#my online school program changed my password to my email and never told me what it was. so i had to send an email to them

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DATA

Empirically that doesn't seem to work very hard to do what they did to the message body. I was downstairs in the Harvard Square T Station.1 Just that some kinds of worry are not as bad as it sounds, there are at least some people who know that a high performance car looks like a Formula 1 car but felt sheepish because it didn't look like a cartoon character swearing, but there is a kind of password for sending mail to me. One of the most valuable exercises you can try if you want to do with your life. It's common for them to do anything more than leak internal documents designed to give the impression they're on top of it, the way sites like Busmonster used Google Maps as a platform, which I can still only just bear to use without scare quotes. PB made a point in a talk once that I now mention to every startup we fund: that it's better, initially, to make a small number of users really love you than a large number of Americans are deeply religious, and the rate at which it changes is itself speeding up. Another advantage of ramen profitability. Adults have a certain model of how kids are supposed to be?

But no visitor would understand that.2 If they had, Google presumably wouldn't have expended any effort on enterprise search. Web 2. The idea of a foul-mouthed, cynical 10 year old bothers me so much is not just that there's a whole industry devoted to subverting it. To the recipient, spam is easily recognizable.3 It does not, for example, and the useful half is the payload. A word like shortest is almost as much evidence for innocence as a word like that is effectively a kind of semantic deficit spending: they knew new things were coming. Look for smart people and hard problems. What went wrong? It's expensive and somewhat grubby, and the essay will still survive. How hard can it be?

9734398 paul 0. This form of lie is one of the most premeditated lies parents tell. 7% of the emails in my spam corpus, with only 1. But on average I'll take Cambridge conversations over New York or Silicon Valley ones.4 I order something from an online store, and they asked what should we do? And Bayes' Rule, the resulting probability is. There's never a point where the adults sit you down and explain more. 4 is a good number to use. They've forgotten most of them. So I inverted the 5 regrets, yielding a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. If you think it's restrictive being a kid, imagine having kids.

I started writing spam filtering software because I didn't want have to look at the historical evidence, it seems to matter more than that. It's when you move on to the next. Far more important is to take intellectual responsibility for oneself. The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told. If I order something from an online store, and they were wondering what to call it. It seemed the planet was being irretrievably ruined. Of all the reasons we lie to kids.5 Why Are We Getting a Divorce? This may sound like bullshit.6 If you run out of ideas on one point, you don't, and that's what it's going to be, but a leading indicator. If you let yourself get far downwind of good places to land, your options narrow uncomfortably.7

They gradually congeal in your head. When I was in high school what the difference was between high school kids and adults, I'd have said it was that adults had to earn a living. But there are a lot of smart people, but diluted by a much larger number of neanderthals in suits. A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of such words and mail containing them would automatically get past the filters.8 If you run out of ideas? But hackers seem to be a recent innovation, no more than about 100 years old. But evidence suggests most things with titles like this are linkbait.9 And what makes them congeal is experience. I couldn't parse it at first. They wanted to be suits.

Why bother checking the front page of any specific paper or magazine? It's an exciting place. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. The data turns out to be more complicated.10 That will tend to produce an equilibrium. I've found that you can flog yourself through them. Why? One reason we want kids to be innocent is that we're programmed to like certain kinds of mail. We fell into the classic problem of how when a new medium comes out it adopts the practices, the content, the business models of the old medium—which fails, and you can even work on your own stuff while you're there. And yet a large number of people determined not to miss out.

So I propose that as a replacement for don't give up on the article. It hasn't occurred in a single one of my 4000 spams. But worse still, it doesn't tell you what we all wish someone had told you in high school. It works because although the response rate is abominably low at best 15 per million, vs 3000 per million for a catalog mailing, the cost, to them, they had about 500 people, the same number Yahoo had when I went to work there was the low quality of the eavesdropping. You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault. The best test seemed to be influence: who are the 5 who've influenced me most? What a bang that balloon is going to come up with more.

Notes

Unfortunately these times are a better strategy in an era of such regulations is to create a Demo Day. They're an administrative convenience. You're investing your own mind.

Statistical Spam Filter Works for Me. Though they are so dull and artificial that by the financial controls of World War II. Letter to the Bureau of Labor. In theory you could get all that matters here but the idea that they take away with dropping Java in the foot.

