Pour me a double...

This is heartburn-inducing for me because as I say several places on this blog, I really like Yolonda Brown. I like her passion and her upbeat attitude.

But the question has to be asked:

Since by all accounts Yolonda Brown was hired to be SPARK's first principal on the strength of the incredible CRCT scores at CW Hill Elementary (where she was also the principal), if it turns out (as is almost certainly the case) that those scores were illusory, the product of wholesale cheating on the part of somebody (not Ms. Brown, but somebody under her supervision), have we, the parents of Springdale Park, not been defrauded?

Put it another way: if Yolonda Brown had applied for the SPARK job and not had those scores and that Governor's Platinum Award on her CV, would she even have been a finalist?

With this beautiful new school and a community of active, involved parents, could we not have obtained a more experienced principal from the top 10% of candidates anywhere in the country?

If Yolonda Brown had to reapply for her job today, would you vote to hire her?

Wow. This is awkward....

Photo taken at the recent National Conference on Education in Phoenix, where these APS educators (combined salaries + benefits somewhere north of a million dollars) were singled out to show the rest of the nation how to do things right!

Pictured, left to right: Yolonda Brown, who was chosen to lead SPARK this year on the strength of CRCT scores at her former school CW Hill, scores which now seem highly suspect; Robin Hall, SRT-3 Executive Director, who was also promoted from a school that landed on the state's "extreme" list (Beecher Hill Elementary); Kathy Augustine, usually referred to as Bev Hall's hatchet-person, who likes to describe wildly improbable test scores as "outliers," and Bev Hall, soon to be the former superintendent of the Atlanta Public School system. (Over/Under on this one is June, 2010).

Read all about how they "flipped the script" (I guess that's a euphemism) to drive APS to great heights!

Can you hear me now?

For those of you who thought I was a lunatic for complaining about the principal-selection process for SPARK, well, try a little bit of this (be sure to read down 'til you get to the comments about Yolonda Brown) and then wash it down with some of this.

We could have had a national search and a highly accomplished Ph.D. running our beautiful new school, but instead we got a principal who won the Governor's Platinum award for CRCT scores that (in some cases, at least) only a delusional person could believe were legit, and whose boss and patron (SRT3 executive director Robin Hall) was promoted out of Beecher Hills Elementary, a school that just had 23 of its 54 classes flagged for suspicious erasures.

So maybe next time we need to help select a new principal, we can resolve to actually insist on a vote, rather than just offering our "guidance" to the omnipotent Bev Hall?

Kind of like I said here.

Who're you gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?

Many parents have made the point that our principal, Yolonda Brown, was hired at SPARK on the strength of her magnificent CRCT results as principal of CW Hill Elementary, her former post.

But at CW Hill, a school that landed in the "Severe Concern" category in the current cheating investigation, 29% of the CRCT classrooms were flagged by the state for a much higher of erasures + wrong-to-right answer changes than the statewide averages.

Below, you'll find the results of the initial erasure investigation on all CW Hill CRCT classrooms grades 3, 4 and 5. (I'm omitting grades 1 and 2 because only 1 out of 9 CRCT classrooms was flagged, and that one had a relatively low "alert" level of only 4.122 assigned by the state investigators).

You don't have to be a statistician to conclude a few things right away:

1. There are some obviously honest teachers

2. There are some numbers that trigger a klaxon horn and big neon CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT sign.

If you want the most vivid example, skip to the very bottom and review the numbers for the two 5th-grade reading classes. Now, both have relatively small class sizes (20 and 22 students, respectively), and small class size is an important variable and a reason given by officials not to rush to judgment. (Statisticians like to see a sample size of 30+ before they are really sure about their conclusions).

In the classroom that was NOT flagged for signs of cheating, the most wrong-to-right changes made by any single student was two.

That's right--just two.

The average student in that class changed only 0.350 answers from wrong to right. (That means for every three students, only one of them changed one answer from wrong to right).

