Contaminated drinking water found in some LA public schools
A three-month investigation by Joel Grover of KNBC-Los Angeles found lead levels in drinking water that exceeded EPA safety limits at several area public schools. Contaminated fountains were found at nine of the 30 schools tested. An internal report obtained by the network showed that the district had known about the problem for 18 years. In some cases, it was found that employees falsified records to indicate that drinking water was safe.
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North Carolina selects university leaders in secret
An investigation by Corey G. Johnson of the Fayetteville Observer finds that North Carolina is the only state in the nation that selects the top leaders of all its public universities in secret. The Observer surveyed every state university system and more than 50 individual universities in the U.S. and analyzed approximately 113 responses for the story. At least two state legislators, including the head of a subcommittee that reviews university matters, have agreed to look into tweaking the state's open meetings law to allow for disclosure - in response to the Observer's study.
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State falls behind in routine fire safety inspection of schools
Despite laws requiring regular fire safety inspection of the state's schools, an investigation by KNXV-TV (Phoenix) revealed that the Office of the Arizona State Fire Marshal have failed to complete the routine inspections. "A review of records for 200 schools in Maricopa County revealed more than 70 schools that have not been inspected for two or more years. We also found more than 30 schools with inspection reports indicating the facilities were not recommended for licensing at the time."
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Lucrative market exists for military exam answers
Alan Wirzbicki and Kevin Baron of The Boston Globe exposed a lucrative black market that exists for professional certification exams. The Globe found that "pirated answers to hundreds of professional qualifying exams, in fields ranging from school-bus driving to medical technicians, are openly available, sometimes for as little as $4 each, from a thriving network of cheating websites." Some websites that offer these cheating aids are trying to avoid lawsuits by referring to their services as "study guides."
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Illinois lags in tracking teachers' misconduct
Scott Reeder, writing for Quad-CitiesOnline.com, found that Illinois ranked 49th in a nationwide analysis of disciplinary actions against teachers. The state has no system in place to investigate or flag teachers accused of misconduct. To determine how Illinois compares to other states, Small Newspaper Group obtained information on 20,000 cases of teacher licensure discipline from all 50 state departments of education. The newspaper group then built a computer database to analyze it."
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Discipline system for teachers, staff flawed in Ohio schools
The Columbus Dispatch delves into Ohio's flawed system of disciplining and tracking teachers, coaches, aides, counselors and administrators. The Web site for The ABCs of Betrayal includes asearchable database of Ohio educators disciplined since 2000. The 10-month investigation found educators remained in the classroom despite misconduct such as theft, assault and abuse of children.
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Credit card promotions profitable for two Iowa universities
Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register reported in a two-part series that Iowa's two largest public universities are aggressively marketing credit cards to their students as part of an arrangement that generates millions of dollars for the schools' privately run alumni organizations. Records obtained by the Register showed that while the schools and their alumni have kept secret the details of their arrangement with Bank of America, they have given the bank access to mailing addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of students, parents and people who buy tickets to football and basketball games. One of the schools has used coaches and student athletes to promote the cards, promising the biggest spending cardholders lunches with football players and private, 90-minute Q&A sessions with coaches.
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Contributions call school board president's ethics into question
James Pressley, school board president in Pleasantville, N.J., sought money from community businesses who were seeking contracts from the school board. John Froojian, of the Press of Atlantic City, reports that money was solicited for the James A. Pressley Scholarship and Community Youth Build Foundation, although neither the IRS nor the New Jersey Consumer Affairs Division have record of the registration of such a charity. Of nine businesses approached by Pressley, eight had no-bid contract proposals before the school board.
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Abuses at Texas state schools go unpunished
A Dallas Morning News investigation into disciplinary records of employees at state schools for the mentally retarded " found hundreds of cases of abuse at the hands of those charged with caring for the mentally retarded – everything from extreme physical violence to flagrant neglect." Yet records are not kept regarding criminal charges filed as a result of abuse. Emily Ramshaw reports that while many reports of abuse find their way to county DAs, very few are considered serious enough to prosecute. "Little fear of criminal punishment, combined with low-paid staffers who receive only cursory training, appear to create an environment in which abuse can thrive, advocates say."
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Juvenile sex offenders pose problems to schools
A report by Anna Song of KATU-Portland, Ore. reveals that juvenile sex offenders often go right back to school after being charged.. Due to their status as minors, school administrators cannot disseminate this information beyond the staff. The story exposes the inconsistency of local school policies when it comes to such offenders: Some schools tell all staff members, some tell just a few. Ultimately, it's up to the principal and can vary by school, not just by district.
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Cheating on standardized tests rampant in some Texas schools
The Dallas Morning News worked with a Canadian professor and found that test scores of more than 50,000 students over two years show evidence of cheating. Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker report that their in-depth data analysis contradicts claims by the Texas Education Agency which said cheating was "extraordinarily rare and that the agency has done a good job of policing it." They found cheating concentrated in the two largest districts in Texas - Houston and Dallas - as well as in charter schools. The entire series can be viewed here.
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St. Louis-area school district faculty travel bills found to be exorbitant
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch review of Riverview Gardens School District documents revealed a pattern of travel spending normally seen in districts twice its size. "Since 2003, Riverview has sent almost 600 teachers, staff members, principals, administrators and board members on more than 100 trips, to at least 60 cities, from Lake of the Ozarks to New York to San Francisco to Ottawa to Cape Town, South Africa."
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Special-ed missteps contribute to violence in Philadelphia schools
A two-part investigation by Martha Woodall and Susan Snyder of The Philadelphia Inquirer, part of a continuing series on violence against teachers, revealed the lapses in the district’s handling of special education students who can become violent and disruptive in classes. As a group, special-education students are responsible for an inordinate number of assaults on teachers and other school staff. While just 14 percent of the city's school enrollment, they committed 43 percent of the 7,547 assaults on staff during the last five years, district statistics show - a fact that stuns many of those who work in the schools daily.
