E-Rate - too good to be true?

Is the e-rate rebate program truly "found" money? If you think this program is too good to be true, you may be correct. Before we thank Superintendent Jerry Weast for tapping into this great resource, check out what has happened to some other school systems who have found the same pot of gold.

E-rate participants have been the focus of criminal and civil investigations at the US Department of Justice and other federal agencies for several years.

Is this "old law" that doesn't apply to Montgomery County Public Schools? Think again.

In December, 2008, a businessman in Atlanta received a prison sentence of 5 years because he bribed an Atlanta school official in connection with the E-rate program.

Just last week, Federal agents requested records from the school boards in Atlantic City and Pleasantville as part of a bid-rigging investigation. Philadelphia and Camden schools are also under investigation.

Recently, a Illinois contractor was fined $3.3 million for bid rigging and procurement fraud in connection with E-rate.

Its not just the feds who are looking into this practice. Earlier this year, the Arizona Attorney General found pervasive problems with the procurement process at the Tucson Unified School District.

Want more case studies? Run your own google search.

Is the great e-rate funded Promethean promise one that will likely find our own MCPS school system under investigation? Stay tuned, but remember, unlike their friends in Arizona who settled the case and put the three individuals involved in the scandal on leave - MCPS would rather litigate than admit mistakes.

But then again, MCPS may hit the jackpot a second time, since no one, including the County Council or the MCPS Ethics Panel, has yet to demonstrate any willingness to provide meaningful oversight over the MCPS budget.

Weast Slush Fund Revealed

Did you know that Superintendent Weast has a separate source of income from the funding appropriated to the school system by the County Council? Did you know that the Superintendent had been carrying a surplus in unappropriated funds? An April 7th letter to the Council's Education Committee reveals the existence of some of the "slush fund" that is available to the Superintendent. There are two other potential sources of "slush fund" cash.

Below is testimony delivered to the Montgomery County Council on April 13th discussing these three sources of non-County income to MCPS. Will the Council seek out these funds and control their use and appropriation, or will the Council ignore these funds and continue to cut from other county requests?

April 13, 2009 - Testimony to Montgomery County Council

I may be the only person to sit before you during Operating Budget testimony and not ask for any money. Instead, I am going to tell you how to hunt down some cash. I am bringing you over $5.5 million in unappropriated funds. It will be up to the Council to bring these funds to the Council table for appropriation, or in the alternative to simply ignore their existence.

Where is all this cash?

1. MCPS has entered into a contract with Wireless Generation. The contract has not been made public but a paper on the relationship between MCPS and Wireless generation has been published by the Harvard Business School. I can’t attach a copy because the article belongs to the Harvard Business School. But I can tell you that this article gives a first look at the terms of this agreement citing specific terms of the contract. We learn in this Harvard publication that MCPS is collecting a per student royalty on every mCLASS: Reading ED software sold around the country. Click here to read about this contract.

Where are those royalties? When have they been brought to the Council for appropriation? Councilmember Marilyn Praisner had been following this partnership, but with her passing did all oversight of this arrangement also disappear? Click here to read about missing royalties.

2. MCPS has also entered into a partnership with TrueNorthLogic to develop a Professional Development online system. What are the details of this partnership? Is MCPS reaping any royalties or income from this partnership? Sorry, I can’t help you out on this one. The details of this agreement aren’t public. But take a look at the TrueNorthLogic advertisement available online to see the MCPS logo proudly displayed. Click here to see the TrueNorthLogic advertisement.

3. The last place you might want to check for unappropriated funds is the e-Rate surplus that Superintendent Weast has been carrying. In an April 7, 2009, letter to the Education Committee, Superintendent Weast reveals that he is carrying $3.9 million in unexpended e-Rate rebates. In addition, MCPS will be receiving another $1.6 to $1.8 million in e-Rate rebates this year. That’s $5.5 million in funds that are not coming to the Council table for appropriation this year alone. Why do I say that? Because in an April 2, 2009, memorandum to the Council’s Education Committee Superintendent Weast makes clear, once again, that he will not be bringing e-Rate rebates to the Council for appropriation. So if the Council wants these funds, they are going to have to go and fetch them.

See below for April 7, 2009 letter from Weast to Education Committee revealing surplus unappropriated funds that have been carried from previous years.

