READ FIRST

STYLE
Entries are not classic blog posts but updated to follow the cases as they proceed through the criminal court system. This format provides latest information for those who follow a particular case and also serves to illustrate the lengthy process that leads many to believe that most allegations of misconduct amount to false charges. That may be a comforting myth to educators, but it is not supported by public record.

DATES
Dates given are publication dates of the news item. When the link no longer works, you are encouraged to visit the news source archives.

CATEGORIES
In the coach or band category, we only label when it is apparent the teacher or coach was involved with the student through the role as coach or band instructor. Sometimes it is impossible to determine from the online stories. Nevertheless, we track as a study, not because we dislike band teachers or coaches.

We do not usually follow stories about coaches accused of physical assault on players as most stories seem to be overblown and result in little or no lasting damage. Physical contact is a component of sports and emotions run high. For some unfathomable reason.

We do follow stories that involve drugs or alcohol. We do because drunk driving kills. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of 15- to 20-year-old drivers who were killed in motor vehicle accidents in 2005 had been drinking. (Source: SADD - Students Against Drunk Driving)
Peer pressure is hard enough to resist without having teachers serve as role models to drink and drive or do drugs.

Other categories change as needed or where need is indicated.

COMMENTS
We welcome comments.

Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post here. Comments do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of the blog administrator.

Posts that attempt to identify victims by name or indication will be deleted.
Posts that denigrate or demean victims will be deleted.
Posts that attempt to shut down debate by threatening other posters will be deleted.
Posts that are determined to be excessive and non-productive rants will be deleted.
It happens sometimes that someone will post a comment that they later regret that self-identifies and creates discomfort. Contact us. We will delete.

Our comments at stories are usually in this color.

UPDATES
If you have an update or a correction, please e-mail us at mediaskeptic@hotmail.com
Sending links is preferable. We do not open attachments. Ever.

Posts are derived from published items found online. Sometimes news sources do not bother to follow a case beyond the initial arrest story that was based upon the press release from the police. If you find an entry that needs to be updated and no story is found online, we suggest three things:

- Contact the newspaper or news staff that published the original story.
- If you have trouble determining who you should contact, contact us. We'll help.
- Ask them to print a follow up story to set the record straight. If you need, we will help you write a request.

They owe you that much. We do, too, and we guarantee to act immediately.

SUGGESTIONS
Your suggestions are welcome. This blog wouldn't exist without readers who send us updates every day.

ADMITTED BIAS
We are unashamed supporters of the victims and their families. For one, minors lack the maturity to appreciate the consequences of their actions. That's why we have age of consent laws and limit their legal decisions. But it's also because the student who complains is excoriated by fellow students and teachers alike. That makes them double victims. When they appear in court, the defense usually victimizes them all over again in the most public forum possible - again, without the support of fellow students or teachers. It takes great courage to come forward when it would be so much easier to hide the truth.

It would take less courage for fellow teachers to come forward to voice their suspicions about their colleagues before it gets to the point of criminal conduct. That they do not do so in large numbers speaks poorly of their decency.

AND NO, WE DON'T HATE TEACHERS
Every student has a favorite teacher they remember even 60 or 70 years later. The teacher may not have been a favorite at the time, but, usually, for most of us anyway, they were the person who most believed that learning was a joy, education was a wonder and expected more of us than just about anyone else. They also asked more of themselves and did the same for us. That's the true definition of a teacher.

To the Miss Plunkett's of the world, you made a difference in the world.

Thank you.

Talking Points

TALKING POINTS about the Proposed 2-year policies. (I know that is a lot of information so please use what you feel comfortable stating.)

Did you know that double dipping for education legislators was eliminated in 2002 by an opinion of the Alabama Ethics Commission?

Is there any need for these policies? Just make sure that the Ethics Commission ruling is followed.

Is it right to punish every two-year employee if only one or two have done something wrong?

Did you know that these policies essentially eliminate flextime for all two-year college employees?

Do you realize that the policies will eliminate the strongest supporters of education in the Legislature?

Who is left to protect the Education Trust Fund from raids, protect the funding of PEEHIP, or protect the integrity of the Teachers' Retirement System?

These policies are flagrantly discriminatory against educators.

Lawyers can work and serve. State employees can work and serve. Doctors can work and serve. Bankers can work and serve. Car dealers and insurance salesmen can serve, but under these policies, educators will be prohibited from serving if they are employed at a two-year college.

Legislators employed or contracting with universities are not prohibited from legislative service.

Since 1819, no occupational class of Alabama citizens has been denied the right to serve as a legislator in the state's part-time legislature.

These polices will deny any and all employees of a two-year college from serving on county commissions, city councils, or public utilities, or even getting reimbursed for mileage or food for going to a district Boy Scout meeting, helping United way, or taking children to a church youth group retreat, if they go more than 10 times in one year. If a two-year college employee helped during a disaster like Katrina and was given food or reimbursed any expenses, they would be in violation of the policy and subject to dismissal.

These policies override the Alabama Constitution that sets the qualifications for serving in the Legislature. It is up to the people of Alabama to determine who serves, not the governor, or the chancellor, or any other executive.

