Stan Heffner involved in major ethics violantions

The head of ODE and State Superintendent Stan Heffner, has been found in violation of state ethic laws according to an Inspector General report issued today. This investigation was prompted by Plunderbund reporting.

CONCLUSION TO THE INITIAL ALLEGATION At the time of his testimony before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, Heffner had already interviewed and secured a position at Educational Testing Service (ETS). Heffner negotiated the conditions of his employment with ETS, signed an offer, and began the process of transitioning from Ohio to San Antonio, Texas. He had met with ETS officials out of state and allowed them to pay for his travel; he took time from attending an out-of-state conference on behalf of ODE to meet with ETS officials. Heffner’s testimony supported legislation which would result in an increase of testing for Ohio’s school teachers. Based on the prior relationship between ODE and ETS, it was inappropriate for Heffner to give testimony in support of this bill given the strong likelihood that ETS could stand to profit.

Ohio Revised Code Section 121.41 defines at division (G): “Wrongful act or omission” means an act or omission, committed in the course of office holding or employment, that is not in accordance with the requirements of law or such standards of proper governmental conduct as are commonly accepted in the community and thereby subverts, or tends to subvert, the process of government.

By providing testimony to the legislature as the state’s principal employee for leadership in education, in support of a bill that could and ultimately did benefit a corporation with which he had entered into an agreement of employment, Heffner failed to meet the standards of proper governmental conduct as are commonly accepted in the community and subverts the process of government.

Accordingly, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General finds reasonable cause to believe wrongful acts or omissions occurred in these instances.

The report further details other violations uncovered during their investigation, including the misuse of state time and resources.

ADDITIONAL ISSUES DISCOVERED DURING THE INVESTIGATION
While investigating the initial allegations, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General found during the course of negotiating the employment agreement between Heffner and ETS, Heffner advised associates at ETS to use both his state-issued cell phone and his state email account as the preferred method of contact to conduct non-state business arrangements.

Further evidence has Heffner directing state employees to make personal arrangement for him, as he was looking for a new job. Here's just one of many examples uncovered

In addition, Heffner’s former executive secretary also provided documentation of email instructions addressed to her by Heffner for preparing an envelope to send an employment application to USD. (Exhibit 13) She also stated that Heffner instructed her to coordinate a flight to Washington, D.C., for a meeting between Heffner and ETS. She stated that though ETS scheduled the flight, she was instructed to convey the details of the flight to ETS’s executive search company, JRS.

He directed his assistant to prepare and coordinate his move to Texas and the subsequent mortgage arrangements

Heffner’s executive assistant recalled on one particular day, Heffner brought in a brief case full of personal documents which were related to the potential purchase of a home in San Antonio, and for the sale of his home in Westerville. The new executive assistant explained Heffner instructed her to organize the documents and assist in getting the process “finalized” for the mortgage company. She described the documents as Heffner’s personal records such as tax returns, bank statements, letters of financial debt, and anything you would need for a mortgage company. She stated that from the personal documents given to her by Heffner, as mortgage companies would contact her, she would provide whatever documentation they were seeking and would utilize whatever state equipment was necessary to send or transmit them. Occasionally, she stated, Heffner would inquire as to how the process of his home purchase was proceeding and would want to know about “timelines.”
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When asked if she believed that she had an option to refuse to perform this work she replied, “. . . and keep my job? Probably not.” She stated she was in “disbelief” that Heffner was instructing her to perform these personal tasks. She said, “My only option was to do what he needed and try to do it well so he, you know, so he would, so he would keep me.”

The Office of the Ohio Inspector General asks the State Board of Education of Ohio to consider whether administrative action is warranted and respond within 60 days detailing its decision.

The full IG report can be read here.
Exhibits from the investigation can be found here.

UPDATE

According to a Dispatch Report, the Superintendent is appologizing but refusing to resign

Ohio schools Superintendent Stan Heffner quickly apologized for ethics allegations outlined in a state watchdog investigation released today but stopped short of stepping down from the post he has held for a year.

“I accept the findings of the Inspector General’s report. I was wrong and I’m sorry for my lack of judgment,” Heffner said in a statement released by the Ohio Department of Education.

“I’ve apologized to my staff, my friends and colleagues at the department, and the board. I have learned from my mistakes, and I will work with the board to take whatever steps they feel are necessary to resolve this matter and move forward.”

The Gates Foundation Exposed. Part II

In Part I, we discussed the size and scope of the Gates Foundation, and it's subjective approach to reform. In this part we'll take a closer look at his current effort to promote corporate education reforms.

