Study Warns of Limited Savings from Closing Schools

Edited by I, Praetorian

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Closing schools doesn’t save air academic progress. And it says school districts can help generate some acceptance for a downsizing plan by involving the community early and establishing clear reasons for why certain schools must close.

The report, released Oct. 19, was written by the Philadelphia Research Initiative to foreshadow what the 154,000-student Philadelphia district can expect over the next few years as it plans to close a number of schools because of declining enrollments. The district currently has 70,000 empty seats, according to the report. School administrators have not decided which schools to close and how many, but internal school documents published in June by the website Philadelphia Public School Notebook listed 26 schools that could be shut down.

The report looks at school closings in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and the District of Columbia. Each of those districts has closed at least 20 schools in the past decade, and most of the buildings have been shuttered in the recent past.

For example, Pittsburgh, with around 25,300 students, went through a “right-sizing” effort that closed 22 schools in 2006. The district is now discussing closing seven more schools. The 17,400-student Kansas City district closed 29 schools—nearly half of its school buildings—in 2010.

A Matter of Context

Closing schools does save money, but in districts whose budgets add up to hundreds of millions of dollars or more, the final savings are relatively small, said Larry Eichel, the program director for the Philadelphia Research Initiative, which is a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Philadelphia’s current annual budget, for example, is $2.8 billion.

Six Cities Shuttering Buildings

To inform deliberations over plans to close schools in Philadelphia, researchers conducted case studies of recent school closings in six other urban districts.

Chicago
Closure Period: 2001-2009
Number Closed: 44
Buildings in Use: 602

Detroit
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 59
Buildings in Use: 130

Kansas City, Mo.
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 29
Buildings in Use: 29

Milwaukee
Closure Period: 2005-2010
Number Closed: 20
Buildings in Use: 137

Pittsburgh
Closure Period: 2006
Number Closed: 22
Buildings in Use: 64

District of Columbia
Closure Period: 2008
Number Closed: 23
Buildings in Use: 11

*As of 2011.

Source: The Philadelphia Research Initiative

“The savings are under a million dollars per school,” Mr. Eichel said. “That’s real money, but not money that changes anything fundamentally.”

The biggest chunk of district money is spent on teachers, and those staff members typically are still needed, just at different locations.

A district also has to pay for some maintenance on shuttered buildings so they don’t become neighborhood eye sores.

And districts should not expect a windfall from selling their old buildings. Those facilities are undesirable to businesses for some of the same reasons that districts decided to close them: The buildings are often located in areas that are losing population. Also, they tend to be in poor condition, and it may be hard to convert them to other purposes, Mr. Eichel said.

The study found examples of repurposing, however. In Milwaukee, a former middle school was bought last year for $600,000 to be converted into senior housing. In Chicago, several closed schools have been converted to charter schools.

Impact on Learning

In examining the academic performance of students in schools slated to be closed, the report focused on a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that looked at students whose schools were closed between 2001 and 2006. That study found that student performance fell at schools that were slated to be shut down and remained low for the rest of the school year. A year later, though, the academic performance of those displaced students had rebounded to preclosure levels.

The Pew report also cites a study led by researchers from the RAND Corp. that examined achievement from students from closed schools in a “midsized urban district in the Northeast.” Though the district was not named, the paper noted that the district closed 22 schools in the 2005-06 school year, which corresponds with Pittsburgh’s experience.

That paper said students in the district whose schools were closed did see a drop in their reading and math scores, but researchers found the effect could be mitigated or eliminated if the students were moved to schools that were higher-performing than the ones they left behind.

The Pew report offers several tools that districts can use to reduce the pain of closing schools. For example, it suggests that outside experts can bring a level of objectivity to the proceedings. Seeking community support early is also essential, the report notes.

It says that the 45,000-student District of Columbia school system committed a misstep by moving too quickly to close schools in the face of a 30 percent decline in enrollment. Under the leadership of then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, the school system announced that closures were coming in September 2007, and the final vote to close 23 schools came, after much controversy, four months later.

Mary Filardo, the executive director of the Washington-based 21st Century School Fund, studies school facilities issues and agrees that the system in Washington moved too quickly to shut down schools. Too many school districts distrust the public when it comes to closure decisions, she said.

