Friday, July 27, 2012

Ohio Auditor examining Ed. Dept. complicity in data cheating

This from The Columbus Dispatch:
Saying that student attendance-data fraud in Ohio appears to be systemic, the state auditor will grow his Columbus schools investigation into a statewide one that questions whether the Ohio Department of Education was complicit.

Every school district, charter school and the department will be scrutinized by state auditors, said Carrie Bartunek, spokeswoman for State Auditor Dave Yost.

“In short, it appears that attendance report rigging is not a localized problem with Columbus Public Schools, but that it may be more systemic — and that raises the question of what role ODE played during the time that false reports were made by multiple schools,” Yost said in letter to Debe Terhar, president of the State Board of Education.

Yost asks Terhar to direct department staff to preserve any records that might be related to the matter and to help auditors access the department’s data systems.

The need to expand the probe became clear, Yost’s letter says, when what began as allegations of cheating in Columbus were repeated in Toledo and then verified in Lockland schools near Cincinnati.

State auditors and special investigators recently began a probe in Columbus schools after The Dispatch reported allegations of widespread data tampering by district and school officials.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Probably no different in KY. We seem to have decided that if we put it all on some vendor facilitated computer program that downloads everybodies attendance to Frankfort that folks are somehow being accountable. Doesn't take a genius to realize after a few gaffs to realize that no body is watching the shop up at the capital.

Take a visit to any number of school districts during the spring and see how "banked" time is interpreted when it comes to getting your make up instructional days in from the winter weather cancellations - you'll find some DPPs and superitendents more worried about teachers/parents complaining about spending time teaching in June than concerned that counting lunch and recess as instructional time is fraud. Maybe I am wrong and they are just too busy buying votes and don't know the difference.

Anonymous said...

Just read where Ohio's state education supt. just stepped down. Seems that he was lobbying legislators to buy into ETS products while on the ETS payroll as well as probably using state resources to doe ETS related work. Now he is stepping down according to him not to be a distraction to all the educational advancement he has started in the state.

Sunday paper ran a story about our own state person in charge of "KEES" funds spending $55,000+ on travel expenses the last two years and then abruptly resigning. No doubt there are probably other rocks that could be looked under here too.

Just seems no matter what type of leadership role some folks get themselves into, they can't help but abuse that power. What is wrong with people - especially those who are suppose to be taking care of kids?