To
avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
- Albert
Einstein
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about
things that matter.
- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
If you aren’t completely appalled, you haven’t
been paying attention.
My vision for
Eanes can't be seen on a Jumbotron ...
- Eanes ISD
parent
No man stands so tall as when he
stoops to help a child.
- Abraham Lincoln
Judge each day
not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
- Robert
Louis Stevenson
All children deserve an
equal playing field.
-
Ed Allen, Westlake Picayune April 2008
Nothing
is more destructive of respect for the government and the
law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
-
Albert Einstein
Links of Interests
A LICENSE TO CONTINUE
"For years, contractors and
public officials were being
brought together by a select
few," Caballerosaid.
"That is not the way to conduct
business, but because it
appeared no one was looking,
some took that as a license to
continue."
Why do public school districts
battle against citizens who request
public information?
July 8,
2008 - The
Dallas Morning News The verdict is in for DISD's
seafaring former technology boss and
the boat-owning computer vendor
whose company won millions of
dollars in district contracts –
and it's guilty on all counts.
The
official
line
from
the
Lancaster
Independent
School
District
is
as
peppy
and
upbeat
as a
feel-good
Broadway
musical:
Everything's
great!
It's
all
good!
We're
on a
rocket-called-Achievement
to a
planet-named-Excellence,
and
nothin's
gonna
stand
in
our
way,
'cause
(big
finale)
it's
all
for
the
children!
Well,
golly,
how
do
you
not
like
that
message?
If
you're
not
tapping
your
feet and
singing
along by
now, you
must be
spiteful
or
cynical
or just
plain
nuts.
You must
be
against
excellence!
But for
a long
time
now, Dr.
Lewis
has
practiced
intransigence
and
obfuscation
as
all-consuming
expressions
of
performance
art.
When the
answer
to every
question
is an
implicit
"none of
your
business,"
there's
a
problem.
July 10, 2008 The future of the
office tasked with rooting out
problems at the Texas Education
Agency is in question after two of
the three remaining employees said
they were fired.
"Every time an issue
of fraud presented
itself, we were not
authorized to look into
it," James Catazaro
said.
For example,
he said, top
agency
officials
kept him and
his
colleagues
from
investigating
allegations
of possible
kickbacks to
a
superintendent.
So what
went
wrong
with the
whole
education
fix?
We
suggest
there’s
a third
reason
why
open-government
laws get
broken:
willful
violation
of them
by
government
officials
acting
in the
interest
of their
own
obscure
agendas
and in
contempt
of the
public
interest
and the
public’s
right to
know.
We
further
suggest
that
these
continue
to occur
because
enforcement
of the
law
ranges
from
none to
weak.
Texas Comptroller Susan
Combs, Texas Comptroller
of Public Accounts
writes:
Transparency, a
key government
responsibility
You pay for
your government, and
you deserve to know
how it spends your
money.
That
philosophy is
gaining traction.
State and federal
governments are
making transparency
a priority, opting
to make many records
freely accessible,
rather than keeping
the public waiting
for information
requests.
From the
beginning of my
tenure at the
Comptroller’s
office, we
prioritized
transparency
efforts. On day
three, we published
this agency’s
expenditures online
— down to the
pencils — and posted
other agencies’
expenditure data in
short order.
Building upon
those efforts, our
office created
“Where the Money
Goes,” an online
database for viewing
state agency
spending.
Expenditures in the
database are
searchable by vendor
name, expenditure
category or agency
name. With that kind
of easy access to
the information and
numbers that make
public institutions
tick, taxpayers can
learn about their
government, question
decisions, root out
inefficiencies and
hold officials
accountable for the
way tax dollars are
spent.
By
demystifying state
spending and
providing easy
access to those
numbers, we ensure
greater
accountability to
the public. As the
window on Texas
state government,
our office cannot
have the blinds
pulled down.
Full article here
Lancaster
ISD -
"Oh I
can
explain
that!"
