Get Schooled

By Jeff

September 24, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this

If something like this is this late, it is being either outright fabricated or SERIOUSLY “massaged”.

Considering that I know full well how many Randolph County Middle had, I wonder what their report will show….

By Teach

September 24, 2007 1:04 PM | Link to this

I know that the DOE is moving to a new data delivery platform and this has caused a delay in some reporting. Of course this won’t stop the conspiracy theorists from whining about it, but at least it will give a truthful explanation that rational people will be able to comprehend.

By Jeff

September 24, 2007 1:39 PM | Link to this

Teach:

I work in IT. I KNOW about deadlines.

You don’t miss one like this without DANG good reasons. And I’d like a technical discussion so that I can see the exact details if it is an IT error.

By high school teacher

September 24, 2007 2:20 PM | Link to this

Maybe it’s an “ID-10-T” problem. :)

By Teach

September 24, 2007 2:55 PM | Link to this

Jeff: It isn’t necessarily an issue of an “error.” The new DOE data warehouse is still being completed. I’m sure that with your vast experience in IT you can understand how projects experience delays for a variety of reasons. It isn’t just the discipline data that is being finalized. If you want further information, I would suggest you contact Travis Willard, who is the CIO for the DOE. He might have time to have a chat with you.

By V for Vendetta

September 24, 2007 3:07 PM | Link to this

It’s not so much about covering it up, but keeping it quiet. There are many people who would be surprised to hear that the “great” school I teach at is actually a stinking hole of discipline. We’ve had some hard admins come in late and attempt to turn the ship around, but I fear they may be too late.

I know of many problems that have taken place that I was rather surprised did not make it on the news. Credit the “PR” team for that. My county as a whole is covering up a lot of undesirable info, I can only hope that it comes to light so people will know the truth. I’m not rooting against my county (well, sometimes I am), I just hope that if people really see where we’re headed they might actually stand up and DO something about it. Imagine that.

By Jeff

September 24, 2007 3:23 PM | Link to this

Teach:

Executives are just like Superintendents: they’ll spin things to say what they want it to say.

Know the name of a Tech-dept crew dog working on the new platform? THAT guy I could trust to give me the ACTUAL reasons.

By Teach

September 24, 2007 3:43 PM | Link to this

I know the names of just about the entire crew. Their job is to do their work, not to talk about it. That’s Travis’ job. I’ve know Travis for years, long before he got promoted to his current position. You won’t find a more honest person anywhere. Trust me on that or don’t. I will say that they are implementing the Cognos data reporting system, and getting that integrated has been much more difficult than expected. DOE uses a lot of contract workers, and they have also experienced some turnover of key personnel. That’s all I can tell you, but all this conspiracy talk is really silly. There is no “cover-up” and the delays are quite legitimate.

By Jeff

September 24, 2007 4:16 PM | Link to this

Teach,

Let’s say I believe you about Travis’ honesty. I don’t know the guy, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

In all likelihood, as CIO he doesn’t know the details that the crewdogs would. I know my own COO doesn’t know the details of what I do, and I have a weekly meeting with him. (In fact, it was this morning!) He basically knows the projects I’m working on and a non-tech explanation of the overall idea. He isn’t an IT guy and doesn’t pretend to be, but he IS a great boss.

A question: When did they begin the work?

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

September 24, 2007 5:29 PM | Link to this

Perhaps NOW is the time to follow up and ask why the principal at South Atlanta High reported no major incidents, yet the Atlanta Police Dept. log shows they went to the school over FIFTY times the last time the data was released.

It would be interesting indeed to compare the APS high school data with that of the Atlanta Police Dept. data.

After all, if they are going to fire the principal at Morningside for “fudging” a resume’ how can they justify keeping a principal who outright FALSIFIES discipline records?

By catlady

September 24, 2007 5:29 PM | Link to this

The reports are so “fudged” and incomplete, at least in my county in the past, that they are worthless. Stabbing another student repeatedly with a fork, for example, becomes an “accident” and is not reported as the assault it is, for example.

By Don't be so stupid

September 24, 2007 5:35 PM | Link to this

“I know that the DOE is moving to a new data delivery platform and this has caused a delay in some reporting.”……… ” The new DOE data warehouse is still being completed.”………..”I will say that they are implementing the Cognos data reporting system, and getting that integrated has been much more difficult than expected”……….

