The Dallas Morning News writes about charter schools in SE Dallas.

The news is not good. The charter is wasting a bunch of money on non-essential administration. The superintendent hires relatives and cronies. And test scores, frankly, are awful. See article.

But the worst thing is that the mis-managed charter, the A+ Academy, a K-12 school posted generally better TAKS scores than did the Lancaster K-12 school district.

According to the AEIS website, for A+ Charter
TAKS Met 2006 Standard (Sum of All Grades Tested, EXCLUDING grade 8 Science)
(Standard Accountability Indicator)

                                           A+      LISD  
                        State   District  Campus  District



  Reading/ELA   2006     87%      75%      75%     73%
                2005     83%      64%      64%     67% 

  Mathematics   2006     75%      50%      50%     50%
                2005     71%      35%      35%     42% 

  Writing       2006     91%      74%      74%     81%
                2005     90%      65%      65%     79%

  Science       2006     70%      49%      49%     37%
                2005     63%      32%      32%     31%

  Soc Studies   2006     87%      84%      84%     67%
                2005     87%      79%      79%     71%

  All Tests     2006     67%      43%      43%     37%
                2005     62%      30%      30%     31% 

I suppose the charter school that botches its financial reporting could be helping TAKS takers cheat on the tests. And that every score, however low, in the Lancaster district is at least honestly earned.

I hope that's the reason.

"This dog appears to be sleeping and will be let lay."

Uhm. Either the local union representative of the largest employer in Lancaster is lying, or the district accounting system has caused some serious confusion (at best) at the Texas Retirement System. Either way, there's an interesting story here.

I've sent an e-mail to Howard Goldman of TRS to complete Steve Synder's interview for him. (He's sleeping, and we'll just let him lie.) Just WHEN, I ask, were the September and October payments credited. If the November payment was due yesterday, 8 December,it seems likely that the September payment was due around the 8th or so of October. If those funds were not credited until the first week of December I'd like to know that, and what accounts for the delay.

And if the funds WERE credited on time, what motivates the union to lie about it?

This sort of curiosity about the context of such matters is probably what keeps me from being a journalist. I just can't stop with the first answer, the way they do.


Anyhow, a personal anecdote. Two weeks ago while I was up a the Centre Street building waiting patiently for the one and only person authorized to talk to me to come out of a meeting, an LISD employee arrived to see another specially authorized person. Apparently only one person at Centre Street can correct payroll problems. The employee explained to Ms Allen, the receptionist, that this was the THIRD apointment she'd had with the person, and the third time it was missed.

The problem, the employee explained, was that she'd been issued a check by mistake, and wanted to return it. Apparently the district runs a "Christmas Club" program where small sums are, optionally, withheld from each paycheck. Then, during the seaon, a large lumpsum payment is cut to the participants. The employee explained that she had participated in the past, but was NOT contributing this year. She'd gotten her lump sum payment by mistake. She'd made three trips to Centre Street trying to return it. But the district couldn't seem to make the appropriate official available to its employee to help.

All that got me wondering.

How many employees that got overpayments by mistake would just quit at this point, keep the money, and not make a fourth attempt to do the right thing?

How many had already quit after two attempts?

How many bothered to return "free money" at all?

Actually, I bet most of the LISD employees that got unearned Christmas checks are willing to fix the problem. But it is a gamble.

I'm wondering, too, if the district were inclined to reward particularly loyal cronies for cooperative behavior, if such a "mistake" could be deliberately arranged. I recall that in the financial post-mortems at Wilmer-Hutchins ISD a number of employees were drawing coaching bonuses and sponser bonuses for coaching and sponsoring programs that no longer existed. Once the flags were set in the payroll system the payments just continued. I wonder how hard it would be for a slightly dishonest accountant to finagle such a payoff in the LISD payroll system. After all, the easiest way to steal money isn't to haul around sacks of the stuff -- but to have the victim cut you a check.

Anyhow, after the experience with the wayward Christmas Club money I was somewhat predisposed to believe the union about the retirement screw ups, and inclined to disbelieve the district's assurances that all was well. But that's just my bias showing. The facts are the facts and you gotta ask to find out. So I'm asking TRS the question.

The SECOND question. The OBVIOUS question.

I'll keep you informed.

So what do you do if there's a problem in your home? A switch that won't work, peeling exterior paint, a window that won't slide fully open or closed? Suppose you own a three-year old house, and the handyman tells you might have a shoddy installation; or you might have just got a bad unit. Either way, he says, builders just throw up the structure using the cheapest materials they can scrounge and any jake-labor they can hire. So, you gotta make some decisions.

Sell your home? Move? Cut and run? Take the loss on the current mortgage, see how big a new home loan you can qualify for, and buy a new house?

More likely you'll refigure the budget. Postpone buying the new computers or bigger TV. Devote a little each month to the Home Depot account. Work it out.

Unless you're Russ Johnson.

LISD Trustee Johnson assures us all that any money spent in maintenance, repair and renovations in old school buildings is a complete waste. He says he can't understand why anybody would waste one dime on maintenance. He tells us it's worse than a waste, it's downright theft to take money away from salaries, textbooks and fuel and spend it on old buildings.

This may actually be a more defensible position than I have been able to paraphrase. I dunno.

I was overcome with the incongruity of hearing this particular position articulated by a man who lives in the HISTORIC DISTRICT of Lancaster, in a home built in 1910. I wonder how many times over the original construction cost various owners have "wasted" money in repairs (to a roof, maybe, after a hailstorm or tornado?) or upgrades (I presume Mr Johnson's home has an air conditioner, that was added during renovations some decades after the place was built.)

