Dec. 2006 status
P E Y T O N  W O L C O T T
ROSTER OF DISTRICTS POSTING THEIR CHECK
REGISTERS:  
40 and counting who have already posted or
are committed to posting
WHY A NATIONAL ROSTER
OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS WHO
ARE POSTING THEIR CHECK
REGISTERS?

Ever since public schools transitioned from
being places where our young people were
educated and into what Dallas Morning News
editor Scott Parks calls "big pots of money"
benefiting the power, status and comfort of the
administrators who run them, increasingly
superintendents have lost sight of the fact that
these enterprises are fueled not by private
contributions but by forced taxes, most often on
peoples' homes.  

When parents and taxpayers try to look into the
operations of their districts, the tendency has
been for administrators to circle the wagons and
challenge requests for information by using a
variety of dodges.  This happens in every state.  

A district's willingness to voluntarily
post its checks online introduces
transparency
and will hopefully help reduce
the excesses and corruption we've seen in
Roslyn and Dallas ISD, to name just two recent
examples.  

Hats off to the leadership listed
here.
TOWARDS A GREATER
FISCAL TRANSPARENCY:
ANNOUNCING THE NATIONAL
SCHOOL DISTRICT HONOR
ROLL
By Peyton Wolcott
Oct. 20, 2006 (Pub. EducationNews.org)
"Across the Continent" (Currier & Ives 1868)
Rick Cowan, superintendent
New Caney ISD (center rear)
Gail Krohn,
superintendent
Nederland ISD
Terry Bader,
trusteed
San Angelo ISD
Duncan Klussmann, superintendent - Spring Branch ISD
(2nd from left at rear, with trustees at education conference
Big Spring ISD           $        27,456,184           3,795

Blackwell CISD          $          2,249,225              132

Bremond ISD             $          4,906,776              470

Dallas ISD                  $  1,843,171,265       157,743

Katy ISD                      $      430,492,412        44,212

Lovejoy ISD                $        41,651,680           1,116

Malakoff ISD               $       31,138,298           1,197

Marble Falls ISD       $        35,294,964            3,845

Nederland ISD          $        36,513,845            5,138

New Caney ISD         $        88,564,650           7,572

San Angelo ISD         $      117,446,298        14,653

Spring Branch ISD    $      398,193,362        32,259

DISTRICTS COMING ONLINE

Arlington ISD             $     693,404,819         62,160  

Houston ISD              $  2,266,615,377       208,454

Keller ISD                   $     398,213,868         23,665

McKinney ISD             $    303,932,397         17,857   
             
Richardson ISD        $     440,253,311         34,073

Temple ISD                $      97,874,143           8,105   

Ysleta ISD                   $    436,804,801         46,278

GRAND TOTAL:       

LOCAL:  $    7.7 BILLION
STATE:  $ 16.6 BILLION

More districts coming on board; we
will publish their names as soon as
they are announced.

Note:  These figures are in 2004-05 actuals, the most
recent  published by the Texas Education Agency.

How we take back our children's education:
one person, one question, one school at a time.
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QUOTED:

Separatists in
India's north-eastern
state of Manipur
have
shot six male
teachers in the leg
for allegedly
helping students
cheat in exams.

Two women
teachers were
beaten with sticks
for the same offence,
the rebels of the
Kanglei Yana
Kan Lup group said.  
The teachers were
abducted from their
homes after an exam
on Thursday.  

The rebels said
the teachers
took up to 5,000
rupees ($110) for
helping students
cheat
and warned
of further
punishment if the
cheating continued.  

The Kanglei
Yana Kan Lup (KYKL)
is one of many
separatist
groups fighting
Indian administration
in Manipur.  

It said it
abducted the eight
teachers from their
homes in and around
the state capital,
Imphal, because of
reports they had
taken bribes.

--By Subir Bhaumik -
BBC
ATTENTION EDUCATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS:
Every attempt possible has been made to verify all sources and information.   In the event you feel an error has been made, please contact us immediately.  Thank you.
Copyright 1999-2008 Peyton Wolcott
There's an old Currier & Ives print above my washing machine I look
at every time I start the laundry.  "Across the Continent" depicts an 1868-era
frontier town at the edge of civilization, with a train chugging towards a
blue-skied horizon.  Prominent is a central building clearly marked, "Public
School."  (Scroll down for a larger version.)

For many of us, our local public schools are central to our communities,
treasured institutions.  They are also the places to which we entrust our
children for their education.

But our treasured institutions have reached a state of crisis.
They are failing to educate our children.  Parents knew fuzzy math was a fuzzy
idea and mostly our administrators wouldn't listen to us, with the result that
over half of our kids entering college--those lucky enough not to have dropped
out of high school--need remedial work.