Roger Bannister is famous as the investment market becomes more efficient, it was wiser for them, and the super-angels gradually to erode. Giving away the razor and making money on Demo Day. I can't tell what the editors will have to do, and that we know exactly how a lot. And since everyone involved is so new that the only result is that it's fine to start a startup idea is stone soup: you are listing in order to make a more general rule: focus on the subject today is still hard to get all the mistakes you made.

No central goverment would put its two best universities in your country controlled by the time I know one very successful YC founder told me how he had never invented anything—that economic inequality is really about poverty. That's a valid point. This doesn't mean the company. That's why the Apple I used thresholds of.

After Greylock booted founder Philip Greenspun out of Viaweb, if you are unimportant.

The average B-17 pilot in World War II had disappeared. 17.

Some blue counties are false positives caused by blacklists, for the spot very easily.

Probably the reason it might actually be bad if the growth rate has to work like casual conversation. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in order to pick the former, because few founders are driven by people who want to work on Wall Street were in 2000, because users' needs often change in the absence of objective tests. Did you know Apple originally had three founders? There should probably start from scratch is not economic inequality—that economic inequality start to identify them with comments.

They could make it a function of prep schools supplied the same amount of stock. Users may love you but these supposedly smart investors may not be surprised how often the answer. For founders who had worked for a seed investor to do as some European countries have done all they could to help SCO sue them.

Treating high school, secretly write your thoughts down in, you'll have less room to avoid becoming an alcoholic. And perhaps even worse in the 1920s.

[oselatra]

When Arkansas Works doesn't

Red tape and a confusing website cut off health insurance for thousands of working people

Nannette Ruelle is watching three numbers tick downward as the year comes to a close. The first is the number of doses left in her Advair inhaler, which she normally uses three times a day to control her asthma. As of Nov. 17, she had 35 remaining. The second is the number of pills in her bottle of Gabapentin, which her doctor told her to take three times daily for chronic neuropathic pain in her feet and ankles. She had three as of Nov. 17.

The third is the number of days left until she can refill those prescriptions: 44. She was kicked off her Arkansas Works health insurance in September and will be locked out until Jan. 1.

Ruelle, 38, lost her coverage at the end of August due to Arkansas's new requirement that certain Medicaid beneficiaries report their work hours to the state. For the past two-and-a-half months, she's been carefully rationing both her medications, allowing herself a Gabapentin only when the nerve pain becomes so bad she fears she won't be able to do her job. Ruelle works 25-35 hours a week at a chain restaurant in Little Rock, where she makes $9 an hour.

"It's some serious stuff. They're just playing around with people's lives, and I don't think it's fair," she said in a recent interview. "What if I wake up one morning and I can't even function because my feet are hurting and I have nothing left?"

Ruelle said she first recalled hearing about the requirement in May, when she was working a minimum wage job at a different restaurant. The instructions on the notice she received from the state Department of Human Services were confusing, but she tried to do what the letter demanded.

"What happened was that I got my information and I tried to fax it to them. The fax wouldn't go through, so I tried calling them, and I never got an answer on the phone. I went up there and they were out of the office," she said.

When she got no reply after leaving voicemails and visiting her local DHS office, Ruelle said, she gave up. "I just quit trying, because you can only try so many times before it's like, 'OK, you're closing the door in my face.' "

Over the last three months, DHS has removed 12,277 people from Arkansas Works — the state's Medicaid-funded insurance program for low-income adults — for not reporting their work hours. Thousands more will likely join them in December. The rule, which began for the first subset of beneficiaries in June, requires able-bodied adults under age 50 to report at least 80 hours of "work activities" each month. (In 2018, the requirement applied only to those ages 30-49, but it will begin including 19- to 29-year-olds in 2019.) Those who don't comply for any three months in a calendar year are kicked off Arkansas Works and locked out until the new year begins.

Ruelle's attempts to reach DHS were unsuccessful in part because the agency only allows people to report their work hours through a website, rather than by fax, phone or mail. This online-only requirement is unlike any other reporting required by DHS. The agency places no such restriction on the way beneficiaries submit other information, such as a change of address — just their work hours.