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Series a look at Tarrant County (TX) schools
In its series "Measuring Up," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram looked at the area's public schools to see how they were performing. Using school test scores and other data, they identified key trends, including: which schools are doing better or worse than expected on state assessments; a large percentage of students requiring remedial help once in college; and that the best teachers are not working in the schools where their skills are needed most. Online databases allow you to look at the data, comparing information such as schools and student performance throughout the region.
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Investigation puts bus drivers' histories online
Lafayette Parish in Louisiana placed the roughly 20,000 children who ride the school bus daily in the hands of drivers with multiple driving and criminal offenses, an investigation by The Daily Advertiser's Jason Brown and Claire Taylor found. "The investigation revealed that the school system lacks policies for handling bus drivers who speed, wreck, steal or drink while driving in their personal vehicles and buses." The Advertiser built and posted online a database that allows parents to search for their child's bus by driver name, bus number, or school.
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Teachers cheat on California achievement tests
Teachers cheat to improve their students' scores on the high stakes achievement tests, a review of documents by the San Francisco Chronicle found. Although "schools admitted outright cheating in about two-thirds of the cases," cheating is likely more widespread than the numbers indicate, since the California Department of Education currently relies on schools to investigate possible cheating.
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Michigan schools face economic time bomb
According to a report by Ron French of The Detroit News "Michigan's school retirement system is riddled with loopholes and slipshod policies costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driving the state's public education system toward financial crisis." In the 2006-07 school year, the cost of retirement benefits per student was $1,015 — more than is spent on "books, buses, computer technology and building maintenance combined." Loopholes that qualify retirees for lifetime health coverage could alone cost the system $2 million a year. It's projected that $1 billion could be lost in a program that allows employees to purchase years of service in order to retire early.
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Violence increases in Milwaukee schools
A four-part series by Sarah Carr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel indicates that violence in the Milwaukee Public Schools system is "intensifying." The stories show that gun seizures have doubled, and a quarter of the 300 teachers attacked every year go on to file worker's compensation claims against the district. A review of daily police logs for the last six months shows that officers are called to the city's 11 largest high schools about twice daily on average. More than 120 teachers were assaulted by students or parents in schools last semester alone.
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Data links sports success and affluent booster clubs
As school sports leaders prepare to discuss new rules regarding booster club spending, Eric D. Williams of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., used data analysis to help demonstrate how money influences a school's ability to produce winning teams and state champions. The newspaper surveyed state title winners from Class 3A and 4A schools from 2002 to 2006, totaling 100 champions. "The analysis ranked public schools by median household income of its neighborhoods using numbers from the 2000 U.S. Census, and the percentage of students on a federal free or reduced-priced meal program from a May 2006 survey taken by the state's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction." Non-profit tax returns showed fundraising totals for clubs that raised more than $25,000. The investigation found that schools in the upper portion of the analysis, those in more-affluent communities, won nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the state titles.
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Unethical deals in N.J. school district
John Froonjian of The Press in Atlantic City, N.J., dug into insurance contracts in the Pleasantville school district to uncover a web of insider deals and millions wasted in a struggling district that gets two-thirds of its funding from the state. The Press found that in Pleasantville, school board contracts, political fundraising and private jobs are intertwined. The process has produced apparent conflicts of interest, possible violations of the state's pay-to-play law, defiance of election-finance laws and potential violations of the federal law designed to protect personal medical information. The Press investigation followed a successful lawsuit to gain access to minutes of the school board's executive sessions, many of which were missing or had never been recorded.
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Decreasing enrollment in Denver Public Schools
Burt Hubbard and Nancy Mitchell of Rocky Mountain News found that about a fourth of school-age children ages 5 to 17 in Denver don't attend the city's public schools. Analyzing data from Denver Public Schools, suburban school districts, private schools and the U.S. Census Bureau, the study found that an estimated 15,700 students bypassed Denver Public Schools last year in favor of private or suburban schools that are seen as safer or academically superior. "In addition, about 4,600 Denver kids up to age 17 didn't go to school at all for reasons as varied as home schooling, dropping out or incarceration" The 20,300 potential students streaming away from DPS already cost the district more than $135 million a year in lost local and state funding.
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Charter Schools: Missing the Grade
Digging through audits from more than 300 charter schools in Florida, Orlando Sentinel reporters Vicki McClure and Mary Shanklin showed the intertwined business dealings that allow school operators to make money on their publicly funded charters by leasing them buildings, loaning them money at interest rates as high as 21 percent and hiring relatives to work at the schools. While Florida never posted the audits for public consumption, the Sentinel put them online in a searchable format so parents could see the massive debt, operating losses at half of the schools, and dozens of related-party transactions. About 40 percent of the charter schools escaped report cards from the state education department, but the Sentinel compiled a database showing some of those ungraded schools were among the lowest-performing educational institutions in the state.
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Broken Trust
In an investigative series by the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune staffers Matt Doig, Tiffany Lankes and editor Chris Davis expose an epidemic of misconduct in Florida schools. In the past ten years, more than 750 Florida teachers have been punished for misconduct toward students, and at least 150 are still teaching today. It's possible that the actual number of questionable teachers still working is much larger because 70 percent of cases reported to the state are dismissed as unfounded by state investigators who have little or no formal training. When cases do proceed, 90 percent end in settlement deals that keep teachers from having to admit guilt.
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Campus accidents increase as inspection rates fall
Jeffery Brainard of The Chronicle of Higher Education discovered an increase in accidents on campuses as proper inspections have declined. "Serious accidents in which workers were killed or hospitalized have became more common on college campuses, according to a Chronicle analysis of federal safety-inspection records...nearly 200 significant campus incidents were cited by government officials between 1996 and early 2006, up from the 140 serious injuries in the decade before." Included with the article are data on inspections and violations, colleges and their workplace fines, and information on how the data was analyzed.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) workplace inspection data is available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library.
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Superintendent profits while district falters
David Hunn of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports on Riverview Garden School District superintendent, Henry P. Williams. Williams "directed at least $85,000 in extra payments to his retirement and insurance accounts," payments not included in his contract. The paper's investigation shows that these deposits started about four years ago. In addition to financial improprieties, the districted has faltered under his direction. Numerous teachers have resigned and academic standards have plummeted. In last year's state performance review, the district only passed in 3 of 12 categories.
