Letter to the Auditor

 

I recently received this letter from a friend named Mark Joyce, who has been getting very actively involved in Louisiana’s education scene and in particular the malfeasance at the LDOE.  (Mark has recently been investigating and publishing pieces about campaign financing for candidates in the Advocate and Louisiana Voice.)  After reading about the latest disgusting revelations that have come out about ReNew charter in New Orleans he apparently recognizes this systemic abuse and neglect is something we all need to be concerned about and he as written the legislative auditor to try and rekindle some interest in some of the auditor’s own findings as well as these latest developments.

Mark summarizes some more historical revelations about now LDOE and RSD have squandered precious funding over the years without any repercussions.  Local school districts are also dramatically impacted by the way our state has chosen to implement charter schools. This is putting a strain on local communities and school systems over the same time period that funding for local systems has decreased.

The State has devised a scheme whereby they essentially steal locally local tax dollars allocated to pay for public schools overseen by the local district and hand them off to charter schools that the state “oversees” (not very well if at all as the ReNew situation shows) and approve and which the local district has no oversight over.  In light of our state’s current dire financial situation can we afford to permit this systemic and commonplace incompetence continue?

 

 

February 3, 2016

Daryl G. Purpera, CPA, CFE

Legislative Auditor

1600 North Third Street

P.O. Box 94397

Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804-9397

Mr. Purpera,

I applaud your office’s efforts to help ensure transparency and accountability in the use of taxpayer funds. With a budget deficit in the billions, there is no room for fraud or financial mismanagement.

The Financial Audit Services Management Letter issued December 21, 2015 by your office, highlighted the Recovery School District (RSD)’s inadequate financial controls for the ninth year in a row. As your office noted, “We determined that the prior year findings related to inadequate controls over movable property and inadequate controls over payroll terminations and overpayments have not been resolved by management and are addressed again in this letter.”

Problems are not limited to RSD; more generally, your audits have repeatedly shown deficiencies throughout the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE)’s financial systems. Problems with LDOE’s fiscal management of public money are pervasive.  The system lacks fiscal responsibility for both public and charter schools (within the RSD and elsewhere).

Charter school growth has added to the financial management and oversight problems for LDOE. The gaps are showing.  Some examples are highlighted below.

Recently nola.com reported January 29, 2016, on fraud in testing and special education at a charter school in New Orleans.

The former principals of ReNEW SciTech Academy in Uptown New Orleans were accused Friday (Jan. 29) of special education fraud, failing to follow federal special education law and breaking state testing rules. Louisiana Recovery School District officials said the principals, Tim Hearin and Alex Perez, snagged almost $320,000 in public money for the school in the 2014-15 academic year by artificially inflating special education services. They also broke numerous test security rules, including asking at least three teachers to look at testing books — one during the test itself — to improve future results.

These are special education funds. These dollars are precious.  Back in 2013, in your report, Louisiana Department of Education – Monitoring of Charter Schools, it was reported that three of the six schools that offered special education services either had excess charges for special education students or could not provide documentation of services provided to special education students. Obviously the issues around the management of these funds continue.

A rising financial issue that New York and other states are identifying is charter schools paying inflated leases for their buildings significantly above market rates. This is happening in Louisiana, also.  One example is the Mentorship Academy type 1 charter in Baton Rouge.

Annual rent is approximately $800,000 on a building (owned by an out-of-state Real Estate

Investment Trust) with an assessed value of $3.2 million. This equates to yearly rents equivalent to 25% of the building costs. More dollars for rent leaves fewer dollars for education.

Another example is Inspire Charter Academy, another type 1 charter in Baton Rouge.  It is owned by a company in Michigan that shares an office address with National Heritage

Academies. This site has an assessed value of $5.5 million and annual rent above $1 million.

Again, this money leaves state control and is not available for use in the classroom.  LDOE should have oversight systems in place to ensure that excessive amounts are not being paid in overhead at the expense of education.

Another example of lack of sound financial management systems related to the vouchers issued through the Louisiana Scholarship Program. This was highlighted in your report issued September 27, 2015, Prevailing Faith Academy May Have Used Scholarship Funds for Other Purposes.  The Legislative Auditor office uncovered this issue.  LDOE did not.

The issue of transparency, accountability and oversight is increasingly critical given that increasing amounts of local tax money is being diverted away from the control of local school boards without the commensurate growth in good financial management.

According to the most recent LDOE Minimum Foundation Program spreadsheet, over $242 million is expected to be deducted in 2015-16 from the state’s support of local schools and instead given to state-chartered schools, which effectively removes local tax revenue from local control.  This total has grown from $184 million in 2013-14.

Most of the local taxes transferred to the state for charters are in Orleans Parish, but the numbers elsewhere in the state are significant.  These figures include RSD but appear to exclude Type 1 (locally approved) charters. For 2015-16 the forecasts are:

• Orleans Parish will transfer $162,735,197 of local tax money to state control

• East Baton Rouge Parish School System:  $28,327,990

• Lafayette: $9,652,336

• Calcasieu: $9,599,131

• For the other 65 parish and city districts COMBINED, the total loss of local tax money to charters is $31,959,492

• The estimate statewide total diversion is $242,274,146

In the past three years, local education dollars rerouted from traditional public schools to charter schools rose by 39 percent in the East Baton Rouge Parish school district — to $28.3 million — and 73 percent in the Jefferson Parish school system — to $4.5 million, according to state figures (comparing the spreadsheet referenced above with similar reports from previous years).

These figures were reported in The Advocate: Critics say charter schools draining vital dollars.

Furthermore, it does not appear that either the RSD or the LDOE consistently audit student home address data to assure that school systems are having money transferred based on students who actually live in the districts whose local revenue is being taken away.

Regarding the distribution of funds, I have seen no evidence that the Superintendent has established systems to avoid the issue you reported in Louisiana Department of Education –

Monitoring of Charter Schools in 2013 that found that LDOE overpaid or underpaid half of the participating schools in academic year 2012-13.

Even parishes without charter schools are involuntarily contributing local tax revenue to support them.  “BESE is overriding local school board decisions in the name of choice, and the local district is left holding the bag,” according to Scott Richard, executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association said just last week at a BESE meeting.

The LDOE Bureau of Internal Audit lacks the size, funding or independence to provide sufficient oversight to review both the public school system AND the new charter and voucher school systems in Louisiana. Results of these (any) audits have not been made public. Of course, there is an annual report from LDOE, but this presentation has been roundly criticized for lack of independence and the lack of any provision of data to an independent third party. For such a critical issue as education, the department does not provide de-identified data in any raw form.

In any case, the presentation does not provide the oversight envisioned by the legislature.

Finally, as LDOE reported, they stopped conducting on-site audits of charter schools in 2008 because of a reported “lack of resources”. Currently, charters self-report.

Obviously, LDOE under the current superintendent has not been responsive to the results of external audits. As you know, recently LDOE responded that they do not need to develop a more comprehensive financial management and oversight process; it “is confident that its current practice … is sufficiently comprehensive.”

Given the findings in the report coupled with the existing lack of oversight by the Department of

Education, we respectfully request that your office formally audit LDOE’s financial oversight of ALL charter-type schools and update Louisiana Department of Education – Monitoring of Charter Schools.

Adequate oversight processes are necessary to ensure that monies are spent as intended, in this case, for the education of our children.

Thank you for your time and thank you for all you have done for Louisiana.

To verify that this email has been received, please reply and acknowledge receipt. If I do not receive a reply in a few days, I will resend it as a certified letter. Feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Mark Joyce

Advertisement

John White Tells the Truth! Charter Schools are Not About Children or Choice, They are About Cashflow

In the past I would write posts about John White’s lies.  However his lies have become so commonplace (and obvious) that eventually the public stopped paying attention.  It was generally accepted that if John White’s lips were moving, he was lying.  (“White Lies” is how they are frequently referred to online.) However John White is living proof that it’s difficult to lie all the time. Invariably you are going to let some truth out to someone, somewhere. Because this happens so infrequently the times he tells the truth are perhaps the most interesting now.

Take for instance this clip I made from the December 1st 2015 BESE meeting where John White explains to the public why he has chosen to authorize charter schools in public school districts that don’t want them, with plenty of options, choices and under financial strain, but is refusing to authorize them in New Orleans, which is 100% charter controlled.

Louisiana State Superintendent John White:

“If you were running a traditional school system you would never open a new school when you have an enrollment deficit.  And here we have a charter system.  So on one hand you’re called to authorize charter schools.  On the other hand [RSD] superintendent Dobard and I must determine what the right enrollment balance is, just like a traditional system.

I will tell you this type 2 charter school, and I have told this to Dr. Triplett, cannot open this year.  It cannot open this year.

It may open in a year when the enrollment re-stabilizes and we have another need, but I have been very clear to them for this year, as a type 2 charter school because it would add to the number of seats when our kindergarten enrollment is down.

Now I think she has also applied for a type 5 charter school.  That type 5 charter school could take over for schools that are struggling. Uh. We are recommending its for approval as well.  And she could, uh, provide services within a currently existing school.  But a standalone new additional set of however many new kindergarten kids, 50 or 100 or so, I just do not see how we can do that and be fair to the school system.”

This is very interesting because it goes against every idea the charter industry pushes as the need for new charter schools.  This decision limits choice at a time where only about 30% of the kids get their first choice by the OneAp system that assigns kids to schools in the city.  Some kids must get up at 4 am and don’t return home till 7 at night, even when their first pick choice is directly across the street form their house! Unfortunately assignments are determined by a lottery system and an algorithm, not by common sense or rationality.

This decision of John White’s goes against the cornerstone idea of the charter industry’s claim to want to foster competition, where the best schools will rise to the top based on parental choices and the worst schools will be driven out of business if they don’t please their clients.  (Once charter schools are in place they want to harvest their automatic allotment of kids for their MFP dollars and their allies find excuses to make this happen.)

This goes against the idea of preserving and improving quality.  John White asked for extensions and renewals of numerous D and F rated charter schools in RSD before this statement (which many community members asked him to reject.)

This also goes against the philosophy John White applies to every other public school system in the state.  He is happy to drive traditional public schools into bankruptcy by overriding their decisions to open new charter schools, even as he clearly understands the ramifications of what he is doing:

If you were running a traditional school system you would never open a new school when you have an enrollment deficit.

He is not just overriding local superintendents opinions but the opinions and desires of the actual communities where these schools are being opened!

East Baton Rouge School Board member of district 3, Mrs. Nelson-Smith, the exact place where the 2 charter schools John White authorized at this meeting, explains that while the charter operators did meet with her and other members of the community, they failed to relay to the state school board, BESE, that “We did not approve them.” and that these new STEM charter schools are not needed in this area, which is already designated as the STEM hub for all of EBR and perhaps the worst place to open them in EBR.

 

 

Charter schools are clearly not about choice.  They are not about competition.  They are not about quality.  They are not about satisfying the desire or needs of the public.  They are clearly not about children.  They are about charter schools.

John White is one of the industries greatest charter school/portfolio advocates in the country and oversees the only complete charter district in the nation.  Now that they have replaced the traditional system they are digging their heels in even as interest in their “choices” wanes (the reason for the decline White refuses to acknowledge during this meeting).

Charter schools, as they are being implemented now, are about profitability and control. Now that they have the control they are working on the profitability part by hiring inexperienced employees, providing substandard materials, increasing class sizes while fudging results to keep official results “passable” if not overly impressive. If they were actually forced to fight for their students with quality personnel, materials, and results they would not be as profitable as their investors want them to be and some might even go out of business.

Charter schools are not competition, they are not capitalism, they are simply another example of government cronyism.  This is one time that I actually believe what John White is saying:

If you were running a traditional school system you would never open a new school when you have an enrollment deficit. And here we have a charter system. [..]

I will tell you this type 2 charter school, and I have told this to Dr. Triplett, cannot open this year. It cannot open this year. [..]

I just do not see how we can do that and be fair to the school system.

 

“Stand For Children Louisiana” is an Evil and Malicious Corporate Front Group for Evil People and Organizations

I did not realize just how corrupt and connected the organization known as “Stand For Children Louisiana” was until I looked into some of their finances and their background.  I decided to do this after being told about this slanderous commercial attacking BESE member Carolyn Hill, on BESE member elect Jada Lewis’ behalf.  In case you didn’t see it, here it is:

Yes.

This is actually a campaign commercial (it’s hard to tell with all the flashing lights and rolling news feeds so I recorded it so you can pause the screen.)  This aired on a local channel, WBRZ.  You will note the call letters of the faux news broadcast are WBRD, so to a casual viewer it looks legit.  “Stand” even used the local background drop of our bridge across the Mississippi that our local news uses.  This commercial aired in the last week of the election and was responsible for tricking voters into thinking the police were after Carolyn Hill for numerous crimes.  The commercial even displays case numbers.

(Note:  I ran for BESE in the same market as Carolyn (EBR) but a different district and we are longtime friends and allies.  Carolyn was the first BESE member I met in the flesh after leaving LDOE when I attended a local community meeting on alternative forms of student discipline about 4 years ago.  She got me interested in trying to do more to help our children in this state and our community by her example.)

