| FLORIDA How can and why should/would a public school district enter the affordable housing business -- and who decided on behalf of Miami-Dade County Public Schools? By Peyton Wolcott Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 5:00 p.m. - Updated Friday, March 21, 2008 - 1:18 p.m. |
| overtime expenses actually cost the district an additional $10 million....He has gone from 163 administrators downtown that make over $100,000 in July 2004, to 225 in July 2006, to over 400 in January 2008." |
| Shawn Beightol, "Rudy Crew's burgeoning administration downtown is doing nothing to rein in uncontrolled and mismanaged spending. In fact, it can be shown that the hiring of 248 additional staff to reduce |
| It's a puzzlement Why was Marta Perez the only trustee looking into the district's expenses; perhaps her being a three-term trustee would explain things. Is it healthy for our public schools for our administrators to ask our elec- ted trustee to take things on faith rather than produ- cing detailed factual information? As late President Ronald Reagan said, "Trust -- but verify." My recent examination of Rudy's treatment of other board members has raised questions regarding whether the district deals equitably with all of its elected trustees. (See 4. "Questionable practices" below.) |
| O/T not documented properly As if $27.8 million in overtime in one year was not enough, the Auditor General says it was not adequately documented. Sadly for the district, this leadership oversight comes "on the heels of severe state education budget cutbacks: The School Board was recently tasked with slashing $240 million from the budget over the next four years. As a result, district officials have been squabbling with teachers over how to pay the rising cost of health insurance. Last week, Crew said he would consider laying off hundreds of employees to balance the budget." (SOURCE--Kathleen McGrory/Miami Herald) Although a spokesman for the district pointed out by phone late Friday that some of the overtime was covered by costs for events themselves, security for football games being one example, the fact remains that -- again referring to the chart above -- overtime in MDCPS has more than tripled in five short years. |
| While Arza has admitted having used the language -- something which can never be condoned under any circumstances (Arza blamed it on being drunk at the time) --individuals have raised the issue that Rudy Crew was not happy with his employee Arza given Arza's Republican politics. Questions have been raised as to why Crew would take a tougher stance regarding a racial slur than he would a student athlete's statutory rape of a 14-year old studen -- a rape, according to a published report from the investigating grand jury, whose consequences "for the little girl included attempted suicide and life in a residential psychiatric facility." Prior to the rape she was an honors student. These are questions only Rudy can answer. (See "3. Leadership" below) Another big question: Should Arza should have continued working as an M-DCPS employee after his election to the Lege? Look at the two consultancies (see greybar below right) Arza accepted in 2003 after resigning from M-DCPS: |
| The Board "encourages the continued professional growth of the Superintendent through his membership in appropriate professional organizations and his reasonable attendance and participation in appropriate profession- al meetings at the local, regional, state, and national levels. Specifically, the Superintendent is encouraged to attend and participate in professional conferences, in-state and out-of-state, that support his efforts to enhance the quality of programs, leadership and governance of the school district. The costs for attending and participa- ting in such conferences, including registration fees, travel, meals and other associated expenses shall be paid or reimbursed by the District at the request of the Superintendent." -- Excerpt, Lake Travis ISD 7-page employment contract for supe Rocky Kirk through 12.31.12; more Texas supe contracts at KEYE-TV here. |
| During his heyday . . . Ralph Arza was: o Chair/FL Lege's PreK-12 committee o Vice chair/House Education Council o Member/Ed. Appropriations Committee There were grumblings among M-DCPS co-workers regarding Arza's absence at his day job -- the former longtime Miami High School coach became a history teacher -- to participate in legislative ses- sions in Tallahassee; for example, he missed 120 out of 212 workdays in 2002. (SOURCE--WPLG-TV) |
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| 'Even more disturbing, after the rape, when Student A disclosed her suffering to two staff members, they all but ignored her, forcing the girl to shoulder the burden of the sexual assault by herself and encounter her attackers on a daily basis.' Stancik also discovered that August Martin staff members withheld information from investigators and made inaccurate statements to the press. Although he reassigned the assistant principals after the scandal, Crew refused to remove Principal Richard Ross despite Stancik's recommendation and parents' outrage...." (SOURCE-- Francisco Alvarado/Miami New Times) 2. 1999 / Cheating on standardized tests - Stancik uncovered another scandal that parallels a Miami problem; he "exposed that Crew's office of spec- ial investigations was aware many teachers were changing students' grades on flunked tests, but did nothing. One of Crew's top New York lieutenants, then-Special Investigations Director Marlene Malamy, played a major role in the misdoing. (SOURCE--Francisco Alvarado/Miami New Times) Stancik Dec.1999 report re standardized test cheating here. |
| Giving parents and taxpayers the information and tools they need . . . . |
| Conservative Commentary - Wednesday - March 26, 2008 |
| 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. COPYRIGHT PEYTON WOLCOTT 2003-2008 |
P E Y T O N W O L C O T T |
How we take back our children's education: one person, one question, one school at a time. |
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| Copyright 1999-2008 Peyton Wolcott |
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| As of 03.19.08, 15% of all Texas school districts have voluntarily posted their check registers online; over 2/3 of all state/local TX school district dollars are website-posted. How to ask your local school district Flyer History 1st Anniversary San Antonio Triple Crown COPYRIGHT NOTICE: When borrowing / copying / citing from this roster please remember to attribute the source: www.PeytonWolcott.com |
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| CALIFORNIA Capistrano USD - here Clovis USD - here FLORIDA (01.14.08) Miami-Dade CPS* here ILLINOIS Carpentersville SD 300* Elgin U-46* Huntley CUSD 158* Naperville CUSD [ / ] KANSAS USD 507 (Satanta) (Chk Jrnl) MICHIGAN Montrose CS - here MINNESOTA Milaca SD - ISD 192 St. Cloud ISD MISSISSIPPI Ocean Springs SD* here MISSOURI Liberty PS - BoardDocs NEVADA Clark County SD**** OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City PS***** S. DAKOTA Mitchell School District* TEXAS** (149) Allen ISD Alvarado ISD Anderson-Shiro CISD - here Anthony ISD Anton ISD - here Aquilla ISD - Baard Packet Arlington ISD Arp ISD - Athens ISD Aubrey ISD Avery ISD Beeville ISD-Agenda Packet Bellville ISD Big Spring ISD Blackwell CISD Blue Ridge ISD Bonham ISD - here Borden County ISD - Admin. Borger ISD Bremond ISD Bridgeport ISD - here Brookesmith ISD - here Bryan ISD* Caddo Mills ISD Cameron ISD Canton ISD Cedar Hill ISD Center Point ISD Chester ISD China Spring ISD here Cleburne ISD* - here Coldspring-Oakhurst CISD Colmesneil ISD Comal ISD Conroe ISD* Corpus Christi ISD* Cotton Center ISD Cross Roads ISD Cypress-Fairbanks ISD* Dallas ISD Deer Park ISD* Denison ISD Dickinson ISD Dublin ISD - here (About us) East Bernard ISD Ector Co. ISD Electra ISD Franklin ISD Friendswood ISD Galena Park ISD Galveston ISD Grandfalls-Royalty ISD Greenville ISD Gunter ISD Harlandale ISD - here Haskell CISD Hempstead ISD Highland ISD Hitchcock ISD - here Holliday ISD Houston ISD* Howe ISD Hunt ISD Iola ISD Iraan-Sheffield ISD Katy ISD Kaufman ISD Keller ISD* Kerrvile ISD Lackland ISD Lago Vista ISD* Leander ISD Leonard ISD Lexington ISD Livingston ISD Little Elm IS Little Cypress-Maur. CISD Llano ISD - here Lockney ISD Lorena ISD Lovejoy ISD Lufkin ISD Mabank ISD Madisonville CISD Malakoff ISD Marble Falls ISD - here Marion ISD Meadow ISD McKinney ISD Medina ISD Medina Valley ISD* Mesquite ISD - here Miami ISD MidlandISD-AgendaPacket Midway ISD - Mount Vernon ISD Murchison ISD - here Nacogdoches ISD - here Natalia ISD Nazareth ISD Nederland ISD New Caney ISD Newcastle ISD - here Nordheim ISD North East ISD North Forest ISD Northside ISD No. Zulch ISD* Ore City ISD Palestine ISD Pasadena ISD Pearland ISD Port Neches-Groves ISD Pflugerville ISD Quinlan ISD Reagan County ISD Richardson ISD Robert Lee ISD Roby CISD Roscoe ISD - here Rosebud-Lott ISD Round Rock ISD * Royse City ISD San Angelo ISD San Antonio ISD Salado ISD Schertz-Cibolo-U.City ISD* Seminole ISD Somerset ISD* South Texas ISD Southwest ISD* Spring Branch ISD * Stanton ISD Sundown ISD Teague ISD Texas City ISD Timpson ISD Tomball ISD Trent ISD United ISD* - here Valentine ISD Van Alstyne ISD West ISD Wharton ISD Wilson ISD Wimberley ISD Winona ISD Ysleta ISD UTAH Davis School District* WISCONSIN Sun Prairie SD |
| COMMITTED Argyle ISD (TX) - here Clear Creek ISD (TX) Dew ISD (TX) El Paso ISD (TX) La Marque ISD (TX) Pottsboro ISD (TX) Southside ISD (TX) Temple ISD (TX) STATE DOE ONLINE Texas Education Agency MIDDLE EDU-LAYER St. Clair County RESA (MI) HONORABLE MENTION *** Michigan Intermediate School Districts WHERE PARENTS, TAXPAYERS, TRUSTEES ARE ASKING: Cedar Rapids PS (IA) Chippewa Valley SD (MI) Eanes ISD (TX) Lake Travis ISD (TX) Lancaster ISD (TX) LA USD (CA) New York CPS (NY) Omaha PS (NB) Rochester CS (MI) Santa Cruz CPS (AZ) Water Valley ISD (TX) ___________________________ * No check numbers. ** Source for all Texas numbers: TEA PEIMS (most recently reported actuals, 2005-06) *** For online numbers including budgets, salaries, lobbying, PR, legal, autos, more **** Purchase orders *****Encumbrances NOTE: Some districts such as Beeville ISD (TX) call their check registers "disbursement registers" (Source for names of Texas districts: Houston Chronicle (6), San Antonio Express-News (6) ) |
| Heads up to grassroots school reform activists: Be smart, be effective By Peyton Wolcott Updated 12.02.07 |
| Most parents and taxpayers are rational beings whose lives work because we operate in them rationally. When we experience a precipitating incident which warrants our dealing with our local school districts, most of us generally approach them armed with facts and the same rational thinking that enables us to pay for our houses and cars and the property taxes that fund our local schools. Generally this is our first mistake. If we compound our mistake by also being angry, we might as well go stand in front of the administration building and shake a big bag filled with rattlesnakes; no good acting surprised when the rattlesnakes react by hissing and trying to bite us. Watching pushback from schools, especially here in Texas, escalate over the past few years (more at right) leaves me troubled; I believe based on my own experiences and observation of others' that many of the difficulties parents and taxpayers are experiencing can be avoided by changing our approach. |
| Heads-up to citizen journalists, bloggers The Internet is a tremendous gift. We've seen changes here in Texas public education in the past five years which I do not believe would have been possible without the Internet. Many parents and taxpayers are finding themselves pressed into service as citizen journalists who have no formal journalism background. Most often, it is these well-intentioned folks who appear to be getting into the most trouble. We've seen here in Texas in the past two years alone one SLAPP suit filed and another on the way, plus an amicus curiae by a third district. Worse, we've had onerous anti-sunshine legislation encumbered on all of us as a result during this past Lege. Citizen journalism 101: |
| How to change rattlesnakes into teddy bears It starts with changing our mindset. After trying rational thinking, facts and figures, reports and studies with our local administrators, all to no avail -- including a memorable detainment by three armed public school district police officers for taking photos in an administration building during summer with no schoolchildren present -- I realized a new way of doing things was necessary. Because of my experiences over the years as a volunteer organizing other volunteers for charity fund raisers, it was a natural next step for me to organize friends into a group. |
