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School superintendent data to become much more transparent

April 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment

BIPPS.org - Government Transparency
In the aftermath of several shocking audits that found school superintendents in some systems such as the Dayton Independent School District improperly received significant and unauthorized extra payments well above any agreed to contract figures, the Kentucky Department of Education has announced it is creating an on line repository for every school superintendent’s contract, salary and benefits packages and evaluations.

This is exactly the sort of transparency improvement that the Bluegrass Institute has recommended for many years.

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Widespread test cheating in Atlanta leads to teacher indictments

April 1, 2013 By 3 Comments

The test cheating scandals involving teachers and other school staff in the Atlanta school system have now progressed to the point where three-dozen school staffers have been indicted.

Kentucky had its own test cheating scandal on the state-run ACT testing program in Perry County several years ago. Several staff members received suspensions on their teaching credentials for failure to maintain adequate security over test booklets, but the actual person or persons who altered those test sheets were never identified.

It really isn’t known if the state’s new forensic test control procedures have the teeth to keep the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress tests honest. Hopefully, no cheating is occurring and there is nothing to detect.

However, the extensive cheating incidents in Atlanta – and our own Perry County – show that placing blind faith in educator honesty can create a disservice to our children.

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Taking a better look at new graduation rates in Jefferson County Public Schools

March 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Due to the troubling rate of improvement in a large number of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLAs) found in Jefferson County’s public schools, the entire school district has been under a microscope for some time.

Concerns really started to ratchet up after the Kentucky Board of Education was told on February 6, 2013 that the worst progress in PLAs improvement was found in Jefferson County.

Things exploded several days later on February 10, 2013 when Education Commissioner Terry Holliday used the term “Academic Genocide” to discuss what was going on in Kentucky’s largest school system.

Following those shocks, it’s understandable that Jefferson County District staffers are eager to grab at anything that shows hope for their schools. Unfortunately, desperately gabbing at straws can create more problems than solutions.

Thus, when the school district issued a press release earlier this week claiming the high school graduation rate rose by 1.6 points (as mentioned in this WAVE-3 TV video) between 2011 and 2012, I got curious.

It turns out that while Jefferson County’s high school “Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate” (AFGR) did increase for all students from 67.8 percent to 69.4 percent between 2011 and 2012, the rate in 2011 had previously declined from the 69.3 percent figure posted in 2010.

Overall, in the past two years, Jefferson County has hardly made any progress in its overall high school graduation rate, just a scant 0.1 point improvement – hardly anything to cheer about.

In the interest of giving you a more complete picture, this table shows the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE) latest information about Jefferson County’s high school graduation rates for the Class of 2009 through the Class of 2012.

There is a cautionary tale in this data. While the 2012 rates are mostly higher than those back in 2009 (exception – Hispanics), there actually were declines in graduation rates in Jefferson County between 2010 and 2012 for males, Asians and Hispanics. Whites made no improvement what so ever between 2010 and 2012, as well. That implies Jefferson County mostly hit a progress plateau after 2010.

African-Americans overall did make a 1.1 point improvement between 2010 and 2012, but the very low rate in 2012 needs to be considered in light of the data for males and females. Unfortunately, we don’t get disaggregated data by sex by race from the KDE, but with the huge gap in male-female graduation rates overall, it is very likely that the black male AFGR in 2012 in Jefferson County was less than 60 percent, a threshold number that a research team at the Johns Hopkins University uses to identify “Dropout Factory” performance. It is also possible that black males did not share the progress of black females.

The bottom line is that Jefferson County continues to have major problems. The school district will do better if it spends less time trying to gloss over that fact and more time on some of the good ideas that Superintendent Donna Hargens is trying to implement despite dubious help from her local teachers’ union.

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A look back on Dayton Independent records requests

March 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Recent findings in an audit of Dayton Independent Schools led State Auditor Adam Edelen and Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday to call for more transparency in the contracts and evaluations of Kentucky school superintendents.

BIPPS.org - Government Transparency

In 2011, The Bluegrass Institute sent a records requests to Dayton Independent Schools to obtain the criteria for which the superintendent was evaluated by and a copy of the actual evaluations. The criteria was sent but the district claimed that there was no documentation of the evaluation because they were conducted orally.

You can view the records request history of the district here.

I think Commissioner Holliday and Auditor Edelen are on the right track be requiring districts to submit contracts and copies of evaluations to be posted on the Kentucky Department of Education website. Transparency can lead to accountability.

