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May 9, 2007

Plagiarism

Dear Original Thinkers:

Plagiarist Victor Reinoso, the Deputy Mayor for Education, has been caught copying about a third of the mayor’s academic plan for DC public schools (http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070223.htm) from the academic plan for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, public schools (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050802047.html?hpid=topnews). In response, the administration has added the following paragraph to the academic plan: “This document is a compendium of earlier reform initiatives, plans and best practices developed for the District of Columbia Public Schools and other jurisdictions. It includes language from: the DCPS Master Education Plan, 2006 Parthenon Report, 2000 McKinsey Report, 1986 COPE Report and numerous reports prepared by the Council of Great City Schools, as well as documents prepared by, for or about the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Schools, Chicago Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, Houston Independent School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, Miami-Dade Public Schools, New York City Department of Education and the Oakland Unified School District. As we seek to raise the performance of all our students, we will work with speed and resolve to intervene aggressively on behalf of our lowest performing schools and students, and will not be satisfied only by an increase in performance among our lowest performing. The Administration will seek to increase the rigor, options and performance of our highest performing students.” Once Carl Bergman, who discovered the wholesale copying from the Charlotte plan, finishes checking all the other sources that are cited in this paragraph, we’ll probably find that almost all of the mayor’s plan was directly plagiarized from other sources.

Reinoso has accepted responsibility for the cut-and-paste job and the omission of any acknowledgments and credits, but it’s very unlikely that he did all of it himself. He has a large staff, and it will be interesting to discover how many of those staff members worked on the plan, knew about the plagiarism, and didn’t disclose it. If Reinoso were a student in DC public schools and turned in this work product in a course, he would get an F on the assignment, an F for the course, and he would be subject to suspension. If he were a student at UDC, he would be expelled. But it is doubtful that Fenty will hold his highest academic official to the same academic standards that we would expect of an eighth grader or a college freshman, or that Reinoso will be fired from his job for his deception. Reinoso is the Federal City Council’s choice to represent its interests in the takeover of the city’s schools, and that should be enough to protect him. However, if this scandal proves to be more than a one-day newspaper story, and if the embarrassment it causes the administration is too great, Mayor Fenty will have to act, and then the question will be whom the Federal City Council will name as Reinoso’s replacement. (James Shelton from the Gates Foundation, perhaps?)

The plagiarism would probably have been discovered earlier if representatives of the Charlotte school board had been invited to DC to testify on the mayor’s plan during the city council hearings on the takeover. They would then have read DC’s academic plan and would have certainly recognized the copied passages. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has a reputation as the urban school district that has made the most improvement in student performance in recent years, and it was an obvious source for the city council to hear from. But Charlotte accomplished its improvements under its existing school board system, without a mayoral takeover, and Council Chairman Vincent Gray did not want the council to hear any evidence that a mayoral takeover of schools was unnecessary for and irrelevant to improving students’ grades and test scores. So Charlotte was never invited to present testimony, and they had no occasion to reveal Reinoso’s deception.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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New Chair of Board of Elections
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

On Monday morning, staff members of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) and Office of Campaign Finance (OCF) were given a copy of a memorandum signed by BOEE Chairman Wilma Lewis dated Friday, May 4. The memo indicates that on that day Lewis had submitted a letter to Mayor Fenty informing him that she “would be concluding her service as a member of the Board of Elections and Ethics effective immediately.” It goes on to state that "the Mayor has designated Board member Charles R. Lowery, Jr., as the new Chairperson of the Board."

Lewis’ letter to the mayor, also dated May 4, is very revealing with regard to how she came to write her letter of resignation: “On Wednesday, May 2, 2007, a faxed copy of the enclosed Mayor’s Order [2007-98] was forwarded to me following its receipt that same day via government inter-office mail at the District of Columbia Office of Campaign Finance. The Order, which is dated April 19, 2007, designates current Board member Charles R. Lowery, Jr. As the new Chairperson of the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics (‘the Board’) ‘effective nunc pro tunc to January 8, 2007.’ I fully appreciate and respect your prerogative, as Mayor, to designate a Chairperson of your choice, and congratulate Mr. Lowery on being so designated. I offer the observation, however, that the designation of a new Chairperson ‘effective nunc pro tunc to January 8, 2007,’ may raise uncertainty regarding the impact of the Order on the conduct of the Board’s business during the period January 8, 2007, to the present when I was serving as Chair.”