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Oversight lax on school fire drill law
Ben Jones of The (Appleton, Wis.) Post Crescent reports that area schools are failing to comply with a state law that requires they do monthly fire drills. A change in state law resulted in school no longer having to file annual fire drill reports with the Department of Commerce. Oversight now rests with the local fire departments. For the 2005-06 school year, only 60% of Wisconsin schools reported their drills to the state. About 35% of those reporting failed hold the mandated number of drills for the school year. Wisconsin school fire drill records can be reviewed on a database set up by the paper.
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Budget cuts threaten vulnerable students in Wisconsin
A three-day series by Andy Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal looks at budget cuts in Wisconsin schools which threaten funding aimed to aid vulnerable students. Citing a lack of money, increasing numbers of Wisconsin schools are pulling out of a state program credited with boosting the scores of vulnerable poor and minority students. In an analysis of the effects of the state's school funding system, the paper found the first indications that class size is being sacrificed to balance budgets.
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Districts culture of cheating rampant for decades
In a follow-up to an investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer, reporters Melanie Burney and Frank Kummer found that the culture of cheating on standardized test in New Jersey's Camden school district dates back to the 1980s. Camden School Board President Philip E. Freeman "said recent internal investigations, including of allegations of grade changing in two high schools, had confirmed a 'culture inherent throughout the district that has been difficult to dissolve because it's been so deeply entrenched.'"
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Financial aid staff destroy documents during fraud investigation
Corey G. Johnson of The Daily Reflector in Greenville, N.C., reports that East Carolina University "employees destroyed numerous Office of Student Financial Aid records in apparent violation of university policy and federal requirements" during an audit and investigation at the school. It is not known what specific documents were destroyed or what impact the shredding had on the accuracy of the audit. The university has launched its own investigation into the matter.
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Holes in Dallas school district's screening process
A Dallas Morning News investigation of the Dallas Independent School District's method of making criminal background checks on potential employees has found a system that still has holes and, at times, ignores district and state rules. The News' investigation found at least 80 current employees who have been convicted of felonies or received deferred adjudication probation on a felony charge in Dallas or surrounding counties.
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"Precious Cargo" revisited
Following the recent school bus fatalities in Alabama, Phil Williams and the investigative team at WTVF-Nashville updated their extensive investigation into bus safety and the issue of seat belts on buses. Their findings remain timely a year after the first stories aired. The online package includes recent updates, extensive background documents and a 30-minute documentary.
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Academic assessment industry gets failing grade
David Glovin and David Evans report on "Tests that Fail" for the December issue of Bloomberg Markets. Their story exposes egregious faults in the $2.8 billion academic assesment industry. Regularly, the largest testing companies make errors in grading and scoring exams - from mistakenly failing over 4,000 aspiring teachers on the national Praxis exam to sending out over 5000 incorrect SAT scores. "One reason for the testing foul-ups and their dire effects is that there's no federal oversight of the testing industry."
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MCCCD fraught with fraud
In a four-part investigative series, Ryan Gabrielson of the East Valley (AZ) Tribune exposes rampant misconduct in the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD), the largest junior college district in the US. The Tribune reviewed audits from the last five years which revealed rampant fraud - including theft of money and property, falsified enrollment records and nepotism. (See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4)
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At what cost? A look at CA community college football programs
Brent Schrotenboer of The San Diego Union-Tribune looks at the cost of community college football programs in the state of California. There are 72 community college programs in the state of California versus 68 in the rest of the US. Some argue that they cost the state at the expense of academics. "For those that did provide football budgets, expenses exceeded revenue by an average of about $70,000 per year. If that average held for all 72 schools, it would put the cost to the state in excess of $5 million a year." While the football programs continue to be subsidized by state funds, the same schools are having to rely on part-time faculty "who get paid less and are classified as temporary." Advocates argue that the football programs actually make money for the schools because "each full-time student equivalent brings in about $4,000 to cover the cost of his or her education...A football team of 100 could bring a community college $400,000 in public subsidies, mostly from local property taxes and the state general fund. "
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Security lax in Philly schools
In response to the latest spate of school violence, reporters at The Philadelphia Inquirer decided to investigate the safey of local schools only to find that it lax. "In spite of rules aimed at limiting public access, reporters who fanned out on a single day walked into more than a dozen schools unannounced and without being challenged." Without state or federal regulations on school safety, decisions are left up to individual districts. As a result, safety policies vary widely leaving many schools vulnerable.
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Dallas school credit card abuse includes misuse of federal grant funds
In a follow-up to an earlier story on credit card abuse within the Dallas Independent School District, Kent Fischer and Molly Motley Blythe of The Dallas Morning News report that the money used to pay for many of the questionable purchases came from federal grants. "The Dallas Independent School District, already battered by a spate of financial scandals, could now face federal scrutiny for its spending of grant money. Public records show that educators used district credit cards to buy thousands of items of questionable educational value, spending money awarded to help educate the district's neediest kids." Approximately $80,000 of grant money meant for the education of underprivileged kids went to purchases that clearly violated federal regulations.
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Student data from financial aid forms shared with FBI
Jonathan D. Glater of The New York Times reports that, as part of post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts, that Federal Education Department shared personal information obtained on student loan applications with the FBI. "Under the program, called Project Strikeback, the Education Department received names from the F.B.I. and checked them against its student aid database, forwarding information...Neither agency would say whether any investigations resulted." This story was broken by Laura McGann, a graduate student at the Medill School of Journalism "as part of a reporting project that focused on national security and civil liberties."
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"Adult interference" inflates NJ test scores
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Frank Kummer and Melanie Burney expose the findings of a New Jersey Department of Education report on irregular test scores in the region. While avoiding the use of the word cheating, the report found that "adult interference" was the likely culprit of unusually high test scores in the Camden area. The Department of Education's investigation was launched after the Inquirer challanged the validity of unusually high scores in February of this year.