| 5. Who are you? Put your photo and your goals on your home page along with an easily accessible email address. One site I looked at recently posted email addresses for all of the school district's trustees and top administrators -- then made visitors to the site fill out an obnoxious form in order to send an email to the site. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. A group in another state prides itself on its integrity -- yet operates completely anonymously whereas the people the group attacks (constantly) have all been willing at some point to come forward with their names and contact information. 6. Mind your manners. Attribute everything, and properly. 7. Curb your anger. Anger's a funny emotion. It permeates everything we do, renders our best-intentioned work useless, and leaves us worn out. If your administration's done something truly outrageous, sleep on it before posting an angry response. Remember: In order to accomplish anything you're going to have to organize however small a group which means being positive enough in your approach and outlook that people will be drawn to you and your cause. Negativity repels. Positive enthusiasm is a magnet. 8. No community comments. Several reasons. You may run hot for a while but when things start winding down and your local administrators see (0) comments again and again they will assume you have no community support. Also, a lot of anonymous venting can occur. Let your local newspaper handle this -- they can afford lawyers -- or talk to each other in the parking lot of your local barbeque joint or over the produce section at the grocery store. Venting is a form of gossip, and may or may not support your goal. Anything that takes away from your goal is a distraction and to be avoided. 9. Be nice. People will like you more and you'll sleep better at night. 10. Be friendly. Treat your administrators and/or board members and/or any other opposition as you'd like to be treated. I didn't make this up; it's called "The Golden Rule." |
| Rattlesnake (L), Teddy bear (PHOTO--Steiff) |
| Back then there was a real feeling of community participation about the erection of the new school; without the townspeople's pitching in and helping out there was no school; today, we are charged property taxes on our houses to pay for our schools, and most often have little or no control over how our tax dollars are spent. We all love that feeling of being part of something larger than ourselves, some greater good. In order to accomplish anything, you're going to have to have broad-based community support, and this only occurs with positive goals and campaigns. asdf Your good name The name of your group is more important than you can imagine. I do not recommend including any of the following in your name: Watchdogs, Concerned (as in "Concerned Citizens of Clearwater"), Watch (as in "We're watching you and we're never going to be happy with anything you do"). "Accountability" and "responsible" are also good ones to avoid. Same for "taxes" and "taxpayers." Better to choose an innocuous name that your district can't slam you on for being negative, something like "Friends of Clearwater Schools." Your district will learn what you're about soon enough. Here's something that I had a very hard time accepting: While a few people will give you a thumbs-up for your negative campaigns, most people want to associate with something they perceive as being positive and will run from anything they perceive as being negative. Handling your anger There is a general consensus among reporters, politicians, attorneys and business and community leaders with whom I speak off the record that so many folks who become involved in their local schools are just plain angry; for this reason, the establishment discounts what the angry folks have to say -- no matter how justified their comments. Here's one example: Last spring when I visited legislators' offices to lobby against two pieces of anti- sunshine legislation (SB 889, which failed, and HB 2564, which is now law) resulting, legislators testified, directly from too many public records requests filed by parents in suburban Austin school districts (Lake Travis ISD and Eanes ISD) it was interesting to watch legislative staffers respond to telephone calls from parents and taxpayers railing against this bill. I wish those callers could have seen the staffers holding the phone away from their ears and making faces while at the same time responding in a soothing tone to the callers. It's important to not confuse face or phone time with achieving results |
| How we view our public schools: Then vs. now Remember the scene from the musical, "Oklahoma!" in which Curley gives up his horse and his saddle -- everything he owns -- in order to buy Miss Laurey's box dinner? "It's for the new schoolhouse," says the auctioneer, Auntie Eller. Like the new school Auntie Eller was helping raise funds for a century ago in northeastern Oklahoma's rural Claremore, when our small towns were first established in the American wilderness one of the first things to be built was the schoolhouse, a simple one-room building on par with the farmhouses and cabins families built for themselves -- all a far cry from today's Taj Majal high schools with their natatoriums and indoor practice fields. |
| Pick a goal, any goal Find a goal you and your small group can agree on, and distill it into one sentence. This is useful because when reporters come calling you'll already have your sound byte ready. Your goal should be important to you and your group and your community and one you can easily and quickly accomplish in a short period--two or three months and no more than six. If you're not sure where to begin -- the list is so long -- or can't agree among yourselves, a good first goal might be to ask your school district to post its check register online if it hasn't already. (How to here) It's an easy, quick goal. Think of yourselves more as guerrillas than Rotary. No fixed meetings every Tuesday, no announcing how many members you have or who they are, no lists of members, no lapel pins. Instead of meeting at meetings, communicate via email and phone. When you accomplish your goal, your community will sit up and take note, favorably. Then disband and take a breather for a while until you figure out what you want to accomplish next. Your next goal will likely mean different participants because not everyone will be interested in participating in everything. One more thing about goals Many times we want to start big and large, at the state or national level. Better to start small, start simple, start local. Prove that your idea can work locally and others will pick up on it, copy it. This is how ideas spread. |
| Oklahoma movie poster |
| 1. You can be angry and upset -- however righteously so -- OR you can be effective. You can't be both. 2. Using a carrot is more effective than using a stick. Think about it. Would you rather have someone come after you with a carrot or with a stick? Don't you become defensive when somebody shakes a big stick at you? 3. Our school districts -- including administrators, board members and those profiting from friendly relations with them -- may say they want more parental involvement. For some of them this is true. For too many others, what they mean by parental involvement is "Come write checks and say nice things about us and don't question anything we say or do." 4. Our school districts may say they want to improve; here again, some really do want to hear from us; for many others, they don't really welcome your helpful suggestions even when you know you're right and they're wrong. As my wise school board trustee friend told me years ago: "When you criticize them, you're calling their baby ' ugly.' " Your administrators and trustees and their minions will take your factual comments and questions personally and attack you personally in response. 5. Our public schools are essentially socialist models. Their engine and currency is the realm of emotions and people skills. 6. The world of public education is a world of feelings. Think about how often you've sat through a superintendent's budget presentation to his/her board and/or the community and at the end the supe says, "I feel good about this budget." For many of us who live in the rational world we're not much interested in our supe's feelings about the budget. We want to know that based on his expertise with budgets (too often, too little) he has presented a budget which will make ends meet. When you talk with educators, talk about your feelings about a topic rather than your thoughts about a topic. 7. In any endeavor, it's always a good idea to consider your opponent. Really look at them. If the product your company produces is packaged ice, you're not going to head north to Alaska to sell it. No matter how nice you are, they're not going to be interested up there. Along these lines, keep in mind that most school districts today are well-oiled (with your tax dollars) PR machines. The average parent wading in to engage with them armed with facts lubricated by some degree of righteous indignation stands little or no chance of winning. It is like watching lambs marching into the slaughterhouse. Further, public schools are generally the largest budgets in our counties; for this reason they have access to resources such as money and legal help. IMPORTANT: Because your schools can dominate any playing field available to them, you must pick and choose a different playing field. Emotions win over facts every time. No matter how well prepared your spreadsheet is -- you Spreadsheet Dads know who you are -- if you do not have some compelling facts to present to your community, facts which will grip their imaginations and hearts, your spreadsheet will accomplish little. 8. No matter how powerful you may be in your world, your work arena, school is a different arena. You're playing on someone else's turf and it behooves you to pay attention to how they play the game. Your rules don't work in their arena. The sooner and better you can master their rules including their jargon the sooner you can be effective. 9. The broader your base, the broader your focus, the more you want to serve rather than get (get something for yourself and/or your family -- or get even) the more likely you are to succeed in your goal of helping your district. 10. Let go of the idea you're a victim or that you've been wronged. Both will hinder your efforts. So long as you speak the language of woundology (thank you, Carolyn Myss), your community and the press will largely discount what you have to say. We are a nation of sturdy pioneers who overcome our difficulties. |
"Walk softly and carry a big stick." -- Teddy Roosevelt "Trust but verify." -- Ronald Reagan |
| Some basic things to think about: |
| When his newspaper's Mexico City bureau chief, Philip True, was killed, Rivard led a highly visible challenge to the Mexican judicial system. He personally was instrumental in finding True's remains and has relentlessly sought to bring his killers to justice. |
| Robert Rivard, editor San Antonio Express-News |
| It's pretty safe to say Bob Rivard and I will never be political allies; in addition to the SAEN having taken a fiercely anti-Iraq war stance, it also refers to "illegal immigrants" as "immigrants." However, he is also fiercely loyal to the causes he adopts -- and to his employees, two qualities to which we all can relate. An excerpt from his 2002 Cabot Prize bio: |
| In 2004 the Jalisco state supreme court returned a final verdict of guilt and ordered the two Huichol brothers-in-law who killed True to serve 20-year prison terms. Both men fled before Mexican authorities could detain them, having been released from custody earlier by a Mexican judge under questionable circumstances. (Ibid,) |
| Rivard's coverage of True's murder led to his writing a book, "Trail of Feathers." Here's an update regarding the outcome of his pursuit of justice: |
| Rivard also played a pivotal role in bringing New York Times reporter Jayson Blair's plagiarism to light: |
| In April 2003, it was Rivard's email to the New York Times that provoked an investigation into plagiarism charges by a reporter named Jayson Blair. Blair had lifted reporting and writing from San Antonio Express-News reporter Macarena Hernandez's published work and presented it as his own. The subsequent investigation led to what became known as the Jayson Blair debacle, with Blair and the Times' executive editor and managing editor tendering their resignations. (SOURCE--RobertRiva rd.com) |
| Hats off to Bob Rivard and his SAEN staff (more at left) for the pivotal role they played in San Antonio school districts posting their check registers online, and for setting such a great example for their fellows in the newspaper business to emulate. |
| HATS OFF: Bob Rivard, The San Antonio Express-News By Peyton Wolcott Tue., Nov. 27, 2007-10 a |