Click here for April 2, 2009 letter from Weast to Education Committee where he tells the Council he will not be bringing e-Rate funds to the Council for appropriation. (See what the Council President said about these funds here.)

I will end with a quote from Superintendent Weast:

"Nothing builds trust like transparency."

Jerry Weast, foreword to Getting it Right-

Why Good School Communication Matters, 2008.

April 7, 2009 Weast to EdCo.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Magazines & Newspape Business & Law 2008 newsletter

$21,684,092.59

Montgomery County Council
Capital Budget Testimony
February 10, 2009

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Capital Budget. This evening I would like to speak to a source of revenue for the County Capital Budget. The source of revenue is the rebates that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) receives through the E-Rate rebate program. MCPS has been participating in the E-Rate rebate program since 1998 and in that time has received $21,684,092.59 according to the Universal Service website. The E-Rate money is not required to be used for Capital Budget expenditures, but as that is the focus of this hearing I will point out the benefit that those funds could have on this budget.

$21,684,092.59 is the equivalent of modernizing an elementary school, or 2 or 3 school additions or, an unknown number of bathroom renovations, window repairs or HVAC repairs. At present Appendix G of the MCPS Capital Budget lists 47 schools that needed bathroom renovations. That list represented only HALF of the schools in need of renovations. Any school that was anywhere on the modernization list was deleted from the list of bathrooms in need of renovation. No doubt, $21 million could have completed the listed renovations and those of the schools deleted from the list, giving all students access to workable bathrooms today.

The rebates that MCPS has received over the last 11 years are available to the public on the UniversalService.org website. A search of that site shows that MCPS received the following amounts in each of the following years:

1998 $1,500,617.92
1999 $2,425,319.57
2000 $1,535,174.02
2001 $1,434,388.33
2002 $1,756,316.93
2003 $1,902,003.78
2004 $1,731,744.92
2005 $1,497,545.12
2006 $1,760,241.90
2007 $3,459,021.34
2008 $2,681,718.76

http://www.universalservice.org/sl/
Attached is a Universal Service report for 2008 payments to MCPS.

Superintendent Weast maintains that he is not required to bring these funds before the Council for appropriation but can spend these funds without Board of Education or Council action. See the November 26, 2008 Memo from Superintendent Weast to the MCPS Board of Education. Available at the following link: http://www.parentscoalitionmc.com/MCPSExpenseReports.html

Council staff, however, in a January 29th memorandum, recommends that E-Rate Rebates “come to the Council for appropriation when they are received.”

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2009/090202/20090202_ED01.pdf (See Page 4)

I urge you to support the recommendation of Council staff. Bring these funds to the Council table so that the use of these funds can be discussed and appropriated in public. The Capital needs of our public schools are great, and every dollar is needed. If for nothing more than to make sure that every child has access to a usable bathroom.