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Black students leaving Birmingham (Ala.) schools
Jeff Hansen and Marie Leech of The Birmingham News report on black flight from Birmingham's public schools and its impact on suburban school districts. In the past five years, Birmingham schools have lost 20 percent of their students. Nine of every 10 of those 7,300 children who left the city were black.
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Dallas school district credit card abuse
Kent Fischer, Tawnell D. Hobbs and Molly Motley of the Dallas Morning News analyzed local school district credit card transactions to find that "only a fraction of purchase receipts are scrutinized, and thousands of purchases run afoul of DISD policy and state purchasing laws." Among the $20 million spent each year by district employees with credit cards were purchases for "a $200 blanket and pillow set from The Land of Nod, $1,700 in electric scooters, $200 in moisturizer from Bath and Body Works, and a $24.95 charge to an online dating service, Americansingles.com." Millions have also been spent at restaurants and on insentive gifts. One administrator - who is no longer with the district - spent over $1,500 on bullet-shaped flasks engraved with the school logo defending his purchase by saying "the flasks were to get teachers thinking about "Biting the Bullet," to crack down on discipline problems in the coming year."
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Schools pay for new boss' travel
Bill Dedman and Michael Brindley of The (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph studied Nashua's city credit card records and found that "school Superintendent Julia Earl has spent public money to travel out of state at least seven times in her first nine months on the job, including five trips to her home state of Texas." The total cost was more than $8,000. The Telegraph also found that the superintendent owes $147,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, $8,000 to the county for back property taxes, and $2,400 to her homeowners association.
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Psychologist embellishes credentials, personal past
Ruth Teichroeb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer studied university job records and found that Terry Tafoya, known across North America as a pre-eminent American Indian psychologist and a sought-after speaker for continuing education at schools such as Harvard University, "has scripted his own life, embellishing his academic credentials and past." The tribe he claims to be a member of says he is not enrolled with them. A speakers' bureau that books his appearances "recommends Tafoya as an expert on mental health and substance abuse issues — apparently unaware that Tafoya was charged in January with drunken driving after he smashed into two cars in his Capitol Hill neighborhood." While Tafoya's resume claims he earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Washington in 1985, verifying his academic credentials is almost impossible. "There's no record of his Ph.D. in the 1985 commencement book" and "Unlike most doctoral graduates, he has no dissertation in the university library." Tafoya appears at up to 100 events a year — most of them funded at least in part by public dollars.
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Some Minn. schools doing well at teaching poor students
Megan Boldt, MaryJo Sylwester, Meggen Lindsay and Doug Belden of St. Paul Pioneer Press analyzed three years of test scores from all 731 Minnesota elementary schools and found that 13 high-poverty schools were "doing better than predicted and seem to have found a way to overcome education's biggest challenge — teaching high numbers of poor students well." Read about how they reported the story.
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School districts don't know who drives the buses
Karen Eschbacher of The (Quincy, Mass.) Patriot Ledger found that most school districts on the South Shore hire private contractors to provide bus service for students. "Several South Shore communities fail to run background checks on school bus drivers, and others can't even produce the names of people allowed behind the wheel." "While state laws are supposed to ensure bus drivers can be trusted around kids, the arrest this week of a convicted sex offender whose job was to drive special needs students has sparked concern among parents and raised questions about whether enough is being done to keep children safe."
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N.J. funds schools that manage money poorly
Jean Rimbach and Kathleen Carroll of The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record analyzed audits of more than 100 state-funded preschools in New Jersey's poorest communities, reviewed tax returns, financial documents and contracts and interviewed dozens of state and local officials, owners and teachers to show that seven years after New Jersey launched its landmark program for disadvantaged preschoolers — with $561 million budgeted this year alone — the state continues to send tax dollars to programs that have flagrantly misspent or wasted money. The four-month investigation found sloppy bookkeeping at virtually every school, inflated rents, six-figure salaries and $900,000 in personal loans while some schools shortchanged teachers' wages and benefits and uninterrupted funding for schools showing clear financial distress, such as tax liens, negative bank balances, lapsed insurance policies and failure to meet payroll.
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Taxpayers subsidize college athletics
Mark Alesia of The Indianapolis Star finds that "athletic departments at taxpayer-funded universities nationwide receive more than $1 billion in student fees and general school funds and services." The investigation analyzed the 2004-05 athletic budgets of 164 of the nation's 215 biggest public schools. The Star compiled and put online what is says is the "most detailed, publicly available database of college athletic department financial information ever assembled." The data comes from forms required by the NCAA for the 2004-05 school year that the paper obtained through freedom of information requests. Matt Moore, Mark Nichols, Chris Phillips, Ole Morten Orset, Ben Thomas, Jimmy Trodglen and Kandra Branam helped compile the data.
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Students often call police about peers' parties
Brian Charlton and Don Jordan of The State News at Michigan State University analyzed noise and party violations from 2004 and 2005, including 1,025 noise, 41 unlawful party and two nuisance party violations, and found student neighborhoods were saturated with violations. The most ticketed areas were student apartment complexes, a finding that surprised police who thought most complaints would come from where student neighborhoods adjoined areas where more permanent residents lived. "Most of the noise citations are given out after someone calls police with a complaint. There were more than 1,600 complaints in both 2004 and 2005 — three times more than the number of citations handed out." The investigation used Access to find the noisiest apartment complex, apartment, street, block, weekend, day of the week, time of the day, month of the year. They also found the police officers who issued the most tickets. The story includes an interactive map of violations and a PDF of the data.
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Lines blurred in professors' taxpayer-funded research
Matt Reed and John McCarthy of Florida Today examined university records to show that every day in Florida, state university professors work as consultants, expert witnesses and researchers-for-hire, earning thousands in fees. Most often, those faculty members work in their roles as public employees, sponsored by grants from corporations, local governments or trade groups. "But roughly one out of four professors also work side jobs as consultants or other specialists, pocketing extra annual income of $4,500 to more than $12,000, depending on their disciplines." The investigation found the work has gone uncharted for years. The newspaper found dozens of examples of research — economic-impact reports, in particular — commissioned by trade groups or special interests to help lobbying efforts.