Um, duh, then why wasn’t this all started earlier? I could never use excuses such as these in my workplace!!! Can you say ‘fired???’ To say “it’s taking longer than expected” means nothing but “we don’t know what we’re doing and should lose our jobs.” So write it all out w/ paper and pencil if you have to!

I agree….Idiot problem!!

Stop being so naive and soft. Giving excuses for lying, incorrect data that is late on top of it all!

By Parent

September 24, 2007 5:40 PM | Link to this

To: What will Bridget Do: You will want to check your counties “disorderly conduct” charge rule. School Resource Officers in some counties are known to charge students with this, and correct me if I am wrong, but that charge is not considered a major rule violation for the state DOE. For example, when the 2006-07 data is released some counties will show literally thousands of rule violations for disorderly conduct. That could be what is going on.

By So WILL you do the story???

September 24, 2007 5:42 PM | Link to this

So Bridget-

The writings here have me very curious!

1)WILL you do the story, showing how the school reported 0 incidents, yet the police visited routinely? If no, WHY??

2)WILL you do the story, comparing school incident data (reported) to the files of the Atlanta police? Again, if no, WHY?

3)They say here that you are so close to APS employees and Dr. Hall that you will not do an article showing the ‘down-side’ (the biggest side!) of APS. Is that true? If so, should someone else be doing this??

Just wondering!!

By catlady

September 24, 2007 6:20 PM | Link to this

My surprise is that what I perceive to be a serious disciplinary infraction does not seem to get reported as such. Assault is assault, no matter who commits it. The tendency to downplay serious infractions into a lower category is unethical and should be met with disciplinary action to the administrator at the school level and to the administrators at the central office level who encourage this kind of thing. Until the hand is called, it will not change. But teachers do not dare call the hand, unless they get out of the classroom.

By Larry

September 24, 2007 6:31 PM | Link to this

I didn’t know a deadline existed for posting these reports on the web site.

What is the date they are due?

By Ernest

September 24, 2007 6:37 PM | Link to this

Teach, what you said in your 3:43 post could be accurate. I’m not aware of major implementations like this that have been delivered on schedule. That said, I do wonder about the DOE because they should have run the reports on the old system and provided a caveat that it could be updated pending implementation of the new system. After all, some stakeholders use this data to help guide them on decisions where to send their children.

Maybe Dana shared that with Bridget. Maybe the initial numbers looked questionable from the new system causing them to perform additional analysis against the legacy system. Hearing an ‘official’ word about the delay does a lot to keep down ‘conspiracy’ theories…

By Bridget Gutierrez

September 24, 2007 6:48 PM | Link to this

SO: To answer your questions:

A. I wrote that story last year. Here’s a copy in case you’ve missed our previous discussions about this:

Pub. & Edition: AJC Main Edition Date: Tuesday, 8/8/2006 Section Name: Metro News Section Letter: C Page: 1 Label: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND Headline: A pointed look at school discipline Dek Head: Self-reporting, few checks and balances often lead to school disciplinary statistics that are misleading Byline / Source: BRIDGET GUTIERREZ / Staff Email: bgutierrez@ajc.com

Last year, Big Creek Elementary School in Cumming enrolled nearly 1,200 students, who, according to state disciplinary reports, were the best-behaved bunch in Georgia.

For the entire academic year — from August to May — Big Creek’s administrators had to discipline just one student, suspending or expelling a single, unruly grade-schooler.

“There may have been very minor things like name-calling,” Principal Tom Davis recalled of the problems teachers dealt with last year. “But actual discipline, where there’s fighting — it’s amazing — it doesn’t occur here.”

Davis may be right, but under the law intended to compel schools to disclose disciplinary information, there is no independent way to know for sure.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools must report major disciplinary incidents — including those involving vandalism, thefts, fights, drugs, knives and guns — as well as cases where students received official punishment, such as an in-school suspension, every year. But some experts say school disciplinary statistics can be misleading because administrators have differing standards for punishment, the data are self-reported and there are few, if any, checks for accuracy.

“There’s an enormous amount of pressure on schools to have good-looking statistics, so I think there’s a tremendous amount of minimization of problems — not in all districts, but in many,” said Marla Brassard, an associate professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, who studies violence in schools. “There’s just a lot of loopholes in the way people manage their data, particularly when the whole reputation of the school is at risk.”

If state Department of Education officials find campuses with too many major disciplinary problems and too many serious, ongoing crimes — including batteries, rapes and robberies — parents can transfer their children to safer schools. Last month, department officials cleared Georgia’s two “persistently dangerous” campuses, in effect stating that all of the state’s public schools are safe.