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Auditor, Education Commissioner call for school superintendent data to be more transparent to taxpayers

March 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 


The Bluegrass Institute has pointed to serious problems with the transparency of information about public school superintendents for several years now with our Rewarding Failure expose.

Our efforts are now being vindicated.

In a press conference today, Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts Adam Edelen and Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday called for greatly increased public access to information about local school superintendents. The auditor and commissioner want every superintendent’s employment contract, total benefits package and annual evaluations to be readily available in a one-stop source at the Kentucky Department of Education’s web site.

Holliday and Edelen also called for better training of local school board members regarding their duties to effectively oversee operations of their superintendent and schools. In the news release for the press conference, Holliday said:

“We’re seeing far too many cases where adults are making choices that are right for them rather than what’s really right for students and their future.”

The immediate impetus for these new public transparency improvements is a recent series of what the auditor has sometimes called “scandalous” audits. These audits found superintendents in several school districts were taking the taxpayer for a ride.

In the worst case uncovered so far, which involves the Dayton Independent School District’s former superintendent, Edelen’s findings are so bad that the case has been referred to the FBI. Edelen actually used the term “fraud” during his absolutely shocking Dayton Schools audit press conference.

As veterans of many open records requests for superintendent evaluations, the Bluegrass Institute is only too familiar with the difficulty the public has encountered in trying to obtain this critical information. We are also well aware of the vacuous and unrevealing reporting that has far too often been the hallmark of those annual superintendent evaluations.

Holliday also said:

“I have always been an advocate for openness and transparency. I welcome the auditor’s recommendations and hope this will result in a greater level of fiscal oversight and responsibility in our school districts. It is the duty of us all to be accountable and good stewards of the taxpayer’s money.”

As Edelen said at the Dayton audit press conference:

“The kids don’t exist to support the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy exists to support them.”

To all of this, we can only say, “Amen!”

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News Release: Bluegrass Institute’s campaign for education accountability gains support of state leaders

March 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

(Frankfort, Ky.) – The Bluegrass Institute supports efforts announced this week by the Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday and State Auditor Adam Edelen to bring transparency to the school superintendent evaluation and compensation process.

In a joint news conference on Thursday, Holliday and Edelen announced their intention to require school superintendent contracts, evaluations and benefits be made available online. This is a step toward a more open and efficient school system.

“Education accountability has long been a goal of the Bluegrass Institute,” said Logan Morford, the institute’s vice president of transparency. “The efforts of the commissioner and auditor to bring transparency and accountability to the education system are applauded and we hope that they will continue to push forward so that Kentucky’s children can receive the opportunity they deserve.”

In 2011, the institute conducted an investigation using the Kentucky Open Records laws to obtain the performance evaluations of superintendents in under-performing school districts from across the state.

The results, published in a report titled “Rewarding Failure,” were shocking. It revealed how superintendents were rubber-stamped through the evaluation process while not being held accountable for the poor academic performance of students.

“Rewarding Failure called attention to the fact that:

  • superintendents received raises despite poor performance
  • there is an alarming lack of detail in the evaluations
  • at the time there was a complete lack of checks and balances on the evaluation by the Department of Education and Commissioner of Education
  • the evaluations were conducted by local school board members who generally do not have extensive experience with education management.

For more information, contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com or (270) 782-2140

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Auditor: Former Dayton Independent superintendent got almost $250,000 in unauthorized payments

March 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Case being referred to FBI

New superintendent asked for audit

In the latest of an on-going stream of highly revealing audits of improper activities in local school systems around Kentucky, Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts Adam H. Edelen just released a new shocker on highly questionable payments to the recently retired superintendent in the Dayton Independent School District.

According to the Kentucky Enquirer’s coverage, which names Gary Rye as the former superintendent, the auditor says the former superintendent got nearly a quarter of a million dollars in unauthorized benefits.

Providing evidence of the seriousness of the findings, the Enquirer says:

“The findings have been turned over by Edelen to the FBI, Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System and the Kentucky Department of Revenue.”

Go to the Enquirer’s article to see a really dramatic clip from the auditor’s press conference.

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Breathitt County School District headed for state takeover?

November 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The goings-on in Breathitt County’s school system sound like something out of a horribly unbelievable soap opera. Except, this story is no fabrication.

Former superintendent Arch Turner was recently sentenced to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine for vote buying in a serious case that eventually involved the FBI.

Charges were also filed in a separate action in 2011 against the superintendent and others for failing to report a sexual misconduct incident between a teacher and a student in the system.

