Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

LouisianaVoice runs out of patience, files lawsuit against DOE, Supt. John White over production of public records

Posted in BESE, Education, Public Records on April 24, 2013| 24 Comments »

After many unsuccessful attempts at obtaining public records from the Department of Education (DOE) and just as many times of experiencing foot-dragging and outright denials from the department, LouisianaVoice has initiated litigation against DOE and Superintendent of Education John White.

The lawsuit, in addition to immediate release of requested public records, seeks payment of attorney fees, court costs and the imposition of applicable civil fines for non-compliance with the state’s public records laws (R.S. 44:1 et seq.).

It is at least the third such lawsuit filed against DOE over the past several months. Last year, the Monroe News Star filed suit over voucher records and DOE quickly provided access to the documents it had previously denied.

Last October, Research on Reforms filed suit in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge over DOE’s failure to comply with public records laws.

The Independent, a Lafayette newspaper, also experienced difficulty in obtaining public records from DOE. The department first responded that no such records existed but then said they would be made available. But before giving the records to The Independent, White had the information released to a favored reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

LouisianaVoice last month even attempted to have an intermediary, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Chas Roemer, explain the importance of compliance to White in an effort to settle the dispute amicably.

The LouisianaVoice lawsuit was filed in 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge on Wednesday and was assigned to District Judge Janice Clark.

Here are some of our outstanding public records requests on which we have received no response:

• From: Tom Aswell
Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 10:04 AM
To: john.white@la.gov; troy.humphrey@la.gov
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire, executed and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. In providing these documents, please do not omit the signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all forms, including literacy, high school redesign and accountability authorized and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by Michael Rounds since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please provide copies of all travel records/travel documents/travel reimbursements for David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE.

Please provide signed time sheets verifying David Lefkowith’s presence in the DOE offices since his employment with DOE.

• From: Tom Aswell
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 7:55 PM
To: john.white@la.gov; joan.hunt@la.gov;
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please provide me with copies of any and all emails and other written communications, memorandums, letters or notes FROM and TO Hannah Dietsch dating back to the date of her employment as Assistant Superintendent of Workforce Talent which contain ANY reference to Value Added, Value Added Model, or VAM.

Please provide me with a list of all Recovery School District (RSD) employees who have received pay increases of 15% (fifteen percent) or more dating back to Jan. 1, 2012.

Please provide me with any and all emails, letters, notes and memorandums from John White relative to holidays for unclassified employees of RSD.

• From: Tom Aswell
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 7:55 PM
To: john.white@la.gov; joan.hunt@la.gov;
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please provide me with copies of any and all emails and other written communications, memorandums, letters or notes FROM and TO Superintendent of Education John White dating back to Jan. 1, 2012 which contain ANY reference to Value Added, Value Added Model, or VAM.

Please provide me with a list of all Recovery School District (RSD) employees who have received pay increases of 15% (fifteen percent) or more dating back to Jan. 1, 2012.
Please provide me with any and all emails, letters, notes and memorandums from John White relative to holidays for unclassified employees of RSD.

• From: Tom Aswell
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 9:08 PM
To: john.white@la.gov; joan.hunt@la.gov
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please provide me with the opportunity to review the official letter or email that you sent to inBloom to cancel the data storage.

Here are excerpts from the Louisiana public records act:

PUBLIC RECORDS

The Louisiana Public Records Act, La. R.S. 44:1-41, and Article XII, Section 3 of the Louisiana Constitution grants any person a right to examine and copy public documents in the possession of the state and its political subdivisions. The Public Records Act enables Louisiana residents to become knowledgeable about state and local governmental activities and, thus, to participate more effectively in public debate.

WHAT ARE PUBLIC RECORDS UNDER THE ACT?

To be “public,” the record must have been used, prepared, possessed, or retained for use in connection with a function performed under authority of the Louisiana Constitution, a state law, or an ordinance, regulation, mandate, or order of a public body. This definition covers virtually every kind of record kept by a state or local governmental body. La. R.S. 44:1(A)(1). In Louisiana, a “public record” includes books, records, writings, letters, memos, microfilm, and photographs, including copies and other reproductions.