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Violence spikes in Chicago high schools
Rosalind Rossi, Mark J. Konkol and Art Golab of the Chicago Sun-Times investigated Chicago's public high schools that are troubled by incidents of violence. "Wells, Hyde Park and Clemente are among eight high schools that each received more than 150 students from the attendance areas of troubled schools now tapped for closure and eventual rebirth." Since they began admitting those students in fall 2004, all eight schools have posted an increase in reported violence that is at least twice as high as the average for similar high schools systemwide. The investigation found the number of reported violent incidents per month climbed from nearly three in the 2003-04 school year to almost 10 last year. When sizable numbers of students come from different neighborhoods and cross gang boundaries, it can be a catalyst for more violence. Across the nation, urban school districts are grappling with trying to fix ailing high schools.
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Prep players enroll in questionable schools
Pete Thamel, with contributions from Thayer Evans, Jack Begg and Sandra Jamison, of The New York Times found more than a dozen institutions claiming to be prep schools, some of which closed soon after opening. "All or most of the students were highly regarded basketball players. These athletes were trying to raise their grades to compensate for poor College Board scores or trying to gain attention from major-college coaches." The paper " found that at least 200 players had enrolled at such places in the past 10 years and that dozens had gone on to play at N.C.A.A. Division I universities like Mississippi State, George Washington, Georgetown and Texas-El Paso." Some of these institutions recently joined to form the National Elite Athletic Association, a conference seeking a shoe contract and a television deal. Its teams sometimes travel thousands of miles to play in tournaments that often attract more college coaches than fans. Those coaches will pay $100 for booklets of information about the players.
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Oilman's donation invested in his fund
Stephanie Strom of The New York Times investigated Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman turned investor, to show the $165 million that he gave to a tiny charity set up to benefit the golf program at Oklahoma State University was invested in a hedge fund controlled by Pickens' BP Capital Management. The gift, which helped Pickens get a tax deduction, propelled him into the ranks of the nation's top philanthropists last year. "By giving the money before 2005 expired, Mr. Pickens was able to take advantage of a provision in Hurricane Katrina relief legislation that allowed him a deduction for a charitable gift equal to 100 percent of his adjusted gross income, double the normal limit of 50 percent."
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School district loans are unreasonable burden on taxpayers
Jeffrey Gaunt and Emily Krone of the Daily Herald , outside Chicago, analyzed 206 suburban school district loans to show many taxpayers repay those loans at rates higher than they would on their homes. The investigation found that, despite federal measures that keep government rates low, the district agreed that taxpayers will pay back $6.03 billion for the $3.34 billion borrowed. "In the most costly example, taxpayers will repay $3.09 per dollar — or three times the amount borrowed." The Daily Herald analysis revealed that many districts agreed to interest rates higher than available, got cash bonuses from their lender for doing so and many agreed to pay compounded interest rates -sometimes on the higher rates. Also see the complete analysis and series
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Kinko's deal costly for Dallas schools
Kent Fischer, Pete Slover and Tawnell D. Hobbs of the The Dallas Morning News used district records to show that a plan by Dallas schools to outsource copying and printing to industry giant Kinko's, started to slash copying and printing expenses by 21 percent, has in fact quadrupled expenses. "Across the entire Dallas Independent School District, copying and printing costs more than doubled. In 2003, the district spent $5.87 million; by 2005 it was spending $12.82 million, according to records obtained by The Dallas Morning News. " The investigation also found the contract obliges schools to lease equipment from FedEx/Kinko's, so hundreds of printers the district already owned sit in warehouses, wrapped in plastic. Some school budgets are breaking under the cost of operating new equipment leased through the program.
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University leader serves on 10 boards
Eleanor Yang of the The San Diego Union-Tribune used calendar records obtained under the California Public Records Act to show that UC San Diego Chancellor, Marye Anne Fox, has served as a director for 10 corporations and nonprofit organizations, while running the university for the past year and a half. Fox spent more than 180 hours attending board meetings — many of them on the East Coast — in the past 12 months. "For all of her outside positions, Fox, 58, an organic chemist, receives compensation that rivals her university salary of $359,000. " In the past year, she received cash and stock worth at least $339,260 from her board memberships, according to corporate annual reports, proxy statements and tax returns from the nonprofit organizations.
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Loopholes put school bus drivers with violations on roads
Brad Branan of the Tucson Citizen used court records to show that Arizona school bus drivers with criminal records or multiple moving violations are escaping state regulatory enforcement and putting children and other motorists at risk. The investigation found that drivers with criminal records or multiple traffic violations are among the most accident prone at Tucson-area school districts. "A Vail Unified School District driver — one of two school bus drivers to transport students while under the influence of drugs or alcohol last school year — was state certified despite numerous traffic violations and a license suspension." The investigation found a number of loopholes in the state system for licensing and certifying school bus drivers including that a school bus driver has to commit two DUIs or other major traffic offenses in a personal vehicle to automatically lose his bus license and that the Arizona Department of Public Safety doesn't check for criminal backgrounds after a driver is certified.
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College boosters wield powerful influence
Mike Fish of ESPN.com examines the role of the college booster, finding "It's a love-hate relationship that binds a college and its boosters. They are often the first ones pointed to when recruiting violations surface. And the first ones called upon when facilities need an upgrade. With their money comes their two cents. Some call it influence. Others say it's meddling." The series looks at Phil Knight's relationship with University of Oregon; Oklahoma State University benefactor T. Boone Pickens; Joe Malugen's support of Troy University's football team; Tulane's athletes as ambassadors for the storm-ravaged university; and mandatory donations tied to college ticket sales.