I was further dumbfounded by the audacity of hearing this particular claim made in the newly refurbished Centre Street building (built 1903). Are we to understand then that Russ Johnson thinks the three million dollars of 2004 bond funds spent on that old school building was wasted? (There is a lot of community support for the proposition that '04 bond funds have been wasted but I hadn't heard the Centre Street project offered as the sole and best example before.)

And I finally struck by considering the possibility that Mr Johnson might try offering that analysis to the congregations of the various churches nearby -- Presbyterians, Baptist, etc -- many congregations still meeting in buildings half again as old as the Centre Street property. Have the generations of church members that have been sacrificing to maintain, repair, and renovate those sanctuaries been wasting their efforts?

I just don't know.

But I think I'd rather hear the proposition come up for a debate rather than a one-sided rant by a public official at his constituents.

Campaign Contributions in the Lancaster Bond Election,
November, 2006

The paperwork has not all come in. But we can't wait forever. Deadlines, even self imposed ones, are after all deadlines.

Pro Bond Contributors.  
Bond2006
Allen Development of Texas                 Vesalia CA     $3500 
Jerry Gallagher (school contrator)         Plano TX       $3000  *
LA Fuess (an engineering firm)             Dallas TX      $ 500  **
Ellen Clark                                Lancaster      $ 500  
Corgan and Associates (school architect)   Dallas TX      $ 500
Steve Topletz (LancasterCedardale LP)      Dallas TX      $ 500 
Terry Stinson                              Lancaster      $ 200
Priscilla Mayfield                         Lancaster      $ 200
(Individual)                               Lancaster      $  25
        

Lancaster Construction Diversity PAC
 (unspecified contributions, one lump sum)               $ 1327
                                               ----------
                                                           
Anti Bond Contributions
T.I.G.E.R.    ***

(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  25
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  39 (roll of stamps)
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
(Individual)                   Lancaster            $  50
                                                         

* Mr Gallagher maintains a business address / PO Box as listed on the PAC filing in Plano Texas. However he resides at 810 Saddlebrook, Lucas Texas, in the Lovejoy ISD. I have not yet obtained PAC filing from Lovejoy to determine how generous the Gallagher family has been in their own school bond elections, where their contracting firm will not benefit from the outcome. When those filings are available I will post them here.


** LA Fuess is a large structural engineering firm that has no obvious links to the Lancaster construction projects, Gallagher or Gorgan. Again, I have not yet obtained all PAC filings to see what other causes they have supported. This sort of context is interesting and as I obtain more information I will post it here.


*** The treasurer of T.I.G.E.R. reminds me that donations are still cheerfully being accepted. While I have no first hand knowledge regarding the Bond2006 PAC (who will probably have to change their name shortly) I'm fairly confident they, too, would appreciate contributions from Lancaster insiders -- for a change -- as well as more donations that might be available from the same old small circle of outsiders.

Data and surprises.

The mother of a fifth grader spoke before the LISD board of Trustees Monday, 4th December. This is the second month in a row she's spoken.

This is the second year her daughter's taken fifth grade in LISD schools.

She has a number of issues with the district. The elected officials whom she addressed, later went to great lengths to assure each other that her issues could not possibly be true. And having satisfied themselves, the board could go home assured that they "care". The parent, on the other hand, went home feeling that nobody either cares or is competent to help.

And most of the community willl never learn of the problems. Certainly these issues will not make the local news. Discussions of left lane lopers, global warming and the evils of Exxon may appear in our finest publications, but the actual lives and future of the kids in our community are too mundane for most writers to waste time and column space with.

But not this writer. And not here, not now, and not again.

Let's read the history. Let's look up the data. And let's do the math.

Texas state law changed in 1999 The so-called "Student Success Initiative" was intended to track kids from that year forward, and those whose TAKS scores were below standard in progressively higher grades would not, themselves, progress. Not "flunked out", mind. But "held" as in warm and incubating arms, while the lessons appropriate to the child's age and grade began to "sink in". Sound commpassionate, right? No Child Left Behind ... all that.

The Kindergarteners of 1999 were the 3rd graders of 2003. Those who took their first TAKS test, and demonstrated mastery, were promoted. Those who did not demonstrate such mastery ...

Well, there's the problem.

In Texas as a whole, the "retention" rate for 3rd graders increased from just around 2.percent prior to 1999 and the SSI, to 2.5 percent in 2003.

LISD got an even bigger shock. In 2002 the retention rate for 3rd graders was 0.8 percent. In 2003, the SSI impact hammered 2.3 percent of the cohort.

Note this is already a smaller fraction than the state as a whole. But those kids were identified and were eligible for help.

The following year, 4th grade TAKS scores for Texas overall, reading and math, were up. The kids who had advanced from third having mastered the material were more likely to succeed in 4th. And the retention rate for 4th graders, in Texas overall, reflect that .. falling, for the SSI cohort, from 2.5 in third to 1.7 percent in 4th.

In LISD, though, the retention rate fell thru the floor. Zero. No kids at all were retained between 4th and 4th grade for the school year 2004-05. This is particularly interesting given that both reading and math scores lagged behind the Texas average. Only 28% of LISD students failed the 4th Grade Reading TAKS compared to only 14% for the state overall. Fourth graders in LISD saw 31% of their cohort fail math, compared to 13% of their peers overall. But fewer LISD fourth graders were required, (or had the opportunity) to repeat the grade, or attend summer make up classes.

Now the state mandates that the SSI cohort pass math. Fifth graders find it a hurdle, and state wide 3.8% of them are repeating 5th grade. But in LISD, where no fourth grader was left behind last year, 14.6% (a retention rate exceeding the state's by 384% , for those of you Harvard men following along...) of fifth graders got notice they would not be advanced to sixth. This retention rate is more than double the previous record ( 6.9% of LISD first graders were retained in 1997).