In the entire classroom, only seven answers were changed from wrong to right.

Now let's contrast those results with the other 5th grade reading classroom, the one that was flagged for signs of cheating.

In that classroom, which contained 22 students, the total number of wrong-to-right changes was 240.

240, vs. 7 in the non-flagged classroom.

The average kid in the flagged classroom changed (or had his answers changed from wrong to right by someone) 10.909 times.

10.909, vs. 0.350 in the other classroom.

The statewide average for wrong-to-right corrections for 5th grade reading classes was 1.136 changes (and remember, this number includes all the cheaters, who skew that 1.136 number up from what it would be if all cheaters were excluded).

So the average kid in the flagged classroom changed his answers from wrong to right about 10x as many as the average kid statewide.

Have you seen enough yet?

What's going to happen next? It's pretty easy to anticipate. The teacher in that 5th grade class is going to get fired, unless he or she manages to implicate someone else. If there was any coordinated cheating among classrooms, perhaps led by an administrator, that will come out, because everybody will be trying to cover their own butt.

But the question for us as SPARK parents is really this: is there any possibility Yolonda Brown could have been involved or even known about the cheating, and even if she didn't, doesn't she, as the principal, bear some responsibility for it?

My answer would be no and no. I have sat across from Yolonda Brown and put her through the wringer on the poor performance by the Program for Exceptional Children at SPARK. I have had a steady dialog with her since she came on the scene about that and other matters. My opinion of her is only just that--my opinion, but in my view, Yolonda Brown is incapable of cheating on a test or anything else. She is a fine person with a tremendous work ethic.

Now, she's also a product of the APS system and is beholden to Bev Hall for her rapid career advancement. So that leaves her vulnerable, at least to the extent Bev Hall is now vulnerable.

But nothing I have seen has caused me to waver even the slightest in my support for Yolonda Brown.


Here are the data from the Governor's OSA (via AJC).


I have bolded the numbers that really stand out.




Atlanta Public Schools
School
C W Hill Elementary
Grade
3
Subject
English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class
13
Answers changed from wrong to right
96
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom
7.385
The most wrong to right changes for a single student
20
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right
1.508
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable
3.216
Was the class flagged?
Yes
The severity of the flag by the state
10.320


District
Atlanta Public Schools
School
C W Hill Elementary
Grade
3
Subject
English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class
15
Answers changed from wrong to right
174
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom
11.600
The most wrong to right changes for a single student
22
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right
1.508
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable
3.098
Was the class flagged?
Yes
The severity of the flag by the state
19.037




District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class 15
Answers changed from wrong to right 28
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.867
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 5
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.508
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.098
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state
0.677
(Rick's comment: this is an obviously "honest" classroom)



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 13
Answers changed from wrong to right 66
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 5.077
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 21
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.874
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.898
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 4.747




District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 15
Answers changed from wrong to right 144
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 9.600
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 18
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.874
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.759
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 12.298



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 15
Answers changed from wrong to right 48
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 3.200
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 9
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.874
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.759
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 2.111


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 13
Answers changed from wrong to right 93
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 7.154
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 11
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.172
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.725
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 11.555


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 15
Answers changed from wrong to right 131
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 8.733
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 19
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.172
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.618
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 15.689


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 3
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 15
Answers changed from wrong to right 27
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.800
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 5
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.172
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.618
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 1.302

District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 66
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 3.000
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 14
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.405
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.706
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 3.679


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class 23
Answers changed from wrong to right 45
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.957
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 6
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.405
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.677
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 1.301


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 54
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 2.455
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 7
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.874
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.438
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 1.113


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 23
Answers changed from wrong to right 49
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 2.130
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 5
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.874
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.404
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 0.502


District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 33
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.500
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 8
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 0.995
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.043
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 1.447



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 4
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 23
Answers changed from wrong to right 43
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.870
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 5
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 0.995
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.020
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 2.561



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class 20
Answers changed from wrong to right 21
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.050
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 7
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.435
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.804
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state -0.843



