Thread by @tcoynek12

Thread: This afternoon #Jeffco Schools released two damning independent reports on the causes of poor achievement results and the out-of-control Capital Program. The district hid both from voters until after the election...#copolitics #edcolo #k12 #edchat

The first was @moss_adams' independent audit of Jeffco's Capital Improvement Program, which Moss finds is least $136 million over budget due to cost overruns and spending on projects not disclosed to voters:

go.boarddocs.com/co/jeffco/Boar…

After she was elected to the board in Nov 2019 @Miller4Students repeatedly questioned the mgmt and governance of the capital program. Until Tracy Dorland became Supe, Miller's calls for an outside audit were blocked by the union-backed board majority. This report vindicates her.

Besides Miller, others have also repeatedly pointed to the Capital Programs worsening problems. Their complaints have been ignored by district management, the Capital Advisory and Financial Oversight Committees & the Board. Read Robert Greenawalt's site:
improvejeffcoschools.org

Or read the reports I have published on Medium:

tcoyne.medium.com/jeffco-schools…

The Moss Adams report on Jeffco's poor achievement was prepared by Jaime Aquino, an outside consultant who Dorland retained when she joined Jeffco:

go.boarddocs.com/co/jeffco/Boar…

While Aquino's report is damning, it is not surprising. Many of the same issues were highlighted by outside consultants retained by former Supe Jason Glass when he joined the district in 2016. Here is their report:

k12accountability.org/resources/Jeff…

In fact, you can go even further back. Ten Years of District Unified Improvement Plans show a consistent pattern of Root Causes of poor achievement performance that it appears Jeffco has never successfully addressed:

tcoyne.medium.com/12-years-of-re…

The conclusions reached in these reports support the claims made by Jeff Wilhite, Theresa Shelton, and Kathy Miks in the just completed election: Jeffco is a failed district in desperate need of a turnaround. Perhaps because voters didn't see these reports, they lost.

From an ethical perspective, the release of these reports -- both of which contain material information about the district's poor performance -- after the election raises very serious questions. How many people would change their votes if they had been able to read these reports?

Thus we have arrived at today, with the Jeffco Board of Ed about to be controlled for another four years by a teachers union backed majority, just as it has been for the last six years, including the periods covered by these two extremely damning reports.

When people ask you why #k12 education results never seem to improve in the United States, even as the competition our children will face in the 21st century economy grows ever more intense, these scandals in #Jeffco schools should be Exhibit #1.