It wouldn't seem to matter much if the source of the disaster is poor students, incompetent teaching, bad textbooks, bird flu, or hurricane Katrina. When nearly 15% of a population is affected by ANY sort of disaster it's generally newsworthy, and a community pulls together to discuss the problem and search for solutions.

But not in Lancaster. Thru spring graduation of 2006 and the back-to-school autumn of the next school year, the district has been touting only their accomplishments. "Test scores are up". "Bond funds have been well spent." "The girls' track team has done it again!" Oh, and did they mention test scores were up?

Perhaps no one should be surprised that the district, during two political campaigns where rosy scenarios are perceived to be necessary to victory, that the general public didn't learn of the problem. But in their zeal to keep the bad news under wraps the district seemingly neglected to inform some of those most affected: the families.

This is Doris Allen's complaint about her daughter Dencia's treatment. Only after the end of the school year did she learn, she tells the board, that her daughter failed 5th grade math. And adding insult, the district belatedly adds her daughter has failed the math portions of 3rd and 4th grade TAKS, as well. Where is the communication, she wants to know.

How come, Ms Allen asks, a child's regular grade cards can be acceptable, even good, if the child doesn't know the material well enough to pass the tests? What do the grade cards mean? And how is a parent supposed to track a child's progress if the grade cards don't mean what the public expects them to mean?

Is a five week program of summer school really enough to help any child who is three years behind? And if a regular classroom with a regular teacher could not advance the student in an entire year at the first attempt, is another attempt using the same methods, textbooks, tools, classroom and maybe even the same teacher supposed to be really better? If so, how?

For the school year ending 2006, 82% of Texas fifth graders passed the Math TAKS. Exactly half that percentage passed in LISD. Black students did better than whites. Hispanics performed better still. Boys scored better than girls. The score and the breakdowns are all publically available -- although not at the LancasterISD.org website, even though the district's failure to publish such data is a violation of state law.

Do not mistakenly get the impression that math is the only arena in which our fifth graders are struggling. In reading, 81% of all Texas 5th graders can read at TAKS standards, but only 51% of ther LISD peers can do so. On this measure, white students do better than Hispanics, who do better than blacks. LISD girls read better than boys. In "Science" the TAKS results show 76% of Texas 5th graders passing, but only 42% of LISD's. Hispanics lead in this category, followed in a near-tie by blacks and whites. It's not about math. It's not about race. It's not about gender. It's about all kids of all genders and races struggling to extract any education from the system we've provided them.

"No cow is too sacred to get skewered " except from the herd Synder?

I can read. Can anybody 'round here do arithmetic?

Meadowview is platted for 790+ homes, of which 650 are built. Building started in 2002 and continues. If in fact there are 3 kids per Meadowview household enrolled in LISD, what would have been the increase in LISD enrollment since 2002 -- attributable to Meadowview alone without any increase from any other development in Lancaster (or environs, such as Bear Creek)?

650 x 3?

Now, what has been the reported actual increase in LISD enrollment since 2002? About 4000 to maybe 5500?

Do you see the problem with the Team of Eight's claims?

Now I think the problem is not that a PhD demographer who has run her own business for decades is dumber than a hack journalist and has sold bogus and unsupportable statistics to a government agency. That would be a good story, but any journalist with even minimumal delusions of adequacy, a pretense of competence, and aspirations of influence would not be bold enough to commit to his newspaper such a claim.

That sort of rumor is reserved for blogs.

The problem is not that a blogger is too lazy to check his facts and too cowardly to defend his opinions in open forum, preferring instead to block comments from any who dare prod his badly atrophied conscience, sadly decayed research skills, and madly arrogant egoism.

One gadfly more or less -- pfft. What matter?

The problem is that our duly elected public officials believe they can't tell the public the truth. No problem is bad enough as it is -- but it must be exaggerated and falsified until panic replaces thought. The LISD board of trustees is not content to claim that 100 new homes will require seats for 80 new students. No. The board, and the trustees, and the lazy innumerate arrogant uncritical Socratic Gadfly, our pretender defender, all agree that 100 new homes means 210, or 250, or over 300 new seats. And they assert that any body who doesn't think such blindingly "obvious" demographic "reality" is small-minded and anti-child.

I can understand an over-the-hill ex-football coach and former drivers-education specialist who accidentally wound up in charge of a 40 million dollar a year enterprise might have some apprehensions about people looking into his numbers.

But I can't understand or sympathize with a poseur who claims to be skeptical and anyaltical, who is content to carry the coach's water just for a seat at the game. Literally or metaphorically.

Really. Being an outsider has downsides, too, but being forced to choose between keeping one's own personal integrity and sucking up to liars is not among them.

I got mail today from those famous "insiders" John Wiley Price and Royce West, who apparently now live in, send kids to, and pay taxes to the Lancaster School District. Because, as you know, only OUTSIDERS oppose borrowing $215 million for school boondoggles. Since Price and West support Lancaster ISD they obviously can't be outsiders.

The two smiling insiders have presented a moving quotation from a historic forefather:

"Education does not benefit a man or woman for slavery."

How sad that the quote was mispunctuated. The flyer reads "Education, ..."

And how much sadder that our forefather's name was misspelled.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Senator West. Not "FreDDrick Douglas _ "


As long as we're quoting Frederick Douglass: "Knowledge renders a man unfit to be a slave." Knowledge, not rumor, not slander, not ommissions or even reputation.