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject English/Language Arts
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 173
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 7.864
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 14
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.435
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.740
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 14.777



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 20
Answers changed from wrong to right 37
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 1.850
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 13
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.825
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.526
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state 0.044



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject Math
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 174
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 7.909
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 18
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.825
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 3.447
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 11.252



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 20
Answers changed from wrong to right 7
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 0.350
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 2
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.136
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.363
Was the class flagged? No
The severity of the flag by the state -1.923



District Atlanta Public Schools
School C W Hill Elementary
Grade 5
Subject Reading
Number of students in the class 22
Answers changed from wrong to right 240
Average number of answers changed from wrong to right for the classroom 10.909
The most wrong to right changes for a single student 21
State average of changes of answers from wrong to right 1.136
State threshold for flagging a classroom as questionable 2.306
Was the class flagged? Yes
The severity of the flag by the state 25.069

Felonious Junk

The courageous Mercelo and Carolyn Ferrari. Courtesy WXIA-TV

The very same Gwen Stokes who is indicted by her own words and inaction in the posting just below this one has had major troubles in the past, and not too long ago.

In this article by WXIA reporters, Stokes accuses the parents of a physically abused autistic boy named Stefan Ferrari of a felony when she finds out they secretly recorded the abuse their son endured. (Carolyn, the mom, sewed a microphone into the shirt of the little boy as he trundled off to the state-run facility where he had been placed by the APS Program for Exceptional Children).

Here's an excerpt:

"...just three weeks after the incident, Atlanta Public School employee Gwen Stokes...told the Ferraris that their audio taping of Stefan's day at school was illegal. An argument started --

"It's a felonious taping," Stokes said.

"That's your opinion," said an unidentified adult's voice.

"Show me the statute! Show me," demanded Marcelo Ferrari.

"I'm sorry, you're saying it's a felony?" said Carolyn Ferrari.

"I didn't say it's a felony," said Stokes.

"You said felonious," the Ferraris both said.

"It is," Stokes replied.


No, it isn't. Georgia is one of the many states that permit one-party consent for video recordings, meaning that the Ferraris were well within their rights to record what happened to their 11-year-old boy.

So it's troubling that Stokes would accuse them of breaking the law.

It's even more troubling that she would say their act was felonious, but also say she didn't consider it a felony. That makes me think Gwen Stokes doesn't know what the word "felonious" means and was using it as a synonym for "criminal" or "against the rules."

Not only is she dangerously unaware of the law, her behavior in this incident and the one in the next post you'll read suggest she lacks the intellectual capacity to hold a position as important as "compliance coordinator" in a special-ed program, where the rules and laws are extremely complicated.

But let's put all of that aside for a moment. Isn't the most troubling part of all of this the fact that when confronted with irrefutable evidence the child in question was physically abused, Gwen Stokes' first reaction was to try to block the evidence from consideration?

How utterly unethical.

Let's Break A Deal!

When is a deal not a deal? When you make it with the PEC's Gwen Stokes.

This posting is a little "inside baseball," so unless you have a child with an IEP in the public school system, you probably will find it pretty boring. But if you are in the system, you should know how this stuff happens...


Last October, in a meeting you'll read about elsewhere on this blog, Gwen Stokes, Compliance Coordinator (remember that title!) for the the Atlanta Public Schools Program For Exceptional Children, met to talk about the dramatic impact a piece of computerized instructional software was having on our autistic son. We agreed this technology--or something very similar to it -- should be implemented in our son's IEP as soon as possible. The PEC Assistive Technology specialist at the meeting, Jennifer Holloway, refused to agree to a deadline--ANY deadline. But I refused to leave the table without one.

We threw some numbers around: five weeks? Six? Gwen looked wary, but I felt we were getting close. Then I made her my final offer: eleven weeks. (I realized it would take that long for our son to finish the current round of software, which he had just begun, and therefore we might as well just make a clean start of it on the first day of the new semester, 1/6/2010).

