Peyton Wolcott - Transparency in U.S. Public Schools

P E Y T O N W O L C O T T

Commentary - Transparency (2006)

TRANSPARENCY/PUBLIC RECORDS UPDATE

THE TRANSPARENCY SITUATION IN OUR U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS - PART I
NOT MUCH, NOT YET, TINY GLIMMERS OF HOPE SHINING BRIGHT AMID TROUBLESPOTS
By Peyton Wolcott
November 2, 2006/1 a.m.

The tiny glimmers of hope are the school districts posting
their check registers online (five named already) and those rare
districts where a superintendent and his/her board are committed
to complying with sunshine laws, because they're honorable
enough and/or savvy enough to understand the PR value. Hats off
to these souls.

Unfortunately, there are troublespots aplenty in our public schools.
This is by no means a complete or scientific survey but rather a
random sampling of the tenor of our times.

CLOSEUP: public records
searches around the U.S.

"Noxious" and
"vexacious"
nuisances appears to
be what many school
administrators really think
about parents and
taxpayers when they step
out of the "How large a
check and how many
volunteer hours do you
want" lockstep and begin
filing public records
requests in an attempt to
learn more about what's
really happening in our
schools than our
administrators, including
their PR guys and gals,
intent all only on promoting

Corruptor's Credo

If I can touch it

If it is within my reach

If I can manipulate it

If I feel entitled to it

If I want it

I will take it

And the public trust and

Children be damned!

--Armand Fusco, retired school superintendent

Plano ISD parents Al Kirke (left) and
Roni Jenkins, who successfully
sued Plano ISD for violation of
parental rights in 1998, were barred
last month from entering Wilson MS
by principal Selenda Anderson, PISD
police; more below (See Plano ISD)

the so-called "good news," will tell us. We know because they
have said so in court documents filed recently in Texas. More
about this tomorrow. For now, let's take a brief tour around the
lower 48:

California

Colorado

Preview: Parts II and III
(Tennessee, Texas and
Washington), including
information regarding the
following photographs:

In CAPISTRANO USD's historic trustee recall
petition this past year, public records searches have
played a key role. Why a recall? According to CUSD
Recall, "Their gross mismanagement of school district
finances. Their reckless spending of tens of millions of
dollars on an administration building and over $130

COLORADO
SPRINGS SCHOOL
DISTRICT #11 has a
new parent group, the
Citizens' Education
Network. Says founder
Carla Albers (above with
son), "We’ve already
hosted a forum for our
5th Congressional
candidates, limited to a
discussion of educa-
tional issues, we’ve
hosted a town hall based
around John Stossel’s
'Stupid in America'
program,' and we're in the

New York

million for a single
high school next to a
dump--while our
schools are in dire
need of repair and
our students are
crammed into
substandard

Former CUSD supe Fleming (left)
with new admin. bldg.

Betsy Combier

portable classrooms with non-functioning restrooms."
Public records searches also uncovered then-supe
James A. Flemings' enemies list, 150 families who
supported the trustee recall, and the DA's investigation
and eventual raid of Fleming's offices at CUSD, plus the
Orange County voter registrar has been investigated for
giving Fleming illegal access to the recall petitions.

In New York Public
Schools, Betsy Combier
of ParentAdvocates.org
has been trying to look at

trying to look at NYPS
Chancellor Joel Klein's
employment contract since
March, eight months now;
says Betsy,
"ParentAdvocates.org filed
a Freedom of Information
request of Susan
Holtzman, the Central
Records Access officer of
the New York City Board of
Education Office of Legal
Services, and we asked
for Joel Klein's contract. In
her reply, Holtzman told us
that Mr. Klein has no
contract, and neither do
any of the Superin-
tendents, and other NYC
BOE personnel at the
administrative top of the
ladder. She was kind
enough to send us the
contracts of two former
Chancellors, Harold Levy
and, before him, Rudy
Crew. We encourage you
to read the contracts we
are posting below, as well
as Ms. Holtzman's letter, to
see what we, as parents of
children in the NYC BOE
public school system
CANNOT do: protest Mr.
Klein's actions, try to
terminate his contract and
get him removed, hold him
accountable for breaking
the terms of his contract,
etc. " For more
http://parentadvocates.org

Tony Beall, Mayor Pro Tem Rancho Santa Margarita,
saying he believed "a culture of
corruption exists within the ranks of CUSD's leadership,"
urged the DA to "aggressively investigate all evidence of
illegal activities and to vigorously enforce all the laws that
may have been violated.”

