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Bloggers’ exposure of LDOE plan helps topple multi-million dollar inBloom effort to siphon off confidential student data

April 22, 2014 by tomaswell

We are back from an extended Easter break and the first thing that landed on our desk was an interesting story of national import and one in which LouisianaVoice played a small but important role more than a year ago.

It was on Feb. 20, 2013, that we broke a story which almost immediately (among bloggers, that is; the mainstream media continued to ignore the impact of our revelations for several more months) produced state repercussions against John White and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE). https://louisianavoice.com/2013/02/20/doe-emails-reveal-secretive-programs-ties-to-gates-rupert-murdoch-and-fox-news-network-agency-in-general-disarray/

That story, of course, was about the agreement between LDOE and inBloom, headed by Rupert Murdoch and supported in large part by a hefty cash infusion of $100 million by Bill Gates, that called for InBloom to provide sensitive personal data on hundreds of thousands of Louisiana school children—with no guarantee from inBloom that the data would not be susceptible to intrusion or hacking.

Yesterday, April 21, 2014, just 14 months after our initial story, came the word that inBloom was shutting down. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/inbloom-student-data-repository-to-close/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

What was Murdoch’s motive for this ambitious program” Well, we’ll let him tell you in his own words: “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S.” http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/blog/jeb-bushs-education-nonprofit-really-about-corporate-profits?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+itpi-blog+%28ITPI+Commentary+Feed%29

Yesterday’s news, welcome as it certainly is, is nevertheless tempered somewhat by two nagging questions:

  • What becomes of all that data inBloom has already received from state school systems across the U.S., Louisiana included?
  • Does one realistically believe that Murdoch and Gates are going to just walk away from a “$500 billion sector” in the U.S. economy?

The answers, in order, are: who knows and not likely.

Subsequent to our posting our original story, White attempted to assuage the public concern about “parking” private student data in the inBloom “garage,” announced on April 19 that he was withdrawing student information from the InBloom database. When inBloom responded by claiming Louisiana was “still part of inBloom community,” LouisianaVoice made a public records request three days later (April 22) in which we asked for “the official letter or email that you sent to inBloom to cancel the data storage agreement…”

White ignored our request and LouisianaVoice filed suit and the case was settled prior to trial with LDOE having to fork over our legal costs plus $3500 in fines. What we finally got was a statement from LDOE saying, “…the Department is not in possession of any public record(s) responsive to the above-written request.” https://louisianavoice.com/2013/05/10/holy-missing-documents-batman-doe-has-no-record-of-inbloom-agreement-cancellation-for-student-data-parking/

The information we literally stumbled upon was contained in 119 pages of emails we had requested from LDOE. (Also among those emails was that now-infamous, somewhat creepy exchange between Peter Gorman, senior vice president of Wireless Generation, the newly-formed education division of Murdoch’s News Corp., and Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White in which White confided to Gorman, “Dude—you are my recharger.”)

The story of Louisiana’s plans to take part in Murdoch’s scheme actually broke a month before our initial story, but included Louisiana only peripherally. A New York non-profit organization calling itself Class Size Matters, in January 2013 made mention of the fact that Louisiana would be participating in the data collection move a month before, but no one in Louisiana (White’s small circle of sycophants at LDOE) had any knowledge of what was taking place with this confidential student information.

When our story about Louisiana’s intentions to contribute personal student data to inBloom broke, friend and fellow blogger Jason France of The Crazy Crawfish (an announced candidate for Chas Roemer’s seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education) immediately re-blogged our post. In quick order, others, like Diane Ravitch, formerly assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and now an activist against many national education programs like Common Core, helped the story go viral.

As of April 2, 2014, Class Size Matters announced that each of the nine states originally listed as inBloom’s “partners,” including New York, had either pulled out completely, put data sharing plans on indefinite hold or made data-sharing voluntary on the part of individual school districts. Some local New York school superintendents even wrote letters to inBloom, demanding that their data be deleted, a request that inBloom rejected.

When it was launched, inBloom announced that the nine states were “partners” in the data-sharing plan. After protests from parents and privacy advocates, however, three states pulled out completely. The three states were identified as Colorado, North Carolina and Louisiana.