| ONLINE CHECK REGISTERS +++ 4 new TX districts Nov. 12-16, 2007! +++ Northside ISD - John Folks, superintendent Students: 78,154 Annual: $ 1,039,950,123 Per student $ 13,306 North East ISD - Richard Middleton, superintendent Students: 59,556 Annual: $ 806,762,147 Per student $ 13,546 San Antonio ISD - Robert Duron, superintendent Students: 56,371 Annual $ 557,143,973 Per student $ 9,884 Gunter ISD - Rick Cohagan superintendent Students: 861 Annual $ 23,440,928 Per student $ 27,225 (As of 11.28.07) |
| San Antonio's Triple Crown here |
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| Edgewood ISD 08.02.06 |
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| Just because you can doesn't mean you should. |
| However righteous or correct your cause, too often parents and taxpayers don't stop to consider the resources of their opposition. Our local school districts are well-oiled and well-funded, all with our tax dollars, PR machines. Our superintendents and administrators attend education conferences and trainings and seminars where they are coached in how to deal with disapproving parents and taxpayers. Our local schools also have apparently unlimited access to lawyers, whom they have demonstrated time and again that they will use all legal assistance available. Are you willing to take out a loan to pay your legal bills? |
| What's your motive? Are you taking action because you're offended that the district is violating rules and/or someone there is stealing? Are you motivated by the principle of the thing or do you want to achieve results and make real changes in your district? |
| School district check registers now online in 165 districts, 14 states! with $46 billion-plus in annual transparency! ----------------------- 1ST & ONLY ROSTER OF ONLINE SCHOOL CHECK REGISTERS |
| 1. No adjectives. They tend to be inflammatory. 2. Ask questions rather than make accusations. 3. Be very sure of your facts before publishing -- have a paper record in hand. Wishing doesn't make it so. 4. Give your opponents an opportunity to respond. Note in your blog that your phone calls to the district were not returned, etc. Ask the person about whom you're writing if they disagree with any facts you're publishing and if so and can they please provide a paper record or some such supporting their factual disagreement. |
| More questions... |
| NOTE: We are not asking school districts to post salary or HIPAA-related dollars. |
| After surrounding themselves with hand-picked "yes" men/women, superintendents often seem genuinely perplexed when community opposition surfaces for any reason. Chris B. comments in the Capistrano Dispatch, "Nearly anyone can tear something down, and it takes a real leader to influence a community to come together to build." Chris B. is right. Too often when we bring legitimate questions and complaints to our public schools we do not at the same time present a clear solution, making it easy for supes and our community to see and hear "attack." What's our positive vision for our schools? Our end game? Mine's simple: Better education for less money. |
| "What do you people want?" |
| Welcome to the National School District Honor Roll Est. 10.01.06 |
| U. S. R O S T E R |
| How to find your district's checks: If there's no link on the home page, try the business or finance page, or it may be listed under links or technol- ogy or community news. If the district is paying for TASB's BoardBook software, online check registers are a free feature, and can usually be found in the board packet for the most recent regular board meeting. |
| A model for the nation: More about the San Antonio Triple Crown here _____ How 3 major school districts put their checks online . . . in 1 week! |
Memo to OKC's John Q. Porter and to all superintendents: It's called a school board meeting, not a school superintendent meeting. |
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| SBOE's 2 RINO's? TINCY MILLER: Sided with minority Dems at last SBOE meeting--to the point of signing minority report. PAT HARDY: Her vote today, R or D? By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 9:55 a.m. |
| Pat Hardy (far left) -- she's a Weatherford ISD employee -- with fellow educators during July 2007 SBOE meeting |
| Texas public education is at yet another crossroads today. The real question: Will we lead the nation in a return to specific standards or will we continue to follow the pack and allow mush to continue to prevail? Up for consideration before the State Board of Education in Austin is a rehashing of the same old liberal-education based standards* from a decade ago, the basis of our miserable TEKS which parents and taxpayers know don't work, the mushy (per then-Governor George Bush) standards which smart parents sidestep by drilling their kids at home or by paying for tutoring. Sadly, this homemade corrective approach leaves most poor and working-class kids out of the loop and has spawned a cottage industry of TEKS helpers and interpreters which has only added to the cost of public education. These last are among the folks who are expected to testify today. Also up for consideration is a substitute amendment, a breath of fresh air which represents the first sound return to specifics and basics we've seen in a long time. The seven real SBOE conservatives have indicated they favor the substitute. They need one more vote. Will Republicans Tincy Miller and Pat Hardy continue to vote with the mush- favoring edu-establishment, or will they return to their Republican roots? We'll know soon. This is a big question for Pat in particular as she faces a conservative in the Republican primary. Her vote today will be a key factor. Listen to today's SBOE meeting online here . __________________________ * English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) |
| CURRICULUM STANDARDS Do our kids know who Icarus is? By Peyton Wolcott Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 1:04 a.m. |
| While looking for an image of a heart for St. Valentine's Day, I came across this lovely Matisse below, and realized that because most of our young people aren't learning mythology, they don't know why Matisse named this "Icarus," or what that means, and the lessons it teaches. Lacking facts, what can this image mean to them? Instead of learning the value of caution while soaring as high as we can go -- lest, like Icarus, our wings melt -- many of our young children are instead reading "King and King" by Linda de Haan: |
| Are we -- and they, the future of our country -- the richer for the substitution? |
NY: THIS IS HOW A DISTRICT'S WEBSITE SHOULD RESPOND TO A PR DISASTER: IMMEDIATELY
| services rendered, racking up as many as 1,286 workdays in a single year. But where many districts bury their heads in the sand and pretend nothing's happened, Sales has already posted a letter to his constituents. Brian's letter and Newsday's account (source for above). |
| Hats off to Copiague, NY school board president Brian Sales By Peyton Wolcott Friday, February 15, 2008 - 8:11 p.m. |
| Attorney Louis W. Reich (L) (PHOTO--Howard Schnapp/ Newsday); top right, Brian J. Sales, Copiague school board president; below right, supe William Bolton |
| Long Island Newsday printed a troubling story today: Part-time school attorney Louis W. Reich claimed to have worked full-time at five districts concurrently in order to collect a $62,500-plus annual state employee pension -- wait, it gets worse -- while his firm was also billing all five districts(including Copiague) $2.5 mil for |
TECHNOLOGY: HOW SAFE ARE OUR KIDS? THEIR PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS?
| Surveillance videos of Indiana HS girls emailed to home computer By Peyton Wolcott Saturday, February 17, 2008 - 10:45 p.m. It was Carmel schools' tech employee James Lefton's Facebook messages to a girl in another area that |
| Indiana's James Lefton's mug shot |
| caused the girl's mother to contact the district, but it was "the discovery that [the] Carmel High School technician had forwarded surveillance images of two students from a work computer to a home computer [that] led investigators to find unrelated child erotica photos on his home machine," according to WRTV in Indianapolis, which led to his arrest last Thursday on six counts of child exploitation. He posted bail ($30,000) and was set for a hearing before a magistrate Friday. "The school system said it fired Lefton, a computer technician at CHS, this week because surveillance video transfers are a violation of the system's technology policy. It also told him to stay away from the school." (SOURCE--WRTV) |
| CARMEL CLAY SCHOOLS FACTOID: As of last year, CCS had 339 English language learners representing 33 languages. |
| Barb Underwood |
| "School officials said their information services department is working to find a way the incident might have been detected sooner and ways that a similar incident might be prevented in the future." (Ibid) While this is welcome news, that an investigation is occurring, the concern is that so often investigations are announced and nothing comes of them. Remember "Round up the usual suspects" from Casablanca. |
| (1) What rules and regulations do you have in place for safeguarding CCS' technology equipment? Surveillance tapes? While there might be rules for storage and handling, who monitors these to make sure they're enforced? Who watches the watchers, what's your chain of command? This next question comes because of the popularity of handheld assessment equipment (one example being mCLASS DIBELS), with many using student identifiers such as Social Security numbers and/or other similar. (2) How are you safeguarding sensitive student information as described? What new safeguards have you put in place as the result of the recent arrest of one of your technology employees? Again, so often there's no need for new rules, but for existing rules to be enforced. Also, (3) You routinely attend education conferences such as those hosted by IAPSS and ISBA; it is my experience from attending many similar over the years that there is very little emphasis on internal controls along the lines described above and yet this seems to be one area where school districts routinely experience "big headline" problems as regards the handling of money, technology, etc. Wonder if you've given any thought as a respected Indiana educator to recommending that more emphasis be placed on the need to tighten internal controls at upcoming education conferences. |
| FRESHMAN gym - Carmel High School |
| So I have sent the following questions to Barb Underwood, superintendent and Leftone's ultimate employer at Carmel Clay Schools: |
| A nice high school or a new natatorium (bottom left) or splendid tennis courts (bottom right) are no guarantee of anything, least of all that our children are 100% safe while at school. |
Carmel High School
| Carmel High School, Indiana |
| Former Pennsylvania high school drama director sentenced to prison for molesting boy By Peyton Wolcott Saturday, February 16, 2008 - 10:40 p.m. |
| 'A former drama director at an area high school will serve six to 18 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy, after a judge said he didn’t feel the man was taking responsibility for what he’d done. John Klimkiewicz, 44, was brought back from Atlanta in the fall to face myriad sex charges related to the abuse of the boy. In October, Mr. Klimkiewicz, formerly of Simpson, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. . . . Over the years, Mr. Klimkiewicz worked at Forest City Regional High School and in the production departments at WYOU-TV and at WOLF-TV and as director/producer of the Acting Company of Forest City, according to The Times-Tribune archives. "The victim reported the abuse to police in May. He told investigators the abuse started gradually when he was very young and escalated over the years, stopping around the time he turned 15. He explained that the sexual abuse usually occurred at Mr. Klimkiewicz’s home after he would help him with painting sets and other stage work, or after they would go on outings to movies and fairs." (SOURCE--Erin L. Nissley / Scranton Times Tribune) |
| John Klimkiewicz on way to prison (PHOTO--Vigilant Antis) |
When bank robber John Dillinger was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, "Because that's where the money is." |
| 'Sweet Carmel California' is the title of the student art above. Problem is, if you've ever been to Carmel, you'd know in an instant that this scene with its tropical look and feel, complete with a hammock strung between two palm trees, could never have occurred in Carmel. Real-life Carmel is cold and foggy, with the only trees capable of survival on the rocky shoreline (below) the area's distinctive and much-treasured Monterey cypresses. |
