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 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.
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
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 |