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

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

Release the audit

March 31, 2013

The El Paso Independent School District is in the process of either firing or not renewing the contracts for several employees.  Careers are at stake.

While the district is being quiet about the who’s and why’s, we are being led to believe that these personnel actions are related to the district accountability scandal.

The district paid $800,000 dollars for an external audit of the issue.  The report is categorized by the board as a “draft”.  The open records rules in Texas allow governments to avoid releasing “drafts” of documents.

Is the information in the audit accurate?  Are the findings going to change?  Should the board take action based on a preliminary report?

My suspicion is that the report is only a “draft” as a matter of convenience to the district.  To me this is the same kind of “bending of the rules” that the employees are accused of.

The public and the people involved deserve to know what is in the report.  Citizens are upset about what some are calling a “witch hunt”, yet they do not know what has been found.

Can we get down to the facts on this issue?

It is nice to be able to agree with the Times on this subject.  Read their editorial here.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

Leave a Comment » | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Stop the presses!

March 22, 2013

Headline article!

Lawyer Attempts To Contact Congressman, Thinks Client Is Being Abused by Government

To think!  Right here in El Paso!  Thinking about asking your representative for help — of all the things!

Where is law enforcement when you need them?

A current county commissioner says he does not recall any contact.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I would rather the Times write about the school district and it’s lawyer without implicating an ex-congressman and a current county commissioner over something that evidently did not happen and even if it did happen would in itself have been appropriate.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Selective reporting

March 6, 2013

A recent El Paso Times article talks about an area school district conducting a recent audit.  The audit evidently claims that the district broke state law when it overspent it’s budget.  The Times wrote:

“Tornillo administrators say that the additional $200,000 related to the buyout package were incurred from legal fees related to Vranish’s contract, the audit states.”

Legal fees of $200,000 to buyout a superintendent’s contract?  For what?

The Times article missed the opportunity to expose this issue.

Why is it that the Times reports events about the El Paso Independent School District and the local corruption cases with regularity and boring repetition but does not look beneath the surface on other issues?

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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