Gates is now moving on to his next article of faith in his quest to reform public education - attacking teacher seniority and professional education requirements. If it's not the school structure, it must be the teacher to blame goes the new thinking.

The Gates agenda is an intellectual cousin of the Bush administration's 2002 No Child Left Behind law, which required all public schools-though not individual teachers-to make "adequate yearly progress" on student test scores. Some opponents of No Child Left Behind questioned its faith in data; are scores too narrow a gauge of how well kids are learning? Gates sees nothing wrong in relying on quantitative metrics. "Every profession has to have some form of measurement," he said in a late June interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. "Tuning that, making sure it's fair, getting the teachers so they're enthused about it" are the keys.

After the Small Schools Initiative debacle, Gates hired a new leader, Vicki Phillips, who in turn hired Tom Kane. Kane had authored a study using high stakes testing results, which concluded that "Teachers who ranked in the bottom quarter after their first two years in the classroom should be fired."

Gates, with this flawed study in hand, set about deploying his checkbook to cash strapped school districts prepared to take a gamble. One such district is Hillsbrough County Public Schools in Florida. Hillsbrough agreed to, among many other provisions, "Empower principals in the recruitment and dismissal of teachers based on performance".

The corporate reform doesn't stop there however, the distrcit also hired 2 outsiders, at some expense to assist with the 7 year reform implementation

The new positions being considered today will cost $223,202 in salaries and benefits for two years; a $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundation would pay for about half that, while the school district would pick up about 25 percent. The other 25 percent would be paid by The Broad Foundation, an entrepreneurial philanthropic group that offers residencies for experienced private industry executives interested in a career switch to public education.

The two candidates being recommended are Jamal Jenkins, a former Chrysler executive who worked in human resources and has experience as a recruiter, and Donald Dellavia, a former plant manager for the H.J. Heinz Co.

If you're wondering what an executive from a bankrupt car company, and a ketchup plant manager can offer public education, you're probably not alone.

In our final Part, we'll take a look at some of the other efforts the Gates Foundation is making, including those in Ohio.

GOP school privatization plan under scrutiny

No one thinks the house Republicans idea of a wild wild west of for-profit charter schools is a good idea.

They go too far for self-described conservative Terry Ryan of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, whose sister foundation sponsors about a half-dozen Ohio charter schools.

"Oh my goodness, have we not learned anything from the history of the last 10 years in Ohio?" asked Ryan.

"We believe in charter schools and competition, but for them to work effectively, there has to be strong accountability. This would bring us back in time to when we were a laughingstock nationally because of the poor quality of our charter schools."
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"This is a blatant giveaway of public money to big Republican campaign contributors like David Brennan, who now will be able to enrich themselves even more at taxpayer expense," said Dale Butland, spokesman for Innovation Ohio.
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Bill Sims, head of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, also has concerns about the House proposals on for-profits - worrying that they could "take the public out of public charter schools."
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A first read of the House version was discouraging for Perry White, founder and former executive director of Citizens Academy, a Cleveland charter school that has worked its way to an "excellent" rating from the state.

"If these provisions pass, Ohio will become the poster child for bad charter policy," White said in an email. "By weakening charter accountability, the Ohio House will unleash a tsunami of mediocrity."

There's even more questions being raised in this Dispatch article including the legality of this give-away to White Hat Management.

Notes from Colorado

We thought this might interest a few people.

Almost a year ago, Colorado passed a controversial bill, S.B.191. The Denver Post gives us this synopsis

The legislation would revolutionize teacher and principal evaluations in Colorado, basing 50 percent of their performance on supervisors' reviews and the other half on student growth on standardized tests and other measures. It also would change the way teachers achieve tenure and make it easier for them to lose that job protection — a controversial move that attacks a core tenet held by the teachers union.

Opponents call the legislation an unfunded mandate that places too much financial burden on cash-strapped school districts. They fear it would create a school system where educators "teach to the test" to save their jobs and one where longtime teachers are picked off without due process.

A play by play of this bill, can be found here.

So why do we mention this now? Well the Colorado Department of Education just released their proposal for implementing this bill. The full details can be found at the link, here's the executive summary.

SCEE Executive Summary

The Colorado Education Association's response can be read here.

LSC Analysis of Education Budget

The Ohio Legislative Services Commision has just released its analysis of the Budget Bill (H.B.153). We have pulled out the Educatiuon section, which you can read here (PDF).

Be sure to also check out the Analysis we posted a few days ago -GOVERNOR’S EXECUTIVE BUDGET PROPOSAL ANALYSIS