Since Monday, I have called, E-mailed, and visited the office of Carla Brailey, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Boards and Commissions, to ask why Mayor Fenty chose to handle Lowery’s appointment to such an important and prestigious board in such an unusual manner. Why was it handled so secretly, without so much as a press release, much less a public ceremony? Why did he treat Lewis, a former US Attorney for the District, with so much disrespect, not even informing her that he was replacing her before sending a copy of the Mayor’s Order to her staff? Why did he choose to replace her with Lowery, a former Ward 4 ANC Commissioner, who has been a nearly silent member of the Board over the past three years? Most importantly, why did the mayor backdate Lowery’s appointment to January 8, raising legal questions about all the decisions and official actions of the Board that have been taken since that date under the authority of Wilma Lewis as Chairman? During those months, among other actions, the BOEE approved of a new political party, the DC Independent Citizens Control Party; determined that two initiatives regarding Mayor Fenty’s school reform proposal were not “proper subjects for an initiative” under DC law; and made important administrative and contractual decisions with regard to the May 1 special election, including printing ballots and contracting for voting machine services. All these actions are now of doubtful legality. Finally, at 5:00 p.m. tonight I received Brailey’s cryptic answer by E-mail — “Please refer your concerns to Peter Nickles,” the mayor’s General Counsel.

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Riding for a Crash
Ed T Barron, edtb1@mac.com

No, not the stock market . . . yet. The crash will be from those lofty heights of expectations about DC’s gaining representation in Congress. Let’s be realistic (please) and recognize that even if the Senate votes for having a DC congressman along with an additional congressman from Utah, the President will veto that legislation. There’s certainly no way that that veto would be overridden. And, then, there is the issue of constitutionality, since DC is not (thank heaven) a state. A much better chance for the supporters of representation will be in two years when there is a likely majority of Dems in both the Senate and the House and a Democratic president. Until then all those running in circles should cool it since they are wasting time and energy on a fruitless quest. Hail Rosinante.

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Scratching Under the New Ballpark’s Green Facade
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com

See: http://www.washdcsports.com/newballpark/photogallery/images/nats_greenpic_lg.gif. Allen Lew of the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission obtained an LEED green certification by not actually addressing many of the main environmental issues that come with the use of heavily industrialized land on the banks of the Anacostia watershed. This was in accordance with the strategy outlined in the April 4, 2006, letter from then-Chairman Cropp. Lew considerably watered down the “enhanced storm-water management and mitigation of water pollution” standard, but the DCSEC is still calling their paltry measures “enhanced” in its current PR pieces. The DCSEC has a graphic on their web site that shows much of what they did in the point-scoring vein. There has still been no independent and extensive environmental study conducted on the site like the one that occurred on the RFK Stadium site, which revealed previously unknown quantities of highly-concentrated lead. No study has been done lest it slow down the race to open the stadium‘s doors by April 2008, as mandated by the one-sided lease Major League Baseball has with the city. This makes the absence of meaningful green measures — from enhanced storm-water management to mitigation of water pollution at the high level that was originally proposed for this riverside project — quite troubling for anyone remotely concerned with the local environment and regional health.

Interestingly, the DCSEC indicates, in materials associated with their point-grabbing strategy aimed towards a cut-rate LEED certification, that the site is part of the EPA’s Voluntary Clean Up Program, This is despite the fact that there has been no EPA study or assessment of the site and no designation of the site as contaminated (something which both the DCSEC and the Chief Financial Officer’s office resisted because it would have increased costs associated with the project and have forced the city to find an alternative site for the stadium). Of course, being in the Voluntary Clean Up Program wins the project more LEED points, so the fluidity of the facts as used by the DCSEC serve its purposes well. The DCSEC also indicates that they’re going to cut into the garage parking and provide an area (with unspecified numbers of spaces) for fuel-efficient vehicles and for carpools, which are listed on the graphic for their eco-friendly point-winning merit. There’s nothing that says this will be enforced whatsoever, especially as these garage spaces are part of the sparse 1,225 spaces designated by MLB and the Lerners for use by luxury suite owners. We know for sure, given the tenacity that MLB and the Lerners have in enforcing parts of the lease that favor them (which are just about every point worth anything) that not one space is going to be bumped from that mandated use for the eco-friendly point scorers.