Ms. Stokes eagerly embraced this generous timeframe and we shook hands on a deal.

As I write this now, it's Feb. 23, 2010, and I'm sure you can guess what has happened. But it's worse than you might think. They didn't just miss the deadline, they gave us the big Eff You. As the deadline approached, came and went, the parties responsible for getting a single piece of software installed for a child ignored each other, refused to answer inquiries from me, and evaded responsibility and accountability with the lithe movements of Olympic gymnasts. I obtained 300+ pages of emails from APS under the Open Records Act and they show that Gwen Stokes did nothing to tell anybody about the deadline we'd agreed on, even after repeated polite reminders from me; that she never once told a single colleague via email about the plan we had agreed to, and that she never once asked why the deadline was missed or how the software acquisition process was coming along.

I pursued Gwen Stokes via email and phone for more than 2 1/2 months, never getting a single reply. Finally, last week I managed to catch her via phone at her desk. It was not a pretty conversation.

"Did you not feel you had some responsibility to inform other people about this?" I asked, citing her notable absence from the email trail. "Mr. Lockridge," she said, "I do not conduct all my business via email. I do most of it by phone." "Fine," I said, "so who did you talk to about this, and when, and what did they tell you?" "Mr. Lockridge, I do not recall."

"Did you not feel it was your obligation to tell somebody about the agreement we had made and the deadline we had set?"

"No, I did not."

"Let me be clear about this, Ms. Stokes--you say that even though you negotiated this agreement with me--you sat across the table from me and negotiated it--just you and me; and after that date, you were under no obligation to inform any of your colleagues about the deal we made nor follow up with any of them in any way?"

"That is correct. I have no control over what other people do. I can only do my job."

"But isn't part of your job to communicate to your colleagues the agreements you make?"

"Mr. Lockridge, I have another parent in my office right now and I am not going to discuss your case in front of another parent."

And she quickly hung up.

So there you have it. The compliance coordinator for the APS Program For Exceptional Children, explaining her philosophy on how compliance works: make a deal, tell nobody, ignore reminders to tell somebody, refuse to reply to emails and phone calls, duck the angry parent for 10 weeks, and then have nothing to say for yourself other than "I have no control over what other people do."

Friends, the PEC is not fixable so long as people like this woman occupy positions with titles like "compliance coordinator."

Spin, or "legitimate testimony"? You decide.

My email exchange with APS spokesman Keith Bromery.

From my perspective, the idea that APS, confronted of evidence that it has been contaminated by the worst test-cheating scandal in U.S. history, would do anything other than initiate an investigation and promise lots of transparency is unfathomable. Shut up and wait for the results, and then deal with them. But no, the geniuses downtown got together and tried to invent some nonsense alternative theories for the damning numbers.

It pisses me off when educators decide math and statistics--you know, science--should take a back seat to their own folksy homespun wisdom about what happened.

But I'll let you decide.

From: Rick Lockridge [mailto:rwlockridge@mindspring.com]
Sent: Sat 2/13/2010 11:38 AM
To: Bromery, Keith
Subject: From APS Parent Rick Lockridge


Keith:

So these are the two theses you're advancing to spin the cheating scandal into a non-scandal:

(1) APS teachers are uniquely diligent about exhorting the kids to go back and change answers if need be, resulting in a level of self-correction you think is honest but every testing expert consulted so far says is statistically impossible,

and

(2) these poor disadvantaged kids struggle so mightily, they often don't get things right the first time but through sheer tenacity they're able to somehow reach deep and find the answers inside them--the second time around, and before the clock expires.

Keith, I'm appalled and disgusted by your public statements on the cheating scandal. And I want you to remember one thing: after this is over, and the district has had to acknowledge the largest cheating scandal "in the history of standardized testing" (according to NYT article yesterday), I will remember your public spin over this outrage. I will remember how you felt your first duty was to protect Bev Hall instead of publicly proclaim your outrage over the mathematical certainty that cheating took place. I will remember how you tried to play the race card (subtly but firmly, with your "disadvantaged students" remark).

