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| Hat tip to Scotty by way of Rita |
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Fayette Transportation Employees Accuse Department of Fraud
UPDATED:
Confidential sources inside the Fayette County Schools Transportation Department have told KSN&C that they sent a letter to Superintendent Tom Shelton and all Fayette County Board of Education members alleging fraud on the part of department leadership. KSN&C has obtained a copy of the letter. These employees say that they have been in communication with some board members previously and claim that they can show "numerous issues of unfair treatment of employees all around by [Transportation Director] John Kiser and his outdated style of leadership."
The letter sent by email February 17th from an account belonging to jjpeterson2012@gmailcom thanks Shelton for visiting transportation employees (apparently a rare event for a Fayette County superintendent), describes an "unpleasant work environment," and accuses the department of fraud, citing two examples.
After thanking Shelton for his visits to Liberty Road and Miles Point and stating that "for the most part, we feel as though Fayette County Public Schools is a good place to work," the sources identify "problems with some aspects" of FCPS that left unaddressed "contribute to morale issues" and impact the working environment.
Part of that working environment apparently includes the anonymous employees' fear that if they spoke their concerns out loud that they would be retaliated against by Kiser or district COO Mary Browning Wright. "We don't feel as though our concerns will be fully investigated or listened to" but that [Browning] "will protect him, or try and cover up his actions."
Two very specific examples of alleged "fraud" were "just a scratch on the surface." Both seem to relate to a feeling on the part of the employees that there is an uneven treatment of favored versus unfavored employees.
The first concerns a Miles Point shop employee named Bruce who, according to the letter, hasn't worked for several years but draws a $30,000 salary. "He punches in every day and does not move from his seat unless he is taking lunch, going to the bathroom, or going to the vending machine...Bruce is a mechanic assistant, but he does nothing to assist any of the mechanics...To be quite honest, we view this as fraud." They complain that no one else is allowed to sit around and do nothing because they would be fired. Yet it "occurs every day with the full knowledge of the shop supervisor" Frank Shaffer and Kiser. "If this is excusable, please tell us. We would like the same privileges," they wrote.
The second concern regards Rick the husband of "our department's payroll person," a Liberty Road vehicle assistant who complained of arthritis and no longer works in the shop, but was placed in an unadvertised desk job making "well over $30,000. They say that he is allowed to drive his wife to Miles Point and punch in there "under the pretext that he is delivering mail" despite the fact that another employee already does that task every day around noon. This apparently violates some department rule.
"If you don't believe that it is going on please come to the bus garage and see it with your own eyes...If you ask John or Frank, if this is happening they will cover it up and give you an answer that hides it."
Last September Kiser and three other administrators, along with former Superintendent Stu Silberman and the board were sued by a driver claiming retaliation,violation of the whistleblower statute, breach of contract, constructive discharge, intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress and arbitrary and capricious acts in violation of the Kentucky Constitution.
The suit was only one in a long list of complaints that have surfaced from the transportation department over the past year. KSN&C had heard of numerous grievances that die in the department without being forwarded up the chain of command. Instead of trying to resolve issues according to policy, the district tried to prevent former FCPS attorney Brenda Allen from representing bus drivers. Cases of overt disrespect of school district personnel were widely alleged. The case is pending in Judge Kim Bunnell's Fayette County District court.
Incoming FCPS Superintendent Tom Shelton heard about complaints involving the transportation department and agreed to look into the situation. But that plan was derailed, one assumes, by Allen's suit. Surely the attorneys defending the district did not want Shelton gathering discoverable information that could potentially refute what they were planning to present in court.
On Sunday March 4th, Shelton confirmed to KSN&C that he responded to the employees with the following message:
Thank you for sharing these concerns! I am well aware of these issues in Transportation and had hoped to conduct a full review of our transportation department by this point. Unfortunately, at the advice of our attorneys, I could not proceed with this investigation because of current litigation involving this department. You can be assured that the Board is also aware of the concerns and has the expectation that we will deal with these issues appropriately. The Board is precluded by law from dealing with personnel issues but I plan to keep them aware of our plans to deal with your concerns. Thanks again for sharing your concerns and you can be assured I am developing a plan to deal with these issues.
Tom Shelton, PhDSuperintendentFayette County Public Schools
Santorum knocks govt over schools but takes money
As he presses for the conservative votes he needs to overtake GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum is hammering away at the role state and federal governments play in running schools.
Santorum plays up how he and his wife have home-schooled their seven children and says parents should be the ones responsible for educating their kids.
Yet back when Santorum was a senator from Pennsylvania, he got a Pittsburgh-area school district to help pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition for his children to receive online schooling.
It's a bit of history that's unknown to many voters outside Pennsylvania as the Republican nomination race closes in on the 10 Super Tuesday contests next week.
Santorum says he wants to curtail dramatically the power of states and the federal government in public education.
"Not only do I believe the federal government should get out of the education business, I think the state government should start to get out of the education business and put it back with the local and into the community," Santorum said in a recent debate in Arizona with his GOP rivals.
He mocks America's schools as "factories" that stand as "anachronistic" relics of the Industrial Revolution and says he would home-school his kids in the White House if he becomes president.
In the fall of 2004, Santorum's use of tax dollars to pay for his kids' home schooling became controversial because his family was primarily living in Leesburg, Va., west of Washington. Following a local newspaper report, the Penn Hills School District near Pittsburgh tried to recover about $73,000 that it contended the state wrongly sent to an Internet-based charter school. Although the Santorums owned a house in the school district, officials argued, they were living out of state. The Pennsylvania Education Department in 2006 agreed to pay the district $55,000 to settle the dispute.