Taking It to the Public

“The reason you involve the community is not to make [closings] palatable,” she said. “The reason you involve the community is because you want to make better decisions.”

She added that people whose children attend school in such urban areas often “are working-class or low-income. They know about making tough decisions and struggling” and can understand the necessity for some closings.

As District of Columbia school officials learned, making a misstep in school closings can cause political fallout. The community uproar over the closings in Washington was one of the ingredients that led last year to the primary-election defeat of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who had selected Ms. Rhee, and to the chancellor’s departure.

And after community members in Chicago protested that school- closure decisions were being made in secret, the Illinois legislature passed a law in August that governs how that 409,000-student system can make facilities decisions.

“The political fallout is from not having a trusting relationship with your public,” Ms. Filardo said.

Being Transparent

But involving the public can be a delicate balancing act, said Nancy R. Kodman, the executive director for academic and operations integration for Pittsburgh schools. Just introducing the problem to the community, she said, leads to people saying, “You don’t have any solutions? You don’t have any ideas?” But a full plan is criticized for being drawn up in secret.

“You lessen that by being as transparent as you can,” Ms. Kodman said.

When Pittsburgh closed more than 20 schools, she said, the district talked with the public about what it was hoping to achieve. Academic improvement was put forward as the top goal, and to eliminate some political horse-trading, the closures were considered as a group, in a single up-or-down vote by the school board.

While many urban districts are struggling with how to handle excess space, Ms. Filardo noted that Seattle is dealing with overcrowded classrooms, thanks to unexpected population growth. The Seattle Times reported in October that in one school, a 4th grade class is meeting in a hallway, and many classes are meeting in portables. An infusion of about 1,500 more students than expected is prompting the district to reopen some schools that it had closed, over community objection, in the past few years.

I know not everyone is a heavyweight boxing fan...

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Joe Frazier's legacy will include more than his battles with Muhammad Ali

Sunday, November 06, 2011, 12:08 AM

  By Jerry Izenberg edited by I, Praetorian

   Former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, shown in 2009, has been diagnosed with liver cancer.

   Joe Frazier is dying inside a hospice in Philadelphia. He has liver cancer. Soon the Philadelphia left hook that seemed to have a life all its own will have lost every ounce of its thunder. Soon, Joe will be gone.

But Death, be not proud because you will not beat Joe. He will simply have run out of time before the final bell rings. In his last moments, his mind will still have him moving forward with that little bounce in his stride. And it will be as if he's saying:

   "Come on, Death. Show me what you got. You might win, but before you do I got something here for you."

So what follows here is the way I will always remember him. I covered his career. I was there on the night in the Philippines when he and Muhammad Ali left giant footprints as their legacy.

   Perhaps the best way to understand that is to begin in the wake of their first dramatic meeting in New York. This was one week after Joe Frazier had dumped the once and future heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali on his rear end on that long-gone night in Madison Square Garden.

Now we were standing outside a deli not far from the Joe Frazier Gym in North Philadelphia and these three kids, maybe 9 years old each, were running toward us shouting:

   "Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier."

   And the smile on Joe's face as they came nearer and nearer seemed to light up the tired, gray neighborhood. As they danced around him, Joe sent an aide back to his Rolls-Royce for autographed pictures. He gave one to each and Joe told them: "Now y'all stay in school. Don't make me have to find you."

Two of them laughed, but the third one said:

   

"My daddy says Muhammad Ali was drugged,"

   In that instant a cold, cold mask seemed to slide across the champion's face. "Yeah ... yeah," Joe said, "I drugged him with a left hook." And they saw the look in his eyes and all three of them ran away.

Frazier turned to me and said:

   "You heard that. What I got to do? What the hell I got to do?"

There was nothing he could do. Not then. Not ever. The sheer force of Ali's personality would doom him to a role as destiny's stepchild. The impossible riddle Joe posed that afternoon would follow him through his always courageous and often brilliant career. It was a question with no answer.

This is what Herman Melville meant when he wrote of Ahab's pursuit of the great white whale in Moby Dick. He and Ali would be linked forever inside a crucible of their own making. You could not mention one without the other.