I know this commercial was effective because I had voters come to my Facebook page and tell me they wished they could vote for me for my stands on issues (which are basically the same as Hill’s) but all they could vote for was Lewis, or “the criminal” so they really had no good choice but certainly couldn’t keep a criminal in office.

This commercial is based on fictional information, at least about BESE member Carolyn Hill.  The case numbers are not legit (according to Hill’s staff who called all the DAs of all the neighboring Parishes they are only partial numbers or meaningless numbers and Hill has no outstanding warrants and never did.)  That’s not to say maybe some Carolyn Hill somewhere on earth might have some bench warrants, but there are over 100 Jason Frances in the US, here are the “top”25 Carolyn Hills just on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Carolyn/Hill

The other accusations are BS too.  BESE positions come with a laptop or iPad to communicate with the State e-Mail system securely.  Would you want BESE members communicating private student info outside of a secure system like Hillary Clinton or Ash Carter? The position requires travel all over the state and reimburses BESE members for travel and also provides a per diem.

This is how Stand chose to stand for children, by lying and deceiving people about a real champion of children in their community.

Of course this behavior wasn’t limited to Stand but this was one of the more egregious cases.  In addition to the primetime commercials Stand also spent tens of thousands of dollars on direct mail to people’s homes, warning them about Carolyn Hill.

But not only does this organization not “stand for children”, it doesn’t stand for the “Louisiana” part of its title either! 98% of their funding came from corporations, tax exempt entities including one funded by the Sierra club (seriously), and billionaires outside of our state. Several of these organizations probably broke federal laws and should lose their tax exempt status for contributing to a purely political organization that spent all their money on attack ads and propaganda.

I compiled a list of Stand’s donors and clients after their February registration filings.  I investigated each one and I will do this for every other organization that overran our state with their dirty blood money.

Stand Funding and Expenditures BESe

Stand actually split into 2 separate “Stand for Children Louisiana” groups this year.  Both are controlled by former LDOE (a deputy superintendent to John White and Chief of Staff for Vallas of RSD) and John White/Paul Vallas loyalist, Rayne Martin.  It’s not clear why they split into two groups, but I suspect they may have been planning of using their separate identities to bypass state limits on PAC donations.

I have included the data as an Excel spreadsheet for you to do your own calculations and roll-ups, but I will also post some summaries.  First let’s look at donors.  Only Stephen Rosenthal (Leslie Jacob’s brother, the RSD’s chief architect, and Gray Parker, President of the Booth-Bricker fund which is funded by all the out of state ed reform all stars, are from Louisiana) about 98% of this 781,000 dollars worth of funding comes straight from out of state (to produce slanderous attack ads on behalf of charter school vampires.)

Action Now Initiative is actually a 501c4 organization, a Tax Exempt non-profit and basically big time charter school supporters, Laura and John Arnold’s,  front organization from Texas.  Here’s this groups 2013 Tax return.  Don’t you think it’s time this “advocacy organization” started paying taxes instead of paying for slanderous attack ads?

Jim Walton of Arkansas, one of the Walmart heirs, dropped 250 gs here. Jim and his sister Alice shit all over our elections again this year with their obscene wealth and callous disregard for children or choices other than charter schools. I bet charter school chains will be opening up in between those  Walmart McDonalds and a Walmart hair salons in the near future.  One step closer to WALL-E!

The Sixteen Thirty fund gave 250k and access to their mailing list and phone numbers.  They are another tax exempt 501c org based in DC with a progressive agenda.  The Sierra club is one of their primary funders. Their primary mission is stated as environmental.

In addition to saving spotted owls the Sixteen Thirty Funds also pays to produce slanderous commercials and promote charter schools. Despicable.

Stacy Schusterman gave 250k.  She is an Energy magnate from Oklahoma and co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman foundation, a Jewish based group with the dual mission of saving Israel and apparently lying about innocent people around the workd and persecuting them with lies for the sake of the education reform movement.  Nice. https://www.schusterman.org/

We believe that by investing in the education reform movement and its leaders, we can do our part to better prepare today’s learners to be tomorrow’s qualified workforce and engaged citizens.

Of course the National Stand organization backs lying about opponents “for the children”  and chipped in 50k for that cause.

Finally, what outrageous campaign of lies would be complete without at least one local Louisiana traitor, like Stephen Rosenthal, the brother to the Recovery School District “architect” Leslie Rosenthal Jacobs (Jacobs is currently  a member of governor elect John Bel Edwards k-12 education transition team. and has a Wikipedia page describing how awesome and important she is sourced with information from her own website, EducateNow!.

Stand for Now actually spent at least 860 thousand (I didn’t get all the details from the Stand to Stand transactions so it was a bit more.)

MB Public Affairs is the California based “political vulnerability research” attack group that prepared the report on Carolyn Hill.  They are considered a beloved company. . . by Tobacco companies and Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) producers hoping to prevent labeling of their products.  They research individual members of community organizations on these companies behalf’s to smear individual members and harass them into silence.  Jada Lewis ran as a Democrat against Democrat Carolyn Hill, but MB Public affairs is a well known republican attack dog.

The latest financial filings in California for the “No on 37: Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme” reveal a $7,500 payment to the Sacramento-based political consulting firm MB Public Affairs. Here is how The Los Angeles Times described the firm last year: “MB Public Affairs is headed by Mark Bogetich, a garrulous operative known to his friends as ‘Bogey,’ who has helped a number of Republican candidates neutralize their opponents. In recent years, MB Public Affairs has worked for Altria, once known as the Phillip Morris Cos.” Bogetich has also been called “the go-to guy for [the Republican Party]” and “the only game in town.” The Los Angeles Times article explains how last year MB Public Affairs filed more than 50 Public Records Act requests to dig up dirt on a small but effective group called the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

Almost every FlipBESE candidate in the last BESE election was described as a Trojan Democrat in Republican clothing.  It’s pretty clear Jada Lewis is nothing more than a plant of the Republican party running as a Democrat in a primarily Democratic district.  She fooled them, with MB Public Affairs help, and Stand for Children Louisiana’s lies and misrepresentations.  The groups primarily involved in Jada’s Lewis’ media campaign were Clay Young Enterprises LLC and Innovative Advertising LLC.  My guess is Clay Young produced the commercial based on their advertised specialty and portfolio.

Other BESE candidates supported by this Out of State front organization were:

• Gary Jones
• Holly Boffy
• Tony Davis
• Kira Orange-Jones
• and local Orleans school board candidate John Brown.

These are bad people funded by bad people to do bad things to Louisiana and our children for the sake of money and power. Stand for Children Louisiana is the vehicle for making this all happen.  Do not trust or believe any of these people.

Update: 12/19

As Dr. Mercedes Schneider pointed out in her recent blog, Rayne Martin is no longer listed as “formally” affiliated with Stand. Rayne passed the reins to Carrie Griffin Monica midyear.  However once a reformer, always a reformer.  Rayne is still affiliated with the same circle of education do-badders and it is not uncommon for them to go to a private “consulting” company for a larger payoff with less public scrutiny.

 

At a time of deep budget cuts, it is time to cut the Recovery School District (RSD)

Latest John White lie

Bobby Jindal recently released his budget for the 2015 fiscal year.  This budget has some pretty steep cuts for the Louisiana Department of Education.

State Superintendent John White recently claimed Bobby Jindal’s 2015 budget would force him to lay off as many as 100 of his 300 workers.

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposed budget would force layoffs of about 100 of the state Department of Education’s roughly 300 workers, state Superintendent of Education John White said Monday morning.

White said he was originally told that the governor’s budget plan could result in 45 agency employees losing their jobs.

http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/11738663-125/white-says-jindal-budget-would

Of course this a statement from a John White, a well documented liar, and an article from Will Sentell, who is rumored to be White’s pal outside of working hours, so it doesn’t surprise me that these figures are dishonest and not fact checked – not even a little.

Fortunately I had recently asked for the lists of LDOE and Recovery School District (RSD) employees. RSD is a branch of LDOE and directly overseen by LDOE. The true number of employees I came up with was 447 “DOE State Activities” employees, 117 Special School District Employees, and 108 RSD employees. That comes to 675 employees scattered across several divisions that report to John White, or more than twice the number White quoted to the Advocate – and Will Sentell dutifully reported.

From payroll file 1/23/2015

But what is one more lie?

LDOE employees with multiple offices

RSD no longer directly manages any schools, it just recruits them and “oversees” them. (New Schools for New Orleans is a non-profit that already does that.)  RSD’s employees are actually extensions of the LDOE. Many LDOE employees live in New Orleans and have offices in Baton Rouge and luxury offices in New Orleans. Many of LDOE’s executive employees live in New Orleans and do all their work from the RSD offices across from the Superdome, or from the privacy of their homes – as their exorbitant conference call bills will attest to.

Sources have relayed that a non-exhaustive list of employees operating this way are:

• · Katherine Westerhold
• · Hannah Dietsch
• · Alicja Witkowski
• · Taina Knox
• · Rebecca Kockler
• · Kunjan Narechania

The truth behind LDOE state employee RIF’s (Reductions In Force)

Everyone knows that John White and Bobby Jindal have claimed they have cut back employees in state service, so I decided to verify that claim myself. I asked Civil Service for the payroll of LDOE as of 1/1/2012 and 1/31/2015. A direct comparison would lead one to believe that John White had reduced his employees. John White filed dozens of RIFs, or Reeducations In Force, during his tenure.  However what you can’t tell from these files is that John White simply reclassified all of his IT positions as belonging to DOA instead of LDOE. Many of these folks still work at the Claiborne building where LDOE is housed in their same roles, they just are paid from the DOA budget although they still work for John White and LDOE on LDOE systems.

I asked for listing of these employees, but Civil Service has no way of identifying them. Therefore I excluded all the people from the IT area from my 12/31/2011 file so we could have an apples to apples comparison.  These are the numbers I came up with as of 12/31/2011 excluding IT.

However this was when RSD actually staffed schools with teachers!  Now almost all the RSD employees are unclassified operatives of John White.  Many freely move back and forth between these agencies at will as I will show you later.

What this means is employees John White controls for day to day operations is down to 675 from around 697 – excluding IT and RSD employees.  RSD actually had to run schools three years ago and most of those employees were teachers. Now RSD skims money from grants these schools receive and skims MFP funds to support their lavish lifestyle  – as I will also get into later.

Next I wanted to find out what types of employees are left and how the workforce changed. Instead of support personnel for things like Special Education, most of LDOE was turned into a charter school recruiting office and assessment section. At first blush it would appear the number of unclassified positions decreased, however when you add in RSD unclassified positions you can see a dramatic increase in this type of unrestricted worker.  Below are some distinctions between classified and unclassified employees.  Please refer to this definition from Civil Service.  I have summarized some of the differences below:

Unclassified state employees have no restrictions on salary or raises, can lobby legislators and donate to candidates, do not have need to have any specific qualifications, and are generally supposed to be restricted to just the heads of departments.

Classified state employees cannot engage in any political activity, or even the appearance of political activity. They cannot donate or endorse candidates and cannot even discuss these topics publicly without suffering sanctions or being fired. Raises for classified workers are tightly controlled and limited. Classified positions have specific sets of duties, education requirements, and experience requirements they must meet to qualify for positions.  Classified workers cannot be promoted if they do not meet the requirements of their new position. The vast majority of state workers used to be considered “classified.”

Below are the basic positions defined in Civil Service that are supposed to be classified as unclassified.

1. Elected officials and person appointed to fill vacancies in elective offices.
2. The head of each principal executive department appointed by the Governor.
3. Registrars of voters.
4. Members of State boards, authorities, and commissions.
5. One private Secretary to the president of each college or university.
6. One person holding a confidential position and one principal assistant or deputy to any officer, board, commission or authority mentioned in (1), (2), (3), or (4), above, except the State Department of Civil Service.
7. Members of the military or naval forces; including those employees in the Military Department of the State of Louisiana who are members of the Louisiana National Guard or Louisiana State Guard, either active or retired.
8. The teaching and professional staffs, and administrative officers of schools, colleges, and universities of the State, and bona fide students of those institutions employed by any State agency.
9. Employees, deputies, and officers of the legislature and of the offices of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General; and of police juries, school boards, and assessors; and of all offices provided for in Constitutional Article V.
10. Commissioners of elections, watchers, and custodians and deputy custodians of voting machines.
11. Railroad employees whose working conditions and retirement benefits are regulated by federal agencies in accordance with federal law.
12. Notaries Public.
13. All employees of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

Obviously unclassified employees are supposed to be restricted in number and held to a pretty high standard.  Unclassified positions are supposed to be rare.  The vast majority of state employees in Civil Service are supposed to be “classified” to prevent a return to the “spoils” system of governance in Louisiana; when most of the positions in state government we doled out based on who folks supported in elections.  A classified state worker is loyal to the state, not a specific political party, candidate, or appointee.  From information I’ve been given, John White reportedly did not like that arrangement and exploited Civil Service rules to simply drive off hundreds of classified state workers loyal to Louisiana and replace them with unclassified employees (mostly from out of state) loyal to him.