(As if the Atlanta metro area had the only "disadvantaged" kids in GA public schools. What a crock).

Seriously, can they really pay you enough to get you to advance such ridiculous, desperate arguments? Do you really think educated, intelligent parents in the APS community are going to overlook your conduct during this scandal?

Do you really think Bev Hall is going to be around to protect your job?

And if you have to go to a new system, do you really want to be known as the guy who wouldn't acknowledge the biggest cheating scandal in public school history?

THAT's a career-killer, I think.

I'm going to be a parent in the APS system for a long time to come. I have one second-grader and my wife is expecting another child. I'm going to be in this system for many years and if that is also your goal may I suggest you do an about-face and start projecting a more honest and accountable front for this administration.

Man up, Keith. I have no doubt you're better than you've been showing us.


Rick Lockridge
1024 Greenwood Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30306








On Feb 13, 2010, at 12:37 PM, Bromery, Keith wrote:

The "spin" was initially ventured by the Atlanta Journal Constitution in the first article they posted on their Web site simultaneous with the scheduled start of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement's presentation to the State Board of Education. The headline and the lead sentence of that article announced to the world that the schools in question regarding the test sheet erasure anomalies had been accused of test tampering and cheating by the state. When a State Board of Education member read that headline and lead sentence off of her laptop computer to the Governor's staff at the public hearing and asked if this was true, the response was no. The Governor's office painstakingly explained that these (erasure anomalies) were findings that needed to be further investigated, and we fully agree with that. Since the assumption had already been publicly made by the newspaper and other media outlets that picked up on the article that the findings could only be attributed to test tampering or cheating, my job was to offer another legitimate explanation for the erasure anomalies, which I did. For me to publicly acknowledge something (cheating/tampering) that was not evidence at this time would be irresponsible. My job was to offer another plausible explanation for the erasure anomalies, while acknowledging that the findings constituted legitimate cause for further investigation. The fact of the matter is erasure anomalies amount to circumstantial evidence. In my country, a person or organization is deemed innocent until proven guilty. In the court of public opinion, it doesn't always work that way, which is why I felt compelled to introduce other legitimate testimony into the discussion to counter the rush to judgement (sic) in the face of non-conclusive evidence.

Keith Bromery
Director of Media Relations
Atlanta Public Schools








From: Rick Lockridge
Subject: Re: From APS Parent Rick Lockridge
Date: February 13, 2010 2:08:58 PM EST
To: Keith Bromery



1. It's irrelevant whether the AJC or the Governor's OSA tried to publicly indict APS--the numbers do so all by themselves, and overwhelmingly. Any intelligent person would infer only one conclusion from the data.

2. A journalists' conclusion on a blog that the evidence is overwhelming is one thing, but a nationally recognized testing expert's conclusion (near-certain probability of massive cheating) is quite another. Don't set up the AJC or the OSA to be your straw men. The AJC and the NYT consulted actual experts.

3. If your job is indeed to introduce other "plausible" explanations, then do it. The two you've offered so far insult the intelligence of every APS parent and your playing of the race card is utterly disgraceful. If you've got nothing better, then how about being a person of character and saying "we will have no comment on this until the investigation is complete."

Instead, you have cast yourself in the role of defense attorney. That's not your role. Your role is to be intellectually honest with the taxpayer-stewards of the Atlanta Public School district.

4. You can call it "circumstantial" evidence, or you can call it what it really is: overwhelming circumstantial evidence that leads to only one plausible conclusion. That's what I mean by spin. Circumstantial evidence leads to convictions all the time, and it will lead to a housecleaning this time.

I'm going to be scrutinizing your every public pronouncement from this point on, but I wish you the best in dealing with a terrible, tragic situation--one that started out bad and is just going to get worse; a spokesman's worst nightmare. I just want you to remember who your real constituency is, and it's not the soon-to-be-ousted bureaucrats at 130 Trinity.