Each time they would push each other to a place where neither had been before. Styles make fights and the very nature of their styles dictated that each time they met, they were not fighting for a belt or a crown. They did not fight for the championship of the world or Paraguay or Manila.

   No matter that Ali had the personality, the charm, the wit to dominate America's memory. Joe had the tools to force greatness upon Muhammad. That's why the thing they fought to claim was the heavyweight championship. The true fight was for claim over the other.

And they both knew it.

   It was never more obvious than on a sweltering day inside the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City just beyond the Manila skyline. It was at least 100 degrees inside that arena. At the start, Ali was, well, Ali — dancing, jabbing, taunting, winning. But something out of the ordinary happened in the fourth.

For virtually all of his career, Joe Frazier was a one-handed fighter (but what a hand!). His left hook was ferocious. His right hand? Well, you had to wonder whether he could even tie his shoes with it.

   But in the gym in Philly, Eddie Futch, the head trainer, and Georgie Benton, his assistant, worked for weeks on that right hand. "You are going to give him something to think about," Futch said over and over.

And in that fourth, Joe threw a right hand that landed on Ali's head.

   “You ain't got no right hand," Muhammad chanted shaking off the amazement. And then — POP. Another one.

"They told me you old," Ali said, breathing hard.

"They told you wrong," Joe shot back.

   And now suddenly it was a fight. A fight? Hell, it was the greatest heavyweight fight since Cain and Abel.

The ebb and flow was incredible. Guys get up off the mat in a fight and, once in a while, win. But you rarely see one guy losing and then winning and then losing and then ...

Well, you get the idea.

   In the end this fight was decided by anatomy. The shorter Frazier began to experience huge swelling around the eyes. In order to see, he had to straighten up — the exact opposite of his corner's game plan.

Ali now was winning. But in Round 13, he was so exhausted at a time when Frazier stood there with both arms down and legs exhibiting all the power of wet spaghetti. All Ali had to do was walk 5 feet or so and touch him and it would have been over. But Ali was too weak to do it.

   In the corner after 14, Futch told Benton to cut Joe's gloves off. Joe pushed and shoved and threatened, but they came off. Then Ali saw that it was over and collapsed.

   Nobody was tougher than Joe Frazier. Nobody had a bigger heart.

Death will probably win this last fight, but knowing Joe in that hazy limbo that spells the end, he'll probably tell old Death, "Don't gloat. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't have laid a glove on me."

And forever after, I'll believe Joe was right.

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OTAY MESA — Montgomery High School Principal Lee Romero sees the $24 million deficit the Sweetwater Union High School District is trying to close in its $320 million budget through layoffs and wonders if there isn’t a better solution.

Such as salary cuts.

Romero said he and his wife, who is a teacher, along with others would be willing to take a pay cut if it meant saving the four instructors slated to be laid off at his school if class sizes grow from 31 to 34 students, as proposed by the district.

“At what point do we do the right thing and take the cuts away from the classroom, because it is going to hurt our kids? Nobody including the district, including the unions, are talking about taking a pay cut,” Romero said. “If we go this route (by increasing class sizes), it is going to be bad for everybody.”

Alex Anguiano, president of the teachers union, said it was premature to discuss the possibility of salary cuts because negotiations on a new contract have not formally begun. But did express dissatisfaction with other areas of the district’s budget.

“Our district is spending money like there is not an economic crisis at all, so if we evaluate economy based on what school board has been approving, then there is not an economic crisis,” he said. “There are already less teachers. Classrooms are pretty overcrowded. That was our contribution to this fiscal crisis. We have already paid significantly.”

Among the teachers Romero expects to lose under seniority rules that come into effect during layoffs is special education teacher Juan Carrillo and county Teacher of the Year nominee Rhea Walker. They have been teaching for four years and 11 years, respectively.

According to Romero, those who could lose their jobs have contributed to his campus seeing an 85-point increase on the state’s performance index.

“To have more students in a classroom means more special ed students in a classroom, and it almost seems impossible,” Carrillo said.

Romero said no one should be laid off.