Of 108 positions at RSD today, 107 are unclassified.

What possible harm can come from converting our workforce from classified to unclassified?  (Hint: New taxes!)

In case you were wondering how this arrangement works out in the real world consider this.  RSD and its staff, in conjunction with the charter lobby, successfully PR’d the public in New Orleans last year to pass a tax that contributes 90% of the proceeds to RSD until 2025 (in additional to their state and federal funding and fees they charge charters.)

Shall the Orleans Parish School board (the “School Board”) levy a tax of four and ninety-seven hundredths mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation of property within the City of New Orleans assessed for City Taxation, (an estimated $15,540,000 reasonably expected at this time to be collected from the levy of the tax for an entire year), for a period of ten (10) years, beginning in 2015, for the purpose of preservation, improvement and capital repairs of all existing public school facilities, to be levied and collected in the same manner as is set forth in Article VIII, Section 13(C)(Second) of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974; provided that said tax is to be levied each calendar year at a millage rate not in excess of the difference between 4.97 mills and any millage levied in such calendar year for any outstanding general obligation bonds of the School Board?”

How will property taxes be extended and/or redirected to fund RSD?
OPSB is expected to pay off school facility debt by 2021 using 4.97 mills of property tax previously approved by voters. The tax is expected to end in 2021, and the amount collected from voters will begin to decrease as the debt service decreases. If voters approve the proposition, the mills will be renewed and extended through 2025. The difference that is not applied to the debt service will be set aside for facility preservation, and RSD can begin to access the funds as early as 2016. The mills currently collect approximately $15.5 million each year. (Source: OPSB FAQ on Tax Proposition. )

In full effect and after OPSB has fulfilled its debt obligations, the non-elected RSD would receive 90% of the funding ($13,986,000) of property tax revenue. OPSB would receive the remaining portion of approximately $1,554,000.

What does RSD do with all their money?

What does RSD do with all its money you ask?  Well for one thing, they like to rent luxury office space in downtown New Orleans across from the Superdome.

RSD takes up the entire 14th floor at 1615 Poydras street. Here is the floor plan of the suite right above them

Here are some of the images of the building and the amenities:

Encompassing 508,741 rentable square feet, the Class A Property is 85% leased and serves as the corporate headquarters for McMoRan Oil & Gas.

 

The property’s rent rolls are dominated by high profile, local, national and international corporations including Freeport-McMoRan, ANKOR Energy, U.S. Coast Guard, Gillis Ellis & Baker, Kuchler Polk Schell Weiner & Richeson, Usry Weeks & Matthews, Duplantier Hrapmann Hogan & Maher, First NBC Bank and Regus.

 

1615 Poydras accommodates an on-site restaurant, a barbershop and dry cleaning pick-up & delivery services.  Our location in the Central Business District (CBD) directly across from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, provides easy access to City Hall, hotels, Canal Street shopping and the historic French Quarter.  Tenants enjoy easy walking distance to the NFL Saints Champion Square and the world-class Mercedes-Benz Superdome directly across the street.

Man, who wouldn’t want a drycleaners with pickup and delivery service and a barbershop in their office building?

Check out the gorgeous marble and mahogany floors and enormous meeting rooms overlooking the city.

Who knew being a state worker could be such a sweet deal, especially amidst a 1.6 billion dollar deficit?

But maybe there was a logistical reason for locating so close to the superdome in a luxury office building?

RSD claims this move makes them more accessible to families and parents.

Recovery School District

www.rsdla.net

The Recovery School District is a special district of the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) charged with transforming chronically underperforming schools in Louisiana. The organization’s mission is to ensure that all students graduate high school on-time and be college and career ready.  Their move to 1615 Poydras provides a more centrally-located site in the Central Business District – closer to business and community partners [true] and more accessible for families and parents [not true].  Recovery School District also maintains three Parent Centers at various locations throughout the city.

But let’s be honest. This is move to put them closer to the Saints, not students. Right across the street in fact!  RSD used to be located in a warehouse before John White came to town, where many of the parents actually lived.

Let’s compare.

RSD Pre-John White at 1641 Poland Avenue.  Note the graffiti on neighboring buildings and less than august surroundings. . . but I bet the rent wasn’t too steep.

RSD – Post John White at 1616 Poydras street on the 14th floor across from the Mercedes Superdome.  Who knew School Reforming could be so good?

So what if RSD is ripping us off. . . at least I get choices!?!?

Now when parents have problems they can’t actually reach anyone at RSD. RSD makes thousands of parents with enrollment problems line up all day in the hot sun every year while they try to fix the choices the One AP enrollment system selected for them.

Last year some parents waited in line all day only to be turned away and told to come back tomorrow.

http://thelensnola.org/2014/07/09/frustrated-parents-wait-hours-to-enroll-in-schools-only-to-be-turned-away/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_fV5nCu_p4&feature=youtu.be

RSD Choice. We choose for you.

In my district, East Baton Rouge Parish, I actually have choices and can apply to numerous schools and programs.  I can choose to send my kids from among the schools I get into. In public schools I have the choice to send my kids to a Montessori program, magnet school, language immersion school, Arts integrated or Math Sciences and Arts school, a trade focused school, a charter school or just send my kids to the school down the street. I can apply to all of those choices and select the one I want based on the ones I can get approved for. In New Orleans you put your top 3 choices in, and maybe the computer selects one for you. If you don’t like the selection, or the selection scatters your kids all across town, you and thousands of other parents must queue in line all day to try and find a new school for your kids to attend.

That type of “choice” is more like Communism, than Capitalism folks. You know, where the state assigns you to a school and you line up for days to make simple changes to anything (and that’s on a good day.)

The free enterprise system charter supporters often tout as the cure-all for the ails of the public education system can’t work because bad or undesirable charters can stay in business when the few desirable schools run out of spots.

RSD and New Schools for New Orleans claim that RSD and the New Orleans Experiment has solved the problem of kids being limited by their Zip code. In actuality, they have just made it worse.

These groups claim to provide choice, but the choice belongs to RSD, to the state, not to the parents.

This is the future that awaits us as this “public/private” partnership proceeds.

Wow. Can RSD do anything right?  Uh. . .

But that’s not the only form of waste at RSD.

RSD’s 100+ strong workforce loses more property and equipment each year than the rest of the state put together.  About a million dollars a year at last tally. Here is a statement from the legislative auditor:

Statement: The Recovery School District reported more than 28 percent of its movable property missing in its 2014 inventory. Because of the large volume of missing inventory, [the Louisiana Property Assistance Agency] disapproved the agency’s property certification and completed an internal investigation on the losses. We have since reported our findings on the issue to the Attorney General and Legislative Auditor for further review

The full report is here: http://app.lla.state.la.us/LLApress.nsf/10fbc08e4e1f685a86257c3f005437d5/dcf94ca15acaf57986257dab00780aa9/$FILE/RSD%202014%20Release.pdf

You can also see how RSD’s losses compare to the rest of the state in Lee Zurik’s report:

http://www.fox8live.com/story/27976094/zurik-millions-in-state-property-lost-and-not-found

RSD and LDOE employees switch jobs fluidly because they are really the same agency now.

To see this in action let’s look at the curious case of Kunjan Narechania, who came to Louisiana and RSD with John White as his chief of staff. Then she went with John White to LDOE, and now is back at RSD but is paid from LDOE’s budget.

http://louisiana-employees.findthedata.com/l/185/Kunjan-Narechania

http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2015/02/did_the_community_get_a_voice.html

From payroll file as of 1/23/15

From Nola.com article as of 2/2/15.

Recovery chief of staff Kunjan Narechania said the department has held off on finalizing the Dunbar agreement pending the John Mac and Livingston decisions; if Believe moves into John Mac, it would be moot. She added that the Recovery system does not typically have written agreements with charter programs about which buildings they will get, though “the process has been fairly inconsistent.”

Gotta’ love that freedom.

As you can see, RSD and LDOE employees are fluid and all report to John White.  They certainly don’t oversee any schools, and I sure hope they aren’t trying very hard to look after property that is disappearing at a burn rate of a million dollars per year.  So do we really need them to recruit charter schools in a 100% charter district?

Is RSD the future we want for Louisiana: a giant, unaccountable, exceptionally wasteful, state level agency who’s employees can lobby and donate to local and state officials for increases to its budget and power and which oversees all the schools in the state – instead of local school boards?

Is there a conclusion in here somewhere?

It is clear that RSD is not working. . . for parents or students. At a time of great financial crisis in our state, RSD is providing multiple luxury offices to its staff members so they don’t have the inconvenience of driving into Baton Rouge – where they really are supposed to work.

Louisiana is facing a 1.6 billion dollar shortfall this year, while some state DOE employees are assigned multiple offices (luxury offices).  Based on my calculations, Bobby Jindal is probably right to recommend 100 employees be reduced at the department of education. John White has actually maintained his staffing level at LDOE via RSD over the last 3 years (while increasing his overall payroll by eliminating classified positions and replacing them with unclassified positions.) The payroll at RSD alone is 1/4^th of the entire payroll at LDOE for 1/5^th of the employees. Many of John White’s employees swap back and forth for budgeting reasons but, they all ultimately report to White.

RSD is the past, and it needs to be left in the past, and now is the time to do it.

John White claims he needs to start discussions and meetings to determine where to make layoffs. I actually have 108 employees to recommend eliminating right now (or maybe 109 depending on where Kunjan actually works).  It’s time to eliminate the RSD.

That is a real choice that would be good for just about everybody.

Some Sad truths about RSD’s Grad Rate and Dropout numbers

I have been warning LDOE for years that something fishy is going on with the grad rate across the state. John White, Chas Roemer and Reformers would just have you believe that “raising the bar” and having “higher expectations” for students is the only thing that Louisiana lacks. They ignore decades of history and Louisiana’s extreme poverty as contributing factors. It’s no coincidence that those who tell poor people poverty is not a factor that impacts academic success come from the most affluent segments of our society. Both Chas Roemer and John White attended some of the most prestigious and expensive private schools in the country and have parents with long entries in Wikipedia. Just average folks, like you and me, ya know? These folks tell us all we need to do is raise our standards, our benchmarks, and “Believe”.

When you operate this way in good faith (let’s pretend that’s what they are doing) you might really think you are making a difference, that only belief and high expectations is all that are needed to overcome poverty, abuse, neglect, dilapidated buildings, disparate funding, corruption, waste, fraud and disabilities. You might ignore facts that deflate the bubble of belief you’ve surrounded yourself in. You might surround yourself with only facts and people that confirm your beliefs. This is a great psychological device taught to people fighting periodic or clinical depression, but it’s a terrible idea to operate this way when you are in a position of supervising policy, especially policy you’ve defined and are called upon to defend. This is the only explanation I have for why LDOE released some figures that show just how abysmally they have been running RSD and our education system into the ground. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for this lapse that led to some real data being released that verifies what I have been saying for years, but it’s really the only explanation I can come up with for why they released it and didn’t notice the full implications of the data they claim drives so many of their decisions.

http://www.louisianabelieves.com/newsroom/news-releases/2014/07/11/louisiana-cohort-graduation-rate-continues-to-increase
http://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/data-management/final-exit-code-pre-reviews.pdf?sfvrsn=2

You see, under Paul Pastorek, Louisiana’s first Reformer de jour of a few years back, Louisiana stopped investigating and auditing data . . . especially data coming from charter schools and RSD. At the department we knew full well that the data was both crappy in quality and dreadful in composition. Incidentally Paul Pastorek is back in Louisiana to start a new education endeavor. At the Department we knew him as Little PP (he’s like 5 feet tall) to Paul Vallas’s Big P (Vallas is 6’5″) or sometimes as LDOE’s Napoleon due to his small stature and imperious nature.

Paul preparing to command his TFA minions into battle with the “Status Quo”

I prefer to think of Paul as “Yosemite Paul” due to his infamous first rallying speech to the department, where he told us that solve Louisiana’s education problems we need to shoot fast and first, without aiming because:

• we didn’t have the time to waste readying and aiming our Reform guns to fix what ailed our state
• and because they had no clue to do and still don’t but Reformers always like to be seen doing something.

Former Superintendent of Louisiana and Chief of Change, Paul Pastorek, getting ready to Reform this mofo. BAM!

When Bobby Jindal met John White I’m told Jindal thought he would have a more pliable and less volatile and willful minion than Paul Pastorek and almost immediately gave PP his walking papers. Fortunately PP went to school with Sean O’Keefe who is the current CEO of Airbus (they went to school together) and Paul was able to land on his feet as a useless random lawyer at EADS, a subsidiary of a European aerospace company.

