"WATCH DOG" FOR NEVADA
"WatchDog for Nevada Stimulus Money"
Mrs. Rose Moore
7516 Powder River Court
Las Vegas, Nevada 89131
702-516-3300
or
702-372-9130
Information for the public on where the Nevada Stimulus money is going, how much and is it according to the guidance and direction of how it is to be spent by the President of the US - President Obama and the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
"The Watch Dog" is to report to the Federal Government /Education all violations of the Stimulus Money sent to Governor Jim Gibbons to distribute to the School Districts, including the 5th largest school district in the nation....
Clark County School District, Las Vegas, NV.
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UPDATE ARRA funds in Nevada
It has been found out through written Documentation and statments in front of numerous people that the$ interest$ from the ARRA funds are going into the General Fund......which is illegal.
An ALERT Memo from Arnie Duncan (
www.ed.gov) states the repercussions for those that are doing this. Not a pretty picture -the government will stop all additional funds to that particular state - like Nevada.
At present, after I submitted this information and documentation to the US Government they are investigating this thoroughly and due to my information an ALERT Memo came out on this issue.
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I encourage you to voice your opposition to these critical aspects regarding students with disabilities:
I. Proposed Priorities
-- Proposed Priority 1: Absolute Priority-Comprehensive Approach to the Four Education Reform Areas.
ISSUE: The U.S. Dept. of Ed proposes to use the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to monitor overall increases in student achievement and decreases in the achievement gap across student groups – including students with disabilities - over the course of R2T grants. USED proposes use of NAEP rather than assessments required under ESEA (known as No Child Left Behind) because NAEP provides a way to report consistently across Race to the Top grantees as well as within a State over time.
Use of NAEP data poses significant problems as a measure of achievement for students with disabilities. Among them are:
- NAEP performance for the “Students with Disabilities” subgroup includes those students eligible under Section 504 of the Rehab Act in addition to the IDEA whereas the ESEA subgroup of “Students with Disabilities” includes only IDEA students. Thus, the group being measured by the NAEP is not reflective of the group being served by special education nor is it comparable with the students with disabilities performance on state assessments.
- NAEP assessments are administered to public school students only, eliminating participation and accountability of students with disabilities placed in private schools by public agencies or via the use of student voucher programs. All students must be assessed under ESEA, including those placed in private schools by public agencies.
- By far the biggest issue is the exclusion rates for “Students with Disabilities” on the NAEP, which are unacceptably high and vary dramatically from state to state and district to district within states as well as across grade levels. Therefore, trends and other inferences that can be drawn from NAEP results are of little value.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report 05-618, No Child Left Behind Act: Most Students with Disabilities Participated in Statewide Assessments, but Inclusion Options Could Be Improved, July 2005, found that about 40 percent of the students with disabilities who were part of the 2002 NAEP reading assessment sample were excluded from the actual testing. The GAO also found that the percentages of students with disabilities who were excluded from the testing varied by grade. For example:
• 40 percent of students with disabilities were excluded from the grade 4 assessment,
• 37 percent of students with disabilities were excluded from the grade 8 assessment, and
• 43 percent of students with disabilities were excluded from the grade 12 assessment.
In addition, a study conducted in conjunction with the 2005 administration of NAEP found that 90 percent of students with disabilities participating in state assessments via alternate assessments were excluded from the NAEP sample. Conversely, students with disabilities participating in state assessment without accommodations were included in the NAEP sample almost without exception. (American Institutes for Research, SD/LEP Inclusions/Exclusions in NAEP: An Investigation of Factors Affecting SD/LEP Inclusions/Exclusions in NAEP Final Report,January 2007) Thus, the students with disabilities participating in the NAEP sample are not representative of the student population and, in fact, represent a subgroup of students with disabilities who are most likely to perform well.
RECOMMENDATION: Request that the Secretary reexamine use of NAEP data as a measure of student achievement and closing of achievement gap for Race to the Top fund grantees. Use of accountability measurements that include all students, while also imperfect, are better measures for determining if grantees are reaching annual targets and closing the achievement gap.