| To its credit, the colors in the middle schooler's art at top are bright and the composition lively. The question for Texas public art educators is, how did this piece of student art make it from the classroom, then out of a school district, then on to the state arts commission, then to the state DOE as featured student art on the DOE's website and part of a traveling exhibition -- all with no one along the line asking whether the scene which references an actual geographic location was in fact a true depiction of that location. A spokesman for the arts commission said that the employee who put together the current art exhibit is no longer with the commission, which is taking a new direction after its recent review by the State's Sunset Commission. Apparently, the only point at which the student art was curated was in the classroom by the art teacher. The arts facilitator at the school district involved said he did not know the teacher had sent the art to the capitol without going through his office; there are now new instructions for the district's art teachers in future which will add at least one more set of eyes to the process. In a state where the emphasis is on process over facts, on strategies over substance, and on encouraging students to feel good about themselves rather than to stand on solid academic achievement, this is the result. |
PHILADELPHIA ENTERS HONEYMOON PHASE WITH ACKERMAN
| Nixon in China, Ackerman in Philly She's already sued two school districts, will Philadelphia be next? By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 1:40 p.m. |
| Odd as former President Richard Nixon's going to China seemed at the time, odder still to this observer is The School District of Philadelphia's hiring of Arlene Ackerman. It appears that I am not alone; this morning's Phila- delphia Inquirer editorial offers a curiously lukewarm welcome to their city's likely new schools chief. |
| Arlene Ackerman during San Francisco USD honeymoon (PHOTO--Liz Hafalia/San Francisco Chronicle) |
| Interim Tom Brady still CEO on Philly's website Looks like Arlene's hiring came as something of a surprise to Philadelphia schools' infrastructure; as of 9:10 a.m. CST this morning, Tom Brady, interim chief executive officer for the district -- and fellow Broad superintendent academy grad -- is still shown as the number one guy on the district's "Our Leadership" webpage. Oops. Would have expected a former U.S. Army colonel to have displayed a bit more spit and polish, to have already had a "welcome" page for Arlene up and ready to go first thing. Or maybe he knows more than we do about the School Reform Commission's intent. |
| Tom Brady |
| It's now up to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission The last stop between where things stand today and Arlene's official hiring is the approval of the four-member Philadelphia School Reform Commission. Me, I'm hoping for a miracle, hoping that Arlene will voluntarily agree to (A), (B), (C), (D), (E), (F), (G) and (H) above. |
| 2nd LAWSUIT San Fran- cisco Unified School District (California) SFist / May 18, 2007 According to a press release put out on PR Newswire by her attorney, Dr. Arlene Ackerman has filed suit against the San Francisco Unified School District in San Francisco Superior Court. She is seeking damages in excess of $172,000 for nonpayment of salary and other compensation, saying that the district breached a written agreement. Dr. Ackerman resigned from her post in June 2006--a resignation forced by the board of education in accordance with a so-called "compatibility clause." |
| Will Arlene Ackerman's credit card bills in her new job be 20 times Philly mayor's--like with San Francisco's Gavin Newsom? By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 5:23 p.m. |
| Follow up The foregoing were sent earlier today to the four members of Philly's School Reform Commis- sion; I have followed through to make sure everything was received. |
| It's a fact that Arlene Ackerman turned in over $45,000 worth of Diners Club* receipts during one year towards the end of her rule in San Francisco USD; it's also a fact that for the same period San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, incurred only $2,265.69 in travel expenses, with none on city-owned credit cards (there aren't any), and nary a $350/night hotel room anywhere in sight; unlike Ackerman, he holds himself bound to $200/day for reimbursable food and hotel expenses, total. |
| (A) No credit cards issued to Arlene or any other Philly schools employees by the district including Diners Club. (B) No out-of-town trips for Arlene or any other Philly schools employees their first two years; they can instead stay in Philadelphia and do the job for which they were hired. (C) No Philadelphia taxpayer- funded meals for Arlene or any other Philly schools employees. (Alternatives: keep a jar of peanut butter in their offices, or some tuna fish, or a wedge of cheese in the fridge down the hall, or a box of cereal.) (D) Based on Arlene's prior employment history, include a "I will not sue you under any circumstances" clause in her employment contract. (E) No housing allowance, car or cell phone allowance as in Arlene's prior post at SFUSD; teachers and taxpayers don't get one, why should she? (F) No bonuses, ever, for anything. If it's really because Arlene's so commendably committed to kids, she should just do her job. (G) Invite Arlene to tell us all about bringing the Voyager curriculum to DC schools in 1999, including all financial and any other considerations extended to her as part of this purchase. (H) Post The School District of Philadelphia's check register online by July 1, 2008. |
| 1. Will you allow your next superintendent to have district-issued credit cards? 2. In light of Arlene Ackerman's two prior filed lawsuits against her then-school district employers [scroll down to grey boxes for more], will you be seeking written assurance that she will not sue Philadelphia schools also? 3. Will you agree to a "compatibility clause" with a $375,000 buyout price tag along the lines of the one she sought and received from San Francisco USD's board? 4. Will you allow your next superintendent to travel out of district frequently at your taxpayers' expense? Solutions Because I like to offer solutions when presenting problems, here are some suggestions which should help the situation under an Ackerman-Philadelphia regime: |
| * SOURCE: Tali Woodward / San Francisco Bay Guardian -- to whom I say, "Hats off" ! |
| Arlene Ackerman (L), Gavin Newsom (LA Times) |
| Here's hoping the four members (below) of Philadelphi- a's School Reform Commission are asking themselves and Arlene about her expected credit card use during her time in the City of Brotherly Love, plus the following: |
| From left: Sandra Glenn; Denise Armbrister, Jim Gallagher, Marty Bednarek |
| 1st LAWSUIT Universal City School District (Missouri) By Peyton Wolcott - February 11, 2006 Here we go again. Watching Arlene Ackerman depart San Francisco public schools is like watching a train wreck. You know it's going to be big and noisy and messy and you can't not look. Plus there's not a blessed thing you can do about it even if you're a sitting SFUSD board member because what needs to be done you as a board member should have done years ago. First there were the clues from Ackerman's earlier employment history. Wouldn't you think twice about hiring a disgruntled employee who sued her employer (University City School District in Missouri) in 1992 for $200,000, then settled, then refused her old job when it was offered back -- even after having won the concessions for which she sued?. . . . (Source for $200,000 figure: Jay Mathews/ The Washington Post.) |
| More: Arlene Ackerman's two prior lawsuits against her at-the-time school district employers: |
| Miami-Dade schools: a national model? By Peyton Wolcott Updated Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 8 01 a.m. |
| Rudy Crew (Inset) (PHOTO-Scholastic), Marta Perez (PHOTO--H. Gabino/El Nuevo Herald) |
| FANTASY v. REALITY Why Texas needs new specific Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) By Peyton Wolcott Tuesday, February 18, 2008 - 3:02 a.m. |
| There were 21 findings in the report; here's the one regarding the undocumented overtime payments: |
| Although Florida's Auditor General performs auditors every three years on districts with more than 150,000 residents, the timing is interesting given lead-up events: |
| Oct. 9, 2007 Marta Perez request to Rudy Crew: Names Current work location assignments Base salary Overtime payments for all Confidential Exempt employees pay grade "G" and above For FY 2006-07 and FY to date |
| Oct. 25, 2007 Rudy Crew to Marta Perez |
| QUESTIONS: 1. WHAT IS "CEP? CONFIDENTIAL EXEMPT Personnel? 2. JUDY LISBEY IS RUDY'S admin? Yes channel 10 story (secty who comes out & says "no comment" is judy) WHAT DOES HER SISTER CAROL DO? WHAT IS "ACCOUNTABILITY AND SYSTEMS"? they do management & compliance gopher for supe to play with nos. 3. DID RUDY SEND WORK LOCATION ASSIGNMENTS (I CAN'T FIND) - no |
| Aug. 29, 2007 Marta Perez to Rudy Crew Office of Civil Rights Compliance, the Civilian Investigative Unit, and the Office of Professional Standards on Feb. 14, 2007 Overtime for any of the above |
| Oct. 9, 2007 RC to MP Ofc. of Prof. Standards & Ofc. of Civil Rights Compliance: None on Feb. 14, 2007 Civilian Investigative Unit: $1,153.65 |
| 1. Why only these three offices? 2. Why is Marta only looking for Feb. 14, 2007 O/T? That was date of board mtg. - there was an altercation An outside vendor (re a NWern HS rape investigation) claimed they were changing dates - Rhonda Vangates told vendor she could cover it up. Crew & cronies intimidated vendor. The pp who stayed are salaried; they're not hourly, should not be getting O/T |
| Oct. 12, 2007 MP to RC Asked for names of employees of Civilian Investigative Unit - Feb. 14, 2007 O/T, plus amount paid each. |
| Oct. 15, 2007 RC to MP & Board Sent 5 names with amount for each. |
| New York City redux in Miami While it may seem anomalous to be looking so closely at Miami-Dade the same month Rudy Crew was named "Superintendent of the Year" by the American Association of School Admini- strators (AASA) at its annual convention in Tampa, such an occasion suggests an oppor- tunity to take a closer look; also, this commen- tary was prompted not by the award but by the Florida Auditor General's report's preliminary findings, issued the same day, which had been in the works for several months. |
| LAWSUIT FILE? |
| MIAMI-DADE CPS TIMELINE May 2003 - MDCPS hires former FBI On August 17, 2005, after Crew prodded them, school board members opted not to renew Cousins's contract. Then the board decided, eight to one, to end an agreement that made the Inspector General's Office independent. (SOURCE--Miami New Times) |
| From Stancik's Dec. 1999 report In many cases, cheating so dramatically skewed student performance that the test was rendered all but meaningless. For example, one girl’s 4th grade reading score increased from the 12th percentile to the 81st percentile as a result of receiving assistance, only to fall to the 19th percentile the following year. Another 4th grader, who was “helped” on a reading exam by an educator, saw his score shoot up to the 13th percentile from the 01st percentile and then return to the 01st percentile the next year when help was not forthcoming. Still another student, a 7th grade boy, zoomed from the 09th percentile in reading to the 88th percentile after being given “clues” by his proctor. · Inflated scores misled parents about their children’s skills. Consequently, educational decisions that would likely affect a child’s future were made using erroneous information. |
| Leonard Pitts, Jr. re Ralph Arza Nov. 6, 2006 (MCT)—Maybe we ought to give Prohibition another try. . . . Granted the attempt to outlaw drinking was not exactly a success back in the 1920s, but maybe it is time to have another go at it. We owe that much to public figures who have become the unwitting victims of fool juice in recent months. Now, there is state Rep. Ralph Arza going innocently along, until alcohol took control of his mouth and made it speak naughty words. Arza was under fire for months after political insiders told Rudy Crew, Miami-Dade schools chief, that Arza repeatedly used the N- word to describe him. Though admitting he sometimes used potty language, Arza swore he never used that particular word. Then Arza learned last month that another legislator, Rep. Gus Barreiro, had filed a written complaint about the alleged racial slur against Crew. His response? He called Barreiro and left a profane tirade on his voice mail, using the B-word and, yes, the N-word. Then, a second man—police said he was Arza’s cousin—left three messages that went through pretty much the whole alphabet of cussing. His explanation? The demon rum. “At times I have had difficulty controlling my emotions and anger,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Miami Herald. “I have noticed that this problem is made worse on those occasions when I have been drinking.” The booze-made-me-do-it apology has the advantage of seeming like a straightforward shouldering of responsibility, when in reality it passes responsibility along like the common cold. The victimizer becomes the victim, a poor innocent at the mercy of an evil drink. __________________ Leonard Pitts, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald. |
