n ' s e d u c a t i o n: o n e p e r s o n , o n e q u e s t i o n , o n e s c h o o l a t a t i m e .
| Public officials have 'circled the wagons' on information By Timothy M. Kelly Editor, Beaumont Enterprise & president, FOIFT Winter 2008 |
| The more that citizens and groups pursue the information they are entitled to by law, the more it seems that government officials circle the wagons. Over time, even officials who at one point had a measure of oversight responsibility, such as district attorneys, assume us-vs.-them mentality. The "us," naturally, ends up being the people they see in the hallway every day. Take school boards, for instance. Once upon a time, they were expected to look out for the best interests of the people who elected them. Over time they were co-opted by the superintendents and bureaucrats they were supposed to be holding accountable. So long, scrutiny. Goodbye, independent thinking. Hello, unanimous votes. The Internet has presented another dimension to this. To be sure, it has made government entities even more skittish about public information, making readily accessible information that was one kept private simply because of the effort involved in its retrieval. "Get that wagon moved over there. Quick!" Enter Peyton Wolcott (www.peytonwolcott.com), who has taken on what she calls "Education, Inc.," the potentially unhealthy intersection of public education and private business interests, from a laptop computer in Horseshoe Bay, near Austin. With clarity of purpose and a determination to succeed, she has spent the past year focused on a mission to get all Texas school districts' check registers posted online. As one of my newspaper's bloggers put it: "Every check . . . free for taxpayer viewing. No Freedom of Information request, no churlish secretaries, no unreturned phone calls . . . just a click." At this point in her quest, 60 Texas districts, including Dallas and Houston, as well as the Texas Education Agency, have posted their check registers online. That's $31.3 billion worth of transparency for the parents and taxpayers footing the state's education bill |
| Shine a light on school spending Dothan Eagle editorial Published: January 22, 2009 We applaud state school board member Betty Peters of Dothan, who wants the public to know how its money is being spent. This week, Peters urged local school districts to post some financial information, such as details from a check register, on their Web sites for easy access by members of the public. “In many communities, public education is suffering from a lack of trust and support by the taxpayers and the voters,” Peters told the Eagle. “The schools often think the solution is to hire a public relations expert, yet the real answer is to be up front with the public.” City and county school systems operate with tax funds, and state law requires that financial information for those systems be available to the public. We see no reason why Peters’ suggestion should not be implemented. Taxpayers deserve a convenient way to review public spending so they can make informed decisions about education- targeted tax hike proposals. The additional daylight should also make school boards and administrators think twice about potentially questionable expenses. |
| Dothan Eagle Alabama |
http://www.dothaneagle.com/
dea/news/opinion/editorials/ar
ticle/shine_a_light_on_schoo
l_spending/55860/
dea/news/opinion/editorials/ar
ticle/shine_a_light_on_schoo
l_spending/55860/
| Betsy Combier |
| Fox News May 29, 2009 |
| Tennessean op-ed here |