The cyberschool controversy dogged Santorum through his 2006 Senate re-election bid and contributed to his 18-point loss to Democrat Bob Casey.
Santorum's campaign did not respond this week to questions about his family's online instruction, and it's not known whether his children received teaching at home in addition to what they got online.
The Santorums withdrew their children from the cyberschool and resumed home schooling after Penn Hills officials complained about the tuition payments. Students in cyberschools log onto computers to access their assignments and teachers.
Teacher Caught on Tape Bullying Student.
Is a Camera a Kid's Only Advocate?
This from Yahoo:
Nobody believed Julio Artuz, a 15 year old New Jersey special education student, when he complained of being bullied by his teacher. So he caught the whole thing on tape.
In footage captured in secret on his cellphone, Artuz is subjected to curses and berating from a man who's supposed to be a mentor.
View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.
Artuz's teacher says: "I will kick your [expletive] from here to kingdom come until I'm 80 years old."
"Don't threaten me," responds Artuz.
"What are you going to do? You gonna get a chopper and chop me?" asks his teacher as the rest of the class sits rubbernecking the heated argument.
What Jules did do was show his taped account to his parents and a local advocate of bullied students.
After an NBC news affiliate in Philadelphia got hold of the footage (above), the school immediately took action, placing the teacher on paid administrative leave pending an investigation...
Teacher Leaves Wife, Kids for High School Student
Last year, Jordan Powers was just another student from Mr. Hooker's class. Now she's his live-in girlfriend.
James Hooker -- the 41-year-old married father who left his wife and kids for his 18-year-old-student -- might be the worst teacher ever. Last week, he resigned from his job at Enochs High School in Modesto, California over the scandal that's shaken up a community and pit one mom on a crusade to save her daughter from a man she calls a "master manipulator."
Jordan met her teacher as a freshman, but both maintain nothing physical happened until she turned 18 this past September. Hooker claims he saw Powers as "just a student" and had no romantic feelings toward her at first, but when her most recent birthday came around, things changed.
They changed so much, in fact, that Hooker, left his wife and three kids (one of them a 17-year-old Enochs high school student as well) so that he could move in with Jordan.
If this all sounds suspicious to you, imagine how Tammie Powers, Jordan's mom, feels. She's launched an official police investigation to find out if Hooker's relationship with her daughter began before Jordan was of legal age. Tammie is convinced it did, citing a photo of her daughter on Hooker's lap and text messages, emails and phone records exchanged between the couple that predate her daughter's 18th birthday.
"That's pursuit, in my opinion, with some type of intent," she told ABC News 10 in California.
Hooker denies Tammie's claims and is confident the investigation will turn up nothing. He blames the "stigma of the teacher-student relationship" for the public backlash. But Hooker's former boss, Modesto City Schools Supt. Pam Able, doesn't agree.
Even if their relationship doesn't break any laws, Able says she "considers student-teacher dating relationships to be not only unprofessional, but immoral." She also added in an email to the Modesto Bee, that Hooker's relationship has become a "source of great concern for staff, students and parents."
It must be particularly hard for Hooker's 17 year old daughter, now that her father has left to be with a fellow classmate and become a notorious figure throughout the school.
Still, Hooker claims he has no regrets. In an interview with Good Morning America, he shut down Tammie's accusations as a "pack of lies" and said of his new love, "we really do want to have a future together."
Watch: ABC News' exclusive interview with Hooker and Powers
Jordan, a quiet, fragile-seeming young woman, who looks closer to 15 than 18 years in age, gazed up at her former teacher, a man that looks every bit his 41 years, and said, "He's more than just a lover."
Jordan has now stopped going to classes and is finishing out her senior year by doing an independent study. She has limited contact with her mom, now that she's living with her teacher, mom's worst nightmare.
Desperate for her child, Tammie has turned her own Facebook page into a "most wanted" profile for Hooker. She's plastered his photo all over her wall warning neighbors about the man she calls an "arrogant pig". She's also made her wallpaper a photo of a prison cell, sending a message to Hooker should he dare visit her site...
Woman hired to be top aide to JCPS Superintendent Donna Hargens turns down job
Questions clouded Hargens' aide pick
This from C-J:
A woman who was hired earlier this week to be a top aide to Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Donna Hargens turned down the job Friday after questions were raised about her background.
Jamilah Fraser, who was to become the district’s chief diversity, community relations and communications officer on March 12, sent Hargens a letter Friday afternoon saying she was not accepting the job.
A news release from the district noted that the decision to hire her had been “spotlighted” in the media and said Fraser decided not to accept the post “in light of recent events.”
In an email sent to The Courier-Journal on Friday, Fraser said she was shocked to read media coverage of her "short time" with the Philadelphia school district.
“My time in Philadelphia was spent dealing with one major crisis after another and I dealt with each one in an ethical manner,” she wrote. “I have really looked forward to working with Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Dr. Donna Hargens. However, an inaccurate, negative picture has been painted of who I am. In light of this, I believe it would be difficult to build the relationship necessary between myself and district administration to doing the important work on behalf of Jefferson County students and parents."
In an interview Friday, Hargens said she was “confident in my decision to select Fraser for the position.”
“In the end, I think she felt it was in her best interest and that of the district” to not come to Louisville, Hargens said. “I respect her decision, but I still think she was a solid candidate who would have served this district well.”