“Because of the egregious over-reaching of the Gates Foundation and inBloom,” said Class Size Matters in a prepared statement posted on its web page, “parents throughout the country have now been awakened to the myriad threats to student privacy…all in the name of ‘personalized learning.’” http://www.classsizematters.org/inbloom_student_data_privacy/

All of which clearly and unquestionably illustrates the importance of reporting the real news, the real issues, as opposed to simply printing press releases and asking questions instead of accepting elected officials’ and bureaucrats’ condescending assurances as gospel—and of the effectiveness of concerted efforts on the part of a determined citizenry to work toward a common goal.

Are we (LouisianaVoice and Crazy Crawfish) proud? Are we bragging? Are we entitled to grab a small share of the credit?

Damn right.

Posted in BESE, Education, Media | 10 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

April 16, 2014 by tomaswell

“Loyalty to Joe Aguillard apparently would include a requirement to ignore unlawful and unethical behavior…”

“The reports by Timothy Johnson to Louisiana College obviously had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with personal and institutional integrity and honesty.”

—Statements by Tim Johnson in his Mar. 11 lawsuit against Louisiana College and college President Joe Aguillard. Tim Johnson, son-in-law of Rev. Mack Ford, is said to have removed a girl from the New Bethany Home for Girls after she recorded Ford’s sexual assault of her more than 30 years ago. Johnson, whose son served for a decade as State Director for former Congressman Rodney Alexander, was appointed Wednesday to a $55,000-a-year job with the Louisiana Office of Veterans Affairs which Alexander heads.

Posted in Congress, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Notable Quotables | Leave a Comment »

OIL (Only in Louisiana): Riser aide, former New Bethany board member given job at Veterans Affairs by Alexander

April 16, 2014 by tomaswell

OIL*

*(Only in Louisiana).

A man with direct ties to a defunct church-operated home for girls and boys in Bienville Parish—and to the Baptist minister accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls at the facility—has been hired by former Congressman Rodney Alexander as an administrative program manager at the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, LouisianaVoice has learned.

Louisiana Civil Service records indicate that Tim Johnson was given the somewhat vague title and began working for the Department of Veterans Affairs today (Wednesday, April 16) at a salary of $55,016 per year.

No explanation was given as to why his employment started in the middle of the week and only two days before Good Friday, a state holiday.

Timothy Johnson’s hiring is the latest wrinkle in the ongoing saga in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District.

Johnson, of Choudrant in Lincoln Parish, was fired last May as executive vice president at Louisiana College in Pineville after leading an unsuccessful coup against President Joe Aguillard. Johnson had served briefly as acting president of the college and there was speculation at one time that he would be named permanent head of the school.

He filed a lawsuit against Aguillard and Louisiana College little more than a month ago, on March 11. In his suit, he claims his termination last May was in retaliation for his whistleblower complaint alleging misconduct by Aguillard. https://www.thetowntalk.com/assets/pdf/DK219640311.PDF

He claims he followed established policy when he reported to college trustees that Aguillard had misappropriated funds in such a manner that a major donor terminated gifts of about $2 million a year to the school. He further claimed that Aguillard lied to both donors and trustees about the financial matters.

He is married to the daughter of Rev. Mack Ford who ran New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys for several decades south of Arcadia in Bienville Parish and served on the New Bethany board until its closure.

One source said New Bethany was closed in 1996 but the facility was not officially closed until 2001 when the board, on motion of Timothy Johnson, voted to dispose of all of New Bethany property by transferring all physical property and bank accounts to New Bethany Baptist Church. Board records show that both Timothy and Jonathan Johnson attended the June 30, 2001, board meeting.

A support group comprised of female former residents of the New Bethany facility who say they each were physically, mentally and sexually assaulted claims that one girl who was assaulted by Ford managed to record the attack and was subsequently whisked away from the school by Timothy Johnson in an effort to protect his father-in-law. The tape, which the women say was turned over to home officials, subsequently disappeared. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/09/16/neil-riser-campaign-worker-linked-to-defunct-church-girls-home-accusations-of-sexual-abuse-by-father-in-law-minister/

Despite this incident and despite his serving on the board and making the motion to sell the home’s assets at a 1996 board meeting, Tim Johnson is said to have insisted in a conversation with an employee at Louisiana College that he had never heard of New Bethany.

More recently he and his son were active in the unsuccessful campaign of State Sen. Neil Riser to succeed Alexander for Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District seat.

The winner of last November’s election, Vance McAllister, has his own problems after a video recording of him kissing a married woman in his office recently surfaced.