Leslie Dutton's videos: www.fulldisclosure.net More
here www.cusdrecall.com

Carla Albers and son

process of putting
together a gubernatorial
debate on educational
issues. Our thought is
that we have to engage
people of all ages, not
just those with kids in the
system, as to the current
problems in public
education." Among the
group's stated missions
is "to "Share information
and perspectives on
critical educational
issues with our elected
officials" and "Create an
informational data base
on educational issues
that can be shared by the
community."

NOV. 8, 2006 UPDATE: All three of the recall group's
endorsed trustee candidates handily won their spots in
yesterday's election.

Last year, while reporter Heather Knight of
the San Francisco Chronicle was content to write
nice things about then-SAN FRANCISCO USD supe
Arlene Ackerman-- while, coincidentally, being treated to
the occasional free lunch by Ackerman at Acker- man's
taxpayers' expense at some of The City's nicest
eateries--Tali Woodward over at the scrappy little SF Bay
Guardian, with editor Steven T. Jones, was poring
through public records requests uncovering evidence of

Florida

Ackerman's "lavish" expense-account
lifestyle. "Symbolism is a big part of
running any institution, and when it's a
public institution, the way things look really
matters," goes an SFBG editorial. "So even
if the $84,000 that top school officials in
San Francisco spent on travel and meals in
2005 is just a small fraction of the district's
budget, it looks terrible for the superin-
tendent of a district that's closing schools

MIAMI-DADE
COUNTY PUBLIC
SCHOOLS is still
grappling with trans-
parency issues, the
fallout of their phony
drivers ed cred- entials
scandal through MDCPS
employee William
McCoggle's Move On
Toward Excellence and
Training (MOTET)
involving as many as
perhaps 1,000 teachers,
many apparently
encouraged by
administrators.

Steven T.
Jones, SFBG
(PHOTO/
Philipp Weitz)

for budget reasons to be eating meals at fancy
restaurants and staying in $350-a-night hotel rooms on
the public dime." The editorial goes on to point out that
where Ackerman spent $45,000 on a single Diners Club
credit card, SF mayor Gavin Newsom's total for official
city-related travel for the entire year was only $2,265.69.

Texas

It was public records searches that led Sacramento
Valley Mirror publisher/ editor Tim Crews to discover
that Glenn County Office of to discover that GLENN
COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION'S newly constructed
Orland school building (above)--half of it designed to
hold school children--had not been cleared by state
architects, in violation of state law.

MDCPS
whistle
blower,
teacher
Bennett
Packman,

(above) addressed the
MDCPS board last
month regarding their
agenda item B.10,
"PROVIDE PERSONNEL
INVESTIGATIVE
REPORTS FROM
2004-2006, FROM THE
OFFICE OF
PROFESSIONAL
STANDARDS, CIVILIAN
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
AND THE OFFICE OF
CIVIL RIGHTS AND
DIVERSITY
COMPLIANCE."

Here's from Packman's
statement to the board:
"It has never been more
important to open up
records than during the
MOTET investigation
because of the length of
time that MOTET was
permitted to exist, the
indictments, the grand
jury report, the regents
report, the 5 colleges
involved, the revocation
of college credits, and
the resignations and the
firings of Miami-Dade
School employees.

In other news,
remember GCOE's
$244,000 in credit card
expenses? Crews states,
"Of the mass of credit card
'backup records' Glenn County

GCOE building

Office of Education officials say they’ve released, some
1,800 pages contain illegally withheld information.
Perhaps someone believed it would never be read or
examined or cross-referenced. The pages were
released to the Valley Mirror after being screened by
GCOE attorneys and show massive redactions or
blacking out of information that should be released; the
Valley Mirror will file a large number of examples with the
court soon, perhaps by the end of the week. The material
released was supposed to contain all backup for
$244,000 of GCOE credit card spending in a 13-month
period. Instead, apparently in an elaborate attempt to
hide information, numbers that were no longer valid and
therefore not exempt from disclosure, were blacked out—
making it impossible to tie most of the expenditures to a
single card user. In other words, accountability for huge
spending, certainly some of it purely frivolous, is lost
without full disclosure." More here

PASADENA USD volunteer
Mary Dee Romney has paid
particular attention for several
years now to vendors and
consultants doing business with
the school district, particularly
those which appear to be flying

Muir HS - PUSD, CA

"Former Chief Communication Officer Joe
Garcia...stated in his February 14, 2005 letter to me that:
The staff of the office of Curriculum and Instruction
advised my office that no record of the original master
schedule could be found. The original master
schedules were not kept because the updated
schedules superseded the originals. This letter will
give the public a chance to decide for themselves
weather or not records were destroyed. That is all that
B-10 wishes to accomplish: transparency. Dr. Crew and
members of the school board, It is time for B-10 to be
implemented. Full transparency will allow the truth to
surface."

well below the public-scrutiny radar.