Why don't the bond supporters who paid for a full page ad in the local paper and who bought the Price political support bother to provide voters with information about the SIZE of the bond? All the recent ads have omitted any mention of the $215 million price tag. They omit mention of the thirty year payback period. They omit even obfuscation about the pennies of tax rate impact that they have previously claimed as a tax "decrease". Knowledge is not what they want the voters to have. Fear of outsiders and a competition with homeschoolers, fine. But winning on the merits with a fully informed public? Not happening in this election.

But if you WANT to have our high schoolers trained to be bartenders, waitresses, and other hotel workers in the Moulin Rouge / Enterprise City project -- well I know a guy whose dreaming of helping you with that...

A full page ad in the local paper regarding the impending bond election offers an interesting fact.

My kids are homeschooled.

Guess what? My kids can spell the word "Treasurer", too. Ellen? Call me. I can help.

Other claims are less factual. Here are "mean ACT scores" . In 2002, the last full year of the previous superintendent's administration, we saw ACT of 17.2 but the most recent years available are down to 16.5 andf 16.4 Compared to the overall Texas ACTs LISD has gone from 95% of the mean in 1994, steadily down to 86% of the state score in 2002, and down FARTHER since Dr Lewis arrived to 81.5% of the Texas average score.

SAT scores show a parallel decline, from mean score of 847 before Lewis to 802 after he arrived. This is 86% of the state average once to 81.3% currently.

And the TAKS scores, all tests all grades, according to latest AEIS figures (and the 2005-06 won't be official until AFTER the election, isn't that convenient?) have declined from 62% of the state rate to 54.8% of that rate.

Full details upon request.

Anybody can lie in a paid political ad. First Amendment rights trump truth. I have no problem with that.


But let's not be stupid.

Well, it's HARD to "get the facts" about the LISD bond plans.

The CorganSchools.com sponsered website is still only a placeholder, as of this moment.

The district's own website continues to showcase a "frequently asked question" document that raises more questions than it answers. (Unless the apparently mis-punctuated sentence fragment answering the frequently asked question: Can the proceeds of the bond be used to purchase the 18 acre tract of land on the corner of Wintergreen Road and Dallas Avenue? is intentionally declarative: Money for land purchases for future school sites will be

Personally I don't believe the LISD "Team of Eight" has a long enough attention span to sustain a really juicy conspiracy. Quite the reverse ... the Questia e-library project goes from an unknown to the greatest-thing-since-sliced-bread in less than two weeks. A seat at a Jazz concert next to a TV personality generates a dream of "Enterprise City" in even less time. And kids in Lancaster go from comptuer illiterates who NEED laptops to become competive to computer-using naturals of the 21st century who know all about laptops even without instruction in less time than it takes to run a campaign. People who can't keep any better focus than that probably are plodding along according to deep laid plots.

But if there WERE a plot, it seems to me that the timing of the beer and wine election and the school bond would have been convenient. I mean, assuming somebody really had a vision of making the high school stadium into a city venue for professional sporting events -- soccer, minor-league football, pro javelin tossing, whatever. It just seem that fans at pro sporting venues like to drink beer. But Lancaster is, currently, dry. SO, the first step to getting a pro event into a public school facility would be getting a beer permit.

The hotel, resort, tavern, saloon and casino all would follow along naturally. And who would object? Sin Taxes are the most popular source of school financing -- the lottery already and cigarettes next year. Why NOT tax pro soccer players who come to the vo-tech high school hotel -- and the fans who buy and guzzle the beer at Tiger Stadium?

Silly, really. But all the district has to do to cut off such ridiculous speculations is admit that the whole "Moulin Rouge" thing is a side show. A distraction from the real business of teaching kids. That hotel jobs DON'T require an IB diploma, and that kids capable of an IB curriculum have more and better opportunities than clerking, waitressing, or bartending at some Vegas-style resort.

Margie Waldrop, or her husband, could come out and explain that their deals broke down and the wealthy heirs who control the foundation who own that property have backed out of the deal. That would end speculation. (And it would be consistant with the recent news about how Steve Topletz, of DB Horton, Adante, and the Lancaster "Boardwalk" development recently backed out of a land deal with the Haney Golf Course people ... I wonder, even if you trust the LISD to buy land next to Boardwalk for one of the new elementary schools, do you trust Steve Topletz to SELL that land? Interesting discussion to come next Monday...)

Or Ellen Clark, also a realtor, could come out and discuss where the best place in Lancaster might be for a new hotel -- and whether or not the site next to the High School is suitable and likely. This is a "fact" within her area of expertise. (For a change) We might find her plausible on the matter.

But.

Say a large wealthy architectural firm wanted to design a big fancy signature hotel ...

Oh, let's not be silly.

GOLIATH.

Today we received a gigantic, glossy-slick pro-bond flyer that refers curious voters to an incomplete info website.

As of this afternoon, the "info" site is marked with a "placeholder" -- no information at all.

Oh, and the page is registered to our friends in downtown Dallas:
WHOIS information for: bond2006yes.com:

Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain Name: BOND2006YES.COM
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com
Name Server: NS19B.NAMESERVERS.NET
Name Server: NS19A.NAMESERVERS.NET
Status: ACTIVE
EPP Status: ok
Updated Date: 20-Oct-2006
Creation Date: 04-Oct-2006
Expiration Date: 04-Oct-2007
>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:30:47 EDT <<<
[whois.melbourneit.com]
Domain Name.......... bond2006yes.com
Creation Date........ 2006-10-05
Registration Date.... 2006-10-05
Expiry Date.......... 2007-10-05
Organisation Name.... Corgan Associates, Inc
Organisation Address. 501 Elm Street
Organisation Address. Suite 500
Organisation Address. Dallas
Organisation Address. 75202
Organisation Address. TX
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES


Does it make me more conspiratorial to derive amusement from the fact a Dallas architect, a Lancaster realtor, and a regional garbage hauler choose to register their local domain with an AUSTRALIAN web host?