Tim Johnson performed volunteer work on behalf of Riser who was endorsed by Alexander after Alexander suddenly retired last fall with a year still left on his term. His son, Jonathan Johnson, Ford’s grandson, worked for about a decade as State Director for Alexander at $75,000 per year and worked as a paid employee of the Riser campaign.

When Alexander announced last August that he would retire in a matter of weeks, Gov. Bobby Jindal immediately announced Alexander’s hiring as head of the State Office of Veterans Affairs at $150,000 per year, a job that will provide a substantial boost (from about $7,500 per year to $82,000 per year) to Alexander’s state retirement over and above his federal retirement and social security benefits.

The state’s entire Republican hierarchy, with the notable exception of U.S. Sen. David Vitter, immediately endorsed Riser as Alexander’s heir apparent and two of Jindal’s top campaign aides actively worked on behalf of Riser’s campaign.

And now we have Alexander, in his new position, appointing the father (Timothy Johnson) of his former state director (Jonathan Johnson)—a son-in-law and a grandson, respectively, tied to a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who is said to have preyed on teenage girls for several decades, both of whom served on the preacher’s board and both of whom worked in Riser’s campaign—to something called an administrative program manager at $55,000 per year right smack dab in the middle of Jindal’s spending freeze.

Folks, you can’t make this kind of stuff up. The only thing needed to make this story complete is for Jimmy Faircloth to serve as Timothy Johnson’s attorney in his litigation against Louisiana College and Aguillard.

OIL.

Posted in Congress, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Jobs | 12 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

April 15, 2014 by tomaswell

“No one involved understood there to be an ethical violation or that there was a potential for a violation. Further, Mr. Davidson has retired and is no longer employed by the DPSO.  Accordingly, the relationship in question and the potential for a conflict have terminated.”

—Shreveport attorney James R. Sterritt of Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway, in response to a state audit that revealed that former DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Davidson’s private company used the sheriff’s office to run nearly half a million dollars in background checks in an 11-month period, netting his firm approximately $372,000.

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Ethics, Notable Quotables | 1 Comment »

Former DeSoto deputy sheriff’s private company ran half-million dollars in background checks through sheriff’s office

April 15, 2014 by tomaswell

A former DeSoto Parish sheriff’s deputy may have violated state law by using his office to run background checks for a company in which he owned a major interest, according to an investigative audit report by the Legislative Auditor’s office in Baton Rouge.

But the lawyer for the High Sheriff says the former deputy did nothing wrong.

His company, Lagniappe and Castillo Research and Investigations, ran 41,574 background checks through the sheriff’s office during an 11-month period between April 1, 2012, and February 28, 2013, the report says.

The report, released on Monday, also noted that three DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office (DPSO) employees were paid nearly $2,000 by Lagniappe and Castillo Research and Investigations for running the background checks between January 2011 and May 2013, duties they would normally perform as part of their jobs with the sheriff’s office.

The company charged its customers $12 for each background report and paid the sheriff’s office $3 per report. That represents an income of more than $498,800 and a profit of more than $372,000 for owners Robert Davidson and Allan Neal Castillo over the 11-month period.

Davidson, retired chief investigator for the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office, is 50 percent owner of Lagniappe and Castillo. He was employed by DPSO from 1980 until his retirement in May of 2013. Besides being listed by the Secretary of State as 50 percent owner, he also is listed as the registered agent of the company.

But the lawyer for the High Sheriff says the former deputy did nothing wrong.

Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle, through his legal counsel, defended the practice, saying that Davidson did not own a “controlling interest” in the company and that he did not “participate” in the transactions because he was employed in the criminal investigation division of the sheriff’s office and the background checks were performed by the civil administrative division. “The criminal investigation division is both physically and functionally separate and apart from the civil administrative division,” he said. “Thus, he did not “participate” as defined by the Code of Ethics…”

Arbuckle also claimed that the three DPSO employees ran the background checks for which they were paid by Lagniappe and Castillo on holidays and weekends, adding that state law does not prohibit deputies from being paid by a non-public source for off-duty work.

State law requires that employers obtain criminal background checks prior to making an offer to employ or contract with a non-licensed person. Background checks are run through the Louisiana State Police Internet Background Check System database.

The obvious question becomes: could there conceivably have been 41,574 jobs or job applicants in an 11-month period in a rural parish of only 27,000 living souls, including children? If not, for what purposes were these background checks done, what information was contained in them, and to whom were they sold?

Perhaps we have a Fourth Amendment issue here.