Thank you.
~~~~~~~~

UPDATE 4/8/09: $21,684,092.59 represents the total amount of rebates that MCPS could have received under the e-Rate Rebate program. The Universal Services website also shows how much has been disbursed to MCPS under this program. An updated disbursement number will be posted soon.

Weast can't make lease payment on Promethean Boards

On January 7, 2009, Superintendent Weast answered questions from MCPS Board of Education members about the purchase of 3,300 Promethean Boards. In that memo it was revealed to the Board that 2,600 of the Promethean Boards* now in MCPS classrooms were purchased through a lease agreement. The lease calls for annual payments for 4 years of $3.3 million per year. In response to Question #6, Superintendent Weast stated,

"For FY10 we plan to use e-Rate reimbursements to cover the entire $3.3 million obligation."

However, the E-Rate rebates for FY10 aren't going to be $3.3 million. On Monday, March 30th, MCPS will tell the County Council's MFP Committee (see page 55 of the pdf document) that the E-Rate rebates for FY10 will only be only about half of that amount at $1,676,033.

That means that Superintendent Weast is going to be $1,623,967 short in his Promethean Board lease payment for FY10.

What will be cut in the MCPS budget in order to make this lease payment, or will 1,300 Promethean Boards be returned?

*Promethean Boards are a brand of interactive white boards. Cost of system is approximately $5,000 per classroom.

Irate about e-Rate

"Show us the Money," the County Council said.
"We hear you earned some rebate cash, and the County budget's in the Red
We want to know how much you got and what you spent it on
So give us the list by the end of the month, and tell us where it's gone."

The committee wanted information by a certain date
A report by MCPS on all their money from e-Rate
But alas, the deadline passed, and now the report is late
Can't you see 'em smirking: "we'll just make the Council wait"

You see, the Council has appropriation authority
So when Jerry gets the money, that money isn't "free"
He has to ask the County Council when and how to spend it.
But no matter what the law is, MCPS tries to bend it.

So hold on to your wallets, folks, the lease payment’s coming due
The e-Rate money’s short this year, so we’ll just raise a tax or two
But never fear, we've got whiteboards here, who cares about long-term debts?
This is Montgomery County: Jerry will spend all that he gets.

No Down Payment, Rent to Own, and Install it This SUMMER!

The Maryland Office of Legislative Audits, in their financial review of MCPS, alerted members of the public to the issue of "long term leases".

Click here to review the OLA Audit Report, and go to audit page 62, where you will see that the OLA stated as follows:

Capital Lease and Cash Management Policies Need To Be Established

"MCPS had not adopted a policy to govern its use of long-term lease obligations to finance operations. Long-term liability levels and their related annual costs are important obligations that must be managed within available resources. An effective policy should provide guidelines to ensure MCPS manages its long term liabilities accordingly. By law, MCPS is not authorized to issue bonds or similar debt instruments to finance capital or operational needs. However, MCPS used a capital leases to purchase equipment such as buses and computer hardware. According to MCPS audited financial statements, capital lease payments through 2012 had a present value of $45.9 million at June 30, 2007, with $19.5 million due within one year."

Why is this important, you ask?

Of course, it has to do with Promethean Boards.

The County Council Education Committee called MCPS on the carpet this morning for Montgomery County Public Schools' failure to bring before the council the massive expansion of the Promethean Board initiative, which MCPS has tied to its receipt of future e-Rate rebates.

Phil Andrews, County Council President, said that MCPS had made a "serious mistake, in my view." He went on to state that MCPS should not be committing future taxpayer funds beyond what the Council had appropriated and agreed to.

Mike Knapp, also on the ED Committee, agreed that the "magnitude of the purchase never came up."

Larry Bowers, the Chief Operating Officer of MCPS, reiterated MCPS's view that MCPS didn't need appropriation authority to spend e-Rate rebates, and that it was the same type of arragement as with the buses.

Phil Andrews disagreed, and stated that by its action, MCPS had tied the hands of both bodies, MCPS and the County Council. The boards are installed and they have to be paid for now with a committment of future public funds. They will focus in the future on other long term committments, he said, and that he was sure their intentions were good, but the law (on appropriations) is clear. Crystal Clear, he emphasized. In the meantime, the council is still waiting for that data that County Council staff requested regarding the amount of all e-Rate funding received and how it has been spent.

Why is our school system being run like the cheesy "Rent to Own" appliance store? What ever happened to "wait until you can afford it" before buying it?

$3,632,148.04

On January 7, 2009, Superintendent Weast provided Answers to Board of Education questions about the procurement of Promethean Boards by MCPS. Question #8 and the answer are shown belowQuestion 8

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Wills and Trusts Business & Legal career interview

The total in E-Rate rebates received for the years shown on the chart supplied by Superintendent Weast is $7,498,124.