A regular attendee and speaker at PUSD board
meetings, Romney has most often probed district
records provided to the public with board packets, such
as the MOU ("Memorandum of Understanding") between
PUSD and the Stupski Foundation. "This MOU," reports
Romney, "again, with an unaccountable, non-profit
external partner, creates the new PUSD management
position of 'Director of Accountability and Special
Programs' (Meg Abrahamson), eliminates the position of
Director of Government Funding (formerly held by Mike
Hendricks) and partners district staff with Stupski to be
available through the command of the superintendent,
deputy superintendent and the new 'Director of
Accountability and Special Programs' - for the 'reform
story project.'" This project appears to be a documentary
favorably accounting outgoing PUSD supe Percy
Clarke's tenure. "Of the $100,000 contributed by Stupski,
says Mary Dee, "$65,000 is allocated for 'accountability for
results' and $35,000 is allocated for 'organizational and
environmental capacity.' "

She has also recently been probing the districts'
purchase order lists, published weekly by the Los
Angeles County Office of Education* (budget: $744
million), for information regarding prospective PUSD
vendor Virginia Hoge; Hoge's fraudulent statement
regarding Rene Amy's PUSD site had led to the site's
being shut down earlier this year.

About Romney, Julie Riggott of Pasadena Weekly said in
a recent profile, "Mary Dee Romney has for years been a
consistent and vocal critic of Pasadena Unified School
District affairs, and twice ran for a seat on the Board of
Education.

Her interest in public schools developed 15 years ago
while a volunteer for Reading Friends of San Rafael
School, a literacy project that she helped save from being
scrapped by the school board at the time. Romney was
especially active during the work of the Charter Reform
Task Force on School District Governance, which called
for numerous voter-approved reforms that to this day have
not been fully implemented. "

Iowa

IOWALIVE, a network of
volunteer citizens and
professionals working together
to improve Iowa, is the source of
this chart below. According to
Iowalive spokesperson Dick

Dick Fredericks

Fredericks (above) of Palo, Iowa, "In the early days of
2000 and later, obtaining public information from the
Cedar Rapids Community School District was difficult,
if not impossible, and it certainly was not free. The
superintendent at the time, Dr. Lew Finch, had the
district write 'his' version of a policy for obtaining public
information which was in direct conflict with Iowa's
sunshine laws. Only after we obtained the assistance
of Iowa's Freedom of Information Council's director, who
prepared us to go to both state and federal court, did the
district withdraw the offending local policy and write the
new policy in compliance with state law. The new policy
and a check to us for $5000 was all we needed to prove
our point was correct. When the district then attempted
to charge for the fictitious cost of preparing the records
we had only to threaten to bring a similar suit when this
action was withdrawn. Had we not taken the issue
head-on, the district's illegal policy would still be in
existence today." The group was looking for building
level test scores and the number of special ed students
being tested whose scores were not included in District
averages. "This District action deliberately raised the
districtwide averages and deceived the public into
believing student achievement was higher than it really
was," says Fredericks. For more www.iowalive.net

IOWA MATH & READING SCORES (1940-2000)
CHARTED BY IOWALIVE

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one person, one question, one school at a time.

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QUOTES

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.

POP QUIZ:

How do you
yourself know for a
fact that your state
or local supe is
actually using the
funds entrusted to
them for the
correct purposes?

QUERY
THE SUPE
& THE PR GUY

TO:
KATHY COX-GEORGIA
SUP'T OF SCHOOLS &
CEO-GEORGIA DOE
CC:
DANA TOFIG-
GEORGIA DOE
PUBLIC INFO. OFCR.
DATE: JAN. 22, 2006

Can you please send me
the annual dollar
amount for each school
year (the five annual fiscal
cycles 2000-2005) that the
Georgia Public Schools
DOE has spent with
vendor Computer
Consulting Services
Corp., described as a
consultant to Georgia's
DOE.