Good luck,

Rick

A rare Va-Hi snow creature....

Built by the folks at Pozole on this wintry night. Of course, since it was spotted in our neighborhood, it's obviously careening drunkenly around trying to find its car.

Sonny shows how major league politics is played

I'm no fan of Sonny Perdue. I think he's a bible-thumping, beer-hating bubba. But he has just made what is likely to be his single biggest contribution to the life of all of us who are parents of APS children, and it's a doozie. And we owe him for it, and it's forcing me to re-evaluate the way I think of him.

And look at what a skillful politician he is. He publicly blasted Bev Hall last summer for Hall's so-what reaction to a cheating scandal--something that seemed like a big deal at the time, but which is small potatoes compared to what's going on now, and you could have assumed that would be the end of it.

But no--he didn't stop there. He had his folks do a thorough investigation of all CRCT tests statewide, and while he might not have been fishing for Dr. Hall in particular, boy did she ever wind up in his net.

Now Hall is thrashing about, forcing her poor spokesman to go out and make ridiculous, desperate excuses for the damning numbers, and a lesser politician than Perdue would be moving in for the kill. But Perdue's not saying a word. He knows that for a white bubba governor to attack an award-winning black Atlanta superintendent of schools would just not do.

So he's going to let Bev Hall do her own investigation, knowing full well that the results of that investigation will likely result in Hall's resignation. If Hall does not have the decency to fall on her own sword for such rampant cheating, then Perdue may have to speak up, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Dr. Hall: among the many things you directly responsible for is to see that there is no ACADEMIC CHEATING under your watch. In fact, it is among your most important duties. So please don't trot out the old "I didn't know, how could I have known?" party line. Nobody expects you to collect the test forms yourself. That doesn't mean you're still not responsible for it getting done right.

If this scandal results in a large scale reform (true reform this time) of the APS, then it will be due to Sonny Perdue's leadership. It hurts me to say that, but it's true. And to show my gracious appreciation, this Sunday I will raise a glass of beer to toast Gov. Sonny.

Oh, wait......

Maybe not so heroic after all....

First of all, is it a scandal or isn't it?

The AJC calls it a "crisis in confidence, character and conscience for APS."

(See more here)

Bev Hall quoted as saying she is not convinced scores were falsified (what else is she going to say?) and is quoted by AJC thusly:

“I’m concerned with the number of schools and convinced we should do a detailed analysis to get to the bottom of this." See full article here.

Individual school results here.

How did they decide who was cheating?

Here is an excerpt from the AJC article:

Responding to earlier evidence of cheating, including an analysis by the AJC, the state had every 2009 answer sheet reviewed to measure how often kids changed wrong answers to right by virtue of erasures on the sheets. Because every test sheet was checked, the state was able to develop a reliable index of how often test answers were changed from wrong to right and flag schools that had inordinate occurrences of answer changes, right down to the classroom level.

It then flagged schools that had higher-than-average numbers of wrong -to-right answers, and found troubling patterns, most of which occurred in Atlanta schools and in Dougherty County schools. To understand, look at third grade math scores. Reviewing the answer sheets of 125,000 third graders, the state found that the average student changed 1.87 answers from wrong to right.

If there was a third-grade classroom in which the students on average changed 4.8 answers from wrong to right, a flag went up, said Kathleen Mathers, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. “That change was so much bigger than what we saw in classrooms across the state.”


Then, the state examined how each individual class performed on the test and how many answers went from incorrect to correct. They compared each classroom to the state average. To be flagged, the changes from wrong to right answers had to be well above state average, so much so that it could not be a matter of chance. Then, the state looked at the schools as a whole and found widespread instances of improbable answer changes.

So now what is the appropriate response by us, the parents? Leave your comments below.

Now we know the REAL problem: Zombies!

Every PEC parent seems to have a horror story.