According to the Universal Services Administrative Company that administers the federal E-Rate telecommunications rebate program, Montgomery County School District, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, MD, has received the following amounts for the years FY 2004 - 2008:

2004 $1,731,744.92
2005 $1,497,545.12
2006 $1,760,241.90
2007 $3,459,021.34
2008 $2,681,718.76

For a total of $11,130,272.04

There appears to be a difference of $3,632,148.04 between what Superintendent Weast is reporting and what is shown on the Universal Services Administrative Company website.

As an example, here is the Universal Services Administrative Company report on Montgomery County School District for FY 2006:
2006E-Rate

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Hopefully, the Universal Services Administrative Company information can be reconciled with the information provided by Superintendent Weast at tomorrow's County Council Education Committee meeting.

Andrews: "This is a serious mistake...the law is clear...crystal clear..."

The County Council Education Committee's February 23, 2009 meeting on Promethean Boards and E-Rate rebates was captured on video. The video is in two parts. See quotes from each video below and click on the videos to watch the meeting.
Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County uploaded a new video.
Hear Councilmember Ervin, "...The issue is that the Council has appropriation authority. Going forward we need a reporting mechanism by MCPS to capture these E-Rate dollars and rebate dollars for all funds. So we need to know what we are getting for our dollars. We need all the data that staff requested prior to budget disclosure. And in this case, there are many that believe that MCPS is taking on ongoing expenses that we are going to have to fund over the long term...."
Councilmember Andrews, "...it's about openness, accountability and authority...we weren't notified about the commitment to contract for this additional expenditure and so we didn't have any opportunity to approve it...This is a serious mistake in my view..."Councilmember Knapp, "When I look back...the magnitude of the purchase of this size never came up..."

Feb. 23, 2009 Part 1 - Promethean Board Discussion
*** *** *** *** *** ***Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County uploaded a new video.

Councilmember Andrews, "...I am concerned about the single commitment that was made to, for these funds of $13.3 million...through FY12, but Council has approved only $698,000 for this purpose...rebate funds aren't sufficient to pay for this...have to come back to public funds...that is tying the hands of both bodies...it's not the way to run things...the law is clear...crystal clear"Superintendent Weast, "...we want to be open and transparent and accountable...not any intent to deceive..."

Feb. 23, 2009 Part 2 - Promethean Boards Discussion

FCC to Overhaul E-Rate for Schools, Libraries

FCC to Overhaul E-Rate for Schools, Libraries

Starr's Treks: What Starr says on the Road

Did Superintendent Joshua Starr tell this convention that students will not have access to wireless Internet in schools?

...That was one of the major themes education technology experts, lobbyists and policy makers repeated at a Monday roundtable discussion, organized by Internet Innovation Alliance, and which focused on how private and public sectors can work together to improve digital learning in the nation’s classrooms. 

Montgomery County schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr was the keynote speaker at the event in downtown Washington...

...By the start of the coming school year, every school in Montgomery County is expected to be fully outfitted with wireless access, Starr said. 

Starr said the E-Rate program is one of the most important federal programs available to help schools improve Internet access and increase technology in schools. The E-Rate program was set up in 1997 and provides billions in federal funds to schools and libraries each year...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/roundtable-infrastructure-teacher-training-key-to-improving-technology-in-classrooms/2013/07/15/e7158bc6-ed75-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html

MCPS wants more Federal Rebate Dollars

Recently, Superintendent Joshua Starr presented a plan to the Board of Education to use Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rebates to buy 2,000 more Promethean brand boards.  The plan calls for MCPS to purchase the Promethean Boards using a lease.  Payments on the lease would be made from rebates received from the FCC through their E-Rate program.

For over a decade, MCPS was receiving the E-Rate rebates and not reporting the funding to the Montgomery County Council.  The rebates were an easy way to have side income that was hidden from Council oversight.  In 2008, the Parents' Coalition exposed this scam.  Now MCPS wants more rebate money from the FCC.  Below is their public comment on this request.

Montgomery Schools FCCs Draft ESL for FY2013

PEPCO Files for yet Another Rate Increase: PSC Hearing Tuesday Sept 6 6:30 PM

On April 19, 2016 Pepco filed an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) to increase rates for its electric distribution service by $126,784,000.  If approved by the PSC these proposed rate increases would go into effect retroactive to May 19, 2016.  The PSC has suspended these increases for 150 days from the May 19, 2016 date in order to proceed with the regulatory process of determining whether the proposed rates are just and reasonable.  In addition to the $126.7 million dollar rate increase request, Pepco is also seeking a rate of return on equity of 10.60% and Pepco proposed to continue its Grid Resiliency Charge (GRC) that was initially approved in Case No. 9311.  Pepco proposes to accelerate improvement to priority feeders and install single phase reclosing fuse technology.  Pepco is requesting $15.8 million a year for two years for a total of $31.6 million.