HOW TO MAKE A PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

You may also make an oral request in person to inspect a public record. At that time, the public record must be immediately presented to you, unless the record is not immediately available or is being actively used at the time. If the public record is not immediately available, the custodian must promptly notify you in writing of the reason why the record is not immediately available and fix a day and hour within three days (excluding Saturday, Sunday, and legal holidays) when the records will be made available (emphasis ours).

If you visit the agency in person, the custodian of the records must provide a reasonably comfortable place for you to review the records. The custodian may prevent any alteration of the record being examined, but the custodian cannot review anything in the requesting person’s possession (including notes).

Read Full Post »

Unexpected visit in search of public records causes panic; DOA ordered into virtual LouisianaVoice lockdown mode

Posted in Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on April 17, 2013| 38 Comments »

NOTE: The following is an account of the stonewalling and violation of state law by the State Division of Administration (DOA) experienced by LouisianaVoice publisher Tom Aswell in an effort to obtain public records from DOA:

The email from the Commissioner of Administration’s office was apparently sent to several state agencies in the Claiborne Building on Tuesday.

It’s contents were terse and to the point:

• Subject: Commissioner’s Suite

Due to a recent incident in the Commissioner’s suite, no one without proper access will be allowed into the area. If you need to see me or anyone else in legal, you must first call/e-mail to let us know you are coming over. You will not be buzzed into the area without first notifying us.

Unfortunately, this also includes student workers who come by on a regular basis to bring/and pick up documents.

Well, henceforth I guess it is okay to refer to me and LouisianaVoice as “Recent Incident” because that email from the still unknown author—I suspect it came from legal counsel David Boggs’ office—was about me.

First, some background.

I have historically encountered an almost incredible resistance on the part of this administration to release public records. If it’s not the claim of exemption under the tired blanket excuse of “deliberative process,” it’s the interminable delay due to the more recent explanation that “We are still searching for records and reviewing them for exemptions and privileges.”

Well, that handy little tactic of blowing smoke up my toga has allowed DOA to camp out on our request for weeks in open violation of the state’s public records law.

So, after submitting requests for records dating back to March 6 and March 10, I got tired of waiting and made a little trip to the Claiborne Building behind the State Capitol. That’s where DOA Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols parks her desk name plate—for now. She seems to move around a lot.

I walked up to the guard desk and signed in the visitors’ log book, indicating that I intended to visit DOA on the seventh floor. That’s what I wrote: Agency—DOA; Floor—7. It’s on the book, neat and proper. But then I told what could be construed as a little white lie when I informed the guard I was visiting another office first. Except it wasn’t a lie. I did drop by the other office to say hello to a couple of old friends.

Then I rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, walked to the commissioner’s office and rang the bell (the door is locked and visitors must be admitted by electronic control). The door clicked immediately and I entered and walked up to the receptionist’s desk.

“I’d like to see David Boggs, please,” I said with all of my Southern polite upbringing. (I had no quarrel with the receptionist; she’s one of the thousands of rank and file employees that Gov. Jindal holds in utter contempt so if anything, I empathize with her and others like her who most likely have not had a pay raise in something like four years now.)

After I explained that I was there to obtain public records, she picked up the phone and called someone—I assume Boggs’ office and explained that I wished to speak with him. She said a few words, listened for a few moments and then turned back to me. “How did you get here?” she asked.

A little irritated now, I said, “I walked in the front door downstairs.”

“No, how did you get up here?”

“I took the elevator.”

Somewhat exasperated at my not-so-artful dodging, she said, I mean, how did you get past the guard station? You’re not supposed to be up here.”

“Well, I signed in, told the guard I was going to another agency, which I did, and then I came up here.”

“Sir, you know that’s not the proper way to do things. You can’t just walk in here like that. You have to check in…”

“I did.”

“…Check in with the guard and call up here and we’ll send someone down to see you.”

“What? I’m already here now. Why can’t that ‘someone’ just come out and talk to me?”

“Because that’s not how we do it. Go downstairs, call up and we’ll send someone down to see you.”

Thoroughly agitated and by now having abandoned my genteel Southern upbringing, I stormed out muttering to myself about Darwin being correct after all and went back to the guard station downstairs. I dutifully placed my call and whoever answered (I don’t think it was the same person), said someone would be down to see me shortly. I told her to be sure to send someone in authority (as if that person even exists in this administration).