But an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the latest disciplinary reports, which were obtained under the state Open Records Act, revealed some data that could be questionable.

Consider South Atlanta High. With fewer than 20 disciplinary incidents per 100 students last school year, South Atlanta was the third safest high school in the metro area.

None of South Atlanta’s 1,100 students was caught stealing, carrying a knife or concealing a gun.

Yet, according to Atlanta Police Department records, authorities were called to the campus at least 50 times during the school year, including multiple times for thefts, burglaries and weapons offenses.

An Atlanta schools spokesman said administrators were not prepared to comment on South Atlanta’s ranking.

“Before we can respond intelligently,” the school system said in an e-mailed statement, “we need time to get our facts together and review the data to see whether the statistics you cite are accurate.”

An education department spokesman said state officials trust the reporting process in which local superintendents certify that the information is accurate.

“We’re pretty confident that the vast majority of our principals and superintendents are doing the right thing and reporting fully,” spokesman Dana Tofig said. “If they don’t and it’s discovered, they could face an ethics complaint and that could affect their [professional] certification. So there are consequences.”

The latest school-level reports reflect a familiar pattern of data that varies widely from campus to campus and system to system, a situation that has exasperated some parents, teachers and administrators who say the numbers don’t reflect reality.

“It’s definitely frustrating for parents because the data we are allowed to get is minimal,” said Cindi Wilson, a Loganville mother who helped start Parents Against School Violence a few years ago in Gwinnett County. “Since No Child Left Behind has come into play it has not necessarily made things better for the safety of the schools or the reporting.”

The AJC analysis found, for example, that eight of the 10 high schools with the highest rates of student offenses were in DeKalb County. So were seven of the 10 highest-offending middle schools and six of the 10 most undisciplined elementary schools.

Compared to other local systems, DeKalb had the second-highest rate of disciplinary problems with 110 cases for every 100 pupils. Metrowide, the rate was 58 per 100.

Recently, DeKalb officials defended their schools, saying that diligent reporting of discipline problems makes them stand out.

State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), who thinks there needs to be better oversight of the reporting, is inclined to agree.

“Can you imagine any label that’s worse?” he asked. “A failing school academically is one thing, but a dangerous school, that’s the worst. That’s indicating that your child may not survive the school day.

“So, if you’re a superintendent or principal and you know neither the state nor anyone else is going to give oversight, then would you be more inclined to fudge the numbers? I guess so.”

While state officials use the discipline reports to ferret out dangerous schools, they do not audit the data for accuracy or check for potential errors. So when Pelham City Middle School, a 337-student campus south of Albany, reported 392 incidents of arson last school year, it didn’t raise any flags at the department.

Contacted by the Journal-Constitution, Pelham City Superintendent Stephen Dunn was perplexed by the figure — obviously an error, he said — because he hadn’t recorded a single case of arson last year.

“If you drive down south here, you’ll see I’ve only got one middle school,” Dunn said. “If I had 300 arsons, I wouldn’t even have a school standing.”

B. I’ve done that in the past for APS (see above). Will I do it again this year? I don’t know yet.

C. No, it’s not true.

By DB

September 24, 2007 7:08 PM | Link to this

Umm … Bridget, am I missing something here, or it is just “new math”? When I add up all those violations, I only get 221,651. Still a bucket-load, but less than your number by a factor of 486%.

By jim d

September 25, 2007 9:23 AM | Link to this

I question how accurate the states reports will be in the first place since local school fail to provide accurate information to the state.

Why do so many local school administrators underreport school crime?

Unfortunately I think that school administrators believe that by reporting school crimes they will draw adverse media and public attention to their school. These school administrators believe that parents and the community will view them as poor managers of their schools if their school has a high number of incidents or appears in the media because of a school crime incident. Many administrators (principals) are pressured by central office administrators and/or school boards, either directly or indirectly, if their school crime reports, discipline cases, suspensions or expulsions, etc. are “high” or “higher” than other schools.

Personally I’d like to see incident reporting conducted on more than a “good faith” effort with little-to-no state proactive auditing, enforcement, or penalties for false or under-reporting. Until that happens I don’t put much faith in these numbers.

It occurs to me that a school with higher reported incidents might actually be safer than one with very few incidents because someone is actually reporting incidents and not sweeping them under the rug.

By Bridget Gutierrez

September 25, 2007 9:27 AM | Link to this

Sorry for the confusion, DB.