| in FY 05-06 for MDCPS maintenance and police departments, plus the school board administration building. Rudy's defense for refusing Perez' November 2006 request? Producing such a list would take too much time. You'll recall that when Rudy's sons Russell and Ryan were arrested in 2004 -- the two of them allegedly beat up a single third party -- Rudy's employee, MDCPS police chief Gerald Darling, wrote a nice letter of recommendation for the boys to show to the court. |
| Evelyn Langlieb Greer |
| AntwainEasterling |
| Russell (L) & Ryan Crew (PHOTO/Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Dep't), (R) Gerald Darling |
| BAR BRAWL, ARREST: On Dec. 29, 2004, Rudy Crew's sons Russell and Ryan (above) "were arrested and charged with aggravated battery. The pair, at the time in their late twenties, allegedly beat up Patrick Dorneval outside Fat Tuesday bar in CocoWalk. Dorneval's face was left a broken, bloody mess. Prosecutors later charged Russell with petty theft for lifting a homeless man's wallet. Subsequently the Crew boys were placed on one year of probation and were ordered to pay Dorneval $25,000 in restitution. Three months after the arrest, Crew told New Times: 'I'm proud of the men they have become because I know the full measure of their character. It's regrettable that the fact that they are my sons is drawing attention to an incident that wouldn't merit it otherwise.' (SOURCE-- Francisco Alvarado/Miami New Times/"Rudy Crew’s Crapola" pub. 09.20.07) LUCKY BOYS: After their arrest, Rudy's new employee, MDCPS police chief Gerald Darling (above right), graciously wrote a letter of character reference for the boys to present in court. FOLLOW THE MONEY: "These days Russell is employed as business development coordinator for Scientific Learning, an education technology firm. Later this month the school board will consider approving a $290,500 no- bid contract with Scientific Learning to provide software and consulting services to 40 schools. During the board's September 5 meeting, when the issue first came up, Crew told his bosses the district had been doing business with Scientific Learning even before his son was hired. He recommended approval, adding that his son's job with the software developer had nothing to do with the choice." (Ibid.) |
| Not quite yet -- especially after national coverage of last Friday's riot at a Miami high school. But Miami-Dade County Public Schools could well be a model for the nation after they meet the six challenges identified at right. Having watched the nation's fourth largest school district for some time, it occurs to me that although M-DCPS is experiencing tremendous issues, every one of them is solvable. |
| problems by last month becoming the largest school district in America to voluntarily place its check register online; click on the link at far left on the U.S. Roster to view over 6,500 pages of payments sorted alphabetically by vendor. These issues exist in most America public schools; when Rudy and his trustees have solved these six, Rudy will have established a real and lasting legacy. |
| M-DCPS ISSUES 1. Nepotism, favoritism 2. Out-of-control spending 3. Leadership, style 4. Questionable practices 5. M-DCPS too big? 6. Public attitude shift |
| GEORGIA Fantasy v. reality in Clayton County Schools By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - 11:30 a.m. As I visit school district websites across our great republic, one thing is apparent: No matter how bad the situation or the news, the |
| CCS Jonesboro HS Cardinal mascot |
| The mission of Jonesboro High School is to provide a diverse and challenging education in a safe and supportive environment that demands respectful behavior to produce holistic learners and productive citizens. |
| webmaster has been told to put a happy face on things. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Clayton County Schools in the suburbs just south of Atlanta. Although the 52,800- student district received word on Feb. 15 that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools was recommending that CCS' accreditation be revoked effective September 1, and also that the "National Accreditation Commission will review SACS' findings and vote March 15 whether to strip Clayton of its accreditation," (SOURCE--Erice Stirgus/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) you'd never guess such consequences were in the wings from a visit to the CCS website where we learn from the HR department that "Clayton County Public Schools is one of the leading school districts in Georgia." If you click on a photograph of a file folder captioned "SACS Report" -- one of several unrelated flashing images -- you learn that the district "has received a complaint from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accredita- tion and School Improvement (SACS CASI). The complaint is not related to the school district's educational programs, schools, school staffs, or the system level administration. The school system plans to fully cooperate with all requests regarding this complaint and we wish to assure the public that we are making every effort to ensure that quality instruction takes place in our classrooms and to make certain that students are not affected." Never fear, friends. Despite the fact that "Clayton is in jeopardy of becoming the first district in Georgia to lose its accreditation [and] only the third in the nation to do so in the past 20 years," (Ibid.) in addition to a mascot worthy of any professional football team, Jonesboro High School also has a jim-dandy mission statement: |
| Time for Clayton Schools to get back to basics: educating their children in the basics. |
| Rudy Crew |
| 1. Nepotism, favoritism |
| Rudy's sons When his two younger sons Russell and Ryan were arrested the last week of 2004 in what appears to have been a bar brawl, Rudy's new employee Gerald Darling, chief of M-DCPS police, wrote a letter of character reference for the boys to the court. Whether Rudy asked or Gerald volunteered, critics charge that such a letter in such circumstances does not pass the smell test. Rudy also came under fire for attempting to bind the district to a no-bid contract with son Russell's company, edu-vendor Scientific Learning Corp. (more about SLC in 4. below), without disclosing the relationship. Rudy said he did not believe he had to as Russell was not employed in a significant capacity at SLC; besides, the district had been purchasing from SLC for some time. This, too, does not pass the smell test. Folks have pointed out that Russell should not have taken the job with SLC as it looks suspicious, looks as though the SLC might have had ulterior motives in hiring the son of the superinten- dent of the nation's fourth-largest school district. |
| Lauren Crew's photography |
| Rudy's daughter Lauren Crew, a photographer, works as an M-DCPS elementary school art teacher. |
| Board chair's wife Last December when Glades Middle School principal Elio Falcon hired board chair Agustin Barrera's wife, Alina Gallego, she became his middle school's fourth assistant principal; in addition to the promotion from her old job as social worker at Ruth Owens Kruse Education Center, the new one's half the commute -- only 3.8 miles from home. Board chair's brother-in-law Until Ralph Arza suddenly resigned his position as a Florida state representative on October 30, 2006 -- the resignation prompted by news accounts and a pending House investi- gation into charges that he'd called Rudy Crew the "n" |
| Elio Falcon (L), Agustin J. Barrera (R), Glades MS |
| $10 mil admin., $27.8 mil O/T, $2 mil cells As with most American public school districts, Miami-Dade County Public Schools' income and expenses have continued to rise while at the same |
| 2. Out-of-control spending |
MENTION: MIAMI HERALD BLOG ENTRIES - 2 ARTICLES |
| RALPH ARZA: TEACHER / POLITICO Long before he established himself as a tenacious member of the Miami-Dade legislative delegation in Tallahassee, 45-year-old state Rep. Rafael "Ralph" Arza (R-Hialeah) was the king of Doral. In 1996, after losing a bid for the county school board, he was appointed to the Doral Community Council by former county Commissioner Miriam Alonso (now facing felony charges related to laundering political contributions). Arza served as the council's powerful chairman until 2000, when he gave up the seat to run for the legislature from District 102, which includes most of Hialeah, parts of Miami Lakes, and a small portion of Broward County. He won easily. Last year he ran unopposed for his third term. Despite the lack of an opponent, Arza collected $200,000 in campaign contributions, $40,000 of that from real-estate investors and developers. . . . Arza has become a player in the state House, especially regarding education issues. (For two decades he's been a history teacher at Miami Senior High School.) He is chairman of the legislature's PreK-12 committee, is vice chairman of the House Education Council, and sits on the Education Appropriations Committee. In 2001 Frank Bolaños, a close associate, was appointed to the Miami-Dade School Board by Governor Bush. Arza takes credit for engineering the appointment, much as he helped his brother-in-law, Agustin Barrera, win election to the school board in 2002. (SOURCE--Jim Ridley/Miami New Times/04.14.05) |
| (R to L) Ralph Arza; Yris Arza; Linda Eads, Florida SBOE; Perla Hantman, MDCPS board bember; then-MDCPS supe (and honorary gala chair) Merrett Stierheim at 2004 New World School of the Arts gala |
| racial slur word -- he was both a power- ful legislator and a long-time M-DCPS teacher, and is married to MDCPS board chair Agustin Barrera's sister, Yris. (More about his political career at right.) |
| Shawn Beightol |
 |
| The number of administrative posi- tions has also seen a sharp upturn; according to M-DCPS high school science teacher and union activist |
 |
 |
| 3. Leadership |
| PATTERNS IN RUDY CREW LEADERSHIP Events in NYC reoccurring in MIAMI |
| NYC Public Schools 1. Sept. 1997 - Student raped by star jocks, cover up Edward Stancik, NYCPS special commissioner of investigations, released a report "criticizing officials at August Martin High School, where a female student had been allegedly raped by four members of the varsity football team in an empty classroom. 'Had swift action been taken, it is possible that the rape could have been prevented, or, at the very least, interrupted,' Stancik wrote. |
| August Martin HS (NYCPS magnet school for aviation) |
| M-DCPS marketing campaign |
| Northwestern HS principal Dwight Bernard's arrest (NBC) |
| Justice Intercep- ted: The All Con- suming Power of Football" Grand jury report June 6, 2007 " When the football player, Antwain East- erling, was arrested two months after the rape, "District Admini- stration...made it crystal clear that its priorities were skewed, too. The State championship game was to be played in a few days, specifically, on Dec. 9, 2006. The big ques- tion on the day of arrest was, 'Should the kid play?' Not, 'How is the little girl?' ....Ultimately...the decision was made that, yes, indeed, he should play. Appar- ently, the sworn arrest affidavit recounting the victim’s statement and the defendant’s confession were not enough to indicate that a crime had actually occurred. ....Principal Bernard failed to perform his job in this instance. With position comes the obligation to make difficult decisions. He let the matter go downtown and there- by washed his hands of it....A decision usu- ally made by a princi- pal, was made by district adminstrators and attorneys for the School District. Their decision was to let him play. Again, we do not believe that this is the message that should have been sent to the students and athletes who attend schools within this district.... The perversion of educational values goes beyond the level of the school straight to the heart of the District. Our concerns about the District’s actions did not stop with the issue of whether the star athlete would play in the champion- ship game.... It appeared that an effort was made by a high level district administrator to halt the criminal investigation which was specifically looking into the failure of the MNW personnel to report these crimes to the school police.... Twenty-one (21) school employees knew about the first incident...teachers, administrators, coaches and counsel- lors. Surprisingly, while the police investigation was still underway, the high level District Administration stepped in and, to some, seemingly reinitiated the cover-up attempted by the administration at MNW. Miami-Dade Schools Police was in the process of con- ducting interviews when District administration ordered it to cease its investigation. CONSEQUENCES: The consequences for the school included a state football cham- pionship, the possi- bility of a nationally televised high school football game for the team, increased exposure for the players and coaches, and perhaps most important, an image of success for a school that was failing in nearly every other way. |