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Boys trail girls in Wash. tests
Eric Stevick and Scott North of the The (Everett, Wash.) Herald used state education testing data to show that at 95 percent of Washington’s high schools, the percentage of boys who passed the writing portion of the WASL lags behind girls. "Boys across Washington are trailing girls in key areas of a crucial test that ultimately will determine who gets a high school diploma." The analysis also showed that on the WASL's reading section, boys' test scores from last spring trail girls' scores at 85 percent of high schools. The newspaper negotiated access to individual WASL results for more than 76,000 10th-grade students statewide. The analysis found the gender gap is wide at many schools, with as many as 40 percent more 10th-grade boys than girls failing the writing exam.
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Thousands of serious crimes reported in schools
Jonathan Marino of The Washington Examiner looked into crime in public schools in Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. He found "internal reports, dozens of court records, and interviews with educators, parents and law enforcement officials tell troubling stories of abuse & mdash; and reveal hundreds of cases where some principals failed to follow up on serious incidents." The internal reports were obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act request. They revealed that "From August 2002 to May 2005, the school system documented nearly 3,000 serious incidents, including allegations of death threats, gang violence, bullying and rape." (Editor's Note: For more about crime and violence in schools, see the November/December issues of The IRE Journal and Uplink.)
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Correspondence school offers speedy academic makeover
Pete Thamel and Duff Wilson of The New York Times used academic transcripts and documents obtained through a freedom of information request to show that University High, a correspondence school which has no classes and no educational accreditation, offered students little more than a speedy academic makeover. "Athletes who graduated from University High acknowledged that they learned little there, but were grateful that it enabled them to qualify for college scholarships. " The man who founded University High School and owned it until last year, Stanley J. Simmons, served 10 months in a federal prison camp from 1989 to 1990 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his involvement with a college diploma mill in Arizona. Among the activities Simmons acknowledged in court documents were awarding degrees without academic achievement and awarding degrees based on studies he was unqualified to evaluate.
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Report looks at colleges with highest violent crime rates
ABC News used data reported by the country's universities and analyzed reports of campus crime to determine which colleges had the highest reported violent crime rates. The analysis divided the schools into four categories — largest to smallest and were available from 2002 and 2003. "In the smallest category, schools with 2,100 students or fewer, Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, reported the highest violent crime rate, with 29 robberies and aggravated assaults in 2002 alone." The report found that forcible sexual assaults was the most common type of violent crime on campuses throughout the country. Among large schools, those with between 4,400 and 11,000 students, Texas Southern University in Houston topped the list, the only university on the list in a major city. (Editor's note: Other reporters can do similar stories using the same campus crime data. Contact the IRE and NICAR Database Library for more information: 573-884-7711 or jeff@ire.org.)
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Students misuse low-income housing
Lee Rood of The Des Moines Register found scores of students are paying little or nothing to live in low-income projects in college towns in every region. Loopholes enable students — including scholarship athletes who already receive housing money — easily qualify for apartments in the Section 8 program. "Last year, during a probe into students' use of Section 8 at Pheasant Ridge Apartments in Iowa City, the newspaper also located students who used the housing assistance in Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. " Under the housing department's current rules, student financial aid does not count as income which gives virtually any full-time student, not claimed as a dependent on a parent's tax return, a good shot at qualifying. If the student does not work, taxpayers pay all of the rent.
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Calif. system's additional pay offsets student fee hike
Tanya Schevitz and Todd Wallack of the San Francisco Chronicle examine how much the University of California system really pays its administrators. "In addition to salaries and overtime, payroll records obtained by The Chronicle show that employees received a total of $871 million in bonuses, administrative stipends, relocation packages and other forms of cash compensation last fiscal year. That was more than enough to cover the 79 percent hike in student fees that UC has imposed over the past few years." The project includes a database of the system's highest paid employees.
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Car stipends guzzling cash
Tawnell Hobbs and Kent Fischer of The Dallas Morning News reviewed district records to show that more than 2,300 school district employees are getting car stipends this year, at a total cost of nearly $3.7 million. This despite the fact that their job description does not include travel. "In a year when DISD cut some elementary school counselors and gave teachers small raises while trying to close a $28 million budget deficit, the $3,684,798 for car allowances has escaped the ax. " According to calculations, dozens would have to drive more than 950 miles a month to justify the size of their stipends, using DISD's reimbursement rate of 35 cents a mile. Car allowance recipients, like all DISD employees, also get reimbursed for mileage when they travel outside the district. DISD paid $404,000 in mileage reimbursements in 2004-05 in addition to the amount it spent on car allowances.
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Lucrative perks for school administrators
Bill Bowman and Paul D'Ambrosio of Gannett New Jersey newspapers navigated the details of school district contracts to show that "in districts around the state, it is not uncommon for boards of education to grant tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay to their chief administrators through complex contract deals that keep the true cost of compensation from the taxpayers. Generous benefits packages include free use of district cars or lucrative car allowances, thousands of dollars in tax-deferred annuities and money for unused vacation and sick days." The perks vary from district to district, with one administrator receiving 55 percent more than his base pay in bonuses and other payments.
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Judging school performance
Sanjay Bhatt of The Seattle Times used achievement and growth data from Seattle Public Schools to examine "high-performing" schools. Bhatt explains: "I used Excel's pivot table feature to do a neat 3 x 3 table that gave readers new insight on looking at test scores. I triangulated two different types of data — achievement and growth. The achievement data shows the percentage of students who passed the state's high-stakes test. The growth data shows the average student made high, normal or low growth in a year. What you see when you triangulate is that there are lots of low-achieving schools (with disproportionately high numbers of poor children) whose staff accelerate students' learning by more than a year's worth of progress. There are also high-achieving schools whose students make less than a year's worth of progress."
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Little oversight of profitable charter school
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Connie Langland and Dale Mezzacappa report on a charter school's manager "who has turned Chester Community Charter School into a profitable, expanding business in the heart of the virtually bankrupt school district." Vahan H. Gureghian's Charter School Management Inc. has a 20-year contract with the school's board of trustees that both have refused to make public. The county has paid the company about $10 million since 1999 for management, with a large percent of that going toward Gureghian's management fee. The agency charged with overseeing the school's finances "says it has been too preoccupied with the district's own fiscal woes — now being investigated by the state attorney general — to even ask for basic documents from Chester Community. The Inquirer's examination of the school's finances was based on state data and financial reports and six years of federal tax filings ending in 2003-04, the most recent year available."