There are 26 different categories that the state Department of Education breaks discipline offenses into. I didn’t list every category above. I just highlighted some of the more interesting figures.

The bulk of the incidents actually falls in the unspecified “other serious offense” category. Last year there were 816,708 cases of “other” serious offenses.

By Ernest

September 25, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this

JimD, you hit on what the root of the problem is, a lack of standards across the state with how discipline issues are reported. What is reported for your son in Gwinnett could be different for mine in DeKalb, even though they might have the same infraction.

I’d be interested in the number of students at a school that has x or more infractions along with the total numbers for a school. IMO this provides greater insight because if we see a majority of what is reported being caused by a handful of students, it should guide us on how to address the problems. In a way, it reminds you of how some schools are deemed ‘failing’ because they did not make AYP because of a category that did not impact a majority of the students.

By jim d

September 25, 2007 10:43 AM | Link to this

Ernest,

Thanks, but I’m more convinced that it should be a federal standard not just state. If we are to be compared nationwide then the standards must be the same. UNLIKE NCLB!

I really didn’t just say more Government did I?

By Ernest

September 25, 2007 10:54 AM | Link to this

We are living in a new age of accountability and scrutiny, with all kinds of metrics and measures available. What good are the reports if we question the validity of the data? How can we make decisions that will positively impact the learning environment and student achievement without some form of standards in place? Yes JimD, we may need federal standards for discipline yet provide local school systems the caveat to come up with their own as long as they are higher.

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

September 25, 2007 12:05 PM | Link to this

To: “So WILL you do the story?” Let me be clear. I have NEVER said Bridget didn’t do a story. I said there was NO FOLLOW UP.

By Bridget’s own admission, even though she did the original story, and even though she recently sat down with Dr. Hall for an extensive, wide ranging interview (half a page of newsprint, and those were the “edited” comments) Bridget decided that asking why the South Atlanta principal submitted FALSIFIED FEDERAL DOCUMENTS wasn’t a priority of hers (and I guess by extension the readers and taxpayers of Atlanta)

So “So WILL you do the story?” you are absolutely not wrong in questioning the relationship between the AJC and Atlanta Public Schools when stories such as this get ZERO follow through (but a “fudged resume’ from the Morningside principal gets EXTENSIVE follow up)

Perhaps now that Bridget IS the “beat writer” for APS and NEW data is coming out, a more through accounting of discipline discrepencies at APS is soon to come.

Let’s hope so, as I’ll be the FIRST to come on board and acknowledge it.

By Ernest

September 26, 2007 10:23 AM | Link to this

Jeff and Teach:

I decided to follow up on why we haven’t seen the discipline reports yet by contacting Travis Willard, CIO for the GA DOE. He was very responsive to my request for information. Below is the result of my email communication with him, my inquiries will be italicized and his responses bolded.

*Mr. Willard:

Your name came up in a discussion on the AJC Education Blog GetSchooled as someone who may be able to shed insight on the subject. They mentioned these reports were delayed because of challenges with your Cognos implementation. If so, can these reports be provided using your legacy systems? Any information you could share would be appreciated.*

**Thank you for your email. There is no truth to the rumor that the implementation of Cognos has delayed the state from reporting any numbers. In fact, Georgia was the first state in the nation (for the second year running) to make its AYP determination. The data has all been collected in a timely manner. With respect to the discipline report, that information was also collected in a timely manner. However, due to a leadership change in our Safe & Drug Free Schools program, there was a delay in getting that information on the web. It should be posted soon.

If you have any other concerns please feel free to email me.

Regards,

Travis Willard Chief Information Officer Georgia Department of Education**

*Thanks for your speedy reply and clarifying the comment made by a poster. One thing they said is definitely true, you are an honest person!

Would you mind if I shared your reply with Bridget Gutierrez, one of the AJC reporters and the manager of the blog?*

**No problem. Please do share with all that are interested.

Thanks, Travis**

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

September 26, 2007 12:09 PM | Link to this

The people at DOE can only work with the numbers the school systems supply. So if the school systems are willing to FALSIFY THE DATA, what good is it?

Having said that the stupidintendent (oh those pesky typos:) didn’t earn any points in the integrity department with the “historic progress” report.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to attack her integrity; after all she’s not exactly known as an “intellectual giant”. She might actually believe we’re making historic progress. Scary isn’t it?

By Truth Filter

September 26, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this

Gee I wonder why people are reluctant to run for office? Maybe it’s because they have to deal with blowhards like WWBD calling them “stupid” just because they disagree with them.