| Barnard was arrested, Antwain got to play in the big game, Rudy Crew's assistant Ronda Vangates called off the district's investigation, Northwest- ern won the state title 34-14. "Like everyone else in charge at Northwest- ern -- coach Roland Smith included -- Rudy Crew passed the buck." (SOURCE--Manny Navarro/Miami Herald 2. 2008 / Cheating on standardized tests - "Faculty at Edison Middle School in Miami informed the school board that an administrator leaked the prompts to the FCAT exam to reading coaches at the school a day before February's exam was given to 8th graders.... Miami-Dade School's Superintendent Rudy Crew received a letter dated February 13th, alerting him of the problem that has allegedly been occurring for the last two years." (SOURCE--CBS 4) |
| Lack of autonomy and the ability of investigators to work free from District interference is, sadly, not a new issue for M-DCPS. The Fall Term 2004 Grand Jury Investigation into M-DCPS dealt in part with the lack of independence of the Inspector General. The purpose of the Inspector General is to serve as an independent watchdog to investigate and/or prevent abuse, fraud, mismanagement and waste within a governmental agency |
| Miami-Dade CPS 1. Sept. 2006 - Student raped by star jock, cover up On Sept. 16, 2006 Northwestern High School running back Antwain |
| time full-time enrolled student numbers have continued to drop. (See chart at right.) Florida's Auditor General's office -- which comes calling every three years in districts with 150,000 |
| M-DCPS central administration so large it has its own MetroMover station (PHOTO--Transit In Utah blog) |
| and above total populations -- earlier this month released its preliminary audit which found that the district's overtime costs the prior year were $27.8 million and cell phone usage $2 million. Ironically on the same day that the findings were being released in Miami on February 15, M-DCPS superintendent Rudy Crew was in Tampa receiving the American Association of School Administrators' annual "Superintendent of the Year" award at AASA's annual convention in Tampa. (More below in 3. "Leadership") |
| While in the course of running large districts superintendents are bound to encounter a certain number of challenges and problems -- including the fact that not everyone is going to love you and/or your leadership style -- Rudy Crew has been unlucky in that at least three major and unique problems he had in New York have reoccurred in Miami. (See greybar comparisons at right.) There is at least one positive and signifi- cant redux also. According to Answers. com, "A year into his job, Crew opened up the books for the entire New York City school system, and showed parents and teachers how its $8 billion annual budget was distributed. It was termed the most thorough accounting in the system's history." The parallel in Miami-Dade County Public Schools would be Rudy's voluntarily posting the district's check register online last month. |
BREAKING NEWS: Saturday / March 9, 2008 M-DCPS police no-confidence vote re chief Darling
| Miami PD: Student protest escalated to riot . . . 'Massive Police Response To Edison High Disturbance' -- CBS NEWS By Peyton Wolcott Updated Friday, February 29, 2008 - 12:16 p.m. |
| Police moving in after disturbance at Edison HS (CBS) |
| The arrest yesterday of a student for allegedly attacking an M-DCPS police officer apparently led to this morning's student protest at Edison High School (Miami-Dade County Public Schools). Miami police "called for police reinforcements at Miami Edison High School, after what preliminaryreports [were] calling a 'riot' broke out shortly after 11 am Friday. Reports from the scene showed dozens of police cars outside the school...located at 6161 5th court in Miami. Chopper pictures from the scene showed people who appeared to be students being led away in handcuffs.... Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss said his department received a call for emergency backup from the Miami-Dade school police." (SOURCE--CBS4) |
| Aug. 2007: Edison HS principal with FL Gov.Christ (PHOTO--Joe Raedle/Getty Images) |
| M-DCPS superintendent Rudy Crew and his school board have already taken a first big bold -- and most commendable -- step towards solving their district's |
| CBS |
| MORE WSVN . . . Channel 10 . . . CBS M-DCPS Edison HS website . . . |
| "It has been a violent week in Miami-Dade schools. On Thursday, a student was shot in the ear while breaking up a fight at Miami Norland High School." (SOURCE--Kathleen McGrory/Miami Herald) |
| "The melee started shortly after 11 a.m. as students were at lunch, and tried to stage a protest against the arrest Thursday of a student who had tangled with an assistant principal. School officials say 27 students were arrested 15 males and 12 females, and ten officers were injured." (SOURCE--CBS4) |
| 3. Thwarting special investigators During the early part of his tenure in New York, Rudy Crew "worked alongside then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to fix the Big Apple's poorly run public schools. But Crew could not control Edward Stancik, the special commissioner of investigations, who exposed several scandals." (SOURCE-- Francisco Alvarado/Miami New Times) In 1997, a New York Times editorial remarked that Crew "blundered...when he attacked Edward Stancik, the New York City school system's special investigator. Mr. Stancik...has done a solid job of exposing corruption in a system where criminal inquiries were virtually nonexistent before his arrival in 1991. In criticizing a successful investigator, Dr. Crew has picked a fight that he is unlikely to win -- and has given the impression that he views tough law enforcement as a threat to his authority....Dr. Crew should learn to work with the investigator instead of against him." |
| 3. Thwarting special investigators In 2003, former FBI executive Herbert Cousins "was an easy choice for a group of lawmen tasked to recommend a candidate to become the Miami-Dade school board's first inspector general. In May of that year the board unanimously awarded Cousins, who is also a former teacher and principal, a $140,000 annual salary and the power to weed out waste and fraud." In addition to having headed FBI field offices and training FBI agents, in 1990 Cousins had "led a group that arrested Miami cult leader Yahweh ben Yahweh and 15 disciples of his sect on racketeering and capital murder charges." During Cousin's two years at M-DCPS, he investigated the MOTET driver ed scandal, a major interstate fraud case, plus "closed 50 cases, including a criminal probe with the DEA that disclosed 22 school district employees had used health insurance cards to buy OxyContin and then sold the drug on the street. All were arrested....On August 17, 2005, after Crew prodded them, school board members opted not to renew Cousins's contract. Then the board decided, eight to one [with trustee Marta Perez the lone dissenting vote], to end an agreement that made the Inspector General's Office independent....The position has remained vacant. [Last year] the school board offered the job to Bob Emmons, a former assistant inspector general with the U.S. Postal Service, [who] declined, citing a lack of 'independence.'...The result is that — for almost two years — there has been virtually no independent oversight of the board's six-billion-dollar budget." (SOURCE--Francisco Alvarado, Miami New Times, "Bad Apple," Aug. 2, 2007) |
| Edward Stancik (PHOTO--PBS) |
| Herb Cousins (PHOTO--J.Carini/Miami New Times) |
| Perez: $100,000 questions Here's an example of what trustee Perez was looking for that supe Rudy refused to produce: a list of employees whose base salaries plus O/T were over $100,000 |
Trustee Evelyn Greer's dog in the race Minutes for the next month's board meeting record Perez as saying, "This administration was spending rich, but information poor." In the same meeting's minutes, Greer "said that there is a proper procedure in the rules for obtaining that inforation, and that the Board was here to advance the goals of the children and parents, and citizens and taxpayers of the District . . . . Continuing, she said that she reviewed all of the items listed and that they would take hundreds of hours to produce. She felt that some of the were inappropriate for Board members to obtain. She did not find that she was offended by the Superintendent's decline to produce these items on short notice at a time when bigger projects were trying to be done in this District." Trustee Greer's "bigger projects": MDCPS-funded affordable housing -- and her husband and son are developers in the affordable housing industry Whenever I see a trustee backing a superintendent who does not want to be transparent, so many times the trustee doing the backing is wanting or already receiving backing from the superintendent for their own self-benefiting projects. Imagine my surprise to learn that |
| Liberty Hill ISD's confidential student/ employee records on TV By Peyton Wolcott Sunday, March 2, 2008 - 2:35 a.m. |
| KEYE's Nanci Wilson is a dumpster diving reporter after my own heart. When's the last time you saw a reporter in a business suit climb into a refuse bin to expose what needed exposing? The Austin station got word that Liberty Hill ISD, located a half hour north of Austin, was not disposing of confidential records properly; instead of shredding everything first, the district dumped files intact in a recycling dumpster out front. |
| Although at one point a friendly secretary -- Debbie Mitchell -- came out and took pictures of the KEYE crew, she never appeared to challenge them. |
| Eventually Nanci went inside and when she asked about the records got the same "There's no one to talk to you" treatment parents are used to receiving when they go to their districts and start asking questions.. |
| CARTOON: Rudy Crew holds new book--re M-D's 26 "F" schools (ART/Tatiana Suarez/Miami New Times) |
| USA Today re Northwestern HS football here. |
| 4. Questionable business practices |
| Feb. 15, 2008: Rudy Crew (2nd from left) accepting $10,000 scholarship for alma mater at AASA convention |
| While such an award as Rudy has just received carries with it a certain amount of cachet, it is impor- tant to remember that AASA is basically a trade association for public school executives, its empha- sis on the status and well-being of constituency as a career class. Further, AASA is primarily funded by taxpayers, via provisions in your local superinten- dent's employment contract, as with this example: |
| AASA |
| "Job Central and Resume Review" AASA San Antonio convention - 2005 |
| AASA's conventions, fueled by vendors, . Folks in Texas have nicknamed our state's equivalent, the Texas Association of School Administra- tors, "The Lodge." |
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| Ronda Vangates |
| How is it that public schools have wandered away from their appointed task of educating schoolchildren and into the affordable housing business? |
| Straying from the original objective Two recent examples of businesses who appear to have lost sight of their original purposes are Starbucks and The Weather Channel. Starbucks brought the Italian coffeehouse to America and we liked the idea. Turns out, we welcomed a living-room looking place where we could sit a spell and have a great cup of coffee. |
| When longtime leader Howard Schultz stepped down in 2000, Starbucks started down the Krispy Kreme Highway with equally disappointing results: The stores started looking messy, the comfy seating started losing out to plastic chairs, and with the switch to automatic espresso machines the great coffee smell disappeared. Post-Schultz, as Craig Harris wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer two months ago, Starbucks "intensified its focus on music, book deals and the promotion of two Hollywood movies, which had only modest success, to drum up business. Stores also became cluttered as Starbucks sold stuffed animals and CDs." The pleasant background music became radio, with announcers and ads. In January Schultz took control again and one night last week all stores closed for three hours so baristas could be retrained in such basics as making coffee and cleaning toilets. To emphasize where his attentions lie, last Friday Schultz announced he was even giving up his DreamWorks directorship in order to concentrate on Starbucks. |
