Education

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…