Linda Duncan, a Jefferson County school board member who expressed concerns over Fraser’s hiring earlier this week, said Friday that as superintendent, Hargens “has the right to pick who she wants to work with.
“I just hoped it would be someone that didn’t have so much controversy,” Duncan said.
Fraser resigned suddenly last August from her previous job with Philadelphia Public Schools after she was accused of running a personal public-relations campaign for the outgoing superintendent, according to published reports...
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Study: Good Principals Make a Difference in High-Poverty Schools
... just like every other school.
This from Inside School Research:
This from Inside School Research:
How important is school leadership? Where are the most effective leaders, and how can we tell that they—and not circumstance—are responsible for their schools' success?
"Estimating the Effect of Leaders on Public Sector Productivity: The Case of School Principals," a new working paper from Gregory F. Branch of the University of Texas, Dallas, Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University, and Steven G. Rivkin of Amherst College sets out to answer these and other questions about effective principals, using data on 7,429 principals from the University of Texas, Dallas's Texas Schools Project.
The report focuses in particular on principal transitions and on principals in schools with large numbers of disadvantaged students, to test the argument, echoed in public debate on education, that leadership is "especially important in revitalizing failing schools."
Overall, the researchers find wide variation in principal quality. The variation is greater among schools with large concentrations of low-income students. The researchers found that high-quality principals—as determined by a value-added model that includes student achievement and school characteristics—had a large positive impact on their students' achievement:
"A principal in the top 16 percent of the quality distribution...will lead annually to student gains that are .05 standard deviations or more higher than average for all students in the school (emphasis is the authors')."...
Why it’s no surprise high- and low-rated teachers are all around
This from GothamSchools:
The New York Times’ first big story on the Teacher Data Reports released last week contained what sounded like great news: After years of studies suggesting that the strongest teachers were clustered at the most affluent schools, top-rated teachers now seemed as likely to work on the Upper East Side as in the South Bronx.
Teachers with high scores on the city’s rating system could be found “in the poorest corners of the Bronx, like Tremont and Soundview, and in middle-class neighborhoods,” “in wealthy swaths of Manhattan, but also in immigrant enclaves,” and “in similar proportions in successful and struggling schools,” the Times reported.
Education analyst Michael Petrilli called the findings “jaw-dropping news” that “upends everything we thought we knew about teacher quality.”
Except it’s not really news at all. Value-added measurements like the ones used to generate the city’s Teacher Data Reports are designed precisely to control for differences in neighborhood, student makeup, and students’ past performance.
The adjustments mean that teachers are effectively ranked relative to other teachers of similar students. Teachers who teach similar students, then, are guaranteed to have a full range of scores, from high to low. And, unsurprisingly, teachers in the same school or neighborhood often teach similar students.
“I chuckled when I saw the first [Times story], since the headline pretty much has to be true: Effective and ineffective teachers will be found in all types of schools, given the way these measures are constructed,” said Sean Corcoran, a New York University economist who has studied the city’s Teacher Data Reports....
House Panel Gives Partisan Approval to ESEA Bills
This from Politics K-12:
On a partisan vote, the House Education and the Workforce Committee today gave its stamp of approval to GOP-backed legislation reauthorizing portions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
A pair of bills, both of which were introduced by U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the committee, would scale back the federal role in education and give states much more running room when it comes to K-12 policy, a 180-degree pivot from the current version of the law, the decade-old No Child Left Behind Act. The measures passed on a party-line vote of 23-16.
Debate around the measures at today's committee markup was predictably partisan.
Rep. George Miller, the top Democrat on the committee, said the legislation "turn[s] its back on the civil rights promises of this nation: that every child deserves a fair shot at success, no matter what their background."
Not surprisingly, Kline sees it differently. He said the legislation "untie[s] the hands of state and local leaders who are clamoring for the opportunity to change the status quo and revive innovation in our classrooms." ...
New JCPS hire under scrutiny
Nice work from Toni at The Courier-Journal:
Questions are being raised about the background and qualifications of a key aide hired Monday by Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Donna Hargens.
From her FEMA days
Jamilah Fraser, named by Hargens as the chief diversity, community relations and communications officer, resigned suddenly from her previous job with Philadelphia Public Schools after she was accused of running a personal public-relations campaign for the outgoing superintendent, according to published media reports.
And Fraser’s resume indicates she lacked the administrative experience that Hargens initially required for the JCPS position, which will pay her $160,538 annually.
“This employment decision by JCPS is yet another example of the continual and constant ineptitude that continues to be exhibited by the district,” said Louisville attorney J. Bruce Miller, who has been critical of the district’s hiring practices and spending for several years.]
School board member Linda Duncan said Wednesday she also is concerned about Fraser’s past. Duncan said Hargens left board members a voice mail message Wednesday morning, telling them she had 42 applicants for the position and that Fraser was the most qualified of all those who had applied....
According to the City Paper, an independent weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Fraser was part of a “communications team dedicated to promoting and defending (Superintendent Arlene Ackerman) personally, and which coordinated and assisted public rallies in her favor, communicated regularly with private supporters, and spent taxpayer time and money on various kinds of ‘propaganda,’ including protest signs and a farewell tribute video.” ...
This from The Naked City:
The School District of Philadelphia cleaned its media relations house on Monday when Director Jamilah Fraser and two staffers stepped down alongside Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Fernando Gallard, a long-time (and thanks to calls from me and other reporters, long-suffering) staffer, is now acting Communications Director.And this:
This is only the most recent of many public relations shakeups at the District. The School District announced the hiring of Fraser and two staffers in November 2010, eleven months after Arlene Ackerman fired two long-time communications staffers. Fraser was Ackerman’s fourth communications chief since 2008.
