Peyton Wolcott - EdNews

Peyton Wolcott, founder of the national online grassroots school district check register movement, will be on the radio in New Hampshire Saturday morning, May 10 to answer questions from radio hosts Dave Lambert and Skip Murphy regarding the rapidly growing movement.

By Peyton Wolcott
It's spring -- and school board election season is already in full tilt. Yard signs have sprouted up along with the dandelions, push cards are being handed out, and good folks who want better schools are knocking on doors in their neighborhoods, campaigning for their candidates who are also good folks of character who have said they want better schools.

By Peyton Wolcott
Call me the Boswell* of the national online school district check register transparency movement. Because Texas in a very short period of time already leads the nation in the number of local school districts with their check registers online -- the number has jumped from 3 to 148 in just 17 months -- folks in other states have begun to take notice and are attempting to replicate our success.

More is coming to light about why Chris Comer resigned at the Texas Education Agency as the science curriculum director, and it has less to do with "evolution vs. creationism" and more to do with possible skullduggery on her part. 

By Peyton Wolcott
As you read this today, here's hoping you're having a happy family holiday, celebrating together the birth of our great republic. Some of us will be going to parades -- big or little, some with precision lawnmower drills, others with kids' bicycle races, all with flags and displays of patriotism.

"We've been following Detroit Public Schools for some time now," said Wolcott, "most recently former supe (and ERDI consultant)
Ken Burnley's and successor William Coleman's purchases of $1.6 million in art from the Sherry Washington Gallery, this in a district with serious infrastructure problems which is hemorrhaging students and money. Have found some interesting insights in Burnley's undated 'Final Report' to DPS which I hope to share with Frank, along with of course online check register news, how folks in the Great Lakes area can bring this transparency idea to their schools. This is a great opportunity, and many thanks to Frank and his executive producer, Kevin Collard."

By Peyton Wolcott
EdNews.org
A light bulb went off recently when an astute friend remarked, "You know, most grassroots parents and taxpayers aren't good at PR."
This comment took me off guard, but he was right. Many of our best volunteers are rational people, engineers and accountants and the like, who are used to an environment in which facts reign.

By Peyton Wolcott
EdNews.org
As I write this it's supposed to get down to sixteen tonight here in the Hill Country. It's mid-February and it seems it's been cold a very long time, and it also seems like winter will go on forever, the way we always feel come February.

TEA's check register now online!
By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
You have no idea how much pleasure it gives me as a native Texan to be able to write this headline. After toiling in the grassroots education reform vineyards as a volunteer for many years, suddenly late last September a light bulb went off and I realized that many of our public records issues could be addressed by a very simple remedy: School districts could post their check registers online.

By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
El Paso truck driver Gary Gonzalez, whose two children attend El Paso ISD, has asked his trustees twice now at board meetings to post the district's check registers online in the interest of increasing transparency. The second time, local TV reporters noticed and reported his request.

By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
January 18, 2007
Heard the one about the rural Kentucky supe who ran over a woman's foot in the parking lot of a beauty shop/tanning salon/coin-operated laundry? And is now working as an elementary principal in Louisville? And what about the Maryland supe with the misfortune of having not one but two teachers arrested earlier this month for alleged sex crimes against students? Or the Georgia trustee who lost his bid for re-election then put nails in his opponent's driveway?

By Peyton Wolcott EducationNews.org
Remember those rainy-Saturday games of Monopoly when you were a kid, the ones that seemed to last forever?
That same game is being played out again and again in our modern-day public school districts but now the stakes are real and they are serious, high and important stakes involving our kids and our real dollars.

By Peyton Wolcott
People often ask how I decide what to report and what to pass on. My guidelines come from a rabbinical* quote, expanded to, "If not now, when? If not here, where? If not me, who?"

By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
To understand clearly why LTISD v. Lovelace qualifies as a "strategic lawsuit" we must look at the attorney LTISD engaged to file the suit, Bracewell & Giuliani partner J. David Thompson, III.

By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
In talking with California friends about Lake Travis ISD's recent lawsuit against two parents for filing too many public records requests (LTISD v. Lovelace) , they told me over the phone, "Oh, that's a SLAPP suit."