Further, there is a widespread perception that our schools are corrupt at the
top, this perception fueled by the latest local rumors about lavish travel and
meals, plus payoffs of all sorts by vendors meaning to do commerce at the
schoolhouse.

Alarmed at declining standards and fueled by rumors of
corruption, parents and citizens have begun filing public
records requests
to view checks and receipts and have been generally
rebuffed in this undertaking by administrators who appear to have forgotten
that they are spending taxpayer dollars on $35 steaks and $250 hotel rooms.  
Worse, many times these same administrators are using additional taxpayer
dollars to hire law firms so they can dodge producing receipts and check
registers.

As with many a complex problem, often the best solution is the simplest.

The quickest and fastest way to slice through this Gordian
knot is for public school districts to start posting their check
registers online.
 To encourage this, I have instituted the National School
District Honor Roll, starting with three school districts, all in Texas, who are
either already posting their check registers online or will be by Thanksgiving.  
Any district that will undertake to do this gets their name on the roll on my
website.

It's hard to imagine any superintendent in our great republic being able to
come up with a decent reason for not wanting their district's financial
operations to be perceived by their parents and taxpayers as being completely
clean and transparent, sooner rather than later.

Copyright 2006 Peyton Wolcott - All rights reserved
ALREADY ONLINE
            Total receipts,
District                          All funds           Students
UPDATED Mar. 14, 2007:
40 Texas school
districts taking the lead
in transparency!
$ 7.7 billion!
Plus
the texas education agency
$16.6 billion
TEN
DISTRICTS
ADDED IN
TWO
MONTHS!
By Peyton Wolcott
Dec. 13, 2006 - 11:30 p.m.

When this project
started a few short
months ago, we were
hard-pressed to name
even a few school
districts posting their
check registers online.

You'll see the names
of only eight districts;
this is because two
have asked to have
their names kept
confidential for another
few months, which
request must of course
be honored.
ONE MORE!
By Peyton Wolcott
Dec. 19, 2006 - 11 p.m.

With Marble Falls ISD's
commitment at last
night's board meeting to
post their check register
online, the numbers
have--happily--again
been revised.
As former
trustee Mary
McGarr recalls,
"They would only
give the entire
board one copy
of the check
register, and I
was the only one
who looked at it.  
And it took me
months of
asking to get
that one copy."
CLEBURNE ISD
KATY ISD
Mary McGarr's
updated Modern
Minuteman page
here, including
her account as a
sitting Katy ISD
of the hiring of
Leonard Merrell
as their supe in
1995.
Harold Gentry
LANCASTER ISD
COMAL ISD
Former
Comal ISD
trustee Rose
Cervin
(above
at board meeting)
has been, along
with her husband
Calvin Kempin,
asking Comal
ISD to post its
check register
online.
Rose Cervin
The folks who
have been asking
in Lancaster are
camera- and
publicity- shy.
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 1999-2008 Peyton Wolcott
Conservative Commentary - A walk down History Lane:  Check register roster information in 2006 & 2007
March 2007 status
12.23.08 / PW NOTE:  When I founded this grassroots movement on October 1, 2006, I named the
roster "The National School District Honor Roll" to give form and substance to this nascent effort.   
When Adam Andrzejewski contacted me earlier this year wanting assistance with starting a similar
movement in Illinois, I gave him free use of the "Honor Roll" appellation with my blessings.
If your
district is
posting
its checks
online,
please
send me
the URL.
If your
district isn't
posting its
checks
online--why
not?
Close up of schoolhouse (above)
from Currier & Ives print,
"Westward Across the Continent"
(1868) full-sized at right.
This Currier & Ives print
captures the spirit of the
positive nostalgia with
which many of us still
view our public schools
Texas news
October 2006 status
UPDATE
Friday, Oct. 20, 2006/4:33 p.m.
Friends, is YOUR
district publishing its
checks online?  If so,
please email me so I
can add your district's
name to this new
National School District
Honor Roll.  If your
district is not publishing
its checks online--and in
a format citizens can
readily access--why not?
 As Nederland and New
Caney ISD's have
already shown the
nation, it can be done.   
As of this afternoon,
brand new to this brand
new list is San Angelo
ISD--more about them
next week.  For any
doubting Thomases out
there wondering if a
good-sized district really
can pull this off, Spring
Branch ISD is about to
give the nation a simple
step-by-step how-to.   
Thank you, Nederland,
New Caney and San
Angelo!  Thank you,
SBISD!
  
   -- Peyton Wolcott

NOTE:

During this entire period,
no one else in the nation
was publishing check register
rosters or news.  So glad our
conservative think tanks have
now jumped on board this
transparency movement.

-- Peyton Wolcott