IV. Definitions
Student achievement
ISSUE: The proposed definition of “student achievement” include “rates at which students meet goals in individualized education programs.” Use of individualized education program (IEP) goals as a measurement of student achievement is NOT an appropriate use of IEP goals. Achievement of IEP goals cannot be aggregated, making it an inappropriate measurement mechanism. Further, the USEd has stated “IEP goals are individualized for each student, and a student’s progress toward each goal is measured for purposed of reporting progress to parents for making individualized decisions about the special education and related services a student receives.” “IEP goals may address a broad range of individualized instructional needs, as well as behavioral and developmental needs, and might not be based on the State’s academic content standards. IEP goals may cover a range of issues beyond reading/language arts and mathematics, such as behavior, social skills, or the use of adaptive equipment, and, as such, an examination of how well a student met his or her IEP goals is not synonymous with achievement …” (Source: U.S. Department of Education, Alternate Achievement Standards for Student with Significant Cognitive Disabilities Non-Regulatory Guidance, August 2005) Such inappropriate use of achievement of IEP goal may lead to the unintended consequence of a reduction in rigor, resulting in a lowering of expectations for students with disabilities. Since student achievement (as defined in the notice) is linked to student growth (as defined in the notice) and used to determine both principal and teacher effectiveness, it is particularly important that the use of IEP goals to measure student achievement be deleted from the definition.
RECOMMENDATION: Request that “rates at which students meet goals in individualized education programs” be deleted in the final definition of “student achievement.”
September 22, 2009
This article from Illinois Watch Dog applies to all states!
Lie about ARRA funds??From: owner-watchdogs@advocacyinstitute.org on behalf of Beverley H Johns (bevjohns@juno.com) Sent:Thu 9/17/09 7:09 AMTo: Candace@advocacyinstitute.orgCc: watchdogs@advocacyinstitute.org
Districts told to lie for ARRA funds?By Jim Broadway, Publisher, State School News Service Apparently, Illinois school superintendents should have known that the state would break its own law, the appropriations statutes enacted in 2008, if the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act had not been enacted by Congress this year.
That would be the only basis, some superintendents now believe, that they should claim education jobs were "created or retained" in their districts because of the federal ARRA funds the state used to deliver five FY 2009 General State Aid payments to them.
But they thought the state would follow the law in this regard, so those superintendents claimed ARRA "created or retained" few or no jobs for them, that if not for ARRA, the state would have found another way to make good on its statutory obligation.
Now on Wednesday, districts were directed by the Illinois State Board of Education to "clarify" reports on the effects of receiving ARRA funding. "Each LEA should review and analyze" its ARRA-supported GSA receipts and "determine the job impact if these monies had not been received," they were told.
The agency conceded some districts may have had balances or borrowing authority to avert layoffs if they had not received the GSA payments. But others would have faced "serious decisions on staff cuts," the memo said as it instructed districts on how to revise their expenditure reports to reflect "this new guidance." This caused superintendents to wonder: "Are we being told to lie?"
Likely to be treated as 'semantic' issue
The situation reveals something of a sham. While a premise of using ARRA money has been that it will "create or retain" jobs in the school districts, in fact it was used by the state to make payments already committed to the districts under state law.
In a technical sense, therefore - unless it could be believed that the General Assembly would rescind the FY 2009 appropriations because a bad economy made it impossible to pay for them - federal ARRA funds solved a problem for the state, not the school districts. Has an appropriation ever been revoked?
But to qualify for the ARRA funds, the state needed to assure the federal government that jobs indeed had been created or retained. For that to happen, the school districts needed to document that claim in reports they had to file under federal law.
What should the districts do now?
Without directly saying so in Wednesday's directive, the ISBE implied that it had given flawed instruction to the districts initially. "In recent discussions" with USDE, the memo said, "clarification was provided as to how jobs retained should be reported." (Note the use of passive voice in sticky situations like this.)
It might have averted the problem if the ISBE had originally said: "ARRA funds are tied to jobs, and we guarantee the budget will be cut by statute and the last five GSA payments will disappear if we don't get that federal money. So claim jobs retained in your districts on that basis." They didn't say that, but the agency is now expecting the districts to act as if they did. Fudging on honesty appears unavoidable.