There is
a method
to
financial
chaos --
it's
harder
to find
the
graft
and
corruption
when the
paper
trail is
so
screwed
up.
So at
some
point
investigators
and
auditors
throw up
their
hands
and
focus on
poor
accounting
systems
that, of
course,
never
get
fixed.
In the
meantime,
money
just
vanishes,
and this
is
called
waste
because
criminality
is so
hard to
prove.
A
jury awarded $540,000 to three former Texas Southern
University student activists Thursday and let the school
know that retaliation against whistle-blowers won't be
tolerated.
“It does say something as
to why they are doing this,” Garner said. “It does kind of
make you wonder what it is that they are trying to hide.”
Full article here
May 2008 - School Watch
brought this scandal to
the attention of the
Superintendent of Public
Schools, as well as the
Attorney General,
Inspector General and
State Auditor asking for
a full investigation so
that individuals can be
held accountable. School
Watch accused Zelman of
failing to provide the
necessary oversight to
these special education
moneys. “This money was
designated to provide
programs to the most
needy of special
education children.
Instead, corrupt
individuals have
channeled it to corrupt
lawyers.
It is an outrage that
money intended to
provide service was
diverted to lawyers who
opposed service for
these children. It is
an outrageous injustice,
doubled,” stated George
Deabold, founder of
School Watch.
Gaps in oversight of the extra pay have led to improper payments, such as a high school band director receiving, over three years, nearly $40,000 in extra pay to which he was not entitled. In 2006, a football coach received nearly $9,000 more than he was due.
The mistakes and large amount of supplemental pay are the result of a "high volume of transactions, limited oversight, limited staff to properly monitor and audit such payments, and a culture of entitlement that demands anything outside of the normal job duties or schedules deserves extra compensation," according to the report.
"Really, nobody had a grasp on how many millions we're talking about," said Carlos Tapia, the district's executive director of compensation. "I knew that if we dug into it, we'd be surprised by what we'd find."
Video cameras, digital cameras and laptop computers kept turning up missing at Mesquite High School's athletic department. And then days or weeks later, the items would mysteriously return.
Eventually, police investigated and found evidence showing that Steve Halpin, the school's athletic coordinator and varsity football coach, was pawning the items and later buying them back.
But rather than press charges against the state championship-winning football coach or report the problem to the Texas Education Agency as is required, Mesquite school officials chose to let Mr. Halpin, 52, quietly retire this week.
"There is a reason for not reporting it," Mr. Phillips said. "We call it passing the trash. The person goes away in the night and signs with another district." Read more ...
The Dallas
Morning News -
The Texas
Education Agency is forwarding
allegations of records tampering
by a former Southlake elementary
school principal to the Tarrant
County district attorney's
office. The agency
is asking local officials to
determine whether criminal
charges should be pursued.
TEA's general counsel David Anderson sent a letter to Tarrant County District Attorney Tim Curry on April 21, referring the "allegations of tampering with documents at a local elementary school" to Mr. Curry's office for review and investigation. The letter was released Monday.
The letter said that if the allegations are proved, they could constitute tampering with a governmental record, which is a felony. The letter also mentions possible violation of Texas Government Code for destruction, removal or alteration of public information, which is a misdemeanor.
"We would appreciate knowing whether any criminal charges result from these allegations as a certified educator is involved," Mr. Anderson wrote.
The
Daily News recently sent a
letter to the La Marque
Independent School District
saying the newspaper would sue
the district unless it complied
with the Texas Public
Information Act. Shortly
after the newspaper’s attorney
sent the letter, the school
district released information on
the candidates for the job of
head football coach and athletic
director at its high school.
As we’ve said before, we think
the people in the school
district have a right to see
that information before the
school district makes a
decision. If people want to talk
to their representative on the
school board about filling such
an important post, they should
have the right to information
that would permit an intelligent
conversation.
A year
later, what we’d like to see is
something that people in the
business of education should be
familiar with: a learning curve.
