Jason France (aka blogger Crazy Crawfish) writes here about the warping and destruction of data held by the Louisiana Department of Education.
He writes:
“There is a data crisis at LDOE. Almost all of the data collection systems are failing. The data, statistics and reports being generated are garbage. Data is being ferried back and forth between the department and school districts using Excel worksheets and through e-mail correspondence. This leaves many students at high risk to data theft and privacy violations. Because the systems impacted are numerous and core to much of the reporting and analysis performed by the Department, it is impossible for LDOE to claim they are reporting accurate or reliable numbers for dropouts, graduates, TOPS scholarship awards, school performance scores, test scores, student counts and breakdowns for MFP funding, program counts. . . the list goes on and on. The situation is really serious and probably just about hopeless at this point.
“I will explain how this situation developed and give specific examples of systems, impacted and correspondence I’ve received from school districts trying to work with the department.
“This crisis was created intentionally by John White and his second in command that he brought with him from New York, Kunjan Narechania. White did not really care what the data said, because he had already determined the outcome for many of his programs. (I don’t think he was also not planning to be here longer than 2 years when all the cut-backs and destruction he’d wrought really started to impact daily operations.) White undertook a slash and burn campaign on the department’s data and analysis folks and immediately implemented policies that guaranteed data would deteriorate immediately. White abandoned a 4 million dollar warehouse named LEDRS we were just finishing. . . as he arrived on the scene, but not before using it to transmit almost all of the data contained in the Warehouse to CREDO to produce reform friendly propaganda masquerading as true data analysis.”
Read on for a remarkable story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I guess there’s something humorous there, that the people who espouse data-driven this and that, actually don’t really like it or have much patience for it.
TC: a case in point is Michelle Rhee who is the answer to the question—
“Who was unable to provide the hard data proving she took her class from the 13th to the 90th percentile?” [The poor dear explained some years ago that her principal told her this—but no one, including the principal, has ever confirmed that anyone ever said anything like that to the BeeEater.]
But maybe the problem is that 13 and 90 are “big” numbers.
What about 1.7%? Isn’t that small enough to get right?
As in…
“…just 1.7 percent of classroom time is devoted to preparing for and taking standardized tests.”
Er, maybe she should have read the report she cited before she, er, cited it.
Link: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/04/why-is-michelle-rhee-wrong-about.html
The self-styled leaders of the “new civil rights of our time” like Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan and Bill Gates et al. make an inordinate number of the publicly celebrated innumerati [i.e., those who are innumerate].
But they have no fear whatsoever of massaging, torturing and creating the numbers to amass $tudent $ucce$$:
“All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.” [Mark Twain]
And this was even before the development of the education rheephorm Marxist playbook…
¿? The famous one, of course, Groucho. Who else would I be referring to?
😎