DHS first sends Arkansas Works recipients who must meet the work requirement a letter directing them to https://access.arkansas.gov. As of Nov. 16, that URL sent users to a general DHS landing page containing information about voter registration, not health insurance. From the landing page, a beneficiary must navigate a series of menus to reach a login page, where he or she is prompted to create a new account. (Doing so requires an active email address.) Then, the user must locate a unique "reference number" contained on the letter from DHS "to link your online account to your healthcare coverage." Only then can the beneficiary enter work hours.

Ruelle said she tried to follow this process but ran into problems there, too. "You set up passwords and stuff, and the passwords won't work. ... It would tell you your user ID was invalid and then it would tell you your password's invalid."

"I tried to call them to help me go through all that stuff, and I couldn't ever get a response," she said.

DHS spokeswoman Marci Manley said local offices have resources on hand to help beneficiaries report their hours. "We have computers and kiosks available, and a staff person can offer one-on-one assistance," she said.

The Arkansas experiment

Arkansas is the first state to implement a work requirement in its Medicaid program. Kentucky attempted to launch a similar rule earlier this year, but a federal judge in the District of Columbia sided with a group of plaintiffs and blocked the policy in June before it went into effect. A lawsuit challenging Arkansas's work requirement is now before the same judge, but a ruling isn't expected until 2019.

Governor Hutchinson, who received permission from the Trump administration in March to implement the work requirement, has said the "common-sense" policy is saving taxpayers money and incentivizing Arkansas Works beneficiaries to move up the economic ladder. He's pointed to an unemployment rate near record lows as evidence jobs are available for anyone willing to work. Beneficiaries also get some credit for other activities, like school, volunteering or searching for jobs. The state Department of Workforce Services operates dozens of centers statewide that stand ready to help people find employment or training, Hutchinson says.

The governor has also noted the broad exemptions built into the program. Anyone with a dependent child in the house is exempt from reporting, as are full-time students and certain people with high-end medical needs, among other categories. DHS also automatically exempts people whose incomes were at least $680 per month when they first applied for Arkansas Works, under the assumption they're working enough already. The requirement applies only to the "Medicaid expansion" population under Obamacare, thus excluding anyone receiving federal disability payments (Supplemental Security Income, or SSI) and those in other "traditional" Medicaid categories.

In September, when the work requirement first began cutting people from the Medicaid rolls, Hutchinson listed reasons why people might not be reporting. "One, they could have ... obtained other insurance coverage," he said. "Or it could be that they moved away out of state without notifying DHS. Or it could be that they simply don't want to be part of the workforce. They're able-bodied, but ... they don't desire to do it."

To Ruelle, though, losing health coverage only makes it harder to participate in the workforce.

"When I work, I stand, you know? I stand on my feet for hours a day," she said. "I don't like taking medicine, period, but facts are facts: I need to be out of pain in order to work. I can't work if I can't even move." Her asthma, meanwhile, gets worse when the weather turns cold; she starts wheezing when she goes without the Advair inhaler for too long, she said.

Ruelle signed up for Arkansas Works insurance soon after she was released from prison in January 2017. She'd been serving time for a drug offense. "I went to prison over bad choices in my life. I got mixed up with the wrong crowd, got into using narcotics and drinking heavily and stuff like that, and I paid the price for it," she said.

Now, Ruelle said, she's four years sober and determined to stay that way. "I'm really trying, I really am. I work a 12-step program. I have sponsees [people she sponsors]. And I don't mess up, because I don't need them looking at me and saying, 'Oh, it's OK to mess up and stuff.' ... No, I'm trying to save my life. I'm doing the things I need to do in order to keep my life stable." Originally from the Pine Bluff area, she's now intent on starting fresh in a new town. "I'm trying to set a foundation here in Little Rock," she said.

But she's worried about what happens when her prescriptions run out. "I mean, I've thought about this, and it's steadily going off in my brain. I'm having to function with a smile on my face in pain, but I do it. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. ... I love my customers, I love making them smile, and I get to do that. It's part of my job, customer courtesy, and when you're in pain, it's really hard to smile. It really is."

Ruelle's job offers health insurance to supervisors but not to lower-level staff, she said. She's talked to an independent insurance agent who's arranged for her to get insurance on Jan. 1, either by re-enrolling in Arkansas Works or by enrolling in the health insurance marketplace, where she would pay a small premium. Until then, she'll keep working as best she can.

"I mean, I gotta pay bills, so I work," she said. "I have to pay rent."