| PENNSYLVANIA Still no contract with Arlene in Philly By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - 3:07 a.m. |
| Apparently, Arlene Ackerman's holdover issues from her last job in San Francisco USD (above) -- $375,000 buyout, $45,000 in Diners Club credit card expenses in one year -- have been a factor in her stalled contract negotia- tions with her new employer, The School District of Philadelphia (where she replaces Paul Vallas, who has left Philadelphia to take a job in New Orleans, whose former superintendent Anthony Amato has just departed Kansas City, Missouri's schools with nothing lined up yet. And former Clark County (Las Vegas) super- tendent Carlos Garcia now has Arlene's old job in San Francisco). According to yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer editorial: |
| THE MOST important hire the School Reform Commission can make is down to the details - the place where the devil resides. The SRC and Arlene Ackerman are still negotiating her contract....While those details are being hammered out, the SRC should make sure it doesn't repeat the mistakes contained in recent contracts with high-ranking district administrators. Their departures, with plenty of cash, irked many district advocates. Remember the diamond- studded golden parachutes handed to former chief financial officer Folasade Olanipekun- Lewis? She was at the helm when the district's deficit exploded. She worked for the district less than two years (some of that time while on maternity leave) and walked away with full pay of $180,000, unused vacation and health benefits....Parents United for Public Education...wants better monitoring of expenses (former SRC Chair- man James Nevels ran up $15,000 on his district-issued credit cards)....These are reas- onable concerns negotiators should address as they hash out Ackerman's contract. |
| Wondering why the editorial didn't mention Arlene's twice-as-high retirement and her three-times-as- high credit card bills. Don't they have Google in Philly? |
| When meterologist John Coleman founded The Weather Channel in 1982, his idea was simple: to present useful 24/7 weather information. A year later Landmark Communica- tions took over his idea and TWC morphed into something else, with current cable subscribers now having to wait through global warming propaganda and "Storm Stories" for basic right-now weather updates. Unlike Starbucks, |
| whose publicly traded NYSE:SBUX fortunes are easy to follow, because Landmark's still privately held there's only a rumored $5 billion for-sale sign via JPMorgan and Lehman for anyone to know whether straying from the original purpose has worked better for TWC than it did for Starbucks. But hold on, here's viewer feedback for TWC's "A Very Political Climate - Forecast Earth," 1361 entries since December -- most appearing to be negative, as this: |
| But what do Starbucks and The Weather Channel have to do with Miami-Dade County Public Schools? |
| o If there is any correlation whatsoever (which most reasonable people doubt), between human activity and "global warming" which most will acknowledge is occurring on a minor level, it must be based on a small subset of human activity. My own guess (which is at least as valid as that of such experts as Dr. Cullen and Al Gore) is that the most likely activity would be the generation of hot air by said experts. Which human activity caused the "global warming" that ended the last ice age? -- Jerry Murdock |
| o There are too many self promotions such as all those promotions for Storm Stories. These shows also get in the way of seeing the national forecast information. o It's especially annoying that "Storm Stories" is always on from 8:00-9:00 p.m., which is prime severe thunderstorm time in the summer. I want to see my Local on the 8s when all hell is breaking loose outside, not twenty minutes of Grandma telling us how she found her antique bundt cake ring in a field six miles away "after the tornado come through." |
| And two from TheWeatherPrediction.com: |
| o It's so frustrating to have a storm moving in only to find that TWC is showing Storm Stories. We work outdoors a lot and had TWC on almost full-time when it was all weather, now we rarely bother. |
| Here's one from TelevisionWithoutPity.com: |
| Landmark's 2006 sales were $1.75 billion in 2006, with less than $79 million attributed to the Weather Channel. (SOURCE--Hoover's) |
| Bilzin Sumberg Hosts Breakfast Reception In Honor Of House Majority Whip, Congressman James E. Clyburn (D-Sc) (Greer $500 donor John Sumberg 2nd from right) |
| SHOULD M-DCPS BE SPENDING THIS MUCH MONEY WITH A COMPANY WHO'S HIRED THE SUPERINTENDE NT'S SON? Vendor Name (ID) Check Date Check Amount SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 1/18/2008 $4,995.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 6/27/2007 $69,000.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 3/30/2007 $5,500.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 3/23/2007 $1,000.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 1/26/2007 $4,400.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 1/19/2007 $3,500.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 10/6/2006 $6,600.00 SCIENTIFIC LEARNING CORP (3735867) 8/11/2006 $8,250.00 |
| M-DCPS predecessor "In October 2001, Deputy Superintendent Henry Fraind retired under pressure after it was discovered that a clique of longtime administrators and powerful outsiders exploited the district's vast resources. Fraind got his Ph.D. from Pacific Western University in 1982, a noted diploma mill." (SOURCE--Wikipedia) Best Unguarded Moment Caught On Videotape (2000) Henry Fraind In his many years as the public face of the county's public schools, Fraind had repeatedly proven himself to be inarticulate, insensitive, and inflexible. When school-board members finally got tired of him making them look bad and decided, at their March meeting, to appoint someone else as their spokesman, Fraind demonstrated the wisdom of the decision by offering an upraised arm and fist -- in the universal gesture for "up yours" -- to a parent who had questioned his salary level. How ironic that the first candid, straightforward, concise statement from this guy, captured by the television cameras that record each meeting, came only on the eve of his removal as the district's mouthpiece. (SOURCE--Miami New Times, 2000) |
OTHER QUESTIONABLE
PRACTICES
PRACTICES
| For most of us, it's self-evident that the purpose of our public schools is to educate. This is why we willingly fork over our property tax dollars. Because M-DCPS District 9 trustee Evelyn Greer and now superintendent Rudy Crew appear committed to entering their school district in the affordable housing business -- to which both Greer's husband and son have commercial ties -- this seems an appropriate time to revisit the district's legal charter. But first let's look a Greer's donors, the folks who have given her hundreds of dollars. |
| VISION We are committed to provide educational excellence for all. MISSION We provide the highest quality education so that all of our students are empowered to lead productive and fulfilling lives as lifelong learners and responsible citizens |
| PUBLIC RELATIONS Lessons learned from others' wins, mistakes By Peyton Wolcott Saturday, March 8, 2008 - 12:07 p.m. |
| #2 lesson learned: Appearance matters, perception is everything. To help my conservative correspondents -- the Spread Sheet Dads and PTA Moms and Angry Retired Taxpayers -- here are two photos of Democratic operative Susan Estrich. In the before photo at right, see how angry she looks? And in the after photo at left she looks like Alice in Wonderland? Which do you think is the more effective approach for her? If Susan has seemed more sympathetic on television of late, it's because she appears to have girled-up her appearance. A smart, strong woman with a voice like a gravel truck, Susan's softened her visible impact by adding an historically iconic string of pearls plus lightened her eyebrows. Whether it's Botox or an Elizabeth Kanna image makeover, Susan's expressions while speaking these days also seem softer. We conservatives lose the PR battle with our local public schools again and again because we approach what are essentially socialistic enterprises whose lingo and currency are emotions and people skills with our logic and facts and figures. We're talking apples and they're talking oranges. Further, time and again they turn our arguments against us, accusing us of being anti-kids when we are attempting to help them by turning the focus to wasteful spending. So the next time you approach your schools armed with facts and figures, please consider the above two lessons learned -- and wear your pearls. Better yet, a big "We love our public schools" button. And remember to smile. |
| Susan Estrich: Before (R) and after (L) (PHOTOS Susan B. Landau (L) and Fox TV (R) |
| John McCain's (L) encounter with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller (R) (PHOTO--Gerald Herbert/Associated Press) |
| Republican presidential candidate John McCain really walked into this one above; you've seen the footage by now on Breitbart where New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller (at right in pink) baits -- er, questions -- McCain regarding a 2004 conversation with John Kerry. #1 lesson learned: You frame the debate. Where McCain goes wrong in this exchange is that he allowed Bumiller to frame their debate -- first -- on her terms. Put another way, he reacted rather than acted, and came across as arrogant and angry, reminiscent of Dan Hedaya in Joe Versus the Volcano, the scene one where Hedaya-as-boss repeats the same line over and over, hardly an effective PR strategery for McCain. My suggestion? When Bumiller first asked about the conversation, given the close quarters of an aircraft cabin, a grin and a light- hearted comment from McCain along the lines of, "Let's ask Senator Kerry to talk to those ladies you wrote that book with," a reference to Bumiller's having co- written a women's sex guide with Jennifer and Laura Berman. Until I looked up Bumiller just now, I had no clue that she'd co-written such a book. To me, this takes away from her cachet as a serious political reporter, whether for The New York Times or anyone else. If she's going to ask about a 2004 conversation, McCain could have asked about a 2005 book. |
| Records Retention Concern From: Dean Andrews Date: 2/29/2008 Subject: Records Retention Concern I want to take this opportunity to respond to a recent article in the Leader and the news report on channel 42 concerning student and employee records placed in the paper recycling bin at the administration building. We placed outdated records that were scheduled to be destroyed according to the state records retention plan in the recycling bin and called for a pick-up for the next day. We did not get a truck here for four days. Someone in our community apparently found the materials that had been deposited and made other people aware that there were school records in that container. The Liberty Hill Leader and Channel 42 News felt compelled to cover this situation as a news story. The Channel 42 personnel failed to abide by the posted signs on the recycling bin; WARNING! CONTENTS PROPERTY OF ABITIBI-CONSOLIDATED, INC VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED WARNING! Our school attorney has contacted both businesses in writing to demand the immediate return of any and all documents and other items in their possession which may have been removed from the Liberty Hill Independent School District's Abitibi Paper Retriever recycling receptacles. Liberty Hill I.S.D. takes confidentiality of records very seriously. I want to remind all staff that we must take every precaution to protect the information contained in student and employee records. In the future, we will not be recycling records without first shredding. I will be communicating further with all campus and department heads to ensure sound and secure records management procedures. |
| LIBERTY HILL ISD Supe sez 'Shoot the messenger'? By Peyton Wolcott Monday, March 10, 2008 - 12:25 a.m. |
| Curious response posted on Liberty Hill ISD's website in response to KEYE-TV's dumpster-diving reporter's story, the one in which Nanci Wilson found hundreds of private student and employee records easily available in the district's recycling bin out front of the administration building: |
| This week we'll be querying superintendent Andrews with questions regarding his doctoral credentials -- the source of the "Dr." to which he is referred -- and also questions regarding certain district employees. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from Nanci Wilson's encounter, as posted on KEYE-TV last October, with Dean Andrews regarding the doctorate he received: |