In yet another separate action, a recent audit of the district’s finances raised a host of issues regarding fiscal impropriety. Among other things, the district cut 10 days from the school year and improperly paid staff for those days. Following an audit by the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts, the state withdrew its share of funding, $191,000, for those 10 days. The superintendent improperly paid teachers over a half a million dollars for those days when school was not held.

Problems with leadership in this district stretch back farther, to at least 2010. That’s when the Courier-Journal reported in “Indicted Breathitt school official removed by state” (subscription) that a member of the Breathitt County Board of Education was removed from his position by the Kentucky Board of Education for charges including forgery, unauthorized use of a state motor vehicle, and official misconduct.

Like I said, it’s like a soap opera.

Now – finally – it looks like the chickens are coming home to roost. In its December meeting, the Kentucky Board of Education is scheduled to vote to take over this seriously struggling school district.

A management audit (to access, click here, then scroll to item XXIX and then click on the link “Breathitt County Report Final”) recently completed by the Kentucky Department of Education certainly paints a very sad picture of a school system without leadership.

If the state takes over Breathitt County, it will be the first state takeover since the mid-1990s. To be honest, the results for students back then when the state took charge of Floyd County were nothing to write home about, so it will be interesting to see if the Kentucky’s educators learned from that experience.

Still, given the outright corruption that has infected this school system’s leadership, almost any change has to be an improvement for the students.

It’s too bad we don’t allow charter school districts in Kentucky. That might be a superb option to turn around this education mess.

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Perry County Schools superintendent quits rather than face dismissal

September 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Taking the easy way out for all, the superintendent of Perry County Schools has submitted his retirement to the local board of education rather than face likely firing at a special meeting of the board.

John Paul Amis headed the district when the ACT cheating scandal started to unfold several years ago.

At one point after the scandal broke Amis told the public that none of his staff were under investigation and the issue was closed.

In fact, the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board had active investigations in progress. Eventually, several staff members received certificate actions for failure to control test materials, marking the first time that forensic testing evidence had been used in Kentucky as a basis for such action.

So far, the actual person or persons responsible for altering student test sheets have not been identified.

Amis had troubles with more than ACT cheating.

Perry County Central High School landed on the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools list, providing a sad testimony to the low level of academic performance in the school district.

The district’s ACT Composite Score in 2012 of 17.3 for statewide 11th grade testing ranked very low, 154th place out of 169 Kentucky school districts that received scores.

That same ACT test cycle showed only 21 percent of the district’s students scored well enough to avoid remedial courses in math and only 34 percent read well enough for college according to benchmarks established for Kentucky’s public postsecondary education system.

Apparently, local school district personnel had enough. The word was out that Amis faced firing if he did not resign or retire voluntarily. Amis took the financially smart way out.

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Jefferson County Schools central office cleanup saves millions

July 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Courier-Journal reports an extensive clean-up of the bloated central office at the Jefferson County Public School District is likely to save $4 million, apparently each year. That, according to district superintendent Danna Hargens, is money she can now plow back into education in the schools.

It’s about time. Things are so bad even the very militant, protect-every-job-you-can teachers’ union in Louisville agrees with the cuts.

Of course, concerns about bloat in Louisville’s school management organization, including not only excessive staff but serious salary inflation for that staff, have circulated for some time. This was old news back when now-departed former superintendent Dr. Sheldon Berman was still at the helm.

But, it took Berman’s ouster and replacement with Hargens to make things start happening. A management audit of the district supported by Hargens and completed last fall only confirmed the obvious – too many people, too much being paid. However, the audit gave Hargens the ammunition and political cover she needed.

Now, Hargens has reduced her highly paid administrative cabinet from 16 people to just six. Across the entire central office, Hargens either outright eliminated or froze job action on 89 positions. She did create 21 new positions, but a lot of people still are apparently leaving. And, the Courier points out, the departing administrators all had annual salaries of more than $100,000 each. When the dust settles, even after filling 21 new positions, the Courier claims savings will be in the multi-millions of dollars. That’s still ‘small potatoes’ savings when you consider that the district’s total financial receipts in 2010-11 from all sources – local, state and federal – totalled $1.1 billion, but it is a start.

It’s clearly way too early to determine if this shake-up at the district office will have much impact on the classrooms in Louisville and such things as the significant achievement gaps we recently pointed to in many schools there.

However, at the very least it looks like the taxpayer just might have a good chance to get a bit more bang for the incredible amount of bucks the Louisville system spends each year.

So, you have to give superintendent Hargens credit for taking on the status quo in her own central office. I wish we were seeing more of this in Frankfort.

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