One other question still unanswered is whether or not Sheriff Arbuckle received any of the proceeds from the transactions other than the $3 per report charged by the sheriff’s office.

Employers who request background checks through the State Police are charged a $26 fee. Authorized agents approved by State Police are also charged $26 for each report but until July 1, 2013, State Police did not charge a fee to local law enforcement agencies. To circumvent the $26 charge for each report, Lagniappe and Castillo simply routed its requests through the DPSO, which was not charged for the reports. For that privilege, the company paid the sheriff’s office $3 while charging clients $12 for each reported generated through the DPSO, the audit report said.

State Police records indicate that during the 11-month period from April 1, 2012 through Feb. 28, 2013, all local law enforcement agencies statewide combined to run 91,074 background checks. Of that number, 65,174 (72 percent) were ordered by DPSO. The 41,574 ordered by Lagniappe and Castillo represented 63.8 percent of the total run by DPSO. Arbuckle said his office averaged 200 to 300 background checks per day.

“During the audit period, Mr. Davidson’s company paid DPSO more than $124,000 ($124,722) for information that we understand his company sold to private clients for nearly a half a million dollars,” ($498,888) the audit says. “Because Mr. Davidson entered into transactions with the DPSO in which he had a personal, substantial economic interest, he may have violated the state’s ethics laws.”

But the lawyer for the High Sheriff says the former deputy did nothing wrong.

Arbuckle’s attorney James R. Sterritt of Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway of Shreveport argued that Davidson, with 50 percent ownership, did not own a “controlling interest” in the company, he committed no wrongdoing.

Nice try. Such creative interpretation of the law might even land him a job representing Gov. Bobby Jindal if Jimmy Faircloth didn’t already that gig.

Sterritt’s legal interpretation notwithstanding, Louisiana Revised Statute 42:1102(8) clearly defines controlling interest as “any ownership in any legal entity…which exceeds 25 percent of that legal entity.”

The audit report also cites a state statute which “prohibits public servants from participating in transactions involving the governmental entity (sheriff’s office) with any legal entity in which the public servant (Deputy Davidson) exercises control or owns an interest in excess of 25 percent (emphasis added) and who by reason thereof is in a position to affect directly the economic interests of such public servant.”

But the lawyer for the High Sheriff says the former deputy did nothing wrong.

Thus, the report says, “former DPSO Chief Investigator Robert Davidson’s 50 percent interest in Lagniappe and Castillo was a controlling interest which may have prohibited Lagniappe and Castillo from entering into transactions with the DPSO.”

The audit also cites yet another state statute [R.S. 42:1111(C)(1)(a)] which “prohibits public servants from receiving anything of economic value for any service from a nonpublic source that is similar to the work being done for the public employer.”

The audit report said that since the three employees’ jobs “were to run background checks for the DPSO, this relationship may have violated the state’s ethics law.” The report added that the “vast majority” of the reports “appear to have been performed during on-duty hours, thus contradicting Arbuckle’s contention that the work was done on weekends and on holidays.

But the lawyer for the High Sheriff says that’s okay, too.

The audit report also dismissed Arbuckle’s examples of off-duty deputies working for private concerns such as providing security for businesses. “The instant case differs from the instances cited by Sheriff Arbuckle in that, here, the deputies were performing the same—not similar—services that they are paid to perform in their on-duty jobs.”

The audit report, signed by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera, ended with a recommendation that Arbuckle seek further legal guidance (emphasis added).

“We recommend that the DPSO consult with legal counsel and the Louisiana Board of Ethics on the legality of these relationships.

“The DPSO should also adopt detailed ethics policies and procedures, including requiring all employees to complete the annual ethics training in accordance with (state statute) and prohibiting employees from contracting with the DPSO,” it said.

A copy of the audit letter was sent to the Board of Ethics.

Sterritt, meanwhile, assures us that “no one involved understood there to be an ethical violation or that there was a potential for a violation.

“Further, Mr. Davidson has retired and is no longer employed by the DPSO. Accordingly, the relationship in question and the potential for a conflict have terminated.”

While this has the potential of becoming a gravely serious issue for a small community—and it certainly should be considered as such—we can’t help thinking after reading Sterritt’s convoluted (and glaringly faulty) legalese of the half-serious joke about an attorney’s legal response to the claim that his dog had bitten a man as he walked past the lawyer’s home:

“My dog doesn’t bite. I keep my dog inside a fence. I don’t own a dog.”

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Ethics | 8 Comments »

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