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20 percent of fired teachers accused of sex crimes
Pamela Hamilton of the Associated Press used a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records showing that "one in five educators sanctioned by the state for bad behavior in South Carolina in the past three years had been accused of sexual misconduct such as molesting or having sex with students or other children." Nearly 300 teachers have been disciplined during that time span.
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Most schools fail spending requirement
Dion Lefler of The Wichita Eagle used Census data to show that a new Kansas requirement that school districts spend 65 percent of their money in the classroom will require a lot of changes: "An Eagle computer-assisted analysis of 2003 Census data found that only 30 of the 302 school districts in Kansas met the 65 percent standard, under the definitions used by the U.S. Department of Education. Wichita, the state's largest district, has one of the lowest classroom spending percentages in the state and compared to districts of similar size across the country. At 56.1 percent, Wichita is No. 276 on the list of 302 Kansas school districts."
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'Highly qualified' teachers don't always equal high student scores
Amy L. Kovac and Jaci Smith of New Jersey's Herald-News used state education data to show that in Passaic County, having a "highly qualified" teacher doesn't always mean that students will do better on standardized tests. "The largest disparity was in Passaic's Lincoln Middle School. About 71 percent of eighth-graders there failed to achieve proficiency on their state exam; 89.2 percent of their classes were taught by teachers who meet the federal definition of 'highly qualified.' At The Learning Center in Passaic, 96 percent of fourth-graders scored at or above proficient on their standardized test; 60.5 percent of classes in the school were taught by 'highly qualified' teachers."
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Nice neighborhood ruined by state program
Dunstan McNichol at The (Newark) Star-Ledger writes about how a state program to build new schools and real-estate speculators have taken a once stable neighborhood and turned it into a haven for squatters and drug dealers. Frustrated residents said they were offered too little for their houses and now they can't get a similar house nearby. Real estate speculators swooped in, bought up some houses and sold them to the state at high profits. And now, the program that was supposed to build a high school on the block is running out of money and it's uncertain if or when the school will be built.
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Lack of inspection data raises concerns for Utah school safety
Nate Carlisle and Jessica Ravitz The Salt Lake Tribune report on the state of fire inspections in public schools, following a fire that destroyed Wasatch Junior High School. The school was old and did not have modern fire safety features. "Yet state records show the last time inspectors examined the school was four years ago." State records show that some Utah schools have no record of fire inspections since the 1980s.
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State, university employees' salaries swell
Jane Stancill and David Raynor of The (Raleigh/Durham) News & Observer analyzed state payroll data to find that "there are already more than 2,200 state and University of North Carolina system employees who are paid more than $100,000 in state money a year; more than two-thirds of them work at the universities." Pay for university employees has arisen as an issue now that UNC system is searching for a new president.
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School administrators paid big during yearlong leaves
Megan Twohey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used university documents to show that "the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has paid four former administrators more than $600,000 in taxpayer dollars for yearlong leaves granted after their resignations." The college does not track what officials granted such leaves do during that time, when typically they are preparing to resume teaching or research.
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Company builds silo within 300 feet of school
Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette investigates a coal company, which has built and begun to build silos outside the companies permit area, within 300 feet of a school. The Gazette used color overlays of hard-copy mine maps produced by a local blueprint shop, so that maps dating back to 1982 could be easily compared to more recent digital mine maps. The paper followed up on Sunday, with a piece on the maps and data used in the investigation, and how complaints were ignored and boundary advances missed.
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Paper finds inaccuracies in after-school claims
Paul Tosto of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on discrepancies the paper found in a report the state published claiming that Minnesota has more young children taking care of themselves after school than any other state in the country. They found that the "commission did not have statistics showing Minnesota with the nation's highest percentage of teens home alone every afternoon," and "the commission did not have scientific research backing up the statistic that 'about 50 percent' of young Minnesotans weren't in any structured after-school programs."
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School district loses big by investing locally
Joel Rutchick of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer used local school financial records to show that "the Cleveland Municipal School District has lost out on as much as $14 million in potential investment income over the last three years by investing most of its idle cash through local banks - which have paid lower interest rates than those available elsewhere." The switch to the local banks apparently happened without competitive bids, a normal industry practice. Income from the investments "has lagged well behind that of Cuyahoga County and other urban school districts - such as Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo - all of which invested well within the safety parameters outlined by Ohio law."
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High benefit payouts hurt Oregon schools
Betsy Hammond of The (Portland) Oregonian analyzed state education data to find that "for each teacher, secretary, principal, janitor and other worker, Oregon schools paid an average of $18,300 for health insurance and retirement pay in 2002-03. That was 55 percent more than schools across the nation." Matching the national rate of benefits would save about $500 million a year.
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Analysis shows improvement in schools
Krista J. Stockman of The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette used state education test data to compare results since the fall of 2000, finding that "the majority of Indiana schools have more students passing standardized tests." The paper analyzed scores for third, sixth, eighth and 10th grades, because those were the only grades tested in both 2000 and 2004. "Although many schools are still below the required standard, students in the lowest-performing schools have had the greatest improvement on the state's standardized test, ISTEP+, between the fall of 2000 and the fall of 2004. The majority of low-performing schools in 2000 saw improvement four years later at third, sixth, eighth and 10th grades."
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State's teacher salaries outpace national average
Maria Sacchetti of The Boston Globe used state education records to show that "average teacher pay in Massachusetts jumped 37 percent during the last decade, to $53,529 last year." That's a larger increase than teachers nationwide, and Boston schools pay an average teacher salary of $69,022.