The letter TODAY newspaper had no room to print last week:


I'd like to chime in on the Clark/Griesman debate about books and computers. To recap, the Clark position is "books are out of date before they can even be printed" while the Griesman claim is "Basic text books are never out of date." Clark's rebuttal cites 50 years of recent history and Griesman has not yet had a rebuttal published.

I trust Clark does not mean to assert the Lancaster ISD actually permits classes to be taught using 50-year-old textbooks. It is perhaps useful to remind readers that the state of Texas reviews all textbooks for all subjects on a six-year cycle to ensure, among other things, that Brown V. Board of Education and Gore v. Bush Supreme Court cases (of 50 and merely 6 years ago) are covered. State-approved textbooks are bought by the state, not from local funds. However local schools may buy non-approved textbooks and still recover 70% of the purchase price from state funding. So, there is no reason the local district should be using out-of-date books. (Or, as two different angry parents asserted to the LISD board of trustees on 2 Oct 2006, there's no good reason for students at our brand new high school to be 5 weeks into their AP math courses with NO TEXTBOOKS AVAILABLE AT ALL. )

By contrast the state does not reimburse the district any percentage of the costs of computers purchased in lieu of textbooks. The 18 July 2006 ruling by Attorney General Greg Abbott clarifies:

" A textbook does not include computer hardware and other equipment, because such hardware and other equipment is separately defined as "technological equipment" in section 31.002. Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 31.002(1), (3)-(4) (Vernon 2006). "

The Clark suggestion that laptops are better than textbooks therefore implies that the laptops are SO MUCH better than textbooks that our district can forego state funding. She seems to suggest our taxpayers should ignore the "free money" from the legislature and instead borrow money, to be repaid locally, to supply laptops in lieu of books to our students. Griesman's point, however, is that over the 14 years our students are in the system, (pre-K thru 12) those laptops must be replaced at least 3 and possibly as many as five times. If the I&S tax rate (our "credit limit") is capped out in the first phase of the bond package, there will be no money available to be borrowed in a few years when the laptops under discussion must be replaced. The current proposal is a "one time offer."

It's also worth citing, again, the news from the LISD 2 Oct Board of Trustees The board considered purchase of "virtual library cards" for all students via the internet service "QUESTIA". The service certainly looks excellent for social studies materials -- covering Martin Luther King, for instance. However, the sales representative presenting the program to the board frankly admitted that "there's not much in our offerings for math and science teachers and students." So much for the high-school's AP math problems. I suspect each of those students now struggling to master this difficult subject without any book whatever, would welcome a set of even Clark's fifty-year-old pre-calculus textbooks.

Finally, a comparison. Suppose that as part of the 1985 LISD bond package the board had purchased for each classroom either a then-current set of encyclopedia, for about $3000 apiece, or had spent that same sum for each classroom to have a then-current IBM-XT -- monochrome monitor, dual floppy drives, no modem or speakers, and a dot-matrix printer. Which would more likely still be in use today -- now that our 1985 debt is paid off?

I commend the Today papers for sponsoring this debate and hope more citizens will participate between now and November.


Jeff Melcher
Lancaster

---

This turned out to be a forlorn hope. The public gets Griesman, Clark and me. Pity the President of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, three-year-resident of Lancaster, former State representative (of DeSoto) and at present manager of public relations for Gallagher Construction Mangagement services Mr Fred Orr (get the facts, get ALL the facts) couldn't contribute a paragraph or two extolling the various virtues of the man he calls "arguably" the finest superintendent in the state.

GEDANKENEXPERIMENT

The gendankenexperiment , or “thought experiment” is a term of science popularly associated with Albert Einstein’s notions of relativity. This, even though Ernst Mach was the first writer to use the term in popular science writing, and he himself picked up the term from Georg Lichtenberg from a century earlier. But as a concept rather than a term, the idea of imagining fantasy worlds in which to test situations goes back much farther. Germans dreaming of railway trains which move at the speed of light and infinite chains draped across frictionless corners all owe much to the Greek philosophers imagining how prisoners might interpret the shifting shadows cast upon their cave walls by the free creatures passing outside. Could the rational mind, from viewing only the hints of shadows, infer the reality? Is our ability to infer from scant clues innate, or learned. Plato's cave was among the first laboratory of the Gedankenexperiment. And ever since, we ask ourselves: how WOULD familiar things be different, if the world around us were fantastically different?

Cue the Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” music. Now, imagine, if you will a world very similar to our own, in which the Lancaster school district failed to persuade voters to pass a $93 million bond referendum in May. But this world is also very different. For in this GedankenExperimentWelt, the alternative-LISD board of trustees came back to its voters in September with a new smaller bond proposal. Instead of more than twice the amount just rejected, our imaginary board is holding a referendum on a bond less than half that previously proposed. Suppose, for a moment, we were discussing a $40 or $45 million dollar referendum.

What projects would be included? What would be omitted? What would our district do with a mere $45 million – barely over one fifth the amount begged in our reality?

Three elementary schools of $12 million would only require $36 million of the $45. Perhaps, in that alternate world, costs have increased even faster than in our own, and $12 Million would not buy a 660 seat school. So suppose these new proposed schools were forced to cut size – perhaps as small as 500 seats each. So, 1500 additional students could be educated in the GedankenExperimentWelt’s LISD.

These schools would, of course, require land to build upon. Perhaps the fantasy board would buy as many as four sites, planning ahead for additional schools in the future. Four elementary sites of 10 to 15 acres each might be expensive – as much as $15,000, even $16,000 per acre. That would commit another $1 million from the GedankenExperimentWelt Bond.