This rate increase request comes on the heels of a multibillion dollar merger agreement between Pepco/PHI and Exelon Corporation.  This merger was highly contested by many of the parties who participated in both the Maryland and DC venues.  Recently, the DC Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC) filed its petition in opposition to the $7.1 billion merger with the D.C. Court of Appeals and stated that DC OPC intends to ensure the “integrity of the legal process”.  In Maryland, the Office of the Attorney General, Brian Frosh also filed an appeal of the Maryland PSC’s merger decision.

In its dissenting opinion of the merger, two Maryland PSC Commissioners Harold Williams and Anne E. Hoskins found that throughout the merger proceedings, Pepco and Exelon provided insufficient information to conclude that the merger was consistent with the public interest, under Maryland law the merger would need to actually benefit consumers for the merger to be approved.  The dissenting Commissioners stated that Exelon “missed a critical opportunity to mitigate harm from this transaction by failing to propose an integrated “utility of the future” strategy to support its reliability commitments.  The dissent cited the need for a more reliable system that employs a further efficiencies and a clean electricity service.    In addition the dissent noted that the electricity grid of the future needs to achieve “the broad goals of promoting affordable, reliable, clean electricity”. 

In failing to meet Maryland’s legal standard for merger approval, the two dissenting Commissioners cited the “Do No Harm” clause, “Rising Rates and Affordability” and “Corporate Governance and Local Control”.  In its dissent, the Commissioners addressed the issue of rising electric utility bills rates and the sustainability and affordability of these costs.  The Commissioners stated that the “central problem with Exelon’s misguided reliability commitment is that it has the practical effect of preauthorizing massive proposed reliability budgets without appropriate review.  Indeed, Exelon has asserted that Pepco … can meet the SAIDI and SAIFI targets (reliability standards created by  rule RM 43) promised in the settlement – but only if it spends all of PHI’s (Pepco’s holding company) planned  five-year capital and O & M reliability-related budgets plus an additional $34 million in reliability expenditures – a total of almost $1 billion.  This significant reliability spending will lead to substantial rate increases….In 2019, a typical Pepco residential customer will pay an estimated extra $180.00 per year and will have paid an additional $540 from 2015 through 2019.” 

In Pepco’s Reliability Case No. 9240 final order issued by the PSC on December 21, 2011 (just months before the derecho knocked out power to our community for nearly a week), the PSC determined that Pepco had been imprudent in its management of its electric service delivery system and fined Pepco $1 million.  The PSC found that Pepco’s reliability performance remained stagnated in fourth quartile or bottom half of performance.  The Commission further penalized Pepco by disallowing the company to recover costs in their next rate case at the Commission because Pepco’s poor conduct had resulted in unreliable service for its customers.

Nearly five years have passed since the PSC issued a $1 million fine and additional penalties to Pepco.  The company is now owned by Exelon and reliability remains stagnated in the bottom half of performance when measured by reliability indices.  Hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected from ratepayers over the past 5 years.  Pepco’s shareholders and executives received a billion dollar plus payout as a result of the merger.  Now Pepco/Exelon is trying to ask the PSC to raise rates and collect millions more.  More than 12,000 of Pepco’s Maryland customers were without power just a few weeks ago from a thunderstorm and the promised reliability of five years ago continues to elude Pepco’s ratepayers. 

Powerupmontco accepts no money.  We are extremely fortunate to receive pro bono services from several experts in the area of utility law including Stan Balis. Esq., Bob Loube, Ph.D, and our new attorney Mercia Arnold, Esq.  Thank you all.

 

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 6:30 p.m., the Maryland Public Service Commission will hold public hearings on Pepco’s latest rate increase request.  The hearings will be held at the

Montgomery County Executive Office Building

First Floor Auditorium

101 Monroe Street

 Rockville, Maryland 20850 

Please plan to attend this hearing and testify before the Commission.  Let the Maryland Public Service Commission know that these rate increases should not be approved until Pepco can demonstrate that it can deliver top quartile reliability for its customers.

If you cannot attend the hearing, written comments may also be filed by Friday, October 6, 2016.  The comments should be addressed to David J. Collins, Executive Secretary, Maryland Public Service Commission, William Donald Schaefer Tower, 6 St. Paul Street, 16th Floor, Baltimore, Maryland 21202 and should reference “CASE NO. 9418”.

 

For more information contact: Powerupmontco@gmail.com

Join our followers on Twitter @powerupmontco and Facebook Powerup Montco