The former treasurer of the
Westwood High School girls
volleyball booster club was
arrested over the weekend and
charged with stealing about
$17,000 from the club.
Kathy Staton, 43, of Austin, was
booked into the Williamson
County Jail Saturday and later
released on $7,500 bond,
officials said. Staton told the
American-Statesman in February
that she took the money last
year for her own use but would
not say why.
Booster club officials said they
did not contact police at the
time; instead, they allowed her
to pay the money back. Club
officials said Staton repaid the
money by early January. District
Attorney John Bradley said he
asked the Williamson County
sheriff’s office to investigate
after reading about the incident
in the newspaper last month.
Staton is charged with theft of
property, a state jail felony
punishable by up to two years in
jail and a fine of up to
$10,000, Bradley said. She is
scheduled to make her first
court appearance March 24.
July 18,
2008
update:
Let’s
hear it
for John
Q.
Public
and the
power of
open
records.
Link
here
Armed with a conviction that something was amiss with spending in the Cleburne school district and knowledge of how to access public information using open records requests, Harold Gentry and Alden Nellis spent 18 months collecting the reams of district documents that they needed to prove themselves right.
After a 16-month investigation by state auditors that was triggered by Gentry’s complaint to the Texas Education Agency, Cleburne school officials got the bad news that Gentry and Nellis knew should be coming: The district likely will have to repay about $362,000 in federal funds that TEA auditors say were misspent or not properly justified.
Threat comes after release
of TEA financial report
May 2, 2008 -
“You
are ‘dead meat.’ We know who
and where you and your
family work! Life as you
know it is over! Move or be
blasted.” These
words greeted Cleburne
resident Harold Gentry when
he opened a letter he
received in the mail Friday
afternoon.
The letter apparently came
from an anonymous individual
upset about Gentry’s work
with local watchdog group
Access Cleburne and the
Texas Education Agency’s
investigation of Cleburne
ISD’s financial practices,
which stemmed from a
complaint written to the
agency, Gentry said.
Trial of former TSU president begins with jury selection
Jury selection began Monday in the trial of former Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade, who is accused of misspending more than half a million dollars of school money to lavishly decorate her homes.
Slade, 55, could get life in prison if she's convicted. She was indicted last year on two counts of misapplication of fiduciary property with a value of more than $200,000. Prosecutors say they plan to try her on just one of the counts.
In a job interview, I was
asked, "What is your greatest strength?" I immediately answered, "My
honesty." The next question was, "What is your greatest weakness?" Without
missing a beat, I answered, "I fail to suffer fools gladly." But it's true!
Fools absolutely bring out the worst in me, and I am ever alert for their
presence.
One website where examples of
wasteful spending are identified is the
Educators Witness
Protection Program. This website includes testimonials from individuals
who were harassed when they dared challenge their school district’s spending.
Press Release: End the Vicious Cycle of Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying December 6, 2006 “The effect of government lobbying, though difficult to
quantify, is likely hundreds of millions of dollars in higher spending and
higher taxes that were not requested or wanted by voters,” Venable testified. “A
portion of that spending is fed back into even more lobbying for even higher
taxes and spending – a big-government perpetual motion machine.”
Read Full Text
Budget information is not
readily available in most school districts. Even if it is on the website, it is
difficult to interpret and not broken down in a manner parents and citizens can
easily understand.
So two women in Eanes ISD -- after filling over 500 Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information, have provided a website for
citizens in that district: www.keepeanesinformed.com
click here to read visit site and read full article
The first in a series of research reports on Texas
school finance, this study provides an unprecedented
look at how public education dollars fit into the
overall financial structure of each of the 50 ...(
read more )
Where do education dollars comes from? The answer is
provided in a survey of the 50 states that digs into
state revenues and expenditures for education dollars.
Although providing key insights about s...(
read more )
"We act as though comfort and
luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to
make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
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Trial of former TSU president begins with jury selection 