Also, how exactly would this parking policy be enforced on game days, were it really to be put into use? Would the parking attendants be checking diligently for hybrid and carpooling vehicles, and would the spaces in the garage stay unused until they were full, causing suite-holders to be turned away or sent to an off-site lot? Of course not. Given the DCSEC’s legal, financial, and ethical issues over the past five years that involved the baseball pursuit and stadium debacle, which prompted six federal and city investigations that found widespread wrongdoing and resulted in the resignation of its chairman John Richardson in 2003, the DCSEC’s credibility as far as delivering on this matter is nonexistent. All of these matters need to be carefully considered and verified before awarding LEED to a ballpark whose main resemblance to green is its cut-rate greenhouse design and the hundreds of millions of greenbacks from the District’s residents and businesses that have been used to build it.

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P112 Inspect Fail to Report
Mary Vogel, maryvogel at yahoo dot com

When I replaced my stolen permit on October 17, 2006, no one at the Department of Motor Vehicles said a thing about the car’s coming due for inspection around the first of the year. When I renewed my registration and residential parking permit on December 27, 2006, no one said a thing about the fact that the car was due for inspection within the next two weeks. I got no notice in the mail either.

Today, when I went out to meet the insurance estimator to inspect the damage caused to my parked car by an unusually honest person who left a note, I found a citation with an order to TOW for “P112 Inspect Fail to Report.”

I guess it’s a good thing that I needed to meet the estimator, because my car often sits for days at a time without my driving it or otherwise paying any attention to it. Had I looked for it any later, it may have been gone! I feel pretty shabbily treated by the DC DMV. Has any reader ever appealed and won on such a citation? Any advice is appreciated.

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Serial Superintendents Don’t Sustain Schools
Dennis Moore, dennis@DCIndependents.org

Once again DC public schools and District government quietly engage in another round of serial superintendents. Having worked in public affairs at the DCPS North Capitol headquarters several years ago, I was able to see up close the inefficiencies of hiring or firing a new and different superintendent based on the change of internal and external political winds. Superintendents Arlene Ackerman and Paul Vance were just the latest in a series of executive educators recruited to ride the neurotic dysfunctional ponies known as DCPS bureaucracy and DC government. What I also saw were some perfectly professional and exceptionally competent executive educators overlooked or passed over in favor of the newest outside superintendent sensation.

Other than the fact that Rudolph Franklin Crew was New York City schools chancellor in the 1990s, and DC’s drooling to use the Big Apple’s educational model in 2007, I don’t get it. If Dr. Rudy Crew was all that he’s been hyped to be, why did billionaire New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg feel compelled to be takeover czar of schools after Crew’s efforts to fix them? Joel Klein, Bloomberg’s current schools chancellor, dismantled Dr. Crew’s policies and replaced it with his and Mayor Mike’s education takeover initiatives. After five years, parents, The New York Times and knowledgeable others still haven’t found sustained proof of systemic academic improvement under Bloomberg and Klein.

Remember, this is the New York school model being touted by takeover supporters in DC. Is this what Fenty and Friends want District citizens to shell-out over a quarter-million of our tax dollars in new superintendent compensation for? Remember, that doesn’t include the contract buyout package for current superintendent Dr. Clifford Janey. How many new books, computers or lead-free water fountains would that buy for DC kids?

Administrative deficit disorder is not a good thing to have when the lives and futures of our children are in the balance. Disguising this form of governmental ADD with the hype and façade of leadership only makes us angrier. Now, more than ever, tested academic expertise, substantive leadership, and proven administrative competence are what our children need to have at every level of District government.

One highly undervalued jewel that comes to mind is Dr. Wilma F. Bonner. Not only did I observe firsthand her high level of educational competence at DCPS, but also bona fide effective administrative skills and articulate leadership enhanced it. She’s far apart from the crowd of dubiously degreed and credentialed incompetents that paralyze DC government. Conversing with her about the socioeconomic relevance of academic empowerment, you quickly realize you’re listening to one of the country’s most informed, insightful and intelligent advocates for educational excellence. Moreover, she actually knows how the nuts, bolts, and greasy gears must fit to work. Unfortunately, Dr. Bonner has been a constrained passenger in the back seat of a rusty school bus whose ever-changing drivers read political maps while steering. If we expect the District’s unique educational mess to be fixed effectively, then nearsighted DC bureaucrats and autocrats need to understand the advantages of empowering experienced and competent assets from within DCPS.

Though Wilma Bonner is too articulate and professional to play politics or politricks for an exorbitant superintendent’s salary, she will still provide at least ten times any six-figure paycheck as a seasoned District educator and administrator. No doubt, Dr. Bonner’s personal grounding won’t allow her to feel impressed or validated by a chancellor or deputy mayor title either. She’s a certified graduate of the get on it, get it right, and get it done school of public service.