So what does all this have to with dropouts you might ask? Well Paul had stopped auditing data during his tenure and he left under less than friendly terms. It’s quite likely he did not reveal all the skeletons shoved into LDOE closets. It appears that John White and his staff unwittingly stumbled across a walk-in closet loaded with them. I’ve tried to show what was in these closets over the years with these posts:

Here is one of my posts from September of 2012
https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/louisianas-dropout-numbers-dont-add-up/
one from January 2013
https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/new-orleans-graduate-rate-miracle-or-make-believe/
And in this post I express my doubts you will ever get these reports, or many others, working again. . .

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/the-untold-data-crises-at-ldoe/
or this old nugget I wrote in March 2012 right after I left the department in February 2012.
https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/louisianas-lack-of-an-accountability-system/

Recently LDOE did a partial audit of exit codes. In particular they were looking at some of the codes often used to hide “dropouts.” In practical terms, a student that does not graduate and stops going to school is a dropout. However, if the student, let’s say, transfers out of state, to a non-public school, goes the homeschool route, or dies. . .well we can’t really hold that school or any school we collect data on responsible for that, can we?

Exit codes were designed for schools to tell the state one of these situations has taken place. When this happens legitimately and is reported to the state in the form of an exit code, the state would no longer keep that student in the numerator or denominator. They are not a dropout. They are also not a graduate. They are a “legitimate leaver” in education parlance. When these legitimate leaver situations take place, records and documentation should take place. When a student transfers to a non-public school or homeschool the parents should fill out some withdrawal papers and the non-public school should make a “request for records.” Homeschooled students and parents also generate subsequent records, and students are required to take tests and provide updates about students’ progress. When a student transfers out of state the “receiving school” should have a record of the student, and that receiving school should make a request for records. These items go in students’ permanent files . . . if those documents are indeed generated, and really exist.

What often happens is this does not take place. What often happens is schools will “fix” their dropouts by simply coding all their dropouts as transferring out of state. They don’t graduate, although some districts simply code students with a graduate code too which really helps them out, but they don’t count against schools. Schools wanting to improve their images or escape accountability sanctions can freely “up code” their students from dropout to even graduates if they really want too, although the most common practice is to simply code them as “transferring out of state.” Historically this wasn’t a major issue, but as accountability has become more important, and as graduate cohort and dropout rates have become factored into as much as 25% of a school’s SPS score the incentive for up coding is enormous, the risk of getting caught or sanctioned very low, and this solution is easy breezy to do with plenty of people along the way able to claim ignorance and protected by plausible deniability if they ever do get caught.

What has happened to Louisiana and especially in RSD and probably charter schools and probably some traditional schools is that more and more schools have discovered the up coding secret and have used it to their advantage more and more every year. John White and LDOE made the mistake of actually doing a preliminary audit of these numbers and publishing them. Their “Reforms” are failures and their success is built upon lies. One of the metrics used to annually evaluate John White is the graduation cohort rate. Once LDOE realized just how bad this audit was his folks knew better than to turn over any more stones. But enough teasing, just how bad was it do you ask?

Try a 100% failure rate for RSD on for size.

I’m not kidding.

I think LDOE really felt all they needed to do was make the point that all direct run RSD schools will be closed this school year so it would finally be okay to release this type of info. Like, “hey, we know this is bad but we’ve released this report after closing them so there’s really nothing anyone can do and you should not waste your time worrying about them anymore.”

Believe me, this is not a one off, this is what all RSD info and stats look like when not masked or filtered. You might think hiding 14 dropout students is not a big deal, and you’re right in a sense. Of course LDOE should consider all students important, but RSD served thousands of students a year. . .what’s 14 out of 1400? The problem is this is just a very small sample that encountered 100% error rate. This is a small fraction of how many student RSD coded as transferring out of state without any documentation from this cohort. What’s more, this was done to make themselves look better than they were for many years, every year they were in existence, and they were always just about the worst in the state even with this help and the numerous instances of cheating I’ve gotten reports of and written about. Feel free to search my blog for examples.

So when I saw this report I asked LDOE if they wouldn’t mind giving me the schools behind these numbers, and the totals behind these partial audits. Much to my surprise they complied with my request. I still think they had no idea just how bad this info was. “Group Think” I suppose. They are victims of their own PR BS, and everyone left at the department is either a yes-man or knows better than to tell them they are wrong.

Here is the first report I received: Note: the obvious lack of charter schools on it. They were not audited (or even considered for auditing apparently.)

Data Notes: This report is for the May 2013 graduation cohort. Transfers out-of-state/country (exit code 10), transfers to private school (exit code 14), and transfers to home study (exit code 16) were included in the “legitimate leaver” review.
					LEA	Site code	Site name	Total Verified	Total Legitimate Leaver Exit Codes Reviewed (Codes 10, 14, 16)
					001	001007	Crowley High School	3	5
001	001021	Rayne High School	2	2
002	002001	Elizabeth High School	1	1
002	002004	Kinder High School	3	3
002	002006	Oakdale High School	6	8
003	003016	Dutchtown High School	11	12
004	004001	Assumption High School	2	2
006	006004	East Beauregard High School	2	3
006	006008	Merryville High School	3	4
006	006010	Singer High School	0	1
008	008001	Airline High School	8	11
008	008020	Parkway High School	7	10
009	009008	C.E. Byrd High School	6	9
009	009013	Captain Shreve High School	12	12
009	009025	Green Oaks Performing Arts Academy	0	3
010	010003	Alfred M. Barbe High School	14	15
010	010025	Sam Houston High School	4	4
010	010033	LaGrange High School	0	2
010	010052	Sulphur High School	16	21
010	010058	Washington/Marion Magnet High School	0	7
011	011001	Caldwell Parish High School	8	9
014	014009	Junction City High School	1	1
016	016008	Pelican All Saints High School	2	2
017	017010	Belaire High School	0	7
017	017088	Tara High School	1	6
017	017102	Woodlawn High School	5	9
019	019014	East Feliciana High School	1	2
022	022004	Georgetown High School	1	1
026	026010	Bonnabel Magnet Academy High School	2	7
026	026023	John Ehret High School	0	5
026	026051	Grace King High School	6	14
027	027006	Jennings High School	8	8
028	028002	Acadiana High School	4	9
028	028011	O. Comeaux High School	6	8
028	028019	Lafayette High School	8	11
029	029003	Central Lafourche High School	4	6
029	029026	South Lafourche High School	2	5
029	029029	Thibodaux High School	6	6
030	030006	LaSalle High School	3	4
031	031003	Choudrant High School	2	2
032	032024	Walker High School	6	8
032	032025	Walker Freshman High School	3	4
032	032042	Denham Springs Freshman High School	4	4
037	037036	West Monroe High School	8	11
040	040048	Tioga High School	4	6
049	049051	North Central High School	2	2
049	049052	Beau Chene High School	3	5
052	052013	Covington High School	3	8
052	052026	Mandeville High School	11	15
052	052035	Salmen High School	10	13
052	052037	Slidell High School	6	10
055	055015	Evergreen Junior High School	1	2
055	055020	Houma Junior High School	1	2
057	057001	Abbeville High School	10	10
057	057013	Kaplan High School	5	7
058	058006	Leesville High School	17	19
058	058009	Pickering High School	3	7
058	058012	Rosepine High School	3	4
060	060012	Minden High School	4	6
062	062001	Epps High School	2	3
064	064002	Calvin High School	2	2
067	067004	Zachary High School	6	6
069	069004	Central High School	3	7
318	318001	LSU Laboratory School	3	3
319	319001	Southern University Lab School	0	2
396	396004	Walter L. Cohen High School	0	2
396	396017	Sarah Towles Reed Senior High School	0	5
396	396026	G.W. Carver High School	0	4
396	396031	L. B. Landry High School	0	3

396 Is the LEA code for RSD New Orleans. This report shows the school LDOE audited were Cohen, Reed, Carver and Landry. They only asked for samples of 14 students at random and none of these students had any documentation to back up the transfer out of state. If you are curious about other districts and schools you can see their counts here. Some districts will legitimately have more transfers, like Leesville in Vernon Parish, which has Fort Polk. Some of these counts are dependent upon geography as well (Parishes bordering Arkansas and Texas have higher transfer rates, but not as many kids on the eastern part of the state like to move to Mississippi, the only state poorer than us. Go figure? However Orleans Parish had proper, code 036, had only around 30 transfers in the same exact geographic area. They don’t even show up on this report because the numbers are so low. I know this because I asked for the complete report of transfers, and I got that too! (At that point they cut me off realizing from my line of questioning how terrible the picture was that was developing.) I got my initial reports in a few days, and it’s been over a month since I’ve received any updates for my other inquiries. I was told those requests were sent to the “appropriate areas”, but I expect they will stay there until we get a Regime change at LDOE, BESE or the Governor’s office. Let me give you the second report so those who like to do their own analysis can do their own and confirm my findings if they choose.