“In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness,” Romero said. “To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that’s just not right.”  (True for my 15 years, nor any rotten DO level administrators)

Walker can see both sides of the tenure system. (I can see both sides of a traffic wreck doesn't mean I advocate for causing one)

“Time and again you have proven your worth, but the bottom line is still the dollars,” Walker said. “You are thankful and grateful to have something there to guarantee you have a job, but at the same time it’s a double-edged sword.”

Romero said pay cuts need to be addressed.

“There’s 10 percent unemployment in California and people are taking cuts, but we have not,” he said. (much higher for Socal in general)

About 110 pink slips were issued last year; all but six Spanish teachers were called back to work. Administrators are taking four furloughs this year.

Anguiano said the union will defer to the will of its members in matters such as class size and salary reductions. The bargaining team for the union will be seeking member input through a series of open hearings and a survey, he said.

The district cut $11 million from this year’s budget to help close a more than $23 million deficit. The shortfall was covered with stimulus funds and previously restricted money that the state freed up for use in other areas.

For more than 40 years educators have stated the obvious: for students to be successful in school...

BY P.E. STAFF WRITER   DAYNA STRAEHLEY dstraehley@pe.com
Published: 28 October 2011 10:24 PM


EDITED for this site October,30 2011 by I, Praetorian


For more than 40 years educators have stated what in the classroom is obvious; for students to be successful in school, they need their parents to be involved. Towards that end, the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools said Friday it is opening the second annual Parent and Family Engagement Summit.


The event, which attracted hundreds of parent volunteers to Palm Springs, is part of an effort to raise awareness of and support for parents to be involved in their children’s education, he said.


“There’s only so much the school can do without the parents,” Superintendent Kenneth Young said, adding he includes other caregivers in the word “parents.” “There’s not much a school can do without the parents.”


He cited a University of Arizona study of high school dropouts, who had missed an average of 124 days of school, about three weeks per year, by the time they got to eighth grade.


“They essentially dropped out before they ever got to high school,” Young said. Teachers could see the pattern starting in kindergarten.


“If parents knew what life was going to be like for a high school dropout, they would have made a greater effort to get that child to school and improve attendance,” he said.


More education is the only way to improve the area’s economy, said Angel Meraz, a leader of Pathways to Success as part of the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership.


Those who go to college in Inland Southern California lags the state average and the problem is even more acute in the Coachella Valley, which has one of the nation’s lowest college-going rates, he said. Some 75 to 80 percent of public school students live in poverty, so college seems financially inaccessible, Young said.


Pathways to Success had a contest last year to see which high schools could get the most students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which also determines eligibility for state grants and low-interest college loans. Indio High won, with 65 percent of seniors filling out the FAFSA, based on parents’ income tax returns, in early spring. Meraz said she hopes to increase the application rate 10 percent this year. Young said he wants to spread the competition countywide.


Parent involvement in education has to start well before it’s time to figure out how to pay for college. It starts when babies are learning to tell which person is mommy and which one is daddy, said keynote speaker and educational consultant John Antonetti.


Empathy at home is the No. 1 predictor of whether fourth-graders will be mathematical problem solvers, or “how often do they before age 6 explain what they are doing and thinking.”


People learn best when they think for themselves. He reminded educators and PTA leaders to give children time to figure out answers themselves. Telling them the answer too soon steals the opportunity for learning, Antonetti said.
Friday’s summit in Palm Springs, attended mostly by parents, followed a county summit Thursday attended mostly by educators.

Should Private Universities Be Held to the Same Standards for Anti-Discrimination as Public? Are All Student's Backgrounds Checked and including MTV? Are All Students Who Lie on an Application Expelled?

BY DAVID OLSON STAFF WRITER dolson@pe.com
Published: 28 October 2011 08:17 PM
EDITED BY:  I, Praetorian, October 30, 2011

Domaine Javier, 24; stated that Cal Baptist University officials told her she was expelled for falsely claiming on her application form that she is a female. Javier revealed on MTV’s “True Life” that she is biologically male.
Letters the university sent to Javier say she was expelled for “committing or attempting to engage in fraud, or concealing identity,” and for presenting false or misleading information in university judicial processes.


However, Javier, 24, said she has identified herself as female since she was a toddler and correctly clicked the space next to “female” on the online application form.


“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “They said, ‘On your application form you put ‘female.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s how I see myself.’”
Javier’s expulsion was finalized on Aug. 30, the week before she was scheduled to begin a nursing program at Cal Baptist after transferring from Riverside City College.


In an emailed statement, university spokesman Mark Wyatt wrote, “California Baptist University does not comment on student disciplinary matters or other confidential student information.”


California law prohibits employment, housing, government, insurance and other types of discrimination based upon gender identity. But private universities generally are not covered by the law, said Mark Wood, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center. The center is not aware of other transgender college students who were expelled.


Transgender refers to people whose gender identity differs from the biological sex they were born with. Some transgender people undergo sex-change operations; others do not.


Javier said university officials told her during expulsion hearings that they discovered her MTV appearance through a background check (Bullshit). They did not say whether that is how they discovered her gender identity, she said.
Javier was on an April episode of “True Life” entitled “I’m Passing as Someone I’m Not.” Cameras showed a man hitting on Javier while she danced at Riverside’s Club Sevilla in a low-cut pink and black dress and putting on make-up in the club’s bathroom. Javier said she only revealed her gender identity to family members.


“I am a girl trapped in a guy’s body,” Javier said on the show.
“When I’m out on a date, the loneliness goes away,” Javier said during a segment of her on one of her dates with a man who cut off the relationship after she told him she is transgender.


She said she applied to appear on the show to raise awareness on transgender issues and let other transgender people know that they’re not alone.
Javier said she was impressed with the nursing program at Cal Baptist, which is three blocks from her Riverside home. A university financial aid form shows she received a $3,500 dean’s academic scholarship. Javier said she was shocked when in July she received a letter that temporarily expelled her, pending hearings.


“I was devastated, because I really, really wanted to attend this campus,” she said.


Javier said the expulsion, that was finalized days before classes were set to begin, will delay her graduation from a nursing program by at least a year. She said she declined an admission offer by Cal State San Bernardino – that as a public university cannot discriminate against transgender students – to attend Cal Baptist.


Javier is back at Riverside City College but said she cannot enter the nursing program until next fall.


“This totally ruined my career path,” she said. “I’ve been trying to finish as soon as possible.”


Javier said she knew the university is a religious institution but did not realize it is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the most conservative major Baptist denomination.


“I didn’t know they were that extreme,” said Javier, who attended Catholic schools in her native Philippines before immigrating to California eight years ago.


Cal Baptist’s written policies do not explicitly bar transgender students. But it has generally socially conservative rules, including a prohibition of social dances on university property and a requirement that applicants sign a form agreeing not to engage in homosexual behavior or to cohabit with someone of the opposite sex.


Despite the expulsion, Javier doesn’t regret her MTV appearance. She is buoyed by the support and positive comments she has received from about 200 people, most of them straight, through chats on the street or on Facebook.
“I’m a happier person now,” she said.

Part 1 of Deconstructing Hate Sites

This Information is Provided by the Victim of Such A Hate Site: A Man Still Fighting One Year Later to Clear His Name From the False Accusations of Belonging to Such Hate Based Internet Sewage... I am that Victim along with another outstanding person and Journalist MVgordie (mvgordie.com). I, Praetorian Responding to Online Hate When people see hate on the Net, they just say: "Well, what can I do about it?" And they move on. But the only way people can start to get rid of the hate is by taking some interest in the ways in which we, as human beings, can prevent hate from spreading. A Vancouver Island high-school student MNet’s 2001 survey "Young Canadians in a Wired World" showed that when young people came across a "hateful" Web site, more than a third (36 per cent) simply ignored it. If they received hateful e-mail messages, again more than three in ten did nothing—though a similar percentage told a friend, an adult, or the police. There is no reason to believe that adults’ rate of response is any higher. Granted, it’s not always easy to tell whether hateful online content is actually illegal, rather than just offensive and annoying. Sometimes material can only properly be defined as illegal by the courts. Still, the courts can’t prosecute what they don’t know about—so public response is crucial. If people want to do something about hate material they see on the Internet, there are several options: Contact the Internet Service Provider All over the world, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are being forced to become more proactive about hate material on their servers. Most ISPs now have Acceptable Use Policies that clearly define the guidelines for using their services, as well as the penalties for violating those guidelines. In Canada, most ISPs belong to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP). CAIP’s Code of Conduct states that its members will not host illegal content, and will make a reasonable effort to investigate legitimate complaints about illegal content or network abuse—taking appropriate action, if needed. However, ISPs do not have the legal power to decide what material is illegal; and so most are reluctant to remove suspect content from their servers without official direction from a law enforcement agency. Report online hate to the police Some urban police departments now have a High-Tech Crime Unit to investigate online offences. If none exists, a complaint can be made to the local police. It’s advisable to attach a copy of the offending material to the letter of complaint. File a complaint with the F.B.I. Good for the records otherwise pretty useless unless threats of violence are made. Check out "hate watch" Web sites A number of sites exist to monitor and document illegal material on the Internet. Some notable examples are B’nai Brith League for Human Rights, which hosts a hate hotline; and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has identified thousands of offensive Web sites. Its CD entitledDigital Hate 2002 lists sites that promote antisocial and illegal activities ranging from hate music to suicide bombing. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another good resource. Any hate found on a California Web site is now subject to new legislation—though hate encountered on other states sites must be dealt with differently. However, the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League both recommend that surfers alert them to any online hate, so that they can try to get the offending material removed. And since the active promotion of tolerance is one of the Abest responses to hate, check out the online pamphlet 101 Tools for Tolerance: Simple Ideas for Promoting Equity and Diversity, developed by the Web-based group Tolerance.org. For more detailed information about the organizations mentioned here, as well as information on how to report online hate, see the links in the sidebar.

Freedom of Information Act | Restore Erased Email

Freedom of Information Act : Restore Erased Email

Electronic Records Had Been Discarded Under Interpretation of Retention Policy

Why Allow Deletion If Government Must Later Restore Records?

A county's formal policy on e-mail destruction failed to save it from the cost of recovering deleted e-mails in a lawsuit under Ohio's Public Records Act. Like FOIA laws in other states, Ohio's Records Act requires state government agencies like counties to disclose records to citizens upon request.

The case in question is a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court, State ex rel. Toledo Blade Co. v. Seneca County Board of Commissioners, 2008 WL 5157733 (Ohio Dec. 9, 2008).  Plaintiff sought e-mails of county commissioners concerning demolition of an old courthouse.  The county turned over some e-mails, but plaintiff managed to show that some relevant e-mails were missing because they had been deleted. It made this showing by analyzing the e-mails that were turned over and proving some logical gaps appeared within them.  Also, some commissioners admitted they had deleted some of their relevant e-mails.

The county's written policy allowed each user to delete e-mail that the user deemed to be of "no significant value." (Some people call such e-mails "non-records".)  Such a policy is a version of the make-a-decision style of e-mail (text and instant message) records management, where users are expected to decide the destruction/retention fate of each message.  

After the court determined that some relevant e-mails must have been deleted, it observed that through the use of forensics measures some e-mails might be recoverable from commissioner hard drives. The county argued it should not be required to restore deleted e-mails because they had been deleted in accordance with the county's record retention policy, which the county had adopted in good faith. Further, the county argued that forensics measures are excessively expensive.

The court disagreed with the county. The court ordered the county to undertake costly forensics steps to search for and restore deleted e-mail records that met certain criteria – all at the county's expense.

Gadzooks! If a government agency is required under a FOIA to incur great expense to recover deleted e-mails after officials had determined -- under a formally-adopted policy -- that the e-mails were of "no significant value," then it makes no sense to let officials delete e-mails in the first place.  Such a make-a-decision style of policy is unworkable because it will cause the government regularly to employ expensive forensics to recover deleted records.  As a policy matter, the government is wiser just to archive copious records and take decision-making out of the hands of individual users.

I have long questioned e-mail retention policies (the make-a-decision policies) that emphasize a user examining each particular message and then deciding whether to destroy it or to keep it.  But some learned people disagree with me.  An argument they sometimes make in favor of the make-a-decision style policy is that it mimics how paper was handled. With paper, they argue, lots of documents came across the desk of each official. The official would decide whether to throw the paper in the trash can, or to place it in folder A, or folder B or folder C.

Yet this Toledo Blade case demonstrates that e-mail is different from paper. Even after e-mail is deleted, it can still be recovered forensically.  The cost of recovery can be high, but this court forced government to incur that cost.

Technical footnote: The court ruled the commissioners had probably violated the county's policy by deleting e-mails that were of significant value, when the policy said that onlyinsignificant records would be deleted. However, this detail should not change our understanding of the case's import.  From the point of view of someone writing records management policy, the risk is ever-present that a court will second-guess users after-the-fact.  Looking back at past decisions, a court can always say, "user should not have allowed that e-mail to be deleted" or "user should have placed that e-mail in retention category X rather than retention category Y."  Users always make records management mistakes, and thus leave an enterprise constantly exposed to the threat of having to employ forensics (after-the-fact) to reverse user decisions.  Therefore, the policy writer is motivated just to remove users from retention/deletion decisions.

Background:  One of the purposes behind Freedom of Information Acts -- and public records acts generally -- is to enable citizens, FBI, police and internal auditors to investigate public officials for fraud, waste, corruption, embezzlement, conflicts of interest and misappropriation of funds.  The ever-present possibility of such a probe motivates officials to be fair and honest.

–Benjamin Wright

The Self Harm Cycle

Latest Evidence Suggests

Self-harm is most common in children over the age of 11 and increases in frequency with age. It is uncommon in very young children although there is evidence of children as young as five trying to harm themselves.


Self-harm is more common amongst girls and young women than amongst boys and young men. Studies indicate that, amongst young people over 13 years of age, approximately three times as many females as males harm themselves.


A study in Oxford found that approximately 300 per 100,000 males aged between 15 and 24 years, and 700 per 100,000 females of the same age, were admitted to hospital following an episode of self-harm during the year 2000. Community based studies report higher rates of self-harm than hospital based studies.


A national survey of children and adolescents carried out in the community found that 5 per cent of boys and 8 per cent of girls aged 13-15 said that they had, at some time, tried to harm, hurt or kill themselves.
In the same national survey, rates of self-harm reported by parents were much lower than the rates of self-harm reported by children. This suggests that many parents are unaware that their children are self-harming.


A study carried out in schools in 2002 found that 11 per cent of girls and 3 per cent of boys aged 15 and 16 said they had harmed themselves in the previous year.
Greater incidence of self-injury amongst gay and lesbian young adults; five times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts. A greater number of occurrences of self-injury exist among those with physical disabilities and epilepsy.


The UK has one of the highest rates of self-harm in Europe, at 400 per 100,000 population. It is estimated that there are at least 170,000 cases of self-harm which come to hospital attention each year. Many more incidents of self-harming behaviour probably take place but are not included in any statistics because people may choose not to seek medical help.


New estimates have been made about the most common form of Self Harm
Cutting: 72 percent
Burning: 35 percent
Self-hitting: 30 percent
Interference w/wound healing: 22 percent
Hair pulling: 10 percent
Bone breaking: 8 percent
Multiple methods: 78 percent (included in above)

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Amber Alert

THE DEFINITION OF COURAGE. YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Please understand this is a 70 year-old former U.S. Prosecutor! This man, Dr. Richard I Fine, PHd is my hero (see video series below, courtesy of Full Disclosure) and model for my fights to come  with Moreno Valley USD  also one of the most litigated school districts in the inland empire. For over 20 years of corruption spearheaded by the personalities of the COWARDS and BULLY BOYS RUNNING MVUSD'S HUMAN RESOURCES.  One of the former participated in felony misuse and theft of public funds, one a convicted felon who used an unregistered pistol firing at a car fleeing his house with his own daughter inside the car. He is still employed and partially running a MVUSD middle school. This school was formerly the flagship of the entire district. The current coward is helping to cover up directly or indirectly the theft of  or miss use of  student funds that totals in the multiple $100,000s in cash  EVERY YEAR.


The man most responsible for this system wide cover-up, a man who lied more than once to me when I was looking for help with the criminal activity I stumbled upon, was fired early this year then allowed to stay on with a double demotion to assistant principal. The Board was afraid that out and out firing would tempt him to tell all. For years covered up by some of the Superintendents and their assistants, including Bob Crank who was one of the key players Most area taxpayers are paying twice over for there child's education without knowing and some of that money is stolen in cash! Watch for the documentation and names to come.  BUT lets not forget the School Board who hires these people, among which contains a documented CHILD MOLESTER and a yet to be charged criminal who used the power of the office for... well, come back and see. Another is on the payroll of local Developer and member of the shadowy Jewish "Gold Trust" and its silent members. An organization who's home is somewhere in Beverly Bills, CA. I have fired off a letter to the Jewish Defense League* asking point blank if they are associated... 

Did I mention the possible cover-up of an alleged murder of a 17 year-old student at the hands of a former school district employee? One of whom was working here until two years ago. I am still working on this. Time and the efficiency of the alleged cover-up has made it hard to follow.
Sincerely, I, Praetorian.

*The Jewish Defense League or JDL is a Jewish nationalist and far-right organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary".^[1] While the group asserts that it "unequivocally condemns terrorism", and claims to have a "strict no-tolerance policy against terrorism and other felonious acts,"^[2] it was described as "a right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation^[3] in 2001, and as a hate group involved in "anti-Arab terrorism" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.^[4] According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks within the United States.^{[3] Outside the FBI, the}  Anti-Defamation League (ADL)^[2] and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).^[3 are the largest watch dog organizations in the US monitoring hate groups. 

TEST SCORES

September 28, 2011|By Brad Lendon, CNN; edited by Praetorian
7 arrested in alleged SAT cheating scam in New York

Authorities have arrested seven people in an, high school and are investigating whether the cheating extends to other schools. Samuel Eshaghoff, 19, of Great Neck, New York, was arrested Tuesday on felony fraud charges that could result in four years in prison if he's convicted, the Nassau County District Attorney's Office said.

Six students face misdemeanor charges. Their names are not being released because they are minors.

Prosecutors allege Eshaghoff impersonated six Great Neck North High students between 2010 and 2011, charging between $1,500 and $2,500 to take the SAT test for them.

Eshaghoff would take the test at schools other than Great Neck, where proctors would not be familiar with the students' identity, and present fake, unofficial identification, prosecutors say.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said authorities uncovered the scam after hearing rumors of cheating, comparing the test scores of suspects to their school grade-point averages, and finding a "wide gulf" in the cases of the six suspects.

The district attorney's office said it is investigating possible cheating scams at two other Nassau County high schools as well as possible further instances involving Eshaghoff.

Eshaghoff's attorney, Matin Emouna, said his client pleaded not guilty in the case.

And he said cheating on tests is something that should be handled in schools, not in criminal courts.

"At what point are you going to draw the line?" Emouna asked during a phone interview with CNN Wednesday. "No one has had a case like this in the U.S., and I think attorneys are going to have a field day with it."

The victims in the case are other students who are denied admission at the colleges of their choice by the students who cheated, Rice said Wednesday on CNN's "American Morning."

"Honest kids should not be bumped out of college slots by kids who cheated," she said.

Rice called on the Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit entity that administers the SAT nationwide, to establish procedures to combat cheating, including photographing students as they take the test and attaching the picture to the answer sheet.

"We need ETS to tighten security they have at these test centers," Rice said.

She also called on ETS to inform colleges if cheating is suspected. ETS currently deals with suspected cheating by canceling test scores and offering refunds, retests or arbitration, according to the district attorneys office.

Rice said authorities have no evidence implicating parents in the cheating scandal.

Great Neck North identifies itself as a high-performing high school, with a 97% graduation rate and almost 97% of students planning to pursue higher education.

The mean scores achieved by Great Neck North students on SAT tests in 2010 were well above the national average, according to the profile.

Eshaghoff, a 2010 Great Neck North graduate, tested in the 97th percentile, Rice said. He is now enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta after attending the University of Michigan for his freshman year, the prosecutor's office said.

The next SAT test dates are this weekend, and Rice said authorities will be vigilant.

"These arrests should serve as a warning to those taking the SAT this Saturday that if you cheat, you can face serious criminal consequences," Rice said.