September 14, 2009
Audit Committee Meeting
Clark County School District
Las Vegas, NV
On Monday, September 14, 2009, I , Mrs. Rose Moore, and 2 of my business partners went to the Audit Committe meeting of the Clark County School District, in Las Vegas, NV. We were the only 3 from the public that were there. I found out that the 4 members of the Audit Committe were all CPA's and they had a very sound compliant concerning how the Audit Committe was under special restraints where as they were not able to get into certain areas and departments to do a sound, solid and comprehensive audit. They stated they were not allowed to see the whole picture to do the audit. They did not have the freedom or right to get into other areas to obtain information to give a clear picture of how the Audit Committee came up with their findings. Their frustration was high when no one would give them permission. My understanding is that they have been stating this complaint for the last 3 or 4 meetings but with no outcome.
The next thing that I found out was that Mr. Jeff Weiler, Chief Financial Officer of the Clark County School District could not give a report nor paperwork to the Audit Committee on the ARRA even though he had paperwork in front of him. His statement was that it was the same as last month and another statement was said where he stated they would not be getting any money. That was the gist of his comments to the Audit Committee. No one asked or questioned anything about his statement. I rose my hand to speak, which we are allowed to do and no one would recognize me so I could not speak or ask questions. One of my questions was why wasn't the LEA assigned to the ARRA Stimulus money, Charlene Green, not there to give her report and where could I get a list of where all the stimulus money was going and how much.
Needless to say I had alot of information to give to the Audit Committee on the ARRA but I was not allowed to speak. But since I now know who is on the Audit Committee I can write a letter and give them the information in detail.
My conclusion of the Audit Committe meeting was one of being shut out of different areas of great importance that can give them more of the Big Picture to give a more throughly, sound, solid, and comprehesive Audit Report.
As of this meeting the Audit committee is SHUT OUT and they stated their disapproval of it.
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ALERT
OIG Fraud Hotline
Level 1
Anyone suspecting fraud, waste or abuse involving Department of Education funds or programs should call or write the Inspector General's Hotline (choose the method of contact which best suits you):
- Call the OIG Hotline's toll free number 1-800-MIS-USED. The Hotline's operating hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9:00 AM until 11:00 AM, Eastern Time; Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM, Eastern Time except for holidays.
Your report may be made anonymously or in confidence.To report suspected fraud, waste or abuse involving other Inspector General agencies, click this link for a directory:
http://www.ignet.gov/igs/homepage1.html
Individuals wishing to report such activities may also contact the nearest OIG office at the following locations:
Boston, MA(617) 289-0174
New York, NY(646) 428-3861
Philadelphia, PA(215) 656-6900
Atlanta, GA(404) 562-6460
Chicago, IL(312) 730-1630
Dallas, TX(214) 661-9530
Denver, CO(303) 844-0058
Kansas City, MO(816) 268-0530
Long Beach, CA(562) 980-4141
San Juan, PR(787) 766-6278
In the Washington, DC, metropolitan area (202) 245-6911
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We will be talking this week on how "already" the Clark County School District Board Board of Education Trustees had a meeting this morning, April 14, 2009, at 8:00 AM where the public could not get to, due to people being at work who start at 8:00 am.
We will be discussing how the Trustees have approved a tentative budget that is required to be submitted no later than April 15, 2009 and how they have stated that 850 full time and part time positions will be cut and Pink Slips will be going out on
May 1, 2009.
Here is some information that was acquired from the Los Angeles Unifed School District who rescinded layoff notices to about 2000 teachers.
Permanent teachers are entitled to a hearing before being laid off, a process that could have disrupted the current school year, and could cost the district (LA Unified School District) an estimated $9.5 million. And if mistakes were uncovered, an administrative law judge could invalidate layoffs.
This is with aforethought that the Clark County School District will go aganist the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Department of Education if they send out these layoff notices.
We will discussing the outcome of this blantant violation and how Clark County School District may not get anymore of the money from the Stimulus Package if they do not Rescind the layoffs.