The Louisiana Department of Education has modified and/or suppressed data reported to protect the privacy of students in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) codified at 20 U.S.C. 1232g. The strategies used to protect privacy vary and may include rounding or other techniques but do not substantially affect the general usefulness of the data. Because of the privacy protections, numerical and percentage totals may not add precisely to the sum of the row or column to which the total refers.
					Data Notes: This report is from preliminary data, prior to data certification, for the May 2013 graduation cohort. All cells indicate a count/raw number of exit codes. Schools without transfers out-of-state/country (exit code 10), transfers to private school (exit code 14), and transfers to home study (exit code 16) were not included. Closed schools are included if they had legitimate leaver codes.
Site code	Site name	Exit Code 10 (Out-of-State/Country)	Exit Code 14 (Private School)	Exit Code 16 (Home Study)
Statewide	Louisiana	4410	1042	1494
001005	Church Point High School	<10	<10	11
001007	Crowley High School	15	<10	22
001017	Midland High School	<10	<10	<10
001021	Rayne High School	12	<10	17
001034	Iota High School	<10	<10	<10
002001	Elizabeth High School	<10	<10	<10
002002	Fairview High School	<10	<10	<10
002004	Kinder High School	<10	13	<10
002006	Oakdale High School	<10	<10	16
002009	Oberlin High School	<10	<10	<10
002010	Reeves High School	<10	<10	<10
002014	Elizabeth High School	<10	<10	<10
003003	Donaldsonville High School	11	<10	<10
003005	East Ascension High School	32	<10	<10
003014	St. Amant High School	31	<10	<10
003016	Dutchtown High School	38	16	<10
003025	Ascension Parish Alternative School	<10	<10	<10
004001	Assumption High School	<10	<10	15
005004	Bunkie New Tech High School	11	<10	<10
005016	Marksville High School	16	<10	<10
005018	Avoyelles High School	<10	<10	<10
005025	LA School for Ag Science	<10	<10	<10
006002	DeRidder High School	38	<10	12
006004	East Beauregard High School	<10	<10	11
006008	Merryville High School	<10	<10	<10
006010	Singer High School	<10	<10	<10
006011	South Beauregard High School	<10	<10	13
006021	Beauregard Alternative School	<10	<10	<10
007001	Arcadia High School	<10	<10	<10
007002	Bienville High School	<10	<10	<10
007003	Castor High School	<10	<10	<10
007006	Gibsland-Coleman High School	<10	<10	<10
007008	Ringgold High School	<10	<10	<10
007009	Saline High School	<10	<10	<10
008001	Airline High School	83	<10	<10
008006	Benton High School	20	<10	<10
008009	Bossier High School	30	<10	<10
008017	Haughton High School	39	<10	<10
008020	Parkway High School	45	<10	<10
008022	LA New Tech at Plain Dealing	<10	<10	<10
008035	Butler Educational Complex	<10	<10	<10
008037	Charlotte Ann Mitchell Educational Center	<10	<10	<10
009008	C.E. Byrd High School	60	<10	<10
009012	Caddo Parish Magnet High School	23	<10	<10
009013	Captain Shreve High School	50	16	<10
009022	Fair Park College Preparatory Academy	14	<10	<10
009025	Green Oaks Performing Arts Academy	25	<10	<10
009031	Huntington High School	29	<10	<10
009042	North Caddo High School	17	<10	<10
009045	Northwood High School	15	<10	<10
009059	Southwood High School	26	<10	<10
009069	Booker T. Washington New Technology High School	16	<10	<10
009073	Woodlawn Leadership Academy	18	<10	<10
009076	Hamilton Terrace Learning Center	<10	<10	<10
009093	Shreveport Job Corps Opportunity Center	<10	<10	<10
009095	Hosston Alternative School	<10	<10	<10
009100	Academic Recovery and Career Discovery Center	<10	<10	<10
010003	Alfred M. Barbe High School	40	31	14
010004	Bell City High School	<10	<10	<10
010014	DeQuincy High School	<10	10	<10
010025	Sam Houston High School	14	23	10
010026	Iowa High School	<10	<10	<10
010033	LaGrange High School	29	18	10
010051	Starks High School	<10	<10	<10
010052	Sulphur High School	37	71	47
010056	Vinton High School	10	13	<10
010058	Washington/Marion Magnet High School	17	21	<10
010064	Westlake High School	11	<10	<10
010072	Calcasieu Parish Alternative School	<10	<10	<10
011001	Caldwell Parish High School	<10	<10	19
012003	Grand Lake High School	<10	<10	<10
012004	Hackberry High School	<10	<10	<10
012007	South Cameron High School	<10	<10	<10
013001	Block High School	<10	<10	<10
013005	Harrisonburg High School	<10	<10	<10
013011	Sicily Island High School	<10	<10	<10
013013	ASPIRE	<10	<10	<10
014002	Athens High School	<10	<10	<10
014004	Haynesville Jr./Sr. High School	<10	<10	<10
014007	Homer High School	13	<10	<10
014009	Junction City High School	<10	<10	<10
014011	Summerfield High School	<10	<10	<10
015002	Ferriday High School	<10	<10	<10
015006	Monterey High School	<10	<10	<10
015008	Vidalia High School	24	<10	<10
015014	Concordia Education Center	<10	<10	<10
016004	Logansport High School	<10	<10	<10
016007	Mansfield High School	<10	<10	<10
016008	Pelican All Saints High School	<10	<10	<10
016010	Stanley High School	<10	<10	<10
016012	North DeSoto High School	10	<10	<10
016022	DeSoto Career Academy	<10	<10	<10
017008	Baton Rouge Magnet High School	14	<10	<10
017010	Belaire High School	31	<10	<10
017016	Broadmoor Senior High School	25	<10	<10
017038	Glen Oaks Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
017045	Istrouma Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
017056	McKinley Senior High School	22	<10	<10
017063	Northdale Superintendent’s Academy	<10	<10	<10
017065	Northeast High School	<10	<10	<10
017079	Scotlandville Magnet High School	<10	<10	<10
017088	Tara High School	39	11	<10
017092	EBR Readiness Superintendent Academy	<10	<10	<10
017102	Woodlawn High School	47	19	12
017127	East Baton Rouge Laboratory Academy	<10	<10	<10
017129	EBR Acceleration Academy	<10	<10	<10
018002	General Trass High School	20	<10	<10
019013	East Feliciana Parish Enrichment Academy	<10	<10	<10
019014	East Feliciana High School	<10	<10	<10
020001	Basile High School	<10	<10	<10
020008	Mamou High School	<10	<10	<10
020010	Pine Prairie High School	<10	<10	<10
020014	Ville Platte High School	<10	<10	<10
020018	Evangeline Central School	<10	<10	<10
021007	Franklin Parish High School	17	<10	<10
021025	Horace G. White Sr. Learning Center	<10	<10	<10
022004	Georgetown High School	<10	<10	<10
022005	Grant High School	15	<10	<10
022006	Montgomery High School	<10	<10	<10
022011	Grant Academy	<10	<10	<10
023007	Delcambre High School	<10	<10	<10
023015	Jeanerette Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
023020	Loreauville High School	<10	<10	<10
023022	Westgate High School	24	<10	<10
023024	New Iberia Senior High School	30	<10	14
023037	Alternative Center for Education	<10	<10	<10
024010	Plaquemine Senior High School	14	<10	<10
024017	White Castle High School	<10	<10	<10
024025	East Iberville Elementary/High School	<10	<10	<10
024026	Iberville Parish Optional Education Center	<10	<10	<10
025005	Jonesboro-Hodge High School	<10	<10	<10
025007	Quitman High School	<10	<10	<10
025010	Weston High School	<10	<10	<10
026010	Bonnabel Magnet Academy High School	52	<10	<10
026017	Helen Cox High School	24	<10	<10
026022	East Jefferson High School	26	<10	<10
026023	John Ehret High School	42	<10	<10
026029	Fisher Middle/High School	<10	<10	<10
026031	Grand Isle High School	<10	<10	<10
026042	Haynes Academy School for Advanced Studies	<10	<10	<10
026045	L.W. Higgins High School	36	<10	<10
026051	Grace King High School	72	<10	<10
026068	Riverdale High School	21	<10	<10
026080	West Jefferson High School	33	<10	<10
026107	Thomas Jefferson High School for Advanced Studies	<10	<10	<10
026119	Martyn Academy for Career Preparation	<10	<10	<10
026120	Douglass Academy for Career Preparation	<10	<10	<10
026123	Jefferson Chamber Foundation Academy	<10	<10	<10
027001	Elton High School	<10	<10	<10
027004	Hathaway High School	<10	<10	<10
027006	Jennings High School	10	<10	28
027010	Lacassine High School	<10	<10	<10
027012	Lake Arthur High School	<10	<10	<10
027014	Welsh High School	<10	<10	<10
028002	Acadiana High School	26	<10	17
028010	Carencro High School	20	<10	<10
028011	O. Comeaux High School	52	13	<10
028019	Lafayette High School	45	<10	<10
028027	Northside High School	<10	<10	<10
028046	Lafayette Charter High School	<10	<10	<10
028053	Early College Academy	<10	<10	<10
029003	Central Lafourche High School	15	<10	29
029026	South Lafourche High School	12	12	15
029029	Thibodaux High School	20	<10	24
029040	Virtual Academy of Lafourche	<10	<10	<10
030004	Jena High School	<10	<10	10
030006	LaSalle High School	<10	<10	<10
031003	Choudrant High School	<10	<10	10
031005	Dubach School	<10	<10	<10
031013	Ruston High School	23	<10	<10
031014	Simsboro High School	<10	<10	<10
031021	Lincoln Parish Career Academy	<10	<10	<10
032002	Albany High School	<10	<10	<10
032005	Denham Springs High School	26	<10	13
032008	Doyle High School	<10	<10	<10
032009	French Settlement High School	<10	<10	<10
032012	Holden High School	<10	<10	<10
032014	Live Oak High School	15	<10	11
032016	Pine Ridge School	<10	<10	<10
032017	Maurepas School	<10	<10	<10
032023	Springfield High School	<10	<10	<10
032024	Walker High School	21	<10	37
032025	Walker Freshman High School	<10	<10	<10
032042	Denham Springs Freshman High School	18	<10	<10
033002	Madison High School	14	<10	<10
034002	Bastrop High School	27	<10	<10
034022	Career Center	<10	<10	10
035009	Natchitoches Central High School	30	<10	<10
035026	Lakeview Junior & Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
035030	Frankie Ray Jackson Sr. Technical Center	<10	<10	<10
035032	Lakeview Annex	<10	<10	<10
036035	Warren Easton Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
036043	Benjamin Franklin High School	12	<10	<10
036064	Edna Karr High School	<10	<10	<10
036073	Priestley School of Architecture/Construction	<10	<10	<10
036079	Lusher Charter School	<10	<10	<10
036088	McDonogh #35 College Preparatory School	<10	<10	<10
036096	Eleanor McMain Secondary School	10	<10	<10
036163	New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics HS	11	<10	<10
037019	Ouachita Parish High School	36	<10	<10
037025	Ouachita Parish Alternative School Program	10	<10	<10
037032	Sterlington High School	<10	<10	<10
037036	West Monroe High School	56	<10	14
037046	West Ouachita High School	27	<10	<10
037049	Richwood High School	<10	<10	<10
038001	Belle Chasse High School	20	<10	<10
038013	South Plaquemines High School	<10	<10	<10
039003	Livonia High School	<10	<10	<10
040003	Alexandria Senior High School	24	<10	<10
040006	Bolton High School	18	<10	<10
040011	Buckeye High School	<10	<10	<10
040014	Glenmora High School	<10	<10	<10
040019	Learning Effective Attitudes & Discipline Ctr	<10	<10	<10
040028	Oak Hill High School	<10	<10	<10
040030	Peabody Magnet High School	15	<10	<10
040033	Pineville High School	38	<10	<10
040035	Plainview High School	<10	<10	<10
040037	Rapides High School	<10	<10	<10
040048	Tioga High School	21	<10	17
040055	Northwood High School	<10	<10	<10
040063	J.S. Slocum Learning Center	<10	<10	<10
041002	Red River High School	<10	<10	11
042001	Delhi High School	<10	<10	<10
042006	Mangham High School	<10	<10	<10
042008	Rayville High School	<10	<10	<10
043001	Converse High School	<10	<10	<10
043004	Florien High School	<10	<10	<10
043006	Many High School	<10	<10	<10
043008	Negreet High School	<10	<10	<10
043010	Pleasant Hill High School	<10	<10	<10
043012	Zwolle High School	<10	<10	<10
043017	Sabine Career Academy	<10	<10	<10
044006	Chalmette High School	34	<10	<10
045003	Destrehan High School	21	<10	<10
045005	Hahnville High School	22	<10	<10
046002	St. Helena Central High School	<10	<10	<10
047004	Lutcher High School	12	<10	<10
047008	St. James High School	<10	<10	<10
048001	East St. John High School	41	<10	<10
048013	West St. John High School	<10	<10	<10
048026	St. John Alternative School	<10	<10	<10
048027	Leon Godchaux Alternative Program	<10	<10	<10
049010	Eunice High School	14	<10	<10
049032	Opelousas Senior High School	16	<10	<10
049051	North Central High School	<10	<10	10
049052	Beau Chene High School	<10	<10	25
049053	Northwest High School	11	<10	<10
049056	Port Barre High School	<10	<10	<10
049057	St. Landry Accelerated Transition School	<10	<10	<10
049058	Magnet Academy for Cultural Arts	<10	<10	<10
050004	Breaux Bridge High School	<10	<10	<10
050008	Cecilia High School	<10	<10	<10
050017	St. Martinville Senior High School	13	<10	<10
050021	St. Martin Parish Juvenile Training Center	<10	<10	<10
051006	Berwick High School	<10	<10	<10
051007	Centerville High School	<10	<10	<10
051012	Franklin Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
051021	Morgan City High School	19	<10	<10
051024	Patterson High School	<10	<10	<10
051039	West St. Mary High School	<10	<10	<10
052013	Covington High School	45	<10	19
052026	Mandeville High School	39	15	<10
052029	Pearl River High School	23	<10	<10
052035	Salmen High School	48	<10	<10
052037	Slidell High School	60	<10	19
052039	Northshore High School	39	<10	<10
052052	Fontainebleau High School	26	<10	<10
052054	Operation Jumpstart West Alternative Program	<10	<10	<10
052055	Slidell Pathways School	<10	<10	<10
052061	Lakeshore High School	21	<10	<10
053002	Amite High School	<10	<10	<10
053009	Hammond High Magnet School	24	<10	<10
053012	Independence High School	13	<10	<10
053015	Kentwood High Magnet School	<10	<10	<10
053017	Loranger High School	11	<10	<10
053024	Ponchatoula High School	24	<10	<10
053029	Jewel M. Sumner High School	<10	<10	<10
053044	Tangipahoa Parish PM High School	<10	<10	<10
053045	Florida Parishes Juvenile Detention Cntr.	<10	<10	<10
053052	Tangipahoa Alternative Solutions Programs	<10	<10	<10
054001	Tensas High School	<10	<10	<10
055005	H. L. Bourgeois High School	10	<10	<10
055013	Ellender Memorial High School	10	<10	<10
055015	Evergreen Junior High School	<10	<10	<10
055020	Houma Junior High School	<10	<10	<10
055031	Andrew Price School	<10	<10	<10
055034	South Terrebonne High School	<10	<10	<10
055036	Terrebonne High School	16	<10	<10
056002	Downsville Charter School	<10	<10	<10
056004	Union Parish High School	20	<10	<10
056010	Marion K-8 School	<10	<10	<10
056012	Spearsville K-8 School	<10	<10	<10
057001	Abbeville High School	11	<10	28
057006	Erath High School	<10	<10	11
057008	Gueydan High School	<10	<10	<10
057013	Kaplan High School	11	<10	16
057016	North Vermilion High School	<10	<10	<10
058001	Anacoco High School	<10	<10	<10
058003	Evans High School	<10	<10	<10
058004	Hicks High School	<10	<10	<10
058005	Hornbeck High School	<10	<10	<10
058006	Leesville High School	129	<10	11
058007	Leesville Junior High School	<10	<10	<10
058009	Pickering High School	45	<10	<10
058010	Pitkin High School	<10	<10	<10
058012	Rosepine High School	21	12	10
058013	Simpson High School	<10	<10	<10
058020	Vernon Parish Optional Program	<10	<10	<10
059006	Franklinton High School	19	<10	<10
059007	Mt. Hermon School	<10	<10	<10
059008	Pine School	11	<10	<10
059011	Varnado High School	<10	<10	<10
060005	Doyline High School	<10	<10	<10
060011	Webster Parish Achievement Center	<10	<10	<10
060012	Minden High School	11	<10	22
060018	Lakeside Junior-Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
060019	North Webster High School	25	<10	<10
060029	Hope Youth Ranch Alternative Center	<10	<10	<10
061001	Brusly High School	<10	<10	<10
061008	Port Allen High School	<10	<10	<10
062001	Epps High School	<10	<10	<10
062003	Forest School	<10	<10	<10
062005	Kilbourne High School	<10	<10	<10
062006	Oak Grove High School	<10	<10	<10
063003	West Feliciana High School	14	<10	<10
064001	Atlanta High School	<10	<10	<10
064002	Calvin High School	<10	<10	<10
064003	Dodson High School	<10	<10	<10
064009	Winnfield High School	<10	<10	<10
065002	Carroll High School	13	<10	<10
065014	Neville High School	31	<10	<10
065018	Wossman High School	25	<10	<10
065023	Sherrouse School	<10	<10	<10
065025	Career Development Center	<10	<10	<10
066002	Bogalusa High School	23	<10	<10
066013	Bogalusa New Tech High School	<10	<10	<10
067004	Zachary High School	26	19	<10
067009	Port Hudson Career Academy	<10	<10	<10
068002	Baker High School	<10	<10	<10
069004	Central High School	17	13	32
101034	Brentwood Hospital	<10	<10	<10
300003	Lake Area New Tech Early College High School	18	<10	<10
302006	Louisiana School for Math Science & the Arts	<10	<10	<10
304001	Louisiana School for the Deaf	<10	<10	<10
304002	Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired	<10	<10	<10
307001	Howard School	10	<10	<10
311001	AMIkids Southwest	<10	<10	<10
311002	AMIkids Baton Rouge	<10	<10	<10
311004	AMIkids Red River	<10	<10	<10
311006	AMIkids Northeast Louisiana	<10	<10	<10
318001	LSU Laboratory School	<10	10	<10
319001	Southern University Lab School	<10	<10	<10
323002	Grambling State University Lab High School	<10	<10	<10
333001	Avoyelles Public Charter School	<10	<10	<10
336001	Delhi Charter School	<10	<10	<10
343001	Madison Preparatory Academy	<10	<10	<10
343002	Louisiana Virtual Charter Academy	<10	<10	<10
344001	International High School of New Orleans	25	<10	<10
345001	Louisiana Connections Academy	<10	<10	13
361001	Crescent Leadership Academy	<10	<10	<10
362001	John McDonogh High School	18	<10	<10
369004	ReNEW Accelerated High School #1	<10	<10	<10
369005	ReNEW Accelerated High School #2	<10	<10	<10
377003	Pointe Coupee Central High School	<10	<10	<10
382001	Sci Academy	15	<10	<10
383001	Sojourner Truth Academy	<10	<10	<10
384001	Miller-McCoy Academy for Mathematics and Business	<10	<10	<10
389001	Abramson Science & Technology Charter School	<10	<10	<10
395005	Lord Beaconsfield Landry-Oliver Perry Walker High	24	<10	<10
395007	Algiers Technology Academy	<10	<10	<10
396002	Joseph S. Clark Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
396004	Walter L. Cohen High School	29	<10	<10
396007	Fredrick A. Douglass High School	<10	<10	<10
396011	John McDonogh Senior High School	49	<10	<10
396017	Sarah Towles Reed Senior High School	39	<10	<10
396022	Schwarz Alternative School	12	<10	<10
396026	G.W. Carver High School	25	<10	<10
396031	L. B. Landry High School	20	<10	<10
396042	International High School	<10	<10	<10
396043	Greater Gentilly High School	<10	<10	<10
396044	Hope Academy	<10	<10	<10
396045	New Orleans Career Academy	<10	<10	<10
396202	Capitol High School	<10	<10	<10
396203	Abramson Science and Technology School	<10	<10	<10
396204	Istrouma Senior High School	<10	<10	<10
396207	Pointe Coupee Central High School	<10	<10	<10
397001	Sophie B. Wright Learning Academy	<10	<10	<10
399003	Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School	<10	<10	<10
A02002	Riverside Alternative High School	<10	<10	<10