After about 15 minutes, a uniformed guard, a very polite and soft-spoken gentleman who had been at the guard desk the entire time, approached me to say DOA had just called him and instructed him to take my printed request and delivered it upstairs.

“No, sir,” I responded. “I want the custodian of the records who by law is required to provide me with the requested records.”

The guard smiled and said, “I’m only doing what I’m told. I work for them.”

“I understand that, but you’re not the custodian of the records,” I told him as I started dialing. As the phone rang, I further told the guard, “I want you to understand that I’m not offended in any way by you and I hope I haven’t offended you. It’s just that you are not the one with authority to release the records.”

“I understand,” he said, smiling.

I finally got yet another person (I think; I really could not distinguish the voices) and explained what I wanted. If I was angry before, the response I got sent me through the roof.

“Sir, we cannot give you the records today because we have to do stuff to them.”

“What?! I requested these records more than a month ago! What do you mean you can’t give them to me?”

“Sir, we have three days in which to give you the records…”

“No! No, you do not! The state public records law stipulates that you must allow me to examine and copy the records upon my appearance at your office. You do not have three days.” (If a record is unavailable, the custodian of the records has three days in which to respond in writing as to why the record is not available and to say when it will be available. That’s the only reference to three days in the statute.) http://www.tulane.edu/~telc/html/prr.htm

“Not only that,” I continued, “even if you did have three days, I submitted the requests on March 6 and March 10. Today’s the 16th of April. I think you’ve exceeded your mythical three-day time frame.”

“Sir, you are not allowed up here. We will get the information to you when we can.”

At that point, all I could do was go home and try to cool down. That didn’t happen. I’m still angry at a governor who could lie so convincingly about being “open and transparent” and yet allow this kind of thing to take place. And worse, I’m still angry that there are those who still believe the Jindal Lie.

And about that email: I guess it’s only appropriate that the building go into lockdown any time I cross the Amite River from Livingston Parish into Baton Rouge. At nearly 70 years of age and with a 180-pound body of sagging flesh draped across brittle bones, I guess I make a pretty imposing sight for Bobby Jindal, et al. (Of course, a Shih Tzu puppy could intimidate this governor.) Obviously I’m some kind of ogre against whom the state must be protected at all costs. A clear and present danger, as it were.

Borrowing a line from the intro of the Kingston Trio 1959 hit song, The MTA: “Citizens, hear me out. This could happen to you.”

Perhaps that is why State Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) has introduced HB 19 this year in an effort to make records in the governor’s office more accessible to the public.

Richard, you may recall, is the one who sounded the alarm about the state’s failure to receive Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approval of Jindal’s plan to privatize and close state medical facilities—a failure that Richard said could cost the state another $800 million in Medicaid funding.

HB19, co-authored by State Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston), would make “all records of the governor’s office subject to public records laws”—with the usual exemptions for sensitive documents recognized for other agencies throughout local and state government, of course.

Richard is simply attempting to remove the cloak of secrecy that has existed since Jindal pushed through legislation in 2007 right after taking office that he said strengthened the state’s ethics laws but which in reality, gutted the ethics laws, diluted the Ethics Board’s authority and made records in the governor’s office off limits.

If you truly care about this state and sincerely wish to see a more responsive government in Baton Rouge, you might wish to send an email or make a telephone call to your legislators and talk up Richard’s bill.

Right now, even if it passes, it’s certain to be vetoed by Jindal. Only a groundswell of public support for the bill will convince the legislature to approve the bill and prevail upon Jindal to sign it into law.

Read Full Post »

LA Assn. of Principals stands on principles; opts out of P.O.Y competition over DOE Compass guidelines, selection process

Posted in BESE, Education on April 16, 2013| 11 Comments »

Call it revenge of the principals, insubordination or just down home independence or stubbornness.

The Louisiana Association of Principals has delivered a metaphoric “in your face” message for the Louisiana Department of Education and its Principal of the Year competition.

In a letter to Michael Faulk, superintendent of the Central Community School System in Central, Louisiana, Louisiana Association of Principals Executive Director Andrea Martin opted out of this year’s DOE competition because the DOE guidelines do not comply with guidelines of the National Association of Secondary School Principals or the National Association of Elementary Principals.

The DOE webpage indicated that the selection criteria for the award “are aligned with our state’s priorities of Compass and the Common Core State Standards.”