It’s time for public officials to set aside their political agendas and egos. If mayor Fenty and the DC council stop looking beyond District borders and the clouds for help, they will discover our own best and brightest right here. District government, like the corporate sector, must realize that there are better and more effective internal solutions than outsourcing systemic problems. Outsourcing has been costly to DC taxpayers and children, and we still end up fixing the same or newer mess later — regardless of who takes over, or is perceived as the latest savior superintendent. It’s time to stop experimenting on District children.

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Partisan Election?
Kathy Sinzinger, cooperator@starpower.net

A simple change in the process for filling city council vacancies would likely reduce the dizzying plethora of candidates on the ballot that voters faced iSinsingern the recent special election: make the District’s certified “major parties” select their single nominee to face the voters in a partisan election, through a primary, a convention, or by the executive committee of the party. (Of course, independent candidates could still run, too. But a functioning political party’s party faithful should be calling for loyalty to the party’s candidate!) This is the way it’s done in some other places, where a political party label actually means something, so we wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel. Where’s the consistency in the current process of using partisan processes in a general election but not in a special election for a supposedly partisan office?

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Reform Through Redistricting
Lars H. Hydle, Larshhydle@aol.com

Thinking about election reforms, it is important to note that our Home Rule Charter is structured to favor incumbent politicians. The council overturned the initiative that imposed term limits on themselves, but the General Counsel to the council also argued that term limits were an additional “qualification” for council candidates, thus they required a home rule charter amendment and were not a fit subject for simple legislation. But the charter does not permit the voters to initiate a charter amendment, only to ratify or reject a charter amendment passed by the council and mayor. Of course, we could just ask the Congress to amend the charter, as the council and mayor are now doing, without voter approval, with respect to the school takeover proposal. Let’s get the Congress to amend the Charter to permit voters to initiate a charter amendment, and impose term limits.

I believe that voters could launch an initiative to disempower the council from redistricting its own wards, giving that job to an impartial body such as the Board of Elections and Ethics or a redistricting commission.

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Election Reform
William Haskett, williamhaskett@hotmail.com

I don’t think that we should give up on the notion of public elections paid for by the public. I haven’t a notion of how anyone could spend over $350,000 on a local ward election, but if it was actually done, it should be prevented for the future. All that I see of actual expenditures are the cardboard decorations for trees and posts. I am not aware that anyone paid for advertising on radio or TV, and the Internet was silent too, or so I assume.

Perhaps we could reduce the incentive for elective office by limiting salaries of those elected to the average of nonexecutive wages in the District as a whole. This would bring into play the vastly larger number of those who do not vote but do receive wages. This device would need to be defined so as to exclude the nonresidents entirely. It would bring elected officials into closer touch with their actual constituents and align their interests with those they would then claim to represent.

Yet another way of skinning this particular cat might be to introduce one of the more complicated systems of multiple voting, in which actual voters would vote for more than one candidate, the second (or third) vote going, in case of a tie or minimum number of votes cast, to a second choice or to the second and third choices. Finally, we could require a valid election to have some minimum number of votes beyond a simple majority of qualified voters in any elections. This would remove the objection to the present system that it allows someone to win a mere plurality of a minority of those qualified. We might even require people to vote in any election in which they were listed as relevant. All or each of the above recommendations should be applied to the election of the mayor, as well as to the nonsense vote of the chairperson of the city council. In every one of the elections referred to, there should, as of course, be a limited number of terms which could be served in that office.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events, May 10, 12, 14
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov

Thursday, May 10, 11:00 a.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 215. Talking Book Club. We will discuss Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley. For more information, call Adaptive Services at 727-2142.

Thursday, May 10, 1:00 p.m., Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE. Open house, portrait unveiling and birthday celebration for Nora Drew Gregory. For more information, call 645-4297.

Thursday, May 10, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC), A-level, e-BIC Conference Center. All About Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). This free workshop will explore the myriad of implications of doing business as an LLC. It will cover legal liability considerations, LLC formation, tax implications of the LLC and treatment of single member LLCs. For more information, call 727-2241.

Saturday, May 12, 10:00 a.m., Palisades Neighborhood Library, 4901 V Street, NW. Cheasapeake Lace Club. For more information, call 282-3139.

Saturday, May 12, 1:00 p.m., Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE. Video presentation, Their Eyes Were Watching God. For more information, call 645-4297.

Monday, May 14, 6:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 221. All the World’s a Stage Film Club. We will watch Julius Caesar (1953), starring Marlon Brando. This movie is rated PG-13. For more information, call 727-1161.

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