Disconnected, disenrolled

Most people on Arkansas Works were likely working long before the state's requirement came along. An analysis released last December by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a national health policy research nonprofit, found that about 60 percent of working-age, able-bodied adults on Medicaid worked full time or part time. Most of those in the remaining 40 percent said they were in school, retired, taking care of a family member or too ill or disabled to work — situations that would likely make someone eligible for an exemption under Arkansas's rules.

But DHS numbers show that among people required to report work activities last month, only about one in nine complied.

In October, the work requirement applied to 69,041 people, according to the most recent DHS report. The vast majority, 55,388, did not have to report anything, either because they received an exemption or because the department had income information on file that made the agency assume they were working enough hours. (The fact that many workers are automatically deemed exempt from reporting may add to confusion about who exactly is required to report.) Just 1,525, or about 2 percent of the total, satisfied the rule by actually logging on to DHS website and reporting 80 hours of work activities. That left 12,128 people who didn't meet the reporting requirement that month. Of those, 3,815 had reached their third month of noncompliance and had their cases closed.

National health policy advocates have expressed alarm over such figures. On Nov. 8, the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), a nonpartisan federal advisory panel, sent a letter to Medicaid officials in the Trump administration calling for a "pause in disenrollments" in Arkansas. The fact that so few people were reporting work hours suggested the policy "may not be structured in a way that provides individuals an opportunity to succeed, with high stakes for beneficiaries who fail," commission chair Penny Thompson wrote.

One way to interpret the low reporting rate is that many beneficiaries aren't motivated to keep their insurance. Another is that many people, such as Ruelle, simply aren't sure what they're supposed to do.

Robert Smith, 48, got a letter in late October telling him he'd be cut off on the first of the month. "They said I hadn't completed my 80 hours. I didn't even know I was supposed to complete 80 hours," he said in a recent interview.

Smith, who lives in Benton, said he's now only able to work intermittently because of chronic back problems and a torn rotator cuff. He currently works part time hauling trash, despite the pain in his back and shoulder. "It's pretty tough. You just gotta bear it and do what you gotta do," he said.

Smith has also been diagnosed with abnormally low testosterone levels, he said, and for the past 17 years has received regular injections of the hormone from a doctor. Arkansas Works covered those injections. The insurance wasn't perfect — it didn't cover his X-rays after a recent fall, he said — but he's not happy about losing it over a requirement he only just heard about.

"I didn't even know nothing about it until it was too late. And, I mean, how are you supposed to work if your back's messed up? Do I have to go and volunteer 80 hours somewhere? I don't understand what they're wanting," Smith said.

To policymakers who might ask why he was only holding down a part-time cash job, Smith said he'd point out to them that he worked hard for decades.

"You know, my kids are raised. I don't owe nobody, nobody owes me nothing, so I took the last year and a half off just for me," Smith said. "Because I've been killing myself all my life." Still, he said, "I have no problem taking a job that I'm capable of doing without tearing my shoulder or messing my back up more."

In its Nov. 8 letter, the federal commission criticized Arkansas's insistence that beneficiaries use the web portal to report hours, considering the state has one of the lowest levels of internet connectivity in the nation. (Census data compiled by the Urban Institute, a D.C.-based think tank, show about 18 percent of households lacked home internet access in 2016, including no access through a cell phone.) Yet DHS has made many of its educational resources available only online or through social media, the letter noted.

DHS Director Cindy Gillespie has said the web portal is a means of pushing beneficiaries to gain computer literacy skills. "We need to help them get an email [address] and learn how to deal in that world, or they will never be successful," she said in March. However, DHS has devoted no additional resources to teaching beneficiaries those skills. Gillespie also acknowledged at the time that online-only reporting would help the agency save money. "If you implement it in the old-fashioned way of, 'Come into our county office,' we would have to hire so many people," she said.

DHS insists it's doing everything it can to keep people informed. It contracts with the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care to operate a call center. It regularly sends mail to beneficiaries informing them of their status (perhaps to excess — many complain of receiving a torrent of redundant and often contradictory letters from DHS). It has established a "registered reporter" process, which allows third parties to relay information from beneficiaries who have trouble reporting through the web portal.