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Youth charity fails to deliver on promise
Collins Conner and Bridget Hall Grumet of The St. Petersburg Times investigated the Florida Youth Conservation Corps, which receives a state no-bid contract to help maintain highway rights of way in exchange for providing jobs and scholarships to its young employees. "FYCC said 46 trainees got scholarships from 1999 to 2003, but none came out of FYCC's pocket. Instead - unbeknownst to state leaders who supported the program - FYCC asked Americorps to provide them. Americorps is a national work-study program funded by federal tax dollars." Although the FYCC at first said it would provide access to its spending, it later closed its books to the paper, despite the fact that all of its funding comes from government sources. The paper also found that the FYCC "sent its top staff - including St. Petersburg City Council member Jay Lasita - on all-expenses-paid trips to the Dominican Republic where FYCC sponsors a baseball team."
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School crime numbers higher than reported
Liz Chandler, Peter Smolowitz, Melissa Manware and CAR specialist Adam Bell from The Charlotte Observer report on their findings that more crime in being committed in Charlotte schools than is being reported by the school district. The investigation found "1,473 crimes reported to police at schools, 631 of them violent or threatening." Compare that to "12,681 suspensions of students for violent or threatening acts. That includes 11,378 for "aggressive physical or verbal actions," ranging from verbal confrontations to serious assaults." An Observer investigation found that "CMS relies heavily on suspensions, which soared to a record 52,648 in 2004."
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Hate crimes rise in Los Angeles school district
Naush Boghossian and Lisa M. Sodders of the Los Angeles Daily News use data from the Los Angeles Unified School District police to investigate an increase in hate crimes in the district. "Hate crimes in Los Angeles' public schools have surged more than 300 percent over the past decade..." They found that almost all of the reported hate crimes were racially motivated.
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School fails to submit project warnings
Dave Altimari and Grace E. Merritt of The Hartford Courant obtained records showing that "at least four University of Connecticut officials were aware of problems found in a 1999 audit of a $1 billion construction program but not disclosed to state legislators. Most of those problems were never fixed, and the school failed in subsequent years to submit details of the critical report to lawmakers, who voted in 2003 to approve an additional $1.3 billion to UConn for more building projects."
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Many school bus drivers have bad records
Cynthia Kopkowski of The Palm Beach Post, with assistance from William M. Hartnett and researchers Krista Pegnetter and Angelica Cortez, reviewed school bus accident data and motor vehicle records for 130 drivers to find that "nine drivers have been charged with crimes within the past 10 years or within several years of being hired. One current driver was charged with two counts of homicide and convicted of manslaughter in both cases. She was hired within five years of leaving prison. Although 10 of the drivers reviewed have clean motor vehicle records dating back to 1995, the remaining 120 accrued 190 citations within the past decade."
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School police accused of profiling
David Tarrant and Paula Lavigne of The Dallas Morning News investigated allegations of racial profiling by campus police at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, finding that "police search minorities more often than Anglos after traffic stops." In addition, there have been complaints about pedestrian stops, which campus police do not keep records on. "In 2004, blacks made up 34 percent of all stops by campus police but were six times more likely to be searched following a stop than whites. Hispanics made up 14 percent of all stops but were nearly five times more likely to be searched after a stop than Anglos."
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Minorities face tough discipline
Melissa Jenco of the Daily Herald analyzed Illinois education data to show that "racial disparities in discipline are not just a suburban trend. Statewide, during the 2002-03 school year, the expulsion and suspension rate for black students was three times higher than for white students. There were similar disparities for Latino students, too."
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Voucher system shows benefits, failures after 15 years
Alan J. Borsuk, Sarah Carr and Leonard Sykes Jr. of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigate 15 years of vouchers in Milwaukee in a seven-part series. They found that "...56% of the students enrolled at Catholic elementary schools in the city of Milwaukee participate in choice." They also discovered that it's tougher to assess the quality of a voucher school than an open one.
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Alternative education fails some students
The Associated Press reviewed alternative education programs in West Virginia, finding that "some children removed from class for discipline problems receive as little as two hours of instruction a week because West Virginia has no time standards for alternative education." More than 6,000 students throughout the state were enrolled in alternative programs during the last school year. In some schools, that consists of in-school suspension.
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Stipend boosts school official's pay
Rosalind Rossi of the Chicago Sun-Times, with assistance from Art Golub and Dave McKinney, used Illinois state records to find that "the highest-paid public school employee in the state last year was the No. 2 person — the man in charge of finance — at a one-school district in north suburban Lincolnshire." James Hintz took home more than $300,000 in part because of an arrangement that paid him a six-figure "stipend" for health insurance that could be used for anything. The stipend also helps to boost Hintz's pension, which is based on his compensation during his final years of employment.
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Schools fail to report all crime
An investigation by the Charlotte Observer has found that a lot more violent and threatening behavior takes place in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools than officials disclose in the state's public report on crime. Observer reporters Lisa Hammersly Munn, Liz Chandler, Melissa Manware and Peter Smolowitz, along with database reporter Adam Bell, used school and police records and databases to reveal thousands of incidents of crime, violence and threatening acts that the state doesn't require for its report and that aren't disclosed to parents. Also, the newspaper found that CMS failed to disclose some crimes the state report requires. The investigation includes a downloadable school violence report and school violence charts.
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More students attending four-year colleges
Rich Cholodofsky of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports on findings that more of Pennsylvania's graduating high school students are going to four-year colleges. "Within the past five school years, entering the work force, attending technical training or joining the military have fallen behind college as graduates' first option after high school, according to a Tribune-Review analysis of postgraduation reports from the 1998-99 and 2003-04 classes. "
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Sexual harassment rarely reported on Oregon campuses
Alan Gustafson and Shawn Day of the Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal analyze Oregon University System's handling of sexual harassment. They found that the system lacks "data on the extent to which sexual harassment is happening on Oregon campuses." The university system also fails to inform students on the proper way to file a complaint.
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Large endowments lead to heavy spending
Justin Pope of the Associated Press used federal data and other documents to show that "forty-seven U.S. colleges and universities now have endowments of $1 billion or more, compared to 17 a decade ago." Along with rising endowments, many of these schools have also increased tuition: "Despite tripling its wealth over the last decade, the average billionaire college has nearly doubled its price. Tuition and fees at the average private billionaire college hit $29,002 in 2004; at public universities in the group, it cost $7,230 to attend the typical f