| Monday night at a Liberty Hill school board meeting, the issue of the superintendent's questionable credentials led to a heated debate. Last week CBS 42 Investigates revealed the superintendent's Doctorate of Education came from an institution the State of Texas calls fraudulent or substandard. This is what the superintendent said when confronted: Nanci Wilson: "What do you say to people that say that's a fake degree?" Dean Andrews: "I don't really worry about what people say about Dean Andrews. I'm the superintendent of Liberty Hill School district. I'm going to do them a good job everyday and what you may say about me…that's your problem." Andrews' Doctorate of Education was awarded by California Coast University in 1999. Problem is California Coast was not accredited until six years later. Even then it's still not accredited to award doctorate degrees. The Texas Higher Education Coordination Board says it's illegal to use such degrees in the State of Texas. |
| KOININIA What school reform activists can learn from NY Governor Eliot Spitzer By Peyton Wolcott Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 10:18 a.m. |
| A small personal aside. Many years ago I admired Eliot Spitzer; he seemed like an heroic figure, a guy dedicated to doing good no matter how big the Goliaths. Then troubling reports surfaced regarding his first New York attorney general campaign and how he'd bent the law as to how he financed it (a loan from his dad). Then through the years you heard more and more about his bullying nature and abuse of powers to get his way. The snarl factor The snarl factor is neither attractive nor heroic nor sustainable as a strategy for success over the long haul. I bring this up because some parents and taxpayers I've met through the years have come across as having that same snarl factor. Maybe they wanted the schools to fix their child for them. Maybe they were just angry, like one mom who was so upset with her kids' school after one meeting who said, "I wish them great harm. I want them to suffer like they've made me suffer." We really can't go down that road, folks. It's not healthy, it doesn't work, and it doesn't lead anywhere good. You'll ruin your health and won't be able to sleep at night. Please get rid of the "I" and "them" attitude. There's a wonderful Greek word, koinonia (κοινωνία), used to describe the early Christian church; its root, koine, translates as "common." Koininia goes beyond mere fellowship in any church or religion and into an area of true community; it speaks to the oneness of all life. This we-are- all-in-this-together commonality is where good changes are possible. Avoid seeking ruination (anyone's) as a goal Learn from Eliot's disaster. Don't seek your superintendent's ruin or your school board's or your princi- pal's or their attorneys.' No mat- ter how rancorous your history, try to learn to work together with them for the greater good. As the Wall Street Journal put it yesterday: |
AP
| One might call it Shakespear- ian if there were a shred of nobleness in the story of Eliot Spitzer's fall. There is none. Governor Spitzer, who made his career by specializing in not just the prosecution but the ruin of other men, is him- self almost certainly ruined. |
| The dynamics of financial regulation in the United States have been transformed by a series of investigations mounted by Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general of New York. Through the strategic use of his office, Spitzer has become one of the country's most successful policy entrepreneurs. His success is linked to the serendipitous conflu- ence of three key factors: the diffused nature of regulatory authority in a federal system; the location of the state as the preeminent global financial centre; and the particularity of the New York State constitution, which offers little resistance to the vagaries of polit- ical ambition. The paper concludes that although Spitzer has highlighted serious structural problems and caused severe embarrassment, fundamental changes to market governance itself have been less evident. (emphasis added) |
| In addition to Spitzer's tactics appearing to have been self- aggrandizing, critics have begun pointing out that in the larger scheme of things they may not have really changed much. Justin O'Brien* of Queen's University, Belfast writes: |
| * Oxford University Press on (2005). |
| Here's something else we can learn from Eliot's current predicament: He has no group as a base. Other than buying his way into the New York AG spot as a Democrat, now that he's fallen on hard times he has no popular constituency. Please, friends, take the time and trouble to align with others of like mind. You need the mutual support. In sum Remember to smile when you walk softly with your friends and carry that big stick. ________________________ Personal note: Who among us doesn't feel sorrow for Eliot's wife and daughters? God bless them. |
| The rat stands alone. The rat stands alone. Hi ho the dairio, The rat stands alone. |
| Eliot stands alone Do you recall the childhood nursery rhyme: |
 |
| 03.14.08: In case you missed it: WSJ re Eliot's liberal media enablers here |
Developing . . . |
| 03.14.08 In the meantime, look at the interesting story about the skyrocketing numbers of high-priced administrators now working at M-DCPS published on the front page early this week of El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald's Spanish-edition sister publication: Cuestionan abultados pagos en educación En momentos en que se habla de severos recortes y de posibles despidos para poder balancear el presupuesto del sistema escolar de Miami-Dade, la frase de "apretarse el cinturón'' aparentemente no se aplica a los sueldos que ganan los altos administradores que trabajan para el superintendente Rudolph Crew. Although my Spanish is rusty, I've been able to figure out (follow the jump at the link) that the number of $100,000+ administrators at M-DCPS almost doubled from 2006 (221) to 2007 (413). This story, page-one top right corner news in the Spanish version, still has not appeared in the English language newspaper housed in the same building, The Miami Herald. Both are owned by McClatchey. Continuing to follow the money . . . . |
| U.S.A. It's National Sunshine Week! By Peyton Wolcott Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - 6:31 a.m. |
| Sunshine Week is led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is funded primarily by a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami. Though spearheaded by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public's right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger. Sunshine Week is a non-partisan initiative whose supporters are conservative, liberal and everything in between. |
| While I used to agree with Virginia Woolf that the loveliest sight in the world was "sunlight on leaves" -- or at least, in my case, one of the loveliest, the whole list including my beautiful children's and grandchildren's smiles, not to mention my husband's -- I have come to amend my list to include sunlight on public school spending by districts' posting their check registers online. Beauty and loveliness really are in the eye of the beholder. |
| Sunlight on leaves Bradford Flowering Pear in my back yard |
| Why check registers Here's my beholder's eye: Given outsourcing, in many of our counties local public school districts are the largest budgets and the largest employers. Think if you will of some of the larger school districts such as Miami as modern versions of the old Italian or Greek city-states, complete as in Miami's example with their own police departments and housing. Yes, it might be argued that online check registers are not quite as romantic a visual as sunlight on leaves, a vision so appealing that the Houston Museum of Fine Arts many years ago built an entire exhibit around Virginia Woolf's quote. However, we cannot improve public education in our great republic until we are able to track specific local dollars, and improved public education leading to a better educated populace able to think for itself is a notion of such beauty it's almost breathtaking. And what better way to celebrate National Sunshine Week than by asking your local school district to voluntarily post its check register online? More from ASNE: |
$
| Another irony associated with the Florida Auditor General's preliminary report is that the AG details the same information M-DCPS trustee Marta Perez had tried to obtain from Rudy since 2006, to the point of filing a law- suit. Had Rudy supplied the informa- tion Marta had requested, rather than declining on the grounds that produ- cing such a list would have taken too much time, he could have saved the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs. |
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| No other nepotism? There are other examples of M-DCPS family members being given jobs and/or special treatment; for reasons of space, the only two executives mentioned here are the district's top two individuals: the superintendent and the elected board chair. M-DCPS responses: none received Two weeks ago I contacted Rudy, Agustin and Elio for responses, asking Elio how he'd determined he needed a fourth AP and hired Alina over other candidates. I also asked Agustin for a disclosure form which would show he'd disclosed to fellow trustees that Alina was his wife prior to their vote. RESPONSES: NONE. |
| Arza's consultancies After taking leave from his $57,375 position as a history teacher at Miami High . . . Miami City Manager Joe Arriola in September handed [Arza] a no-bid contract worth $3500 per month (not to exceed $25,000 over six months) to serve as a consultant on education matters. About the same time Arza also received an invite from Florida International University to be a "visiting lecturer" for nine months. Fee: $23,000. (Arza makes $28,000 per year as a legislator.) (SOURCE--Rebecca Wakefield/Miami New Times) |
| Nepotism: "Favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship." (Merriam-Webster) |
| The Miami-Dade County Public Schools is committed to three major goals: (1) Eliminating low performing schools (2) Increasing academic achievement for all students and (3) Bringing cost efficiency to the districts [sic] construction and business practices. --M-DCPS Attendance Services |
| Easterling raped a 14-year old girl (honors student, band member) on the floor of a bathroom after a big game. When the girl's mother reported the incident to NWHS, principal Dwight Barnard said he would call the police--and didn't. |
M-DCPS: AASA AWARD, FLORIDA AUDITOR GENERAL REPORT, MORE
M-DCPS - AFFORDABLE HOUSING
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| Crew's Control By Francisco Alvarado / Thursday, March 20, 2008 / Miami New Times When you take care of Rudy Crew, he takes care of you. Miami-Dade school board member Evelyn Greer can attest to that. Last August, Greer led the charge to give the schools superintendent a $41,000 bonus even though he delivered 38 failing schools after promising none. Crew appeared to return the favor January 18, when he wrote a letter declaring the board's support of a county request for $5 million in state housing funds to construct condos at the Brownsville Metrorail station. The builder is the Carlisle Group, an affordable housing company founded by Greer's husband, Bruce, and currently helmed by their son, Matthew. "We are encouraged that Miami-Dade County and the Carlisle Group IV LLC have embarked on the mission to increase the availability of affordable housing for essential workers in Miami-Dade County," Crew wrote to County Manager George Burgess. One pesky detail: Crew never received permission from the school board to send the letter on its behalf. "That has never come before us," said board member Marta Perez. "I didn't even know it happened until I read the letter." Coincidently, county officials appeared before the school board's blue ribbon committee on affordable housing this past February 27 to request that the Carlisle Group's project be listed on a district website that lists affordable housing options for teachers who want to purchase homes. Greer, who created the panel and had never missed a meeting, was conspicuously absent. Crew and Greer did not return phone calls seeking comment. "The superintendent routinely signs letters of support for grant applications," says school board spokesman Jon Schuster, "including several that would provide affordable housing for teachers, which has been in short supply in recent years." |
| Evelyn Greer, son Matthew Greer of Carlisle (PHOTO--Marlene Quaroni) |
Carlisle property map: 46 listed |
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