The athletes would still want a new bus or two to go back and forth for their games. The security troops would still want shiny new cop cars. The janitors and groundskeepers would still want new pickup trucks and their supervisors would, naturally, require new sedans to drive back and forth from school to school overseeing the work force. Suppose the fantasy board set aside another $2.5 million for vehicles.

This package has not yet totaled $40 million. Perhaps we can spare another million, then, for contingencies – if the price of a vehicle goes up; or a landowner holds out for a higher price for his site, or if steel prices ACTUALLY increase …

And still that fantasyland board has money left over. Perhaps a million could be spent in demonstrating how much better children learn if they carry laptops everywhere they go Perhaps another million in miscellaneous and unspecified “technology” – toys for the techies. And still, a million or so dollars might be left over for other pilot programs and demonstrations of competence – to gain the voter’s trust and to earn the respect of critics.

And what would those GedankenExperimentWelt critics be doing, while the district was out canvassing for votes on the $45 Million bond? Passing out flyers? Barraging the newspapers with letters to the editor? Digging for data – ANY data – to explain why the district needed so MUCH money; and wondering how much of the money would be wasted?

Blogging?

Or would the skeptics and critics of that fantasyland simply and quietly sit back and let the election happen? Would skeptics, perhaps, simply wait to see the administration succeed, or fail, on the projects and planned outlined? After all, even if that $45 Million fantasy bond passed, the fantasy district would have preserved for itself financial “cap room” – a reserve, a cushion, a fall back position, if necessary, for a new board, (if necessary) and a new superintendent ( as likely) to clean up the mess of any potential failure. If the risk of failure were not so high; if the cost of the experiment were not so great, why would the skeptics and critics bother to fight such an election?

Personally, I think it fascinating to consider how a smaller bond with more modest projects might have fared in this November’s election. Pity we’ll never get the chance to find out, in this world-based reality.

Let's get back to the issues of local schools.

According to industry analysts the cost for building an elementary school, on average in the Dallas area, runs about $93 for each square foot. ($/sq.ft.)

What did ours cost?

It's difficult to know. This district doesn't disclose detailed construction statistics. But we can easily see Texas standards for school size and estimate, based on the student capacity, what size the buildings SHOULD
be.

Texas standards for elementary school classrooms call for 36 sq. ft per student for grades pre-K thru first and 30 sq ft per student in higher elementary grades. Assume the more generous allowance for all grades of the Houston Elementary and stipulate the 660 “seat” capacity for that building. Then HSE should have 23,760 square feet in classroom area. Add the computer lab, science lab and library requirements of 40, 50, and 3 sq ft per student. That adds 61,380 sq. ft to the building. Add a gym for about 5000 sq ft. Add space for janitors, storage and miscellaneous, about another 10%. Round up. The building by standard ought to be about 100,000 sq ft. The cost of the building was about $11 Million. That’s $110 per square foot, or about 17 dollars per sq ft. higher than average for this area.




Or, if you follow the links you'll see that LISD schools cost more, by about 17 dollars per sq ft., than is average for this area.

Am I wrong? Prove it. Get the figures from Gallagher regarding actual costs and actual square footage, and do the math. Publish. "Get the facts," as Ellen Clark says.

You may have to file an Open Records Request, following up with the Attorney General, to get those facts. But go ahead. Facts are good things to get.

But onward! The industry source cited also reports average construction costs around DFW for a high school run about $100 sq. foot. The standards for a high school are 28 sq ft per student in classrooms, 36 sq ft per student in computer labs, 50 sq ft per student in science labs, a 7500 sq foot gym, and 3 sq ft per student for libraries, (with a 2800 sq ft minimum) The new high school is claimed to have infrastructure for 2800 students and classroom space for 2200. Do the math. Then add in another 10% space allowance again for the mop closets, etc. Round up to some convenient figure. Say 325, 000 sq ft for the high school.

Now, to obtain the costs. How do we distinguish the costs of the academic facilities from the sports arena deal in Lancaster? I propose we start by looking at DISD’s Jesse Owens Athletic complex on Polk Avenue. (The Dallas ISD, unlike Lancaster ISD, actually publishes their costs and facility statistics.) The Owens sports complex, designed by HKS architectural group and constructed by Turner Construction company, seats 12,000 in the stadium and 7500 in the fieldhouse. In other words, it's bigger than Lancaster's. The costs of the Owens complex were $38.7 Million. If ours cost the same, (meaning LISD spent more on the stadium than the school, which they have so far been unwilling to admit) and since the overall LISD HS project cost $73 million; then our high school building itself cost $34.3 million. Round down. Do the math. $34 Million into 325,000 square foot is $104.6 dollars per square foot.

By this estimate our High School costs are 4 percent higher than average for our market. Am I wrong? Prove it. Get the facts.

Let me point out something else. If I AM wrong about the cost of the stadium -- if our new Tiger Stadium cost less than $38 million -- then the cost per square foot of our school building is even more exorbitant. But I'm estimating too much for the cost of the high school; then it follows that the district DID choose to spend more and place a higher priority on their athletic facilities than academics. (the stadium was built one year faster than the school, too.

Which error of mine puts the district's planning and priorities into anything resembling a positive light? That they spent too much? Or that they put sports first? I cheerfully admit one or another of my own errors. What does the district confess to?