The Notebook reported that Fraser, like her predecessors, made $170,000. High salaries for central office executives in general, and communications office employees in particular, have sparked controversy throughout Ackerman’s tenure, and staffers have even been accused of coordinating outside protests to support her.
And then there was the $986,000 spent on outside PR in addition to the $2.86 million the District pays for in-house communications...
Two knowledgeable sources tell City Paper that former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman ran a School District communications team dedicated to promoting and defending her personally, and which coordinated and assisted public rallies in her favor, communicated regularly with private supporters, and spent taxpayer time and money on various kinds of "propaganda," including protest signs and a farewell tribute video. Since Ackerman's departure after negotiating a nearly $1 million buy-out of her contract, one source says the same team continues to manage Ackerman's antagonistic public relations campaign against Mayor Michael Nutter and others.
The three Communications staffers who allegedly orchestrated a personal public relations campaign for Ackerman — former Director Jamilah Fraser, and staffers Shana Kemp and Elizabeth Childs — resigned last Monday, the same day that Ackerman's buyout was announced. According to one source, the three were told they would be fired if they did not resign because they had gone rogue, spending the majority of their time working for the Superintendent even as she was headed for the door.
These sources say that Jamilah Fraser and her two deputies were dedicated to protecting and promoting Ackerman above all else...
This from the Philadelphia Inquirer - December 13, 2011:
City schools' secret Web projects -
The employee who created them under Ackerman faces losing his job.
Christopher Akers had never met Arlene C. Ackerman before, he says, one of her top aides began ordering him to do secret projects for the controversial former schools chief.
Sometimes he felt uncomfortable about the assignments: a website for a group billed as a grassroots activist organization, or an iPhone game starring Ackerman as a superhero.
But the Philadelphia School District webmaster said he was just trying to stay employed.
"I do my job," said Akers, 30. "Sometimes, you've got a boss that you don't really like that much, but you still have to put food on the table."
On Thursday, Akers was accused of "unsatisfactory work performance," "theft of time, failure to meet deadlines and improper use of district equipment." He expects to be fired.
Akers said he did nothing wrong, but was caught up in School District politics - chosen by Ackerman and her former communications chief, Jamilah Fraser , for special and secretive tasks - and is now paying the price.
Akers first encountered Fraser when he was tapped to create a web page for Ackerman's Renaissance Schools initiative, which targeted failing schools for turnaround. It was the superintendent's signature project.
By all accounts, he wowed the higher-ups. "You've done an amazing job," one of his bosses wrote in an e-mail to Akers dated Jan. 12. "Impressing Dr. Ackerman is definitely a win for the department, so I thank you for your ability to demonstrate your talent under pressure."
Soon after that, Akers was again approached by Fraser. She wanted him to work on more projects for Ackerman. Discretion was crucial...
The only thing he did wrong, Akers said, was doing what a powerful person told him to do.This from the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 20, 2011:
Akers' disciplinary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning. As a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, he will have union representation, but he doesn't expect the decision to go his way.
Former Philly schools official planning lawsuit
The Philadelphia School District's former senior vice president for procurement has submitted court papers signaling that he intends to file a slander and libel suit against the district, the School Reform Commission, former Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman, and other district officials...[including] Jamilah Fraser, the district's former communications chief...
With the first day of classes rapidly approaching, I’d like nothing better than to be writing about what’s ahead for the Philadelphia School District’s 2011-12 school year. But there are still a few details of the Arlene Ackerman long goodbye that deserve mention. Here’s one: her farewell video. The video is long — 13 minutes and 34 seconds. And dramatic, with text reminding viewers of 5,000 years of civil rights struggles. “An Arlene Ackerman Retrospective” draws stark contrasts between the state of education in the Philadelphia School District prior to her arrival in 2008 (bad) and after she came (much better.)
This from the Philadelphia Examiner September 3, 2011:
Ackerman owned communication staff
After months of speculation about the Philadelphia School District’s involvement in various types of propaganda, the truth has finally emerged. The City Paper’s staff writer, Daniel Denvir, reports that Dr. Ackerman used the district’s communication department for her own self-promotion and it was used to talk with private supporters, make signs as well as the now infamous farewell video.This from the Philadelphia Examiner August 17, 2011:
All these things were paid for by the school district often spending time and money to solely promote Ackerman. Although Arlene Ackerman has said in interviews that the three communication staff members, who were responsible for this debacle, had been fired the real truth is that they resigned. Granted they were told that if they didn’t resign they would be fired, but the three employees opted for resignation. The school district communications department was created to work on behalf of the district and not for one person.
The three staff members, Jamilah Fraser , Shana Kemp and Elizabeth Childs, ignored the requirements of their job only to work as Ackerman’s personal public relations staff. The three women were paid by the school district, but Ackerman made sure they got top dollar.
Fraser earned $170,000 and Kemp and Childs received $135,000 each at the expense of the taxpayers. It was these three women who were responsible for the over-the-top appearance of Ackerman at the principal’s meeting on August 18th.
The July 22nd pro-Ackerman rally was organized by Fraser and the posters were made by the district...
Where in the world is Dr. Ackerman?
Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers, Kristen A. Graham and Susan Snyder report that Dr. Ackerman has been absent from several meetings including the Superintendent's 2011 Leadership Conference. Supporters say that her duties have been taken away and given to Deputy Superintendent Nunery. Sources have also said that a buyout deal was being worked out where Ackerman would receive lot less than the original 1.5 million dollars.
School district spokesperson Jamilah Fraser , who has lately become a master at spin control, has denied all the statements that were made by district outsiders and insists that Dr. Ackerman has attended plenty of meetings...
This from the Philadelphia Inquirer August 12, 2011:
Ackerman's dining companions -
Expense reports show who had her ear over meals,
including a lobbyist who won $268,997 in school contracts.
It was a working dinner - salad, crimson snapper, halibut, and key lime pie - for Philadelphia schools chief Arlene C. Ackerman and Melonease Shaw, a political consultant and lobbyist...
Altogether, Ackerman spent nearly $18,000 over about three years for local dining, travel, and other costs, or around $600 a month. That's far less than the bills she ran up as schools chief in San Francisco, where her business spending came under fire, and not out of line with what senior executives of large operations spend, according to compensation experts...
Jamilah Fraser , another Ackerman spokeswoman, said the superintendent's spending was appropriate and said all of it had been approved by the SRC...
Philadelphia Inquirer November 9, 2010:
Jamilah Fraser named communications chief for Philadelphia schools
The School District of Philadelphia has a new chief communications officer. Jamilah Fraser has a background in TV and experience handling communications about natural disasters for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fraser, 34, will receive $170,000 for overseeing district communications, community engagement, and broadcast operations. She started Monday as the replacement for Lisa Mastoon, a former television producer and communications specialist who quit in August after two weeks in the post. Fraser said her plans included creating new programming for the district's public-access channel, PSTV; enhancing the district's use of social media; launching community initiatives; and developing an internship program with local colleges and universities. After earning a bachelor's degree in English from the University of South Carolina, Fraser began her broadcast career with local stations in South Carolina and Missouri. In 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Fraser joined FEMA, where she produced several public-service announcements on hurricane preparedness and an instructional video for children. In addition to her work after Katrina, Fraser worked for FEMA in California, dealing with wildfires and floods.
This from the Post and Courier December 5, 2004:
Fraser at Muslim network
Jamilah Fraser , a Charleston native who worked in local TV, is program director for the new American Muslim Television Network, which made its debut Tuesday as the country's first 24-hour Muslim channel in English. Locally, the channel is available on GlobeCast satellite TV.
Heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali flipped the switch to officially launch the network. Fraser, 28, a graduate of the University of South Carolina, said she hopes there is demand in the Charleston area for the network on Comcast and Time-Warner cable. "It's basically a Muslim lifestyle network," Fraser said.
She said the new network will provide entertainment, news, education and a view of Muslim life now missing from American TV. Fraser hopes the new network helps to dispel stereotypical images of Muslims.
"If anything, people will learn that Muslims are part of the American fabric, that we are a people with an everyday life. They show us on television as terrorists or as females who cover their bodies completely with the exception of their eyes. It's going to banish a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions," she said...
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
WKU should use social media to improve campus community
in the WKU Herald:
The Herald's coverage has shown that university officials are not of one accord about today's communication environment, nor about what the university's role should be in this new world.
I agree with Ms. Biggs that WKU has made great strides in its use of social media. And I praise President Ransdell for being personally dedicated to having a voice online. His comments that students should think about their communication online because of its permanence is right.
But suggestions are a different matter than censoring. The university can't hide behind trademark laws to remove things they don't like.
I thought Mr. Skipper's comments in Thursday's Herald was particularly on the mark. University officials should not be using social media monitoring as surveillance on students or to find excuses to censor comments they don't like. But they very well SHOULD be listening to what students say in social media.
Rather than brainstorming legal means to censor comments, university officials should use the insights they glean from listening to make WKU a better place for its students, its faculty and staff, and its extended community.
Let's hope this conversation is one that helps to unify an appropriate understanding of social media across campus offices. We in the WKU community will be listening closely in our own right.
Monday, February 27, 2012
WKU Fights Twitter Criticism
This from Newsday:
A Kentucky university is aggressively fighting parody and criticism of school officials and policies on Twitter and other social media sites, which advocates and students say is an attempt to silence any negative comments.
Western Kentucky University's president has used Facebook to lecture students about social networking etiquette, and officials persuaded Twitter to briefly shut down a parody account dripping with sarcasm and criticism with posts marked "(hash)wku." Officials deny charges of censorship, but observers say the school appears to have immersed itself in social media deeper than many others around the country.
WKU junior Autum Calloway, a psychology major from Russellville, said she will tweet about things going on around campus. But she chooses her words carefully. "I don't ever criticize the school on Twitter because I don't want an ordeal made," she said, noting friends have been scolded by officials for postings deemed poor representations of the school. To be sure, it's common for universities to monitor cyber-chatter. But WKU president Gary Ransdell has jumped into the fray himself, taking to Facebook to scold students about inappropriate posts. And officials say they're considering a new handbook policy that would be aimed at preventing online harassment.
Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group based in San Francisco, sees it as an attempt by WKU to immerse itself into the flow of ideas on Twitter and Facebook. Students may wind up choosing their words more carefully -- like Calloway -- to avoid running afoul of the rules. "If you don't know whether what you're going to say is going to get you in trouble, you're better off just not saying it and not getting in trouble," he said. "And there you have it right there, speech is chilled."