Board to Renew Special Education Legal Contracts

As seen below, MCPS and its Board of Education spare no expense in fighting requests by families of children with disabilities for different or increased services.

On Tuesday, February 14, 2012, the Board of Education is going to vote to extend the contracts it currently has with special education outside counsel. The responses to the RFPs, or the RFP extensions, are not included in the packet available online. Do you think the current Board of Education members have taken the time to read through the proposals?

For example, in a document from 1999, one of the attorneys submitted a response, which was accepted, that contained the following provisions:

a. If MCPS retains Mr. Krew for 100 days of hearing or more, the daily billing rate would be $5,850 per hearing day.
b. If MCPS retains Mr. Krew for up to 50 days of hearing, the daily billing rate would be $6,500 per hearing day.
c. In between 50 and 100 days of hearing, the daily billing rate will be on a sliding scale as follows: 51-60 days: $6,400. 61-75 days: $6,200. 76-99 days: $6,000.
d. Mr. Krew will bill at the $5,850 rate. At the end of the fiscal year, MCPS will make a payment for the difference owed based on the number of hearing days.
e. If a case is withdrawn or settled before the first day of hearing, a half day of hearing will be charged.
(...)
These flat rates will apply regardless of the actual time spent in the hearing with no additional charges for the time necessary to prepare for or travel to the hearing. All motions practice and attendance at DRC committee meeting and IEP meetings will be included within that rate.

That contract was renewed for several years. Do you suppose the terms and conditions being voted upon on Tuesday are the same? Is the daily rate the same? The public can't know, because the proposals aren't included in the BOE packet. Once again, the public will have to file a Public Information Act request to see exactly what the Board of Education has committed itself to financially in terms of special education dispute resolution. For the first five months of this year, the Board of Education has already spent $191,000 on special education litigation (an increase of 30% over last year's YTD amount). Staff is representing these contracts will only cost $400,000. How can they possibly predict that?

Obviously the current Board of Education doesn't care how much money they spend to fight families of disabled children, their claims to be concerned about special education notwithstanding.



1033.2 Legal Services for Special Education and Related Services—Extension Awardees (See note on page 8)
Carney, Kelehan, Bresler, Bennett & Scherr, LLP
Jeffrey A. Krew
Nussbaum Law, LLC
Total $400,000

What's the Agenda?

• 7 Dec 2006 // Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education (DOE)  in the District court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit is based on DOE's failure to release certain records required by law to be made public. Those records include the activities of advisory panels created under the Reading First Initiative, which was set up by the No Child Left Behind Act. CREW's complaint alleges that DOE failed to comply with any of the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires agencies using panels such as those implemented by the Reading First Initiative to conduct open meetings, make records of those meetings publicly available, and ensure that any recommendation of the panels is the result of a fairly balanced panel. The panel sets up under the Reading First Initiative make recommendatiosn to the Secretary about which states should receive federal funds under the program. In a report issued in September 2006, DOE's Inspector General found that the Reading First Initiative was plagued by conflicts of interest, possible corruption, and numerous violations of law and General Accounting Office (GAO) standards.

• As a result of the lawsuit CREW obtained e-mails from G.Reid Lyon, including the e-mail shown in the image below that mentions MCPS' reading program. At the time of this e-mail message G. Reid Lyon was Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at NIH and Chris Doherty was the Director of Reading First. 

• The Washington Post - Billions for an Inside Game on Reading Oct. 1, 2006

RF = Reading First
NCLB = No Child Left Behind
RR = Reading Recovery
SBRR = Scientifically Based Reading Research

TEXT OF E-MAIL: 

Hi Ray and Chris. Hope this gets to you. Looking foward to the meeting on

the 14th. I know that Jeny Weast wil be attending so wanted to give you a

heads up. I have worked with Jerry for some time and he certainly has his

strengths.

The downside is that he tends to hype his data and tends to overestimate his

potential and ability to change the nation. He has aIso not been supportive

of NCLB when in Private.

Chris, he is aIso using RF funds for a healthy dose of Reading Recovery

which I caIIed him on last week He said it was great for diagmostics - ala

running records.

The reason he is staying with RR is his teaches will not move to SBRR

I wish I had more confidence in his reading data.

At any rate, I don't trust him, but I hope he can contribute to the kids we

are trying to help rather than his own agenda

Reid

Creation The: 21812005 10:03:08 AM

Modification Time: 5/8/2005 4:20:19 PM

Submit Time: 2/8/2005 10:03:04 AM

College Readiness Reports: A Few Concerns and A Lot of Questions