The majority of legislators who are educators will be immediately affected during the next session, yet almost all legislators were employed as educators when they were elected.

The practical elimination of flextime means that legislators will be forced to choose between providing for their families and serving their citizens.

Policy 609-04:

Prohibits any postsecondary employee, including the presidents and support staff, from using annual or personal leave as they wish, although these employees have earned this leave and the law says they can use it as they please.

No two-year college employee can use personal leave or annual leave to make money no matter how small an amount.

The policy says that legislators who are employees must use unpaid days only, and that they are allowed only 10 unpaid days per year.

This policy will supersede all other polices previously adopted without regard to past practices, traditions, or custom, or the directives of the members of the elected members of the State Board of Education.

This policy disregards the recommendations of a statewide policy committee made up of properly elected postsecondary employees.

All authority regarding employment rests with one man, Bradley Bryne, without oversight or accountability to anyone. Flextime is essentially eliminated unless you curry the favor of the chancellor.

Policy 220-01:

Eliminates employees of two-year colleges from serving in the Legislature.

Prohibits legislators, with as little as a 5% interest in a company, from contracting with any college in the two-year system. Does this mean that a car dealer who won the state bid on cars could not sell the same car to a two-year college and remain in the legislature?

Policy 602-01:

Gives the chancellor unfettered power to reverse any appointment or assignment of personnel that has happened or ever will happen at his whim without oversight or accountability to anyone, although state law gives the authority for personnel decisions to the presidents of two-year colleges. This policy is an attempt to override state law.

Even if a 30-year employee of the two-year college system has done a great job, and some fault is found in the past hiring practice, no matter how minor, this policy would allow the chancellor to initiate termination.

Janice J. Charlesworth
Executive Secretary
Alabama Education Retirees Association, Inc.

Stages of a Criminal Case

From FindLaw: Stages of a Criminal Case

Arrest
Booking & Bail
Arraignment
Plea Bargain
Preliminary Hearing
Pre-Trial Motions
Trial
Sentencing
Appeals

How Bail Works from Apollo Bonds

Standardized Testing

Continued from TT blog.

TT - Where to begin? Education isn't horse race; it's a process of learning and accomplishment. Testing is a tool that measures accomplishment. The National Report Card isn't a competition between states but a means of trying to curb the 30-year trend of dumbing down state tests to disguise lower expectations for students and hide the lack of classroom instruction.

Every excuse in the book has been used. For 30 years schools have complained that the problem was that poor students, students whose first language isn't English, or students who were victims of cultural deprivation were the reasons for turning out illiterates who then moved on to college and spent one year taking remedial classes just to perform at high school level. Only to drop out. It's been happening since the 1970s.

Educrats in every state asked for a pass so that special category students could be treated separately, but unequally, on tests catered to "their needs." As if the students were mentally unfit to learn. We weren't spending enough money. Classrooms were too crowded. Eubonics would help communicate better.

The influx of Asian immigrants in California and other states challenged that smugness. These students suffer from the same language deficiencies but perform at the top of their classes. Sites like GreatSchools.net show the average classroom sizes and, guess what? Schools with 12 students to a teacher are no more likely to test well than schools with 30 students. The money that the District of Columbia spends on education is the highest in the nation. Their failure rate is also the highest in the nation.

The District of Columbia spends a staggering $13,280 per student. The pupil/teacher ratio is 14.2 Their scores are abysmal. Unless you're an outright bigot and believe that blacks and Hispanics are incapable of learning, how do you explain such colossal and expensive failure?

Money isn't the answer. It's the problem.

We don't have Public Schools anymore. Public Schools were created to assimilate and teach immigrants to give them an opportunity for upward mobility. Public Schools taught children and were proud of their achievements and the achievements of their students. Public Schools hired professionals and established standards of conduct and performance that guaranteed teachers of impeccable character and purpose.

What we have now are Government Schools. Think DMV. Cause that's what we've got.

Standardized Testing

June 3, 2007 - The media campaign against standardized testing for high school graduation in Texas continues in the Dallas Morning News. "Analysis shows TAKS cheating rampant" is the first of three parts.
Part Two: At TEA, years of inquiry, few concrete results
Part Three: Common questions about analyzing tests for cheating

They base much of their opinion on an analysis by George Wesolowsky, a professor at McMaster University in Canada who studies cheating on multiple-choice tests like the TAKS. He is quoted as saying, "The evidence of substantial cheating is beyond any reasonable doubt."

Another Canadian, David Harpp, a professor at Montreal's McGill University who studies cheating and reviewed the analysis was also quoted. ""What we have here in many of the schools, particularly charter schools, is rampant cheating involving many students."

Both Canadian academics based their opinions on "statistical analysis." The Texas Education Agency (TEA), according to the Dallas Morning News, has cleared 98 percent of the schools in its recent round of investigations, in most cases because school officials did not volunteer knowledge of improprieties. Many of those schools were found to have widespread cheating in The News' analysis.