Any new policy also raises the question of whether a school could limit what students post when they're off campus and not using school equipment. Many schools have anti-cyberbullying policies, but most of those apply only to school-owned servers and equipment, said Adam Goldstein, an attorney advocate with the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. The school has not yet drafted any language for the handbook or set possible punishments for violators, Skipper said. The school already has vague rules against "accessible communications deemed inappropriate."
Violators of a new rule may face sensitivity training, but the idea is not to limit speech among students, said Stacey Biggs, WKU's chief marketing officer. "The point is not to tell them what they can or can't say, or what they can or can't say about WKU," she said.
Still, critics have cried foul. The campus newspaper recently wrote a lengthy article under the headline "WKU trying to pull strings on social media." And the parody account -- temporarily shut down because it wasn't clearly labeled as a parody -- recently tweeted, "Campus police department has been renamed to twitter patrol." Student criticism prompted an official response that appeared recently in the campus newspaper. Biggs wrote that the intent is not to censor students but said the university "has to offer some amount of protection to its students."
School officials have vigilantly searched for fake accounts filled with inflammatory comments, though Biggs said the school tries to have accounts taken down only if they use the university's name or logo and don't clearly state that they are parodies. In her commentary, she said such efforts are aimed at protecting the school's reputation and brand. Other schools do remind students that posts can reflect poorly on them in the eyes of a prospective employer, for instance. Some, such as the University of Kentucky in Lexington, limit that to a set of recommended "best practices."
"You don't really regulate conversations in a coffee house, for example," said UK spokesman Jay Blanton. "The same principles apply here." UK's existing campus policies applying to legal and ethical conduct extend to communications, including social media, he said.
At WKU, Ransdell weighed in on social networking in a Feb. 15 message on Facebook. He warned about the lasting consequences for irresponsible posts. "We, at WKU, have become particularly conscious lately of some who are misusing social media and using some poor judgment," Ransdell wrote. "So my message here is 'Be smart.' Use social media thoughtfully; always remember what you send is permanent and can be viewed years from now. Employers do their homework. They can and will track ways in which prospective employees have used social media. We, at WKU, track such things as well."
Normally I post Facebook updates when interesting and cool things are happening with me or with WKU. This message, however, is aimed at everyone who uses Facebook or other social media, especially students and others who are building resumes. We, at WKU, have become particularly conscious lately of some who are misusing social media and using some poor judgment. So my message here is "Be smart." Use social media thoughtfully; always remember what you send is permanent and can be viewed years from now. Employers do their homework. They can and will track ways in which prospective employees have used social media. We, at WKU, track such things as well. Be smart and remember the Golden Rule. It applies as much to the use of social media as it does to how we conduct our daily lives. Think twice before you hit the "post" button or "send" key. Be smart, Hilltoppers!
Such efforts amount to attempts to "stop students from offending the government-paid administrators," said Goldstein, the attorney advocate with the Student Press Law Center. "Any institution that invests substantial effort into shutting down obvious parody accounts richly deserves to be parodied, because any institution with a good reputation for doing the right thing most of the time isn't worried that obviously silly statements might be confused with its genuine policy," he said. Goldstein said he's never seen a college president get to personally involved in the give-and-take in social media. "I guess it's good that he's paying attention, but I wonder if this is really the best use of his time," Goldstein said.This from the WKU Herald:
Dallas, Texas, senior Mario Nguyen was among many of the students who got fired up Tuesday when reading about the university’s policy on external communications.
Nguyen was in class in Mass Media and Technology Hall — home of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting — where the First Amendment is posted on the walls and podiums.
“For me, being in that school was really funny when I read the article, thinking about how ridiculous that (policy) was,” Nguyen said.
Instead of tweeting his thoughts using the #WKU hashtag, Nguyen created his own, #Bigredcommunism, which he coupled with an image of Big Red surrounded by communist symbols. (Shown above)
Under Big Red, the text reads:
“Join the Revolution! As social media constituents, we are the strongest form of marketing WKU has. By Unfriending/Unfollowing, you are helping limit WKU where they want to limit us.”
“I figured if I could make this go viral with the very medium they are trying to limit us with against them, I figured we would win out,” Nguyen said. “Or at least show them a thing or two.”
Nguyen said he is going to create images and political cartoons to get the word out for his campaign. He said he’s working to gain awareness of students.
“So far, it’s really just getting it out there,” he said. “I'm still in that phase — it’s only been one day.”
Nguyen said he’s going to budget his time to continue his campaign.
“As long as they keep that policy in place and they try to do this — I’m going to try, in addition to all of my schoolwork, to do this,” he said.
SGA Senator Keyana Boka said her organization is working on a campaign of its own — a social media awareness campaign.
Boka said the goal of the social media awareness campaign would help students take care of their own accounts, not telling them what they should or shouldn’t post.
“The social media awareness campaign is kind of a different aspect completely,” Boka said. “This is more just a friendly kind of reminder about safety. It’s kind of the other side.”
Boka said SGA talked about the policy at her campus improvements committee meeting. No one seemed to agree with the administration.
“(The committee is) more on the side of ‘Everyone should be able to say what they want,’” she said.
Boka said that while she personally could understand where the administration is coming from with the policy, she also thinks students should have their rights protected.
“We pay to go here, so we should be able to say what we think,” she said.
“Inappropriate” varies in meaning, she said.
“It’s just a very open word. Saying that something’s inappropriate is basically saying they don’t like it,” she said.
A resolution that supports the removal of the section in the handbook that includes the policy was scheduled to receive its second read at Tuesday’s SGA meeting.