As part of its Seven Keys Initiative, MCPS is now tracking high school graduates. The tracking seems limited to determining if graduates enroll in college and persist through college to degree obtainment. The National Student Clearinghouse is being used to track graduates. Using its Clearinghouse data, MCPS recently released a number of reports which reveal college enrollment numbers for over 33,000 graduates. Reports also reveal how many or our graduates actually received a degree.

In my opinion, tracking our graduates is a worthwhile investment, but after reading the first set of public reports, I’m left with a number of concerns and questions.

· First, the number of MCPS graduates reported in these college readiness reports does not match previous MCPS reports of the number of MCPS graduates. The graduating classes in question include the classes of 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. So focusing on just these four classes, I added up all of the Hispanic graduates from an official MCPS SAT report (http://sharedaccountability.mcpsprimetime.org/reports/list.php?selection=613). I counted 4,729 Hispanic graduates in this report. But the college readiness reports only count 4,214 Hispanic graduates. The difference of 515 is fairly large—10.8%. There also is a fairly large difference for African American graduates. By my calculations, the percentage of missing African American graduates is 8.3%. Where did the extra graduates disappear to? Are the missing graduates those who never enrolled in college at all? Or are they simply graduates no one was able to track down?

· Second, the graduation rates reported in these college readiness reports come without any benchmarks. MCPS is always telling the world how much better its students perform than others, but it may have hesitated to do so this time because our graduation rates are lower than the national averages. So, for example, MCPS reports that approximately 27% of its African American graduates earned a degree in six years. Sounds okay, right? But according to the U.S. Department of Education, the college graduation rate for black students is 42% (see the following publication: Horn, L. (2006). Placing College Graduation Rates in Context: How 4-Year College Graduation Rates Vary With Selectivity and the Size of Low-Income Enrollment (NCES 2007-161). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.) The national graduation rate for white kids is 62%, a figure slightly higher than 58% graduation rate for white MCPS graduates. So, how come MCPS graduates are doing worst?

· Third, given the size of the data file – following 33,000+ graduates, I actually thought MCPS would provide us with much more than what they recently released. For example, I’m really interested in seeing the college data broken out by FARMS participation. Pretty much all the research on college persistence and graduation tells us that money matters a lot when it comes to completing college. So, how do our poor students perform? How do our special education students perform? How do African American males perform? The latter is a group of students known to have poor college outcomes. How many of our graduates who entered Montgomery College transfer successfully to a 4-year college and earn a degree?

· Finally, I wish MCPS researchers would do a better job of explaining how they do what they do in terms of research methodologies, including providing us with information on the reliability of the information and data obtained from the National Student Clearinghouse. The MCPS college readiness reports are almost void of explaining methodology. My favorite book of college attendance and persistence and what it all means is The Shape of the River (Bowen & Bok). That book alone spends more than 100 pages explaining its methodology. From this book you can honestly figure out what the researchers did and how they did it. MCPS provides nothing in the way of details. For some of us, the details matter.

Joseph Hawkins

BusRadio Rides Again!

Did you think BusRadio was removed from Montgomery County Public School buses in December?
Think again.

Did you believe Superintendent Weast when he told WTOP's Kate Ryan that BusRadio was turned off for good? He was quoted on air as saying that "not everything they were listening to was appropriate?"
Did you believe the Gazette article that reported, "... Weast confirmed the cancellation of the radio service."
Did you believe the Washington Post article that said, "School officials said yesterday they have abandoned a trial of the radio service..."
Did you believe MCPS Chief Operating Officer Larry Bowers when he wrote to former Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo and said, "...a decision has been made to terminate the use of BusRadio."

If you believed the above statements, then you might like to listen to the Friday, February 13th BusRadio broadcast when the driver of MCPS Bus 5115 called in to the BusRadio on air show and gave a "shout out" to the kids that ride his bus from Richard Montgomery, Julius West, Ritchie Park and College Gardens schools. The driver of MCPS bus 5115 was entering a BusRadio "Love the Bus" contest to win a $200 gift card.

If you read the entire Washington Post article you will see that the BusRadio devices were NOT going to be removed from MCPS buses. In fact, the devices were going to be left on the buses and with just a flip of a switch....BusRadio can ride another day!

So now that we know BusRadio is still in use in MCPS, where are the proceeds from this commercial "partnership" going? BusRadio pays school systems a portion of the advertising profits to keep their system in use. Just like the E-Rate Rebate funds, these outside funds are a source of revenue to Montgomery County. When have these funds been brought to the Board of Education and County Council for appropriation?