Compass, the DOE equivalent of the value added teacher assessment program and the Common Core State Standards are a bone of contention between the department and public school teachers, a factor that may have played a large part in the association’s decision.

Following is Martin’s email to Faulk:

The Louisiana Association of Principals regrets that it will not be able to coordinate with the LA Department of Education in their selection of the Principal of the Year because the guidelines and selection process from the DOE does not adhere to the guidelines outlined by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of Elementary Principals.

As the Louisiana Association of Principals is an affiliate of these two national organizations, we are obligated to adhere to their guidelines. On a positive note, this will result in the principals selected by LAP being able to participate in the National Recognition Program sponsored by NAESP and the NASSP.

The applications are posted on the LAP website http://www.laprincipals.org and are available at this time. I apologize for the short turnaround time, but after contacting the DOE more than once, and participating in a conference call, we understood the DOE would provide LAP with a draft to ensure that all guidelines were followed before disseminating.

If you or other superintendents have any questions or concerns, please contact our office.

Read Full Post »

DOE $148K Chief Information Officer issues orders for department staff not to attend March 8 BESE meeting

Posted in BESE, Education, Public Records, Transparency on April 10, 2013| 12 Comments »

James Bowman is officially listed as the Chief Information Officer for the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE).

At $148,000 a year, he ostensibly presides over information technology for DOE.

He may even be the one responsible for redesigning the department’s web page to make it all but impossible to navigate. So much the better to keep the public uninformed about the machinations of DOE.

LouisianaVoice made its initial public information request pursuant to a curious Bowman email way back on March 10 but DOE did not get around to responding until Wednesday of this week. Our request read, in part:

• Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

• Emails sent by James Bowman the week of March 4-7, 2013 relative to directing staff not to attend BESE meeting.

The email was sent by Bowman on March 7 to Dave Elder, Carol Mosley and James McMahon of DOE and read:

• If you have staff that normally attends these meetings, pls advise that they should not attend tomorrow.

Inquiring minds, of course, want to know. Accordingly, we fired off an email to James Bowman, Chief Information Officer for the Louisiana Department of Education, in which we sought…well, information. Our email read thusly:

• What was the reasoning behind your email of March 7 to Dave Elder, Carol Mosley and James McMahon in which you directed them to advise their staff members that “they should not attend” the March 8 BESE meeting?

Bowman opened our email at 6:12 p.m. Wednesday but by 10 p.m. had not responded.

…So much for the information part of his title. Apparently that does not extend to the great unwashed.

For what it’s worth, we were unable to ascertain the exact job titles and salaries of Mosley or McMahon, but Elder was a former information technology director for DOE who has since retired.

As for that mysterious March 8 meeting, the agenda appeared rather routine:

• Academic Goals and Instructional Improvement;

• Administration and finance;

• Educator Effectiveness;

• Policy Information.

We can’t help but wonder if that BESE meeting may have held a clue to DOE’s agreement to provide sensitive student information to a huge computer data base controlled by Fox News honcho Rupert Murdoch—thus the directive to bar certain DOE staff members from attending the meeting.

What might have been buried in that “policy information” item? Or “academic goals and instructional improvement?”

Paranoid? Hell yes.

Read Full Post »

BESE apparently watches ‘Bachelorette’; White continues to ignore legitimate media requests for DEO public records

Posted in BESE, Education, Public Records, Transparency on April 9, 2013| 15 Comments »

Call this the John White Special.

Let’s start with BESE’s March meeting at which the calculation of Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding was discussed in a 26-page report which at one point appeared to veer off into reality television. The MFP was approved by BESE on March 8.

One of the criteria outlined at that meeting was the High Standards Weight.

“This weight is provided to recognize the cost of providing advanced coursework,” the BESE report said. “A 30 percent weight is provided for students in grades 8 through 11 that (sic) meet the certain criteria on exams. Students must meet the following criteria in order to be considered eligible (one would think that education administrators would know to use the word “who” instead of “that.”):

• Students in 8th grade that (there’s “that” again, instead of “who”) score excellent on Algebra I End of Course (EOC) tests;

• Students in 9th grade who (ah!) score excellent on Geometry EOC tests or score in a 3 or higher on an Advance Placement (AP) exam;

• Students in 10th grade who score 3 or higher on an AP exam;

• Students in 11th grade who score a 3 or higher on an AP exam or a 4+ on an International Bachelorette (IB) course.