The newspaper also depended upon input from Caveon, a test security firm. Caveon markets their services of detecting, correcting, and preventing test fraud. As part of that they provide, in "conjunction with your in-house or contracted legal team, prepare basic admonitions; file and litigate suits." [No explanation, but the logical question is who is being sued?]

---

There are some obvious questions that come to mind.

If there is such widespread cheating as alleged, is Texas unique in the number of students who cheat? If there is widespread cheating and the problem is as big as they allege, doesn't it call for the collusion of test examiners? The example of 4-5 students having a cluster of answers would suggest actual conferences during test taking. Are monitors lax or deliberately sabotaging the tests?

Some schools, according to the article, have new rules about open doors during testing and roving monitors. This, again, indicates that test cheating is assisted by test monitors - teachers.

The stakes are high for schools who are found academically failing, not only for the student, but job security for teachers and administrators. There are substantial bonuses for schools and personnel for higher scores. And substantial penalities for failing, especially for charter schools.

But the biggest unaddressed question is, if students are unable or unwilling to pass 11th grade examinations, how can they expect to pass more rigorous examinations at the college level?

And why aren't monitors who proctor exams disciplined for abetting cheating?

New York state has had standardized testing in the form of Regents Examinations for decades. It is not now, nor ever has been, the political football that standardized testing is in Texas and other states that resist verification that the student actually learned something.

If a school or a teacher was found to have unacceptably high rates of failure on the Regents exams, it was assumed that the teacher wasn't following curriculum. It was assumed that the school was lax. Not that the exam was flawed. Not that the Regents were out of touch. Not that the students were liars and cheats. The monitor was fired and standards were established.

The debate should not be whether to abandon the exams, but who to blame? Those who write the tests or those who conduct them?

That last just never seems to occur to the media.

Arkansas Education

Arkansas State Board of Education website.
Arkansas employs 35,000 teachers.
Maintains a list of Arkansas colleges and universities that have been approved by the State Board of Education to offer teacher preparation programs.

Some Arkansas disciplinary decisions are in the monthly state Board of Education meeting minutes. They do not contain reasons for suspensions or revocations.

Some waivers state that a teacher is given a waiver for a previous conviction. Here Here Here
No online teacher code of ethics or guide. No statement of ethics in education.

Child Pornography

Child Pornography

Guilty but not yet sentenced


Michael Kelly Reiner, 46, 4th-5th grade teacher on Long Island.
Possession of child pornography. Caught trying to enter Canada with disks. Operated a web site devoted to sadistic fantasies and cannibalism.
To be sentenced August 10.

Gerald Thomas, 46. Texas teacher.
Pleaded guilty to one count child pornography.
To be sentenced April 18.
No online followup stories.

David Bergland, 42, a high school teacher in Massachusetts.
Pleaded guilty to child pornography possession. 150-300 images.
No sentencing information.

Joshua Evans, 25, elementary school music teacher in Georgia.
Pleaded guilty to charge he attempted to receive child pornography over the Internet.
No sentencing date given.

John McNair, 59, science teacher at a middle school, Pensacola, FL
Pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. Police found 160,000 images.
To be sentenced Jan 17, 2008

Jennifer Jacobi, 35, a substitute teacher in Indiana
Pleaded guilty to two charges of child pornography production.
Previously sentenced to 66 years for sexual abuse of two children.
To be sentenced Dec. 30.

Scott Southerland, 49, an Illinois substitute teacher
Pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges.
No sentencing date given.

Ronald Keith Neil, 41, a Boise, Idaho teacher.
Pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
To be sentenced May 14.

Craig Lee, 53, Superintendent of the Lagunitas School District, California
Pleaded no contest to one count (out of 13) for child pornography possession.
To be sentenced June 30, 2008.

Edgar Selavka, 48, an assistant teacher at the Center for Early Childhood Education at Smith College.
Guilty plea to 11 counts of possession of child pornography.
To be sentenced in June.

David Tanguay, 61, biology teacher in Wyndham, Maine.
Guilty plea to one count possession child pornography.
No sentencing date given.

Stanley DeLoach, 48, Culpeper, Virginia, Middle School teacher.
Guilty plea to 12 felony child pornography charges.
To be sentenced August 5.

Peter Lamana, 41, Boyertown, Pennsylvania, math teacher.
Guilty verdict to one count of sexual abuse of children for possession of child pornography.
No sentencing date given.

Harold (Bo) Scallon, 60, Rusk, TX teacher
Guilty plea to child pornography possession.
Sentenced to 78 months in prison, 5 years of supervised release.
Registration as a sex offender.

Richard Foster, 51, a 6th grade teacher in Bradford, Vermont.
Pleaded guilty to two charges of production of child pornography involving children under the age of 12.
To be sentenced December 22.

David Hassler, 62, a relgious studies teacher at a Catholic school, Pasadena, CA.
Pleaded guilty to Possession of child pornography.
To be sentenced January 26, 2009.

James C. Love, 37, minister and substitute teacher in Illinois.
Pleaded guilty to producing sexually explicit photos of minors while they were sleeping.
To be sentenced January 23, 2009.

TT - List of educators sentenced for child pornography.