What this report shows is that out of about 1400 cohort members for the graduation class of 2012 (the 2012 cohort is basically composed of all students that entered in 9^th grade in 2009, 10^th grade in 2010, 11^th in 2011 or 12^th grade in 2012 – minus legitimate leavers from the cohort), at a minimum 29+49+39+12+25+20 or a minimum of 174 students or 12.5% of the entire cohort and a maximum of around 210 or 15% of the entire cohort. What would this mean in practical terms? Try lowering the RSD’s grad rate to by far the lowest in the state.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/education/9697755-171/new-orleans-area-high-schools

Did the rate really dip in 2013, or did RSD just cheat less?

According to my figures their rate should have been closer to about 52% when correcting for invalid and undocumented exit codes or approximately 20% below the statewide graduation rate.

Wow.

If the cheating stayed the same (which is almost would have had to since this takes place over 4 years and can’t be stopped in just one) the graduation rate for RSD in New Orleans could be as low as 45% or probably the worst in the nation. What’s more is this is only half of the story, but I will have to document the rest in future posts . . . but it’s bad. Really bad. When I realized just how messed up this situation was, I admit I lost it when I was communicating with the department. I demanded they tell me what they were doing to find these kids, to help them, why they didn’t audit the rest of these numbers. I talked to Darryl Purpera, the legislative auditor, to notify him of this situation, and found myself withdrawing and recoiling in horror. My background is in accounting and auditing, and Darryl and I both know what it means when you do an audit and find 100% failure rate, and then don’t increase your sample size. You already know the answer and don’t want to confirm it.

I found myself paralyzed for a while with a little self-loathing for not doing more to help these kids sooner. . . hundreds, perhaps thousands of kids, discarded like some much garbage, and masked by a few unaudited pieces of data. I hoped I was wrong, that LDOE would tell me they were sorry and actively trying to contact these kids and families to find out what happened. I was hoping a new report would be forthcoming and prayed that it would, but it has not. I sent another entreaty to LDOE earlier this week to please give me something, because this is so horrible. I told them what I would be writing if they didn’t give me something to mitigate my report. . .but still nothing. And this is only the half of it. The situation could be much worse.

What’s more, LDOE did not even bother to audit John McDonogh even though they had 49 students exited form the cohort has transferring out of state, or roughly 50% of their cohort for that year. The newspapers reported a high graduate rate for John McDonogh before they were handed over to Steve Barr and Future Is Now, but before that charter operator failed them, they were massively failed for years by RSD, and they can’t or won’t even try to find out how bad that situation is. The community is asking that John McDonogh be given back to the Orleans Parish school system which boasts an 89% graduation rate, one of the highest in the State, and virtually no students transferring out of state (let alone fictitiously doing so.)

RSD has failed. They have failed worse than we may ever know, but so much worse than has ever been reported to date. The charters schools in Orleans are mostly D and F schools, and are not being audited or properly overseen by the state. There is no credible reason not to return John McDonogh back to the community. RSD turned this school into the worst school in the country, many times over and in worse ways than we will ever fully know. RSD has closed, but their undue, undemocratic dictatorial influence carries on.

And let me explain something else. LDOE adjusted cohort counts for students found to be undocumented in the audit. They did not adjust dropout figures and have no intention of doing so.

Jason –

 The review was about verifying that legitimate leaver codes were used and to determine if the necessary supporting documentation was maintained. For the 2014 cohort, all LEAs will be reviewed on legitimate leaver codes. This review was not about dropout rates.

LDOE will not do a full audit for the 2013 graduate counts. The first full audit won’t be done until 2014, long after RSD is closed and basically unauditable because they will have no school personnel and no records to review. But this is only a portion of the story, which has statewide implications. What I want you to carry away from this article is that RSD was not just a failure, that should never been touted as a success or duplicated, but that Louisiana’s graduate and dropout numbers are inflated and deflated respectively. I will show how in a more complex post than this one. I also want those debating the future of John McDonogh to understand this school must be given back to the New Orleans community. RSD is a fraudulent and irresponsible organization that discards children with arcane data and incompetence. They are closed but they are not without influence. I have asked RSD and LDOE a half dozen times over the last month what they plan to do about the hundreds of discarded children, fraudulently coded as transfers out of state, and they have refused to answer.

I would like to know the department’s reasoning for not investigating more fully the most extreme offenders. ..not just in RSD but Calcasieu,  EBR, Jefferson, Monroe and so forth.  Especially when you get such high error rates, like 100% for RSD, you have to be concerned if any of that data is valid, and what actually happened to those kids??  RSD is directly run by LDOE. Those kids disappeared on your watch. Is anyone trying to contact these kids and families to find out what happened?

We know the answer. LDOE and RSD are the least accountable education entities in the state and they must not be entrusted with our children anymore. Disband the RSD and give back John Mac. Anything else is child abuse, and anything less is sanctioning it.

Fun with Payroll files of LDOE (and related entities)

I was asked to research into why a number of people at LDOE are suddenly getting promotions. Apparently over the last few months a dozen or so jobs have popped up on the Civil Service job posting site with very narrow application time frames (less than a week). These postings say they are only accepting internal applicants. Within a short time frame new folks go to new jobs with decent raises while the rest of the department goes another year without raises. It was hypothesized that this was being done to secretly reward and situate folks before John White left.

. . . last Friday LDOE posted a buttload; about 8. This is the most simultaneous postings I remember seeing. These are all higher ranking classified positions (mostly EPC 5s) on the Civil Service website. In fact one was posted Thursday and expires tomorrow at noon. These are mostly promotional so not open to external applicants. They were posted with only 5 calendar days (including the 2 weekend days) to apply. This was done to promote people internally – many of whom were recently brought in by this regime.  Looks like 1 or 2 are being promoted but doing the same work, but most of them are (EVEN MORE) brand new management positions.

And they continue to make jobs for their friends in the reform business. We can’t get a raise and they continue to make jobs for some. There is another reorg in motion with more (I think) than the allowed number of assistant supes. And yes there are interns all over. They even plan to have get togethers for them- I guess to brainwash. We’ve have a different one each year for the past 4 years.

I did not expect LDOE to be particularly forthcoming on furnishing me details about what was going on so I requested some payroll files for this year and last year from Civil Service. Those are public records and various local newspapers request and post salaries for all state workers from time to time in searchable databases.

In the Special School District there were no promotions and only 4 of the 105 employees they had employed on June 30^th of 2013 and June 30^th of 2014 received raises. It appears these were not based on promotions but some other factor external to the data I received. Possible factors are nepotism, favoritism, blackmail or bribery, new duties not encapsulated in their employment records and titles, or simply because these individuals have skills or knowledge that would be expensive to replace.

Personnel Area	Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	2014job	2013job	Hourly Pay Rate	Full-time / Part-time	2013pay	2014pay	dif
DOE-Special School Districts	Methodist Home for children	Unclassified	ANDERSON,ANITA D	INSTRUCTOR	INSTRUCTOR	38.07	Full-time	57,289.96	69,293.90	12003.94
DOE-Special School Districts	SSD SPECIAL EDUCATION	Unclassified	GRANGER,ANITA A	CONSULTANT	INSTRUCTOR	36.06	Full-time	70,000.06	75,000.12	5000.06
DOE-Special School Districts	SSD CENTRAL OFFICE	Unclassified	JONES,AVIS K	PARAEDUCATOR	PARAEDUCATOR	18.02	Full-time	32,802.90	37,481.60	4678.7
DOE-Special School Districts	SSD RI CENTRAL	Unclassified	PREJEAN,SHELANDA K	INSTRUCTOR	INSTRUCTOR	38.67	Full-time	67,029.82	70,381.22	3351.4

One of the reasons agencies are not supposed to limit raises to a very small subset (and to be completely transparent about how some folks get raises and others don’t) is out of concern for the first set of reasons becoming significant factors in retaining employees. Obviously situations where a slim subset of favored employees are getting special treatment is a form of corruption and not healthy for public or private entities. Prolonged use of these types of practices will leave us with agencies filled with employees getting jobs and keeping jobs strictly because of who they know, (not what they know or what they do.) Civil Service was established to ensure a fair playing field for State Employees and to prevent this exact good ole boys network – which historically was a serious problem for Louisiana. However despite Jindal’s ethics reform claims to fame, Civil Service has been abused and castrated under Bobby Jindal’s administration and is unable to ensure equitable and fair treatment for State employees in many cases – particularly in regards to hiring, firing(layoffs) and compensation. These types of exclusive compensation situations are a concern for me, and should be for you. I am not saying the 3% of employees that got raises (despite being in the same jobs) have done anything wrong but I have a feeling that at least some of 101 employees, the other 97%, deserved to make at least the same money when tied to the inflation index. What happens when you don’t pay your employees is you lose them, and with them all the money you invested in them and all their institutional knowledge – which is often irreplaceable. When you stop paying state employees competitive wages you are asking them to subsidize the government your elected officials have constructed.