Wait. What? Bachelorette? Yep, that’s what it said.

Like we said, reality television rules at BESE.

Maybe someone should have whispered to BESE/DOE that it should be International Baccalaureate before it’s approved for an official state document. And perhaps motivational speaker David “Lefty” Lefkowith could take time to show up for work one day and give proofreading lessons.

The biggest sticking point with White, insofar as LouisianaVoice is concerned, is the difficulty (make that impossibility) of squeezing what are clearly public records out of DOE.

R.S. 44:32(D) provides: “In any case in which a record is requested and a question is raised by the custodian of the record as to whether it is a public record, such custodian shall within three days, exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays, of the receipt of the request, in writing for such record, notify in writing the person making such request of his determination and the reasons therefor. Such written notification shall contain a reference to the basis under law which the custodian has determined exempts a record, or any part thereof, from inspection, copying, or reproduction.”

Three days.

If Jesus could escape from his tomb in three days, the Department of Education certainly should be able to lay its hands on and produce requested public records within that prescribed time.

Yet, LouisianaVoice has outstanding records requests dating back to March 6 without so much as an acknowledgement from DOE. We know Superintendent John White received the requests because our email alerts us whenever a recipient has opened one of our emails. There’s a reason for that.

Following are some of our outstanding public records requests:

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 8:58 PM
To: john.white@la.gov
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

I would like a list of and a CV for the following:

All personnel who now work or who have worked in the Louisiana Department of Education since January of 2007 who worked for or otherwise were associated, affiliated with or employed by Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, and/or the Eli Broad Foundation;

In providing this information, please provide the following information:

Dates of employment for each;

Job title for each;

Salary for each.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 8:29 PM
To: john.white@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

emails sent by James Bowman the week of March 4-7, 2013 relative to directing staff not to attend BESE meeting.
Emails sent by Nick Bolt since Feb. 1, 2013 pertaining to Shared Learning Collaborative, including any and all communications relative to off-line discussions of SLC or Shared Learning Collaborative.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 10:04 AM
To: john.white@la.gov; troy.humphrey@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire, executed and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. In providing these documents, please do not omit the signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all forms, including literacy, high school redesign and accountability authorized and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by Michael Rounds since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please provide copies of all travel records/travel documents/travel reimbursements for David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 9:00 p.m.
To: john.white@la.gov; troy.humphrey@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please provide signed time sheets verifying David Lefkowith’s presence in the DOE offices since his employment with DOE.

(Nothing yet, though the three-day deadline was not expired as of this writing.)

Even more serious is White’s dangerous little game of telling outright lies about the existence of public records and of playing favorites with the media.

The Independent of Lafayette attempted to obtain public records from DOE way back in April 2011 asking the department for correspondence DOE had received from the U.S. Department of Education relative to Louisiana’s No Child Left Behind waiver application.

After first denying the existence of the requested correspondence, DOE finally acquiesced on Friday, May 4, and told the paper the documents would be provided on Monday, May 7.

Instead, White, spoon fed the information, including extensive details and comments from White himself to a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune so that his favored reporter could have the story first.

Mr. White should know that is not the way you try to manipulate the media in Louisiana or anywhere else. Any newspaper worth its salt will do what it must do to protect its interest from such shabby behavior—and the Independent did.

You do not play favorites and you certainly do not ignore legitimate requests from the media—most media. Some take umbrage at such efforts to control information that rightfully is the domain of the public.

It will end ugly.

LouisianaVoice has retained legal counsel and as this is being written is preparing to initiate legal action against White, DOE, BESE and its president, Chas Roemer. It is BESE, after all, that hired White and it is BESE to whom he answers so BESE is legally liable for the behavior of its upstart superintendent who apparently feels the laws to not apply to him.

But apply to him they do. It will cost us money, but in the end, we will be upheld in our efforts and when that happens, the court not only may assess legal fines against the department and BESE, but it can also order DOE and BESE to pay our legal fees and our court costs.

And then there’s the negative publicity that would go with yet another embarrassing court decision against DOE.

Strother Martin (the warden in Cool Hand Luke) notwithstanding, there is no failure to communicate here.

NOTE: (J Arthur Smith copied in several of our public records requests to White is our legal counsel.)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »