A 'triangle' of
corruption
An internal
investigation of the Mississippi Department of Education that took
place in 2010 and 2011 revealed that data was being manipulated to
falsely inflate school ratings and also being sold for profit.
The
nine-member Mississippi Board of Education oversees the Mississippi
Department of Education (MDE) and its watchdog entity, the Office of
Educational Accountability. In 2010, then-Board Chairman CharlesMcClelland ordered an
investigation after he noticed some suspiciously high ratings
assigned to historically poorly performing schools. Two
then-employees of the Office of Educational Accountability, Charlie
Evers and Toby Frazier, assisted by contractor Lisa Williamson,
conducted the investigation.
The investigation focused on the activities of three men: Ken
Thompson, Steve Hebbler, and Russ Davis. Thompson was at that time
the director Office of Research and Statistics, the division of the
Office of Educational Accountability responsible for crunching the
numbers used to determine individual school ratings. Hebbler was the
former director of ORS and a contract worker at that time. Davis was
a former employee of the Department of Education.
E-mails
sent by these men revealed unethical and illegal actions: First, all
three men manipulated school data which inflated some schools'
ratings. (For more details, read the story: “Miss. public schoolratings falsely inflated.”)
Second,
confidential student data was leaked to Russ Davis, who was not
authorized by the Department of Education to view or receive student
data. Beyond this, Evers found evidence that Davis was using the
data to run a ratings-interpretation service that he sold to school
districts. (For more
details on Davis' unauthorized access, read the story: “Former MDEemployee included in department e-mails.”)
Onee-mail
shows that Davis had downloaded state data to a personal Dropbox
account.
Davis
still runs a web-based service called Accountability Analyzer,
which helps school administrators understand how they should improve
student achievement to get a better school rating.
AccountabilityAnalyzer.com claims the service is “trusted” by
half of Mississippi's approximately 150 school districts. Davis has said subscriptions are “less than
$5,000” each.
If 75 Mississippi school districts bought an
Accountability Analyzer subscription at $5,000 each, Davis' company could rake in revenues of around $375,000. If districts paid additional fees per school, Accountability Analyzer revenues could easily be in the millions of dollars. (For
more details on state data and Accountability Analyzer, see the story,
“Private service using Miss. public school students' data.”)
A school
administrator whose school uses
Accountability Analyzer has said the service gets the school's data
from the Department of Education and then loads that data into website for the school.
Because Davis was
working in an unknown and unauthorized capacity on the school ratings
calculations with Thompson and Hebbler in 2011, he did not receive a
paycheck from the state.
In a
September 2011 meeting the results of the education investigation
were revealed to Charles McClelland and School Board member Bill Jones. Evers and consultant Lisa Williamson stated their belief that
Thompson and Davis were stealing state data, manipulating it, and
selling it for profit. (See pages 34 and 35 of transcript document.)
Charlie Evers: What we've told y'all this morning in an hour and 15 minutes is the tip—it's the tip of the iceberg as to the magnitude and how deep this goes. You've got general concepts. The illegalities that take place, much less the ethical side of it—but, having the state's data base moved and put out into a file sharing device and brought down—Lisa Williamson: In public.Charlie Evers: Public domain by two individuals that are employed—Think about what Toby (Frazier). He's CIO. The reason we've spent all this money is to make sure the data that we have is held securely within the Department of Education.Bill Jones: And they're giving it away.Charlie Evers: And they're giving it away.Lisa Williamson: For profit.
Charlie Evers: And they're profiting from it. And manipulating for profit. They're manipulating it for profit to the point where, who is not to surmise that there aren't errors that are being made …. You can squint your eye just for a second and think that a school that thinks it maybe should have done better—Where are they now?
Steve
Hebbler is was under contract
as recently as June 2013 to work on state ratings calculations. In
January 2013, after Florida Gov. Jeb Bush visited Mississippi to
discuss education reform, Hebbler advised the Board of Education not
to change its ratings system to that of Florida's. (See document.)
Ken
Thompson is marketing himself to school districts as a consultant who
can interpret the confusing ratings system. See Ken Thompson and Associates.
(For more details on the complexity of the state's “Accountability
Model,” read "Miss.
public schools' rating system impossible to understand.")
- For School Board member Bill Jones' take on the lack of oversight at MDE, see Nov. 5 post, “School Board member: Hank Bounds can 'sell you the sweat off his balls.'” http://www.kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2013/11/school-board-member-hank-bounds-can.html
- For more info on Accountability Model and power structure, see the Oct. 31 post: "Miss. public schools' rating system impossible to understand."
- For the transcript and audio recording of the September 2011 meeting, see the Oct. 28 post "Surprise: Cronyism and fraud in education" or click here.
- Look for upcoming posts on issues in Mississippi public education governance.
Amy McCullough is a freelance journalist who has donated this material to Jackson Jambalaya in memory of Charlie Evers who passed away on Aug. 26, 2013.
13 comments:
So who is the investigating body on this KF? State, FEDS or both?
Well this should be of no surprise to you, but who do you think is the first one listed on the Accountability Analyzer's website testimonial list?!!! The DeSoto County School District
Imagine that!!!
Board of Eduction investigates MS Dept. of Education? Can this be investigated by PEER? Probably alot more than this going on if these characters are still in operation.
I don't see anything specific in the allegations of how someone profited? Am I missing something?
Davis is getting student data that should be federally and state-protected out the back door of the Dept of Ed. He is then putting that data into AccountabilityAnalyzer.com and selling it to school districts.
He's stealing state data and then selling it back to the school districts.
Also--why is he working on state calculations for no pay? Because he's getting free state data for his business.
Put 2 + 2 together: Thompson and Hebbler are getting kick backs from Accountability Analyzer sales as a thank you.
He's stealing state data and then selling it back to the school districts."
But isn't he being hired by the school districts who have access to that data anyway? The value add of Accountability Analyzer seems to be in the processing of data and not the data itself which left alone has no value.
Good evening,
I have read several of the articles posted about the Office of Research and Statistics, ORS. A lot of the information was hit and miss and incomplete. My name is Anthony Stevenson, Director of Application Development in ORS and I was the one who setup the computer system, developed the applications that drove the data collection for ORS.
Several things stated on the tape was not truthful. The misleading statements that the data can not be reproduce is not true. The initial data is collected from the MSIS monthly district collection therefore it can be reproduce at will. There was problems with ORS. The Russ Davis double dipping, the changing of certain districts, schools rating scores, the secret meetings which only friends were allowed to attend. Yes, there was problems but Toby Frazier was a problem himself along with the company that was working with him to come up with this so call information. As you listen to the recording it is easy to here they were pushing Toby as the person who should be in charge of ORS. According to the tape wouldn't that be the same as having Ken Thompson in charge, someone who have no experience in that field or arena. In the recording you didn't here my name directly but you did here Toby talked about ORS having their own MIS shop, that was me. But you couldn't find anything about me doing something wrong and that is because all my work was data driven only. Once I got the initial data it was then passed on to Arthur Self and Ken Thompson to do their calculation of that data. Once I passed it on is where the changes occur and that's why I was not mention because I can go back regenerate the data that I used anytime.
ORS was an excellent organization and well respected under Steve Hebbler. There was never any secret meeting that the staff was not able to attend under Dr Hebbler. Dr Hebbler went around the state and country explaining the Accountability System and was always looked up to because of his ability. Dr. Hebbler got a bad name in that recording but if someone would sit down with him and talk to him they would quickly realized that he was a trustworthy person.
The problem with MDE is the placement of people into positions based on whether they are a friend instead of could they perform the job at hand. Too many positions are held by individuals who should not and can not perform the requirements of the position. Those type of decisions are why the state of education in Mississippi is in such bad shape. One day I hope that the people in charge think of the Educators, the Administrators, the kids of the state, and last but not least, think of what is best for the state of Mississippi instead of thinking what is best for themselves. That is the only way that we can stop being the laughing stock of the country.
If you want the truth, or more information about ORS I can be reach on Facebook at Doc Stevenson. A little history of who I am to show that I am not one of the people who was placed in a position just because I was a friend of someone.
34 Years in the IT field
In charge of Computer Operation at NATO in SHAPE, Belgium
Department Head of Development for US Intelligence
Lead Developer for the Advance Control Center System for the International Space Station at Johnson Space Center
Lead Software Engineer for BMS
10 years at MDE
Java Technical Lead for the US Goverment
Java Solutions Architect for a Global Telecommunication company.
Holder of a TS/SCI clearance
Have briefed two sitting Presidents of the United States.
President George H. W. Bush
President Clinton
Steve Hebbler and Ken Thompson were e-mailing back and forth with Russ Davis in 2011.
The three of them were running the state's school ratings calculations -- knowing full well that Russ Davis was not authorized to be working on state data. By the way, this is data that is supposed to be protected according to state law and federal law (FERPA).
When asked, Davis lied about his involvement.
What private business or state agency would tolerate confidential state data being leaked to a non-state employee -- and downloaded to a Drop Box account of all things?
These are not honest people.
"'He's stealing state data and then selling it back to the school districts.'But isn't he being hired by the school districts who have access to that data anyway? The value add of Accountability Analyzer seems to be in the processing of data and not the data itself which left alone has no value."
Clearly, the data has value. Otherwise he wouldn't be stealing it.
The state ought to provide an Accountabiliy Analyzer type service to schools for free so they can tell what the hells going on.
As it stands now three guys are crunching the numbers, selling the numbers and fudging them for the highest bidders.
This state needs an agency to investigate allegations of corruption by state employees such as this situation.
Let me think..... Let me think...
@December 4, 2013 at 12:28 PM
From what I can see, if this guy only worked on reports (none of the e-mails indicated otherwise) then those only deal with aggregate data, which is public and isn't covered under FERPA. In fact, the public can download the reports for free, it looks like, on the MDE website. If the guy helped his former bosses out by providing a service for free -- creating the reports -- then what's the big deal? If he was dealing with non-student specific data and helped out, I truly don't see a problem. If we didn't have to pay for it, all the better! Enough of our tax dollars get sucked down that hole in Jackson, anyway!
If he wasn't invited by the people who had the data, then how could there be any e-mails in the first place. It seems like the burden falls on the agency that gave the data, not the person that got it... especially if they were communicating through official channels (like e-mail). If they're such criminal masterminds and are doing such terrible things, why use official channels (that are obviously recorded) to communicate? Why not use secret decoder rings and what not? It's likely nothing was wrong with what they were doing.
I googled (it took less than 45 seconds) and it looks like here's the exact same data that is found in the reports he worked (AYP) on (according to the e-mail) http://reports.mde.k12.ms.us/data/ -- student test results for districts and schools. I don't know why the article author doesn't at least acknowledge this possibility in this piece. It seems extremely one-sided -- and it feels sort of like a witch hunt. I understand from the other article that it looks like these guys didn't like each other very much -- so, is it possible they leaked e-mails that only showed what they wanted and discarded the rest? Yes, it's very possible.
I think one of several things the author of this article keeps missing is that there's nothing saying the guy ever worked with non-aggregate data. She talks about FERPA an awful lot, but doesn't appear to understand that it only covers the data down to an individual student, not data that is aggregated to a school (see above). At least, I didn't see any. The author keeps saying "[...] confidential student data was leaked" but provides no evidence that STUDENT data was leaked. I see LOTS of references to reports and public data, but none to an individual student. All of the emails look like he was helping out with the reporting, I see nothing naming a student at all.
While that explanation doesn't seem as cool and interesting, it's what the evidence points to... that nothing illegal transpired. No wishing will change that, nor will pretending that something happened that isn't based in evidence.
@December 2, 2013 at 2:35 PM
I agree with this post. The claim he 'stole' anything is dubious at best. Why 'steal' reporting data (again, the only evidence of any data being used is non-student data) if he has access to it any way by virtue of his work with the schools.
Good reporting - thanks!
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