For readers who would rather talk about Iraq than Lancaster:

When Dick Cheney convened a council of advisors on national energy policy that included Exxon for oil and ArcherDanielMidlands for ethanol/biodiesel, but excluded Armory Lovins' conservationist
"nega-watt" companies, critics howled. Correctly. Politicians should have a range of choices on the table to select from. Advice may be ignored -- after it's given. But excluding advisors is wrong, and critics were right to howl about it. So how come a local administration that only gets advice from one financial advisor gets a pass? In 2003 the LISD sought out not only financial opinions from RBC, but Bank of America and Nathan McClellan (who is also a non-Lancaster voter, but oh well.) More recently, however, the only voice allowed in council is Matt Boles's. What's changed since 2003? And can a journalist for a small weekly newspaper with a circulation of under two thousand can crack the Dick Cheney and Exxon problem, when the New York Times could not? Or is it possible that limited efforts and resources might be better directed into a local investigation?

When Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown, and Root undertake to build a school in Iraq under "cost plus" federal contracts -- which guarantee that H/KBR makes a profit however past schedule or however much
over budget that school construction projects run -- critics howl. Correctly. "Cost plus" contracts are an invitation to waste, abuse, and "scope creep". The mere mention of the name Halliburton is synonymous in some circles with financial hemorrhage. But federal "cost plus" contracts are legal, however unwise, and the only
recourse the public has to correct the problem is to rely on the press to bring the abuses to light, and for the contractors to react from embarrassment. Why, then, should a local construction company operating under Texas law of "agency" (as opposed to "at-risk") contract management be expected to be any more careful of public money than Halliburton? And why would a local journalist sneer at KBR and turn a blind eye to Gallagher? Think globally, sure. But act locally.


When Ahmed Chalabi of the “Iraqi National Congress” shared his visions of raising a liberation army of Iraqi refugees and leading it into battle like some 21st-century version ofCharles DeGaulle rescuing France – well, critics howled. Correctly. Only idiots believed in Chalabi’s delusion of turning his rag-tag over-aged, overweight, under-trained lackeys into a fighting force. And after the actual liberation, when Chalabi again pushed himself forward for a second bite at the apple, proposing himself as (by special appointment of the United States) the new President of the newly “democratic” Iraq, well, it was altogether right and appropriate to take a quick look back at how well his grandiose visions of the prior few years had actually turned out. Shouldn’t all such visionaries and dreamers, even those with degrees in architecture and design, be similarly scrutinized? Or should companies like Corgan, Inc, be ignored in the media, when they make their second grab at the apple, because their intentions are so admirable? Why should any critical thinker attempt to be consistent between the local and the international? Integrity, maybe?

Millionaire master of journalists Eason Jordan revealed, after Saddam Hussein was deposed, that his CNN investigators had learned of terrifying and horrid acts by the regime that they had never published. Publication, Jordan explained, would have resulted in CNN being kicked out of Iraq, and possibly their sources, guides, interpreters and
friends being jailed, tortured, or killed. Critics howled. They called Jordan a hypocrite, an accomplice to terror, a traitor, an elitist sycophant who’d rather keep a seat at a murderer’s banquet than expose truth… Few of those critics acknowledged that Eason was certainly correct in his claim that confronting Saddam Hussein would have put innocent lives in imminent danger.

On the other hand, very few progressive journalists of the William Allen White variety actually face death for speaking (or writing) truth to what -- in Emporia, Kansas or Lancaster, Texas -- attempts to pass for power. When such a local scandal becomes known, and goes unpublished – well, there are other reasons than a lack of patriotism.

A reader writes:

Before you consider voting "YES" to the LISD 2006 Bond Package, and if you haven't done so already, please check out the above site which posts an article written by our very own Jeff Melcher of Meadowview. The LISD Bond Package approved in 2004 should have rendered the citizens of Lancaster a lot more than what my eyes see. I refuse to continue to give money to "the powers that be" to do with what they will. The few "building" activities that I do see, just don't add up to what could have been, if the funds were properly spent. I do not see and have not seen any significant improvements to Lancaster's streets (infrastructure) since my relocation to Lancaster in 2003. As a matter of fact, property taxes increased -- Trash, sewer and water fees increased and the services and amenities have DECREASED. When riding around the city it is very difficult to tell that we employ Animal Control Oficers or Code Enforcement & Inspections personnel. Why is it that the city is allowing dogs to run around (unleashed) and homeowners to trash out their properties? Some homes, including Meadowview, have weeds growing up to their windowsills. It appears that Lancaster Road, Pleasant Run Road, and Beltline Road are the only roads that are receiving a "minimum" of attention from the city. A new traffic light, a few "very small trees" here and there along Pleasant Run are just not enough. The majority of the streets and roads within the city are bumpy, patched up asphalt-over dirt and are in need of repair.

Also, the two main roads, Lancaster & Houston School at I-20 will be bottled necked up with 18-wheeler traffic. The Houston School Road project was just poor judgement by our city Planning Board members. The 2006 Bond Package request is just rediculous, outrageous and unfounded. When we vote YES to increase our property and sales taxes for city improvements, those taxes are collected FOREVER. WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE "Maximum" IMPROVEMENTS for our money. The city council members and city planning board act and treat us as though we do not have a right to KNOW how our taxes dollars are being allocated and spent and who is receiving those benefits. We need to hold these individuals accountable to US. Take a closer look at the Capital Improvement (school funding) $62,700,000 request. Why is so much money being allocated to school remodelings (tear downs) and improvements (temp. trailers)? What about qualified teachers and personnel. What good are the new and improved buildings if the children are being taught by substitute teachers. receiving poor classroom instruction. Who are the contractors? Are any of those contractors African Americans? Who approves and reviews the funds (checks) written to fund the projects?

Jannette M. Gosha

Meadowview

Thanks, Jannette

I'd like to come back to the question of which of the LISD contractors are small, minority, and women-0wned businesses (SMWB) in just a little bit. (You may be surprised.) But it is true that the Dallas district set measurable goals for SMWB contractors and exceeded those goals. LISD has, as far as I can determine, neither set such goals nor published the percentage moneys so spent.