To play devil’s advocate here: If fourth-grade reading scores are at an all-time high, then that would be “historic” in a way. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words, but for God’s sake it’s a PRESS RELEASE, not a research paper.

And save your keystrokes WWBD — I’m done here and won’t see the reply…

By So WILL you do the story???

September 26, 2007 3:08 PM | Link to this

Bridget-

Ok! Thanks for the article.

I see how you did ask about the SA discrepancies, w/ the police visiting. This is a HUGE story - especially to the taxpayers. NOW, they wouldn’t respond then - they said they needed time to respond intelligently (ha).

So…..did you really not follow up? Did you really not give them “time,” and then go to get your response?

I’m going to be so disappointed if you didn’t…..that’s your job!!! Please tell me you did.

By Bridget Gutierrez

September 26, 2007 4:43 PM | Link to this

SO: We’ve been through this issue many, many times. But I will explain it again for your benefit.

Last year, Patti Ghezzi (the former blog master here) was covering APS.

She and I had worked on a previous story about the state discipline reports. I wrote the story posted above as a follow up to that first article.

Obviously, the story above does not concern just APS. There are several school systems cited in the report. So, any follow-up stories about a specific school system, such as APS or DeKalb, would have been the responsibility of the beat reporter.

That’s just the way our division of labor works in the newsroom.

That means, at that time, the story would have fallen to Patti.

I cannot speak to why Patti never followed up on the issue. Perhaps she felt the story spoke for itself and nothing further was needed. Or maybe she just never got around to it before she left on maternity leave. I really do not know.

But, now that the discipline reports are out again, I will be writing another story about them. Of course, I can’t yet say what the article will say or which school systems the story might highlight.

We have to crunch the data first.

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

September 26, 2007 6:05 PM | Link to this

Truth Filter,

The TRUTH is, Kathy Cox made Georiga a laughingstock by trying to take the word “evolution” out of the school curriculum in order to pander to those who want to replace SCIENCE with a Creation Myth. Considering where we are in Science, that’s not excatly “intelligent design” of the curriculum now is it?

I guess I could have used the term “morally reprehensible” as that would fit as well.

If a politician acts in manner that questions their very credibility, not only is it appropriate, it in incumbent upon the populace to note that. It’s what we do in a representative republic.

By Lee

September 27, 2007 6:31 PM | Link to this

The biggest problem with discipline reports is that the principal and other administrators have a vested interest to under-report, especially incidents of violence.

My neice was attacked by another student and instead of having the attacker charged with battery, the principal suspended both for fighting because my neice tried to defend herself. The teachers who intervened in the attack never asked who the two girls nor any of the witnesses who started it, what happened, etc. They just took them to the office and said they were fighting.

Administrators hide behind “zero tolerance” policies in order not to have to make a decision.

My sister in law went to the police to see about pressing charges, but since the school didn’t call them, they wouldn’t do anything.

BTW, ya’ll read about the Cobb student who left the campus for lunch and got caught? They searched his car and found a Swiss Army knife, you know, one of those things with forks, spoons, corkscrews, etc. Idiot principal suspended him. Damn zero tolerance bu11shit again.

Heck, I and most of the boys in my school carried knifes from the 1st grade until we graduated. During deer season, just about every pickup truck had an old shotgun or 30-30 rifle in the back window.

Today, the idiots suspend a elementary schoolgirl for a Tweety Bird keychain.

And ya’ll in public education wonder why the public has zero respect and trust for you…..

By jim d

September 28, 2007 8:21 AM | Link to this

Lee,

I believe the public has rightfuly adopted their own zero tolerance policy towards the the schools stupid actions.

As one of my all time favorite comics points out “ya just can’t fix stupid”

By So WILL you do the story??

September 28, 2007 5:49 PM | Link to this

So, let’s do it this year! And hope Patti isn’t rough on you when she sees how quickly you threw her under the bus (she’s reading!). And….let’s not talk down to me for not ever having been here to read what you all talk about “many, many times!” Be nice!

By Bridget Gutierrez

September 28, 2007 6:31 PM | Link to this

SO: I’m sorry you mistook my response. I was not talking down to you, I was simply pointing out that this issue has been well discussed.

And, I was hardly throwing Patti under the bus. As I stated, there are legitimate reasons why she may not have followed up.

If she is reading the blog, I’m sure she wouldn’t be shy about answering the question herself.