This brain-drain happened at LDOE with significant consequences. Local funding is constantly being miscalculated, data is handled carelessly, disabled students are treated illegally and not protected, and opportunities for grand and costly mistakes become more likely – if not inevitable. Of course what also happens is that employees like myself and Tom Aswell at Louisiana Voice also leave and air our agencies dirty laundry, so maybe there are some upsides to the general public for abusing civil servants for political gains. J However I assure you this is a dangerous and unstable situation. I agree that we have probably have too much government in many areas in the State and Nation, but punishing folks that have dedicated their lives to serve you and your families is not the way to make things better for anyone. Many of the abuses, scandals and wastes in government are a result of the folks we elect, like failed Congressional candidate Neil Riser (who despite Jindal’s shady shenanigans lost to the Kissing Congressman Vance McAlister)who appears to have secretly passed a law to benefit the retirement of a personal friend, State Police Superintendent Edmonson, to the tune of 55,000 per year (nearly twice what most employed state workers make) Denying raises to most state employees, except favored ones, is like attempting to treat the symptoms of a scraped knee with sandpaper, instead of treating the root cause – which is often our elected officials voting for things we can’t or shouldn’t be paying for – like continuing to provide corporate welfare for corporations that fail to create the new jobs they promise, and pricy pension amendments for the well connected.

In the Recovery School District 34 of 169 employees received raises. The vast majority of these raises were not based on promotions but some other factors not revealed by the data. It appears one employee must have been on administrative leave and earned no salary in 2013 so they saw the biggest increase.

Personnel Area	Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	2014job	2013job	Hourly Pay Rate	Full-time / Part-time	2013pay	2014pay	dif
DOE-Recovery School District	GLEN OAKS MIDDLE SCHOOL	Unclassified	WILLIAMS,LONTARRIS A	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	25.05	Full-time	0.00	52,107.90	52107.9
DOE-Recovery School District	ISTROUMA HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	BRISCO,ARNEISHA	RSD-ADMIN ASST PRINCIPAL	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	49.78	Full-time	75,000.12	103,541.88	28541.76
DOE-Recovery School District	BANNEKER ELEMENTARY	Unclassified	BAILEY,HIRAM W	RSD-ADMIN PRINCIPAL	RSD-ADMIN ASST PRINCIPAL	46.15	Full-time	65,000.00	90,000.04	25000.04
DOE-Recovery School District	GLEN OAKS MIDDLE SCHOOL	Unclassified	BRYER,NYKEISHA T	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	RSD-TEACH ELEMENTARY	30.00	WAE	39,379.08	62,400.00	23020.92
DOE-Recovery School District	DALTON ELEMENTARY	Unclassified	DOMINO,BRIDGET A	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-PARAED REGULAR PROGRA	21.51	Full-time	22,922.90	44,742.10	21819.2
DOE-Recovery School District	REED HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	PEYTON,TERRI D	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	34.36	Full-time	48,568.00	66,999.92	18431.92
DOE-Recovery School District	SCHOOL FACILITIES MASTER PLAN	Unclassified	CAMBRIA,ANDREA C	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	48.08	Full-time	81,999.84	99,999.90	18000.06
DOE-Recovery School District	ISTROUMA HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	JORDAN,SHALANDA L	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	30.00	WAE	45,975.02	62,400.00	16424.98
DOE-Recovery School District	ISTROUMA HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	GORDON,DAMIAN G	RSD-ADMIN ASST PRINCIPAL	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	30.22	Full-time	47,607.82	62,862.28	15254.46
DOE-Recovery School District	REED HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	HORTON,KATRINA A	RSD-ADMIN PRINCIPAL	RSD-CLER OTHER PUPIL SUPP	48.72	Full-time	79,999.92	95,000.10	15000.18
DOE-Recovery School District	FINANCE	Unclassified	KEOGH,ROBERT W	RSD-OTHER BUILDINGS SERVI	RSD-OTHER BUILDINGS SERVI	36.06	Full-time	59,999.94	75,000.12	15000.18
DOE-Recovery School District	ST. HELENA MIDDLE SCHOOL	Unclassified	BOUDREAUX,FREDRICK	RSD-TEACH ELEMENTARY	RSD-TEACH ELEMENTARY	28.18	Full-time	45,975.02	58,618.30	12643.28
DOE-Recovery School District	INTERVENTION	Unclassified	MARTINEZ,MELIDA	RSD-ADMIN OTHER PUPIL SUP	RSD-ADMIN OTHER PUPIL SUP	32.46	Full-time	51,066.60	63,304.28	12237.68
DOE-Recovery School District	FINANCE	Unclassified	PAGANO,SHERRY M	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	29.57	Full-time	50,689.60	61,499.88	10810.28
DOE-Recovery School District	SERVICE AND OPERATIONS	Unclassified	DELCOUR,TIFFANY	RSD-ADMIN HEALTH SERVICES	RSD-ADMIN HEALTH SERVICES	43.28	Full-time	79,999.92	90,012.00	10012.08
DOE-Recovery School District	FINANCE	Unclassified	TEBELEFF,JONATHAN F	RSD-PROF BUDGET ANALYST	RSD-PROF BUDGET ANALYST	45.67	Full-time	84,999.98	95,000.10	10000.12
DOE-Recovery School District	FINANCE	Unclassified	LAIN,SHAVON	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	24.04	Full-time	39,999.96	50,000.08	10000.12
DOE-Recovery School District	SCHOOL FACILITIES MASTER PLAN	Unclassified	HANKINS,LONA E	DIRECTOR	DIRECTOR	67.31	Full-time	131,248.00	139,999.86	8751.86
DOE-Recovery School District	COHEN HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	MAGEE,NICY L	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	24.97	Full-time	39,999.96	48,685.00	8685.04
DOE-Recovery School District	PORTFOLIO	Unclassified	GRAINER,AIMEE K	RSD-ADMIN OTHER PUPIL SUP	RSD-ADMIN OTHER PUPIL SUP	28.85	Full-time	52,499.98	59,999.94	7499.96
DOE-Recovery School District	INTERVENTION	Unclassified	MOORE,JAMES	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	36.06	Full-time	68,250.00	75,010.00	6760
DOE-Recovery School District	ISTROUMA HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	TURNER,MICAH	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	24.04	Full-time	43,535.96	50,000.08	6464.12
DOE-Recovery School District	HUMAN RESOURCES	Unclassified	ILLIDGE,IVAN	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	36.06	Full-time	69,999.80	75,010.00	5010.2
DOE-Recovery School District	PORTFOLIO	Unclassified	MOGG,LAURA L	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	RSD-ADMIN REGULAR PROGRAM	48.08	Full-time	94,999.84	100,009.00	5009.16
DOE-Recovery School District	SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES	Unclassified	CRAYTON,LERONE	RSD-CLER OTHER SPEC PROGR	RSD-CLER OTHER SPEC PROGR	38.46	Full-time	75,000.12	80,002.00	5001.88
DOE-Recovery School District	RSD-LA	Unclassified	BARKER,KRISTINE A	RSD-CLER OTHER SPEC PROGR	RSD-CLER OTHER SPEC PROGR	38.46	Full-time	74,999.86	80,000.18	5000.32
DOE-Recovery School District	ENROLLMENT	Unclassified	CRAVENS,WILLIAM F	RSD-OTHER PARENTAL INVOLV	RSD-OTHER PARENTAL INVOLV	19.23	Full-time	34,999.90	39,988.00	4988.1
DOE-Recovery School District	SAFETY AND SECURITY	Unclassified	SWAIN,LONNIE H	RSD-OTHER SECURITY	RSD-OTHER SECURITY	40.00	WAE	78,749.84	83,200.00	4450.16
DOE-Recovery School District	EARLY LEARNING CENTER	Unclassified	WASHINGTON,JANET L	PARAEDUCATOR	RSD-PARAED PRE K	10.26	Full-time	15,555.28	19,999.98	4444.7
DOE-Recovery School District	ANALYTICS	Unclassified	LEWIS,DARREN J	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	RSD-OTHER IT	12.00	WAE	20,800.00	24,960.00	4160
DOE-Recovery School District	SERVICE AND OPERATIONS	Unclassified	FOREST,DALEAN	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	RSD-ADMIN BUSINESS OFFICI	27.16	Full-time	53,999.92	56,500.08	2500.16
DOE-Recovery School District	SUPERINTENDENTS OFFICE	Unclassified	USAND,PAMELA N	RSD-CLER CHIEF OFFICERS	RSD-CLER CHIEF OFFICERS	26.56	Full-time	52,737.88	55,237.78	2499.9
DOE-Recovery School District	POINTE COUPEE HIGH SCHOOL	Unclassified	JOHNIGAN,CLEOTHA	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	19.35	Full-time	39,138.06	40,246.96	1108.9
DOE-Recovery School District	GLEN OAKS MIDDLE SCHOOL	Unclassified	KING,ROBYN L	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	RSD-ADMIN OTHER SPEC PROG	11.54	Full-time	23,400.00	24,000.08	600.08

At BESE it appears every employee, except the Director, Heather Cope, received approximately a 3.5% increase. At least one educational entity is playing fair.

Personnel Area	Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	2014job	2013job	Hourly Pay Rate	Full-time / Part-time	2013pay	2014pay	dif
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF / BE	Unclassified	MARTIN,DARIA P	ADMINISTRATOR	ADMINISTRATOR	35.00	Full-time	70,000.06	72,800.00	2799.94
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF / BE	Unclassified	BORCHGREVINK,ALISON N	ANALYST	ANALYST	33.50	Full-time	66,999.92	69,680.00	2680.08
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	8(G) PROGRAMS	Classified	BUTLER,DEBRA A	AUDITOR 3	AUDITOR 3	33.40	Full-time	66,809.60	69,472.00	2662.4
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	8(G) PROGRAMS	Unclassified	TRIPEAUX,KIMBERLY V	ADMINISTRATOR	ADMINISTRATOR	43.15	Full-time	87,131.20	89,752.00	2620.8
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	EDUCATION ADMIN / ADMIN P	Unclassified	DAVIS,SHAN N	ADMINISTRATOR	ADMINISTRATOR	36.05	Full-time	72,800.00	74,984.00	2184
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF / BE	Unclassified	FORD,NINA A	ADMINISTRATOR	ADMINISTRATOR	33.66	Full-time	67,974.40	70,012.80	2038.4
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	8(G) PROGRAMS	Unclassified	TIMOLL,DAVID S	MANAGER	MANAGER	31.94	Full-time	64,500.02	66,435.20	1935.18
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	LEGIS FINANCE / ADMIN PRO	Classified	PETIT,ABIGAIL S	ADMIN COORD 4	ADMIN COORD 4	23.44	Full-time	46,883.20	48,755.20	1872
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	CHARTER SCHOOLS / ADMIN P	Unclassified	KEMPE,ANDREW	ADMINISTRATOR	ADMINISTRATOR	28.72	Full-time	58,000.02	59,737.60	1737.58
SSC-Bd Elem & Secondary Edu	ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF / BE	Unclassified	COLLIER,DOROTHY L	EXEC ADM ASST	EXEC ADM ASST	25.50	Full-time	51,500.02	53,040.00	1539.98

 

Frankly I’ve never worked anywhere that did not provide raises or bonuses at least annually and I would not stay anywhere that did not at least keep up with inflation. I have a family and couldn’t afford it as I’m sure most of these state workers do too. I’ve gotten raises or bonuses more frequently in the public sector jobs where I’ve been employed. Of course you probably don’t need a raise for a while if you come in making close to or over six figures – with just a couple years of experience as many of John White’s hires often do.

This discovery has made me wonder what DOA (Jindal’s right hand) and the Governor’s office is doing so I shall inquire there next for comparison purposes. . .

Of course most of you probably clicked on this link to find out about LDOE. I would be remiss to leave you without answering some of your questions. I can’t be sure, but I did not find a lot of evidence to support the claim that TFA types are reaping all the rewards of the latest slew of promotions and salary increases. (That’s not to say they aren’t already well and perhaps overly compensated) I actually recognize several of the names of those who were promoted (several paygrades.) In some cases this is most likely a necessary result of the vast purges LDOE did since John White took office. After the dust settled, John White and his staff discovered they had done such a good job eliminating mid-level managers that they actually had very few left to handle the day to day operations. Most of those getting promotions probably are doing much the same jobs as they were before, because they were probably acting as the senior staffers in those positions due to the lack of any other experienced staff left. LDOE hires numerous “executive” managers and assistant superintendents and directors from the ranks of TFA and the politically connected, but those folks are vastly unqualified for the positions they are placed in. This is why you won’t find an up-to-date phone list or e-mail listing for most of these groups, because they aren’t capable of answering questions on their own and need to consult with the few experienced LDOE employees left behind. To ameliorate this situation for school districts concerned citizens I have decided to provide a listing of all employees for LDOE sorted by workgroup and salary. It’s amazing how close this is to precisely defining organizational structure of LDOE. For those of you wishing to correspond with these folks directly you contact use the help line (Call Us: 877-453-2721 (toll-free))
to ask for these “leaders” directly, or you can send them an e-mail. About 90% of the agency’s email addresses are defined as first.last@la.gov . For instance, mine e-mail was Jason.france@la.gov and John White’s e-mail is john.white@la.gov (although he has his executive assistant answer or ignore all his e-mails for him.)

