themail.gif (3487 bytes)

August 12, 2012

Making Cheating Easy

Dear Inspectors:

The Office of the Inspector General has released its “Report of Investigation into Cheating on the DC Comprehensive Assessment System Standardized Exams Administered by the DC Public Schools.” It’s supposed to be posted on its web site at http://tinyurl.com/8wfej5c, but it isn’t there; in the meantime, you can get a copy by clicking on the link in Valerie Strauss’ article on it, “The Deafening Silence on Test Cheating,” http://tinyurl.com/989ep8x.

Strauss’ account of Inspector General Charles Willoughby’s “investigation” reveals it as a pitiful failure: “Investigators only delved into cheating suspicions at Noyes, where big gains on scores were reported during the time that Michelle Rhee was schools chancellor and linked student test scores to the evaluations of some teachers. Willoughby’s team found that at least one teacher had cheated, and decided that because they found so little fire amid the smoke, there was no reason to look at any other schools, the report said. Yes, that’s what they found after seventeen months of work.”

Strauss notes: “Of course, there is a history in Washington, DC, of cheating allegations — and less than a determined effort to get to the bottom of it. Back in 2009, my colleague Bill Turque wrote about an investigation into possible cheating at 26 public and public charter schools where reading and math scores had shot up in 2008. The suspicions were never thoroughly investigated by the Rhee administration.” These suspicions weren’t either, and it only reinforces the public’s justified doubt that the DC government has the ability or the will to police itself and to clean up corruption when it encounters it.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

###############

Short Takes
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

Initiative 70. Last week, the DC Board of Elections, at its August 8 meeting, determined that Initiative 70, the “Prohibition of Corporate Contributions Initiative of 2012,” did not have enough signatures to be placed on the November 6 general election ballot. Following a thorough review by the Board’s staff, it was determined that the petition had only 21,572 valid signatures, 1,726 below the legal bar for certification; and that it had met the signature requirement in only four of the eight wards, namely Wards 1, 3, 4, and 6. District laws allows the initiative’s proponents to challenge the Board’s findings in Superior Court within ten days. However, since the Board hearing, proponents have suggested that they could challenge the Board’s decision on two grounds, both of which are based on false assumptions. The first is that the proponents could continue to circulate the initiatives’ petitions, and supplement their submission with additional signatures. When the Board approved the initiative in March, that started the 180-day limit to secure petition signatures; that limit would have expired on September 10. However, because they were seeking to place the initiative on the November ballot, the proponents submitted their petitions on July 9. Once the petitions were submitted to the Board, the signatures on them cannot be reused in a subsequent submission to the Board. The second false assumption is that the initiative’s proponents can correct the more than three thousand signatures that were rejected by the Board because the petition signers’ addresses did not match their registered voter addresses. However, although District law allows someone to change his registered address, that change has to be made timely and before the Board makes a determination on certification of an initiative. (In this case, more than thirty days passed since the petition was filed with the Board on July 9

Funding candidates in the November election. The August 10 filing with the Office of Campaign Finance shows that there has been a chilling effect on funding incumbents’ campaigns for the November election. Two candidates have limited cash on hand. Vincent Orange reports only $9,856.42, while Yvette Alexander has only $3,935.12. In the last reporting period, from June 11 through August 10, Orange received only eleven contributions, nine of which were maximum contributions of $1,000 each that came from companies at the same address — 6000 Executive Boulevard, Suite 11, Rockville, Maryland. Because of the ongoing investigation by OCF of finds missing from his campaign account, Michael Brown was not required to do a formal filing. However, his campaign press secretary issued a press release stating that Brown had raised approximately $30,000 during the most recent filing period. In the August 10 report, Phil Mendelson has $41,768.30 on hard, while Jack Evans has $51,226.42 and Muriel Bowser has $96,626.54. Evans and Bowser are the best funded candidates, and yet they are both running unopposed. The question is whether they are really raising funds for the current election, or for an anticipated future race.

Where is Michael Brown? Last week, August 6-9, the National Conference of State Legislatures had its legislative summit in Chicago. Councilmember Michael Brown and three members of his staff were supposed to attend the meeting as the official representatives of the DC council. Although Brown was apparently in Chicago, he did not participate, nor was he seen, at any of the organization’s meetings, including a crucial NCSL business meeting on Thursday morning, where DC was reported absent for a roll call of the states.

###############

Put Statehood Back into the Democratic Platform
Ann Loikow, dcstatehoodyeswecan@verizon.net

Unless DC voters speak our loudly and clearly, this may be the third presidential election in a row in which the Democratic Party does not endorse statehood for the District of Columbia. From 1980 through 2000, the Democratic Party endorsed statehood for the District of Columbia. Senator Edward Kennedy and Rep. Ron Dellums were the original co-sponsors of the statehood plank to the Democratic platform in 1980.

However, our own nonvoting Delegate (an office all US colonies have, at least for now), Eleanor Holmes Norton, took it out in 2004 and 2008, when she was vice chair of the Democratic Platform Committee, and rewrote the plank drafted by the DC Democratic State Committee to take it out again this year. Please call Delegate Norton (225-8050) and let her know that DC voters want statehood and all the same rights as every other American.

Also, please contact Mayor Gray (724-6300), the head of DC’s delegation to the convention, and Councilmembers Mendelson (724-8064), Barry (724-8045), Evans (724-8058) and Orange (724-8174), who are all delegates, and tell them we want statehood back in the Democratic platform. Finally, call Anita Bonds (714-3368), Chair of the DC Democratic State Committee, and tell her the same thing. If you would like to see who some of the other DC delegates are, go to: http://www.dcdemocraticparty.org/. If you know them, let them know how you feel.

Being a “little free” is not enough; we are either free and self-governing people like other Americans or we are not. The only way to have the full right to self-government — at all levels — is to be a citizen of a state. Until that happens, we have 535 people not elected by, or responsible to, the 618,000 of us who live in DC deciding how we will be governed, how our tax money is spent, and what rights we may have. That’s not freedom, and it is not OK.

###############

CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Dupont Circle House Tour and Tea, October 21
Doug Rogers, president@dupont-circle.org

The Dupont Circle Citizens Association will hold its forty-fifth consecutive annual House Tour on Sunday, October 21, showcasing the variety of homes found in the Historic Dupont Circle District from high Victorian to ultra modern. New this year is an emphasis on the environmentally sustainable, including Dupont’s first residential gray water system seamlessly nestled into a turn-of-the-20th-century townhouse.

In addition to homes, the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple will be open to tour goers, as well as an embassy or two. The tour is also well-known for its sumptuous afternoon tea and worth the price of admission alone. Truly sustainable. Advertisement and sponsorship opportunities are now available. For more information, contact Advertising Chair, Nelson Marban, at nelson.marban@wfp.com.

###############

themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published every Wednesday and Sunday. To change the E-mail address for your subscription to themail, use the Update Profile/Email address link below in the E-mail edition. To unsubscribe, use the Safe Unsubscribe link in the E-mail edition. An archive of all past issues is available at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail.

All postings should be submitted to themail@dcwatch.com, and should be about life, government, or politics in the District of Columbia in one way or another. All postings must be signed in order to be printed, and messages should be reasonably short — one or two brief paragraphs would be ideal — so that as many messages as possible can be put into each mailing.

 


Send mail with questions or comments to webmaster@dcwatch.com
Web site copyright ©DCWatch (ISSN 1546-4296)