Its author, senator Christopher Costa, pushed it back four weeks in order to do additional research.
Oakland junior Londa Stockton said she thinks the policy needs to clarify what would be considered harassment.
“Right now it’s too broad — it could be anything,” Stockton said.
Stockton said there are a lot of personal opinions on what would be considered inappropriate.
“To actually define what is inappropriate and what is offensive to use on the Web, especially when it comes to Twitter or against the school — that’s going to be a blurry line.”
Stockton said she looked at the WKU hashtag after Tuesday’s article about the policy was published. She said the reaction was enormous.
“It was kind of like once you tell someone not to do something, they do it,” Stockton said. “That’s exactly what the student body did.
“Once they were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to watch the hashtag,’ it was like everybody who had a Twitter that went to Western used it.”
Stockton herself tweeted using #WKU, “All I’m going to say is that this #Wku thing, is overrated. Students have opinions. One can’t keep the student body silent. Nice try though.”
Stockton works as a babysitter, and her Twitter account is public. She said she has her own rules regarding what she tweets.
“If I really wanted to put something out there that would be really shameful against whatever, I wouldn’t do it publicly,” she said.
“There are something you shouldn’t say, and everyone knows what they are.”
Wildcat MKG's High School to Close
St. Pats closing
but the memories would never go away,
My old teammates are now so called brothers
& always will be
--Michale Kidd Gilchrist via Twitter
With Enrollment Plunging, a New Jersey Powerhouse Will Close
but the memories would never go away,
My old teammates are now so called brothers
& always will be
--Michale Kidd Gilchrist via Twitter
With Enrollment Plunging, a New Jersey Powerhouse Will Close
This from the New York Times:
The oldest parochial school in New Jersey, St. Patrick High School in Elizabeth, which earned a reputation as a basketball powerhouse, will shutter at the end of the school year, the Archdiocese of Newark said.
Despite a shrinking student body, St. Patrick became well known in recent years for producing a disproportionate number of Division I college players, several of whom went on to play in the N.B.A., including Samuel Dalembert of the Houston Rockets, Al Harrington of the Denver Nuggets and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“It’s a great school that did a lot of great things for a lot of kids,” said the longtime coach Kevin Boyle, who led the team to a 26-1 record last season before leaving for Montverde Academy in Florida.
He added, “It’s very unfortunate, but what are you going to do?”
Enrollment at the school, a stocky, red-brick building hunkered in the seat of Union County’s troubled First Ward, plunged precipitously in recent years, said James Goodness, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark. In the last five years, it fell by more than 100, to 151 students. Only 20 freshmen were signed up for the fall of 2012, he added. To compensate, the archdiocese had given the school $100,000 subsidies each of the last four years....
In Teacher Ratings, Good Test Scores Are Sometimes Not Good Enough
This from the New York Times:
At Public School 234 in TriBeCa, where children routinely alight for school from luxury cars, roughly one-third of the teachers’ ratings were above average, one-third average and one-third below average.At Public School 87 on the Upper West Side, where waiting lists for kindergarten spots stretch to stomach-turning lengths, just over half the ratings were above average. The other half were average or below average on measure, based on student test scores.And at Public School 29 in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where many young parents move to send their children, four of the teachers’ ratings were above average, seven were average and five were below.The New York City Education Department on Friday released the ratings of some 18,000 teachers in elementary and middle schools based on how much they helped their students succeed on standardized tests. The ratings have high margins of error, are now nearly two years out of date and are based on tests that the state has acknowledged became too predictable and easy to pass over time...
In one extreme case, the formula assigned an eighth-grade math teacher at the prestigious Anderson School on the Upper West Side the lowest possible rating, a zero, even though her students posted test scores 1.22 standard deviations above the mean — normally good enough to rank in the 89th percentile. Her problem? The formula expected her high-achieving students to be 1.84 standard deviations higher than the average — roughly the 97th percentile.
Slow on Pikeville
Bill Bryant hosted a great interview with UPike President Paul Patton and Morehead President Wayne Andrews on WKYT's Kentucky Newsmakers this weekend. Both men acquitted themselves well.
In part 1, Bryant took some time at the beginning to separate Patton and Andrews from the rancor surrounding the issue.
In Part 2, Bill raises the issues surrounding Speaker Greg Stumbo's punitive open records request. But for some reason I can't get Vimeo to display both videos in the same post (which hasn't happened before) so find it here.
This from The Courier-Journal:
In part 1, Bryant took some time at the beginning to separate Patton and Andrews from the rancor surrounding the issue.
In Part 2, Bill raises the issues surrounding Speaker Greg Stumbo's punitive open records request. But for some reason I can't get Vimeo to display both videos in the same post (which hasn't happened before) so find it here.
This from The Courier-Journal:
The proposal to bring the University of Pikeville into the state system of higher education merits respectful debate. But its potential educational and financial impact is far too great to justify putting the idea on a fast track in the current legislative session.
The notion that the merger proposal — contained in House Bill 260 — could be carefully studied, weighed and enacted by lawmakers by the end of next month is absurd. Consideration of a measure of such far-reaching and potentially harmful effect should be measured in months and perhaps years, not weeks.
The imperative of moving cautiously is made all the greater by the initial impression that the proposal poses many more problems and concerns than obvious advantages.
First off, advocates put the cart before the horse. They begin by insisting that a state university be placed in Pikeville to serve students in the “Eastern Kentucky coalfield,” instead of first demonstrating the need for a new full-fledged state campus and then showing that Pikeville would be the best site.