Without further ado:

LDOE Raises (difference between June 30 2013 and June 30 2014) Source Civil Service

Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	2014job	2013job	Hourly Pay Rate	Full-time / Part-time	2013pay	2014pay	dif
ASSESSMENTS	Classified	BALLET,CIDNAE	ADMIN COORD 4	STUDENT	16.83	Full-time	8,112.00	34,999.90	26887.9
POLICY/EXTERNAL AFFAIRS	Classified	MERRILL,PATRICIA W	ADMIN COORD 4	ADMIN COORD 4	20.00	Full-time	20,800.00	41,600.00	20800
ACCOUNTABILITY	Unclassified	BAGHIAN,JESSICA T	ASST SUPERINTENDENT	FELLOW	52.88	Full-time	90,000.04	110,000.02	19999.98
TALENT	Classified	NORMAND,RACHEL E	EDUC INFO CONS 2	ADMIN PROG SPEC A	22.99	Full-time	29,016.00	47,808.80	18792.8
PORTFOLIO	Unclassified	SCHUTTE,MARIAN L	DIRECTOR	COORDINATOR	36.06	Full-time	59,999.94	75,000.12	15000.18
ASSESSMENTS	Classified	DEVINE,NOAH B	EXEC MGMT OFF 2	ADVISOR	36.06	Full-time	59,999.94	75,000.12	15000.18
PUBLIC AFFAIRS	Unclassified	LANDRY,BARRY C	PRESS SECRETARY	PRESS SECRETARY	40.87	Full-time	70,000.06	84,999.98	14999.92
STUDENT PROGRAMS	Classified	HANLEY,JOHN A	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	39.14	Full-time	71,406.40	81,411.20	10004.8
STU PROG-CONS PROG-HEALTHY COMMUNITIES	Classified	COMEAUX,MICHAEL C	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	COORDINATOR	38.46	Full-time	70,000.06	79,999.92	9999.86
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	ZONG,ZHANYING	EDUC RES ANAL MGR	EDUC RES ANAL 3	38.63	Full-time	70,491.20	80,350.40	9859.2
EARLY CHILDHOOD-ACADEMIC SUPPORT	Classified	STARNS,IVY B	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	37.15	Full-time	67,787.20	77,272.00	9484.8
STU PROG-21ST CENTURY COMM LRN CENTERS	Classified	PIERCE,KENYA J	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	35.72	Full-time	65,166.40	74,297.60	9131.2
FINANCE-APP CONT-FINANCIAL MGMT	Classified	JOSEPH,JAWANZA H	ACCOUNTANT MANAGER 1	AUDITOR 2	24.87	Full-time	43,742.40	51,729.60	7987.2
TALENT	Classified	MAINIERO,MELISSA T	EXEC MGMT OFF 2	EDUC PROG CONS 3	37.70	Full-time	70,964.92	78,416.00	7451.08
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 1	Classified	MCKINNEY,ELLYN T	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	41.80	Full-time	79,518.40	86,945.04	7426.64
HUMAN RESOURCES	Classified	JACKSON,MARTRESACA	HR ANALYST A	ADMIN COORD 4	20.00	Full-time	34,320.00	41,600.00	7280
CONTENT-COMMON CORE	Classified	JAMES-MAXIE,DANA	EDUC PROG CONS 5-B	EDUC TECH CONS	36.01	Full-time	67,787.20	74,900.80	7113.6
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 5	Classified	SAUCIER,PATRICE P	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	DIRECTOR	41.80	Full-time	79,919.84	86,945.04	7025.2
EARLY CHILDHOOD	Classified	PATEL,JIGNASHA	EXEC STAFF OFFICER	CONSULTANT	29.80	Full-time	54,999.88	61,984.00	6984.12
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 2	Classified	TALLEY,DANA S	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	TEAM MEMBER	41.80	Full-time	79,999.92	86,945.04	6945.12
CONTENT-CURRICULAR RESOURCES	Classified	BUCKLE,MARCIE C	EDUC PROG CONS 4	EDUC PROG CONS 3	34.62	Full-time	65,166.40	72,008.82	6842.42
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 3	Classified	WEBB,SHENOA T	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	41.80	Full-time	80,121.60	86,945.04	6823.44
EARLY CHILDHOOD-QUALITY RATING SYS	Classified	GROTSMA,DAISY A	CHILD DEV SUPV	PROGRAM SPECIALIST/SOC SV	24.66	Full-time	44,999.76	51,292.80	6293.04
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 2	Classified	ROBERTS,TERI P	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	41.80	Full-time	81,016.00	86,945.04	5929.04
CONTENT-COMMON CORE	Classified	WHEALDON,WHITNEY R	EDUC PROG CONS 5-B	EDUC PROG CONS 4	37.04	Full-time	72,009.60	77,050.22	5040.62
STU PROG-IDEA/NCLB SERV-IDEA MONITORING	Classified	SPARKS,MELODIE A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	36.92	Full-time	71,760.00	76,793.60	5033.6
FINANCE-APP CONT-FINANCIAL MGMT	Classified	DICKERSON,CARLOS A	ACCOUNTANT MANAGER 4	ACCOUNTANT MANAGER 3	36.90	Full-time	71,739.20	76,752.00	5012.8
HUMAN RESOURCES-OPERATIONS	Classified	REED,MONITA	HR MAN A	HR SUP	34.41	Full-time	66,892.80	71,572.80	4680
PORTFOLIO	Classified	GODCHAUX,HEIDI L	ADMIN COORD 2	STUDENT	12.00	WAE	7,904.00	12,480.00	4576
CONTENT-COMMON CORE	Classified	GUILLORY,TRISTEN	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	33.44	Full-time	65,000.00	69,555.20	4555.2
FINANCE-ED FIN-MIN FOUND PROG/CHARTER SC	Classified	MATTHEW,ZALINSKY Z	BUDGET ANALYST 3	BUDGET ANALYST 2	22.82	Full-time	42,952.00	47,465.60	4513.6
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS ADMINISTRATION	Classified	COATES,GIDGET M	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	32.58	Full-time	63,336.00	67,766.40	4430.4
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	CLINTON,DANNA S	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	31.51	Full-time	61,256.00	65,540.80	4284.8
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	JUDY,KATHLEEN B	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	31.51	Full-time	61,256.00	65,540.80	4284.8
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	STRANGE,LELA F	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUCATIONAL ASST	28.97	WAE	26,000.00	30,128.80	4128.8
STU PROG-NUT SERV-SCHOOL FOOD SERVICES	Classified	LEGIER,SHANNA K	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	28.97	Full-time	56,305.60	60,247.20	3941.6
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	BECK,JAMIE N	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 2	28.96	Full-time	56,305.60	60,236.80	3931.2
EXEC OFF	Classified	GAUTIER,NATALIE A	ADMIN COORD 2	STUDENT	12.00	WAE	8,632.00	12,480.00	3848
FINANCE-APP CONT-FINANCIAL MGMT	Classified	HILL,MICHELLE S	ACCOUNTANT MANAGER 2	ACCOUNTANT MANAGER 1	26.61	Full-time	51,729.60	55,348.80	3619.2

 

LDOE unRaises (difference between June 30 2013 and June 30 2014) Source Civil Service

Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	2014job	2013job	Hourly Pay Rate	Full-time / Part-time	2013pay	2014pay	dif
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	TONGUIS,PAULA B	EDUC PROG CONS 3	INFO SYSTEM DIRECTOR	34.12	Full-time	75,000.12	70,964.40	-4035.72
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 5	Classified	HARRIS,KAKEISHA R	EDUC PROG CONS 3	TEAM MEMBER	34.12	Full-time	79,999.92	70,964.40	-9035.52
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 4	Classified	FONTENOT,MICHELLE L	EDUC PROG CONS 3	TEAM MEMBER	34.12	Full-time	79,999.92	70,964.40	-9035.52
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 2	Classified	BARBER,SHEILA A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	TEAM MEMBER	34.12	Full-time	79,999.92	70,964.40	-9035.52
DISTRICT SUPPORT-NETWORK 1	Classified	LAVESPERE,REBECCA A	EDUC PROG CONS 3	EDUC PROG CONS 3	31.34	Part-time	65,187.20	48,890.40	-16296.8
PORTFOLIO	Unclassified	SPEWAK,THERESA C	STUDENT	RSD-TEACH SECONDARY	20.00	Part-time	43,535.96	20,800.00	-22736
PORTFOLIO	Unclassified	LEFKOWITH,DAVID J	DIRECTOR	DIRECTOR	48.08	Full-time	145,999.88	99,999.90	-46000

 

LDOE Directory as of June 30, 2014 (Sorted by Org Name + Annual Pay Descending) Source Civil Service

Org Name	Classified / Unclassified	Employee Name	Job Title	Annual Pay Rate
ACCOUNTABILITY	Unclassified	BAGHIAN,JESSICA T	ASST SUPERINTENDENT	110,000.02
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	ZONG,ZHANYING	EDUC RES ANAL MGR	80,350.40
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	BISHOP,JOHN P	EDUC PROG CONS 2	73,548.80
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	PURNELL,THELMA C	EDUC PROG CONS 2	72,217.60
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	LI,LIXIA	EDUC RES ANAL 3	70,491.20
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	LIU,LI	EDUC RES ANAL 3	70,491.20
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	JENKINS,ERICA Y	EDUC PROG CONS 2	60,902.40
ACCOUNTABILITY	Classified	BAIRD,JENNIFER B	EDUC PROG CONS 5-B	42,504.80
ACCOUNTABILITY	Unclassified	ZHANG,YONGGANG	STUDENT	20,800.00
ACCOUNTABILITY	Unclassified	DYSON,JADELYN A	STUDENT	10,400.00
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	NESMITH,KIMBERLY D	EDUC TECH SR CONS	77,937.60
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	SCHULENBERG,ALLEN G	EDUC PROG CONS 4	76,772.80
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	TONGUIS,PAULA B	EDUC PROG CONS 3	70,964.40
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	LAMURY,REBECCA	EDUC INFO CONS MGR	70,000.06
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	FABRE,VAN N	EDUC PROG CONS 3	65,000.00
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	WILKINSON,CRYSTAL B	EDUC RES ANAL 3	65,000.00
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	LIU,YANXI	EDUC RES ANAL 3	62,660.00
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	EDGAR,JENNIFER	EDUC INFO CONS 3	54,735.20
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	LEWIS,JACQUELINE E	EDUC INFO CONS 3	54,735.20
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	RANDALL,SHERRY D	EDUC INFO CONS 3	54,735.20
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Unclassified	YANG,LU D	STUDENT	20,800.00
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Classified	DABNEY,ANDREA D	ADMIN COORD 4	13,384.80
ANALYTICS-DATA MANAGEMENT	Unclassified	LOUPE,KAYLIE N	STUDENT	10,608.00
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	BOUDREAUX,LAURA L	EDUC RES ANAL MGR	80,371.20
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	GUNNING,STEPHEN A	EDUC RES ANAL 3	74,464.00
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	WU,LISHA	EDUC RES ANAL 3	73,034.00
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	COLLIER,MICHAEL W	EDUC RES ANAL 3	72,092.80
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	KNOX,ROSA M	EDUC RES ANAL 3	71,000.02
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	TRAHAN,WANDA A	EDUC RES ANAL 3	70,491.20
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	RIDGE,JAMIE B	EDUC RES ANAL 3	67,787.20
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	SOTHIRAJAH,JAYANTHI	EDUC RES ANAL 3	62,660.00
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	ZANOVEC,MICHAEL T	EDUC RES ANAL 3	62,660.00
ANALYTICS-STRATEGIC RESEARCH ANALYTICS	Classified	POSEY,JOSHUA C	EDUC PROG CONS 2	60,902.40
ASSESSMENTS	Unclassified	MORRISON,WILLIAM D	ASST SUPERINTENDENT	119,999.88
ASSESSMENTS	Classified	DEVINE,NOAH B	EXEC MGMT OFF 2	75,000.12
ASSESSMENTS	Classified	LESAGE,KIMBERLY N	EDUC PROG CONS 3	62,649.60
ASSESSMENTS	Classified	BALLET,CIDNAE	ADMIN COORD 4	34,999.90
ASSESSMENTS	Unclassified	POLLARD,DAWNIELLE J	STUDENT	15,600.00
ASSESSMENTS	Unclassified	HALL,AYANNA E	STUDENT	10,400.00
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS ADMINISTRATION	Classified	KAHN,SUSAN N	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	72,009.60
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS ADMINISTRATION	Classified	COATES,GIDGET M	EDUC PROG CONS 3	67,766.40
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS ADMINISTRATION	Classified	BRADFORD,KRISTINA C	EDUC PROG CONS 3	67,496.00
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	SIBLEY,JAN L	EDUC PROG CONS 5-A	77,230.40
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	CLINTON,DANNA S	EDUC PROG CONS 3	65,540.80
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	JUDY,KATHLEEN B	EDUC PROG CONS 3	65,540.80
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	MCADAMS,MICHELLE	EDUC PROG CONS 3	60,247.98
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified	BECK,JAMIE N	EDUC PROG CONS 3	60,236.80
ASSESSMENTS-ASSESS DEVELOPMENT	Classified