Scheming Institutionalized

April 2, 2013

It now seems that more than one school district in the area was involved in manipulating student grade levels to avoid state and federal sanctions.  Other local districts are conducting investigations to see if they too were involved.

At the high school level the technique seems to have been to reduce the number of children from the 10th grade whose English language skills were deemed to have been substandard.  Evidently some students were placed in the 9th grade for a while and then promoted to the 11th grade.  According to news reports some were sent away (taken out of school).

It appears that the testing occurred in the 10th grade.  I guess that we don’t have enough money to check to see that all of our grade levels are performing to standard.

Without for a minute trying to defend the people who manipulated the system, some questions come to mind:

How should a school be evaluated when a foreign language student enrolls in the school without having attended the first through the 9th grades in the school district?  Has the student had time to learn English?

Are there special tests for students arriving from foreign countries?

Should grade level placement of the student be decided by the administrators based upon the individual student’s capabilities?

At what point does self preservation (keeping your job by doing what your boss asks you to do even when you disagree) kick in?

On the other hand, the situation shows us how government employees (not just educators) get together to learn strategies from each other that help to subvert the intent of the rules.  The El Paso Independent School District not releasing the draft report of the cheating audit was probably the result of an administrator or lawyer learning from some other agency how to avoid releasing the document by calling it a “draft”.

I have to wonder how many other schools around the country have been involved in similar efforts to “bend the rules”.

Too often I get the feeling that it is government employees versus the “crazies”.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Missing the point

April 1, 2013

The Times headline article on the 26th left me with more questions than answers.  Pension fund chief praised, defended.

If you clicked on the article you probably noticed that the on-line version has a different headline than the print version one that I used above.  Call me old fashioned but there is something disingenuous about doing that.  It can lead to all sorts of problems.  Given how short-handed the editorial staff is over there I would have thought they would only want to edit one version of a story.  I say that with the hope that a competent editor works on each story.

It appears that the city’s chief financial officer has fallen in step with the city manager.  Earlier articles in the Times left me with the impression that the city manager and the chief financial officer were not talking.

The city has five board members.  The three that dissented were city appointees.  What happened to the other two?  Were they not at this important meeting?  Did they vote with the majority?

The Times used a lot of ink printing about “questionable actions and spending habits”.  They did not talk about the board and it’s oversight responsibilities.  Two of the city board members did not know about the director’s prior legal issues.  Why not?

The director has been accused of wrong-doing in the past.  That does not make him guilty.  Any board member with an ounce of responsibility would have been watching him like a hawk, however.

How can the fund have a shortfall of $270 million four years after receiving a $210 million bailout?

Are the payouts too liberal?  Is the investment plan defective? What are the numbers? Is the fund really losing about $70 million dollars a year?

Where is the board?  What are they doing? What are the plans to fix this?

Was this article about running off the director when it should have been about the lack of board control?

Muckraker

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

The week of March 31, 2013

April 1, 2013

I got some feedback from some of you that it is hard to read this blog every day and as a result some of you miss some articles.

They are shown with the most recent post at the top and the ones immediately prior to it listed below it.

Here is a list of the posts from last week:

Brutus started the week this Monday with Rubbing shoulders.  He pointed out that the city has seen to it that the departments at our new expensive city hall are mostly internal ones.  The public has been relegated to multiple buildings spread across town.

Tuesday saw Brutus writing about the city hiding debt so that they do not have to publicly raise the tax rate based on expenditures in Rushing into debt.

Cut and paste writing took the Times to task for reprinting the same things over and over and over.  Strike two focused on the serious flaw in the ballot language for Proposition One.  These were published Wednesday.

Thursday saw Part of a story from me.  This blog got an interesting tip about the Times.  Brutus took the state senate to task in Goose or gander?

I published Slight of hand? this Friday.  It looks like the city is creating a diversion.  Why?  Brutus posted In the land of the blind man the oye-eyed jack is king.  The board of our county hospital seems to be doing the same thing that many of our other managing boards are doing — following instead of leading their executive and insulating themselves from the public.

Saturday saw Catch me if you can from Brutus.  He senses a secret deal with the railroad.

On Sunday Cato posted Release the audit.  The El Paso Independent School District is hiding the $800,000 audit from us while at the same time it is firing officials that have significant public support.

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

Catch me if you can

March 30, 2013

No big deal

Be aware that city council meetings are now being held in the main library auditorium at 501 North Oregon on the first floor.  They still will start at 8:30 in the morning.

The city evidently does not feel the need to have one of their many press conferences or ask for media coverage.  You might attend if y0u knew where the meeting is.

Big deal

Here it comes.  Item 4A on the April 2, 2013 city council agenda  introduces an ordinance “authorizing the City Manager to sign a Memorandum of Agreement and any other necessary documents between the City of El Paso and Union Pacific Railroad Company which will allow the City to convey approximately 2 acres of land … “.

Land for the railroad.  The backup material that is normally posted with items like this is not available.

What are they doing?  Why are they doing it in secret?

This cannot be good.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Slight of hand?

March 29, 2013

More than one person has suggested that I look into the possibility that the controversy over the pension board director may be a diversion away from what some members of city council and city staff are up to.

Then this comment was posted to Part of a story:

“In the city e-mails that attorney Stephanie Townsend-Allala obtained and thar are in Chucoleaks.org, there is an August 14, 2012 message exchange here Joyce Wilson tells Rep. Cortney Niland that the pension fund director is a “boozer and a partier” and that she should request info on operating and travl expenditures. But she tells her to wait before requesting tecords. Why? This would appear to atrongly indicate that Wilson knew what was going on with the oension fund and in dereliction of duty, chose to keep it hush until it suited her fancy. Niland was also complicit and now appears hypocritical in asking for investigations and talking about fiduciary responsibilities. There are other emails from city reos also talking about shortfalls. They all have some serious questions to answer, but Joyce Wilson and her employees especially.”

It is hard to find things on http://www.chucoleaks.org since it is so slow and there does not appear to be a search feature, but giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt about the August 14, 2014 messages, many questions come up.

Why would the city manager ask a city representative to wait before requesting information that would show something was wrong?

Why would pension board members that work for the city manager  give the director a “Superior” rating (if they did) when the city manager was ready to launch an attack?  Don’t these people talk?

Does the city need a scandal to hide what they are doing?

Is the land deal with the railroad part of this?

Muckraker

4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

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