We have several.

Here's the latest.

Last October (as in October of 2009), we made a compelling presentation to a large IEP gathering of the merits of a software program called Fast ForWord (by Scientific Learning, see more about it here). Fast Forword has been a small miracle for our son, so we made a fairly elaborate video (see it on this blog, right here) to demonstrate how it was helping him, and to make the case that it should be included in his IEP. (It's a lot to ask of a 7- or 8-year old to come home from a long day of school and do another hard 50-minutes of work).

We had to fight our way through an obstructionist bureaucrat from the PEC Technology Dept. (who would later come back to haunt us), who interrupted our presentation to tell us that Vance didn't need any "assistive technology" because he was already "progressing" at school.

Fortunately, a smarter PEC official refused to let this woman bail out on her flimsy and premature conclusion, and we eventually agreed that we would make Fast ForWord (or something like it) a centerpiece of Vance's school day.

We asked for a deadline. The useless tech "expert" refused--flat out refused--to commit to ANY deadline for identifying or implementing the software. So we went around her and offered the other PEC executive present (Gwen Stokes) a very generous deadline of 9 weeks--Jan. 6, 2010--for a software program to be selected and implemented. Ms. Stokes eagerly agreed.

I'm writing this post on February 10, 2010, and I'll bet you can guess what has happened in the nearly 15 weeks since we agreed on a deal.

Yup--it's not in place. The software is not installed, the teacher training has not been completed. Another missed deadline, another example of paper-shuffling procrastination elevated to high art by the employees of the Atlanta Public Schools Program for Exceptional Children. (And the useless tech employee did her part, accounting for about 6 weeks of the delay by just being her intransigent, useless self).

And not only that--Program leaders (including Constance Goodson, the interim director, a person I really like) have refused to offer a reason for the delay or a timeline for complying with the agreed-upon deadline. I got a weak half-hearted apology from a mid-level employee, who claimed not to know that there even WAS a deadine (which I consider to be a totally plausible excuse, because communications among PEC members is disastrously poor; they're as inconsiderate with each other as they are with parents, sometimes). She was trying to be nice. But I wasn't looking for an apology.

Here's my point: if a football team stumbled around while returning a kickoff, eventually running out of bounds on their own 5-yard-line, then ran three plays (and received three holding penalties, then fumbled, that team would be the PEC.

This was basic blocking and tackling: Let your team know there's a deal in place with a deadline. Follow up. Finish the job. Do your part. Don't miss your assignment.

Each part of the job got botched.

This isn't a vent; this isn't a rant. This is an example. I want all of you to know what to expect from PEC so that you can go in there and anticipate the mistakes, the poor communication and the utter lack of follow-through and do something to overcome all of it, if possible.

As a coda: I did an Open Records Act request to read all of the emails that passed among all the relevant officials about this total f****d up episode, expecting to see some pattern of defiant, who-does-this-parent-think-he-is attitude. But in the nearly 300 pages of emails I received from APS Legal, something much more surprising happens: the bureaucrats don't do or say much of anything. They forward my emails to each other, usually without comment, sometimes with just an "FYI" attached--but nobody ever reacts or states an opinion. These people literally just pass paper from one to another.

To me, that's scarier than any other scenario I'd imagined. It means they're professional zombies. Our special-needs children are being educated by zombies!

UPDATE: FEB 23, 2010: I finally managed to catch Gwen Stokes at her desk last week, and tried to ask her why she had never made an effort to fulfill the agreement she negotiated with me. She told me, in a voice dripping with condescension, that she was "under no obligation" to either inform her colleagues of the deadline we had agreed to, or to do anything at all to follow up and see the deadline was met.

It is one thing to know you're being played by zombie bureaucrats. It is quite another to hear it coming from their own mouths.

What is an autistic child worth?

If our son never holds down a job, never drives a car, never finds a way to make money off the obvious (but not exactly commercial) gifts he's been given, and if we and his extended family have to support him his whole life, is that a burden on society, a dead weight on this enormous cargo vessel that's carrying all of us (only some of whom are supplying propulsion)?