STATUS:
No response
rec'd from
Sup't Gray as of
Mar. 27, 2006

The question
is not how to
measure
excellence at
public schools
and education
agencies.

The question
is how to
measure
competence.

-- Dianna Pharr

QUERY
THE SUPE
(& CC THE BOARD)

DATE FIRST SENT:
FEB. 14, 2006

RE-SENT 03/26/06

Dear Strongsville
Superintendent
James Gray:

I'm hoping you can
clear something up for
me for my book and
website regarding your
standards for
administrative
practices in
Strongsville as there
have been not one but
two situations this past
year warranting
scrutiny....

Regarding special ed
teacher Christine
Scarlett's offering a
date with herself as a
grades incentive

1.    What rules/
guidelines do you now
have in place to
assure that nothing
like this happens
again? Would these
be administrative
changes or has your
board set specific
policies in place for
you to follow in future?

2.    Rumors of an affair
between Scarlett and
Bradigan persisted for
several months. You
have stated that you
have no idea such an
affair was going on.
Do you feel the fact
that you are
commuting from your
home in Akron (if this
has changed, please
let me know) has
adversely impacted
your ability to monitor
what's going on with
your employees in the
Strongsville
community in an
important and
sensitive area such as
this? Has your board
since made a
condition of your
employment that you
move to Strongsville
and become an
integral part of their
community?

Regarding the sex
education booklet
placed last fall in
young children's
lockers

4.    What guidelines
did you follow from
your established
board's policies for
such?

5.    There appears to
be a growing number
of parents who want to
be consulted before
such materials are
given to their students.
As one mom put it,
"What's wrong with so
many people in the
educational fields that
they don't even think
twice about providing
children with
inappropriate
materials and not even
consider the parents
wishes....Their tactics
mirror those used in
Communist China and
Cuba where children
are considered not
children of parents, but
wards of the State."
While this is clearly the
statement of an upset
parent, it does raise an
interesting issue
regarding public
school administrators
in the U.S. Do you
consider the students
in your schools yours
to educate as you
deem best or the
offspring of parents to
be consulted before
disseminating such
materials?

Regarding trainings
and conferences

6.    Of which
education-related
associations are you
and Strongsville City
Schools a member?
What are these
organizations'
guidelines for
disseminating such
materials?

7.    In which
education-related
conferences have
your and your staff
participated this past
year? Where were
they and what were
the costs for each?
Have you attended any
other seminars,
workshops or the like
offering guidance in
this area, and what
were those costs?

It may well be that
there are perfectly
reasonable
explanations for your
approving the placing
sex-education
pamphlets in young
students' lockers
without notifying
parents first, and it may
also well be that there
is a perfectly
reasonable
explanation for your
allowing a teacher to
offer a date at the Dairy
Queen with herself to a
young student; if so, I
am eager to learn such
reason or reasons.
==================
She said the booklet,
which also provides
information on the need for
parental consent for
abortion and a Web
address for the
Lesbian/Gay Community
Service Center of Greater
Cleveland, is
inappropriate for
11-year-olds. I believe
some sex education needs
to be given, but when
subjects are discussed or
material is given to kids of
this nature, a notice
should be sent home to
the parent and they should
be allowed to opt out of
the program if they wish,
Fleming said. School
Superintendent James
Gray said he gave an OK
for the pocket-sized
directories, which were
provided to the district by
United Way Services in
conjunction with the
county health department
and county commissioners,
to be given to students at
the high school, middle
schools and to sixth
graders. Gray said he
received two calls from
parents who took
exception to the booklet's
content. I understand that
and probably, in
retrospect, I should have
considered sending a
letter along with it as far
as an explanation, he
said, adding, this is a
developing situation. I
don't know what we are
going to do at this point.
Colleen Grady, a city
resident and a member of
the state school board,
said she got calls from four
parents concerned about
their children getting the
directory. Grady, who is
also a former city school
board member, said she
has not personally seen
the publication, but they
(parents) read me sections
over the telephone. She
said the state board of
education may wish to
make a legislative
recommendation to the
Ohio general assembly,
and the board could also
consider discussion about
adoption of a model policy
for the distribution of such
materials. Gray said there
will be continued
discussion, in the district's
curriculum and pupil
services departments on
whether to curtail
distribution of materials
which are considered to
be sensitive, particularly
for the younger kids.

CONTACT:
Peyton Wolcott
P.O. Box 9068
Horseshoe Bay, TX 78657
peyton@peytonwolcott.com

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