The idea of a ninth public four-year university carries grave financial and enrollment implications for existing schools, especially those that already serve the mountains, and must not be blithely sidestepped. Moreover, Pikeville is not a central Eastern Kentucky location — it’s at the eastern edge of one of the region’s three coalfields — and seems as well situated to draw from West Virginia as from Kentucky.
Moreover, the financial ramifications of a merger cannot be adequately addressed during this session of the General Assembly. Supporters propose transferring Pikeville’s buildings to state ownership and budgeting the new university with coal severance-tax revenue. Even if that money can be wrested from regional officials’ hands — and there would be stout resistance — the funds at best will cover operating costs. What about the capital financing to upgrade Pikeville’s aging facilities?
And what is the economic impact on universities, especially Morehead State, that would lose students and state funding. And down the road, “Pikeville State” surely would insist on every program and amenity that other regional universities have. How will that be paid for? And why does Pikeville expect a bailout that other private colleges in Eastern Kentucky won’t get?
The strongest case for the merger is the need to offer more students in an economically depressed area an affordable college education. But Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky universities already provide financial assistance to thousands of students. Couldn’t further aid be made available — at much less cost than a merger — by diverting some of the severance-tax proceeds to financial aid to coalfields students to be used at any Kentucky public or private college?
Meanwhile, House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a key backer of the Pikeville plan, is out of line to condemn Morehead State’s board for its opposition. The situation calls for facts and reason, not name-calling.
Obama’s education secretary dominates NBA All-Star celebrity game
This from the LA Times:
Gov. Jerry Brown met with Education Secretary Arne Duncan this week, hoping for some leeway for state schools facing pending federal sanctions. By Brown’s own account, the meeting was not as productive as he had hoped, describing his relationship with the secretary as a “work in progress.”
The California governor has clashed with Duncan over the use of standardized testing to evaluate students and determine teacher pay and performance.
Within hours of his meeting with the California governor, Duncan headed to Orlando, Fla., to participate in the NBA’s celebrity All-Star game.
Comedian Kevin Hart was named the game's MVP, but Duncan, who played for Harvard where he was named a first-team Academic All-American and played professionally in Australia, had the best stat line of the night. He scored 17 points to go along with eight rebounds and five steals.
But for Brown, at least, Duncan provided no assists.
Amid a Federal Education Inquiry, an Unsettling Sight
This from the New York Times:
What was Arne Duncan doing sharing the stage with Michelle Rhee at a recent education conference?
Duncan is the education secretary.Ms. Rhee was the chancellor of schools in Washington from 2007 to 2010.Since last summer, the Office of the Inspector General in Mr. Duncan’s department has been investigating whether Washington school officials cheated to raise test scores during Ms. Rhee’s tenure.You would think Mr. Duncan would want to keep Ms. Rhee at arm’s length during the investigation. And yet there they were, sitting side by side last month, two of four featured panelists at a conference in Washington about the use of education data.
(A spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, cautioned against the presumption of guilt in an investigation of Washington schools under the direction of Michelle Rhee.)
“This is an amazing panel, so I’m thrilled to be part of it,” Mr. Duncan said in his opening comment.
If there is any hope of getting to the bottom of what went on in the Washington schools — whether Ms. Rhee is as amazing as Mr. Duncan said, or whether test scores were inflated by cheating — it is through the inquiry by the inspector general. (Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for the office, confirmed that an investigation was under way, but would not give details.)Ms. Rhee’s reputation as a national leader of the education reform movement has rested on those test scores, which soared while she was chancellor. Then, last March, USA Today published the results of a yearlong investigation of the Washington schools that found a high rate of erasures on tests as well as suspiciously large gains at 41 schools — one-third of the elementary and middle schools in the district.Since then, Ms. Rhee has refused to talk to the reporters who know the story best, although she has been talking to many other people...
Regulations Would Link Teacher-Prep Quality, Aid Eligibility
This from Teacher Beat:
Elsewhere,
A set of draft federal regulations under discussion this week proposes requiring states to classify their teacher-preparation programs into four categories, from low- to high-performing, based in part on outcomes indicators such as surveys of graduates, school districts, and student-achievement results.
The draft would also restrict states to permitting only those programs scoring at the highest level to offer federal TEACH grants, which subsidize training for candidates who agree to serve in high-needs fields.
Though still preliminary, the draft gives the clearest sense to date of how the U.S. Department of Education envisions refashioning the reporting and accountability requirements for teacher education housed in the Higher Education Act—one of the pieces of a comprehensive policy proposal for teacher education unveiled last fall.
The draft is a product of the negotiated-rulemaking process. Under this process, negotiators selected by the Education Department can alter the draft, but by the end of the rulemaking process—which continues through March—they must all agree on its format. If they don't, the department can issue its own rules. (See prior EdWeek coverage of this rulemaking here, here, and here.) ...
Elsewhere,
" The same trends that are corrupting K-12 education
in this country, and the teaching profession,
are rapidly advancing into Higher education."
-- Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch Addresses NAICU 2012 Annual Meeting from NAICU on Vimeo.
"In that state of the union address [President Obama]
threatened to reduce the federal aide to colleges and universities
unless they reduced their tuition.
That's not the job of the president of the United States.
It perhaps could be the job of Congress, but that's not going to happen."
--Rep Hal Rogers
At the same conference, Hall Rogers (introduced by Paul Patton) addresses NAICU:
Rep. Hal Rogers Addresses NAICU 2012 Annual Meeting from NAICU on Vimeo.
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