Forget about the subjective rewards of having a son like Vance--the intense pleasure of spending time with him and observing the way he interacts with the world; the moments of pride when he surprises you with an insight you didn't know he was capable of making.

Let's talk about his worth in the way an economist might talk about his worth--in measurable beneficial output.

Vance is valuable to society right now because society needs to figure out what autism is and how people get it and how to treat it and perhaps how to prevent it. As much as we appreciate the unique collection of gifts our son has been given, we really wish he didn't have autism, and we would love to help engineer a future when autism doesn't afflict other kids and their families.

Vance is adding to the data pool, and will add to it his whole life. He's very bright and yet his condition is quite serious, so he's an ideal case. The professionals and therapists and teachers who spend time around him are benefitting from what they learn, and while progress seems very slow, how many years do you think it'll really be before we figure this out? More than ten? Really?

My bet on the over-under for ten would be under.



The other day, I was waiting for the sun to go down a bit in Manhattan so I could shoot a sequence with a woman whose back was against a window. Behind her, in the distance, was the entirety of the 59th St. Bridge in all its ghastly Erector-Set glory. But the sun was still glinting off the bridge, making it too bright for my background; blowing out my shot. I knew it wouldn't be long til sunset, so I decided to wait. I walked to the window and tried to gauge the speed of the shadow moving up and across the bridge, trying to figure out how long before shade swallowed it up. I couldn't see any movement with my eyes, although I watched for a good solid minute.

My cell phone rang, I took a call, rooted around my bag for a protein bar (if you get really, really hungry, they actually taste pretty good) and eventually wandered back, maybe ten minutes later. The shadows had moved almost all the way across the bridge, even though they seemed so pokey just a moment ago.

That's how autism will be dissected out of the genome, isolated and cured. It seems achingly, maddeningly slow when you're standing there waiting for it, but when we look back, it'll seem like it happened pretty fast--in a generation or so.

Anyway, having a son with autism has inspired us to fight the school system for more services for our child- and set precedents that will help the many parents coming along behind us with their autistic children. It has inspired us to help raise money for autism research; to blog about tips and techniques for dealing with these remarkable children; to share our experiences in many ways with many families. Vance is the inspiration for all of this. His condition is helping in a small but very real way to produce an eventual full scientific understanding of the condition, and more importantly to engineer a future where autistic people are not regarded as retarded or even disabled, but simply as people with a different collection of gifts and obstacles from most of the rest of us.

Don't underestimate the gifts of an autistic child like our Vance. The gift of never being jealous. The gift of not worrying about whether you get a lot of Christmas presents, or just a few. The gift of not needing to play the little mind games the rest of us play. The gift of not knowing how to lie. or at least not being interested in lying. The gift of being able to immerse yourself in a pleasurable activity so completely that the world makes up a word for your condition that literally means "not hearing."The gift of not caring whether you're popular or have cool clothes. The gift of not wanting to eat food just for pleasure. (If only I had this gift!) The gift of waking up each morning happy--and staying that way....

Not every parent of an autistic child can say their child is the happiest person they've ever been around--I know that, and I grieve for those parents. I want autism eradicated so that more parents don't have to worry so much. The symptoms of an autistic child vary, but the parents always have the same symptom: deeply furrowed brows. Yes, I have 'em too, as upbeat as I am about my son's future....

When we get to a place where we understand autism well and have more choices in how to address it (or perhaps just better ways to accommodate it), Vance will have helped us get there. There are children who will be born many years from now who will have been helped because our son existed and because he inspired those of us who know him to try harder. You might have a hard time assigning a dollar value to that kind of inspiration, but it's a measurable, beneficial contribution.

Of course, even if he didn't have this kind of value, I'd still feel he was the most valuable creature ever born. But it's always nice to have the Freakonomics angle covered too.