Makes you wonder why, doesn't it?

Fight Property Taxes.

(Aside from voting to hold down school tax rates...)

Check out the Dallas Morning News' columnist "Ben Dover" and his recommendations about claiming property tax exemptions, reducing appraisals, and other ways of "fighting back".

See http://www.bendover.com/2004taxes.asp

(This is last year's article but the general advice applies.)

Try this.

(The site I'm pointing you to used "Active" controls so I can't just link to it. )

Print these instructions or copy them to notepad, so you can refer back to them.

Set your browser to www.corgan.com

Near the upper right, click on "PORTFOLIO"

On the new line that appears just below that, click on "EDUCATION"

Okay, with me so far? Now, over on the left, in a yellow box, click on
the line that says: BOND PLANNING / ASSISTANCE

The first (best?) example of this Architectural Firm's powers to influence
voters to support school construction projects is Lancaster ISD. See the
samples of the 2004 Bond campaign website.

Now look over to the right, in the grey box. SERVICES RENDERED
(to Lancaster ISD in 2004? )

-- Bond Program Development
-- Educational Specifications
-- Scheduling
-- Program Implementation
-- Public Relations
-- Bond Promotion.

Okay. you've seen it all? Come back to www.LISD-Rackets.blogspot.com and let's talk.

Now, There Is Nothing Illegal About This. Corgan can do any or all of this and there's no law one way or the other.

Just asking, though. Do you WANT an architectural design firm to set the specificiations for your district's educational programs? (Wouldn't teachers be better at that? )

Are the companies that stand to make millions of dollars in design fees disinterested and objective experts looking to minimize expenses on a Bond Program. Or maybe, just maybe, might they be inclined to pump up the scope of the projects a bit?

Are a private company's "Public Relations" campaigns on bond issue covered by election ethics guidelines? That is, are their publications "informational" like the schools, or "advocacy" -- like this site?

I mean, they can DO it -- but aren't they supposed to put their name on it and admit what they're doing?

Just a week or so ago ..

ABC News reported:

The audit by the inspector general's office of the Reading First program — the largest early reading program in U.S. history — found that officials in 2002 and 2003, shortly after the program was established, improperly tried to influence states on which curricula they should use.
In addition, some officials with the power to approve certain reading materials for states had connections with the publishers, according to the report. It added the department had not properly reviewed the officials for such potential conflicts.

The Associated Press similarly had the news:

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.

Interestingly, the Fort Worth weekly newspaper (appropriately named, FW Weekly) had all this story last January:

... in spite of all of the millions that have poured into the district for new reading programs since 1998, reading scores for most Fort Worth students have not improved.

Entrepreneurs of every stripe, it seems, have realized in the last decade or so that schools are not just places where scholars and future presidents are made. They are places were fortunes can be made — especially with a few friends in the right places.

Why do we care?

Only because the program in question is called Voyager Expanded Learning -- and is the the reading project the Lancaster ISD has been counting on ever since Dr Lewis arrived.

There is absolutely no indication or evidence that the people who decided to switch from whatever reading program they formerly used, to Voyager, pocketed or profited personally from the switch.

Mostly, they just reacted to the availability of federal funds; and the attractions of the educational "fad du jour" .

It's just that when the industry THIS year is dangling Bill Gates' grant money out there for districts that MIGHT consider adding more PCs to their portfolio of educational resources ... one wonders if proposals to offer laptops to kindergardners are really driven by desire for academic excellence, or a hope of latching onto some more free money.

Touchy topic.

Illegal immigration is getting a lot of attention in both national and local politics. The city of Farmers Branch embarrassed itself even talking about it. So I anticipate some outrage with this next topic. But we need to face reality squarely and, as Dr Lewis always says, Get the Facts.

Texas State Law and the Lancaster ISD enrollment policy are conflicted about legal residency and citizenship. On the one hand, local policy dictates:


DOCUMENTATION
If a parent or other person with legal control of a child enrolls the child in a District school, the parent or other person, or the school district in which the child most recently attended school, shall furnish to the District all of the following:
The child's birth certificate, or another document suitable as proof of the child's identity as defined by the Commissioner of Education in the Student Attendance Accounting Handbook;

and, from that handbook

Student Requirements include the following:
Social Security Card,
Birth Certificate
...
Lancaster ISD will prosecute any parent who falsifies document for purposes of attending LISD.

On the other hand, the SAME policy advices:

Denying enrollment to children who are not legally admitted into the United States violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)

So, the problem is, do students attending LISD schools who are not legally resident or citizens of the United States and Texas "count" toward the Average Daily Attendance?

If district average attendance is about 6000 students and even 1% of these students are challenged by the TEA for legal residency, how much money does the district lose?

Is the district building any allowance whatever into their annual budgets for the possibilty that their ADA numbers might be so challenged?

Can they then support their maintenance and operations budget, which depends so heavily on state funding based on that ADA, if the ADA turned out to be wrong?

And if they ARE worried about it, would they be upfront about the problem or bury the deficit in the bond programs Interest and Sinking fund budget?

Something to think about as you try to Get the Facts.

Confirming the option for students to transfer.

As Dr Lewis always says: Get the Facts.

From TodayNewspapers.Net 's always interesting Steve Synder:

Parents of junior high students can request a transfer to another school with which the district has a cooperative agreement on the district's dime. And the district had to set aside 10 percent of its Title I federal money, about $100,000, to pay for any transfer costs.

Boy, wouldn't it sure relieve over-crowding in the Lancaster District if every parent who actually cared about his or her kids pulled their kids out of those failing schools?

Not that I'm exactly recommending that, but just for discussion...