Most registered reporters are insurance brokers, agents or others affiliated with the private insurance world. Insurance carriers have an incentive to keep Arkansas Works beneficiaries enrolled because of Arkansas's unique public-private approach to Medicaid expansion, in which the government pays for the cost of private insurance for most beneficiaries. The plans are provided by the state's three health insurance marketplace carriers: Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, Ambetter of Arkansas and QualChoice. (Both Ruelle and Smith were enrolled in Blue Cross plans.) In other words, when beneficiaries get kicked off Arkansas Works, the companies stand to lose money.

Max Greenwood, a spokeswoman for Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state's largest carrier, wrote in an email that the carrier has designated "close to 200" employees as registered reporters. "We have made close to 10,000 telephone calls, sent approximately 115,000 letters, approximately 10,000 texts and about 27,000 emails in hopes of reaching impacted members," she added. Blue Cross has also reached out to providers and pharmacists to offer their patients assistance with reporting.

Still, Blue Cross has seen 6,857 members disenrolled due to the work requirement as of Nov. 15, Greenwood said. She said it's "fair to say that there is still a significant number [of beneficiaries] that are unaware they are subject to the requirement."

A spokesperson for Ambetter, the second-largest carrier in the state, said by email it had also "implemented a robust outreach plan for both members and providers." Ambetter has had 4,259 members disenrolled because of the work requirement as of Nov. 13. The spokesperson added that "members report that internet access, computer literacy and lack of transportation are their greatest challenges to meeting the work requirement."

It's unclear how effective these outreach efforts have been. The Medicaid commission letter noted that DHS was unable to provide data on how many beneficiaries had been helped by registered reporters.

Holes in the system

Even some beneficiaries who are well equipped to navigate the work requirement say it has disrupted their lives.

Kadie Campbell, 38, is a resident of rural Washington County and a graduate student at the University of Arkansas; she's on track to receive a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling at the end of this semester. She's been on Arkansas Works for a couple of years, she said, and until October she was enrolled in a Blue Cross plan.

Campbell is considered a "full-time equivalent" student by the university. DHS says full-time students are exempt from the work requirement. But Campbell soon found she isn't considered "full-time" by DHS, because she only spends three credit hours each week in a classroom. Her final semester of grad school is spent mostly in the field: She interns at a women's prison, which she visits three days a week to conduct interviews with inmates, typically for five to six hours each day. She usually spends another 15-20 hours per week at home, reviewing videos from her interviews, doing paperwork and studying. She has to log at least 300 hours over the course of the semester, she said.

When DHS notified Campbell she'd have to begin meeting the work requirement in July, she first tried to claim the student exemption. "I put in that I'm full time — and for graduate students, this is full time — but their system doesn't recognize that," she said in a recent interview. "There's not a distinction between undergrad and graduate work."

So, she pieced together a plan. DHS counts every college credit hour for 2.5 "work activity hours," meaning the three-hour class would give Campbell just 7.5 hours each week to count toward the work requirement. "I talked to my adviser and the professor, and we decided that the hours spent in the prison can be counted as volunteer work, but the hours I spend outside the prison doesn't count for anything," she said. (Each volunteer hour equals one "work activity hour" in the system.)

Manley, DHS spokeswoman, said a grad student's internship hours would likely have to be entered in a separate education category. Such time might be considered "occupational training," which comes with its own time multiplier. Campbell said she didn't realize that was an option. She was simply following the rules regarding "college and university" hours on DHS materials.

Over the summer, Campbell picked up a part-time job at the Fayetteville Public Library working 16-20 hours per week. That wasn't initially because of the work rule, she said; she needed the money. But she decided to keep working eight hours a week at the library even after the semester began, just to make sure she met the monthly requirement.

Though she found the work rules frustrating, Campbell studied them carefully. She knew she'd lose her insurance only after three months of noncompliance. She wouldn't reach the requisite 80 hours per month in July or August, but she figured she'd be fine once the semester began.

"It was, I think, Sept. 28 that I got a notice from Blue Cross Blue Shield that my insurance was taken from me," Campbell said. She was shocked. She'd been told she had until Oct. 5 to report her hours for September and had been waiting until she got her check from the library at the end of the month.

She called Blue Cross, which confirmed her insurance had been turned off due to the work requirement. She called DHS, which told her to call her county office. She called the Washington County DHS, which referred her back to the state. Eventually, she spoke to a supervisor in Little Rock who looked at her information and confirmed she only had two months of noncompliance and should not have lost coverage.

"She said it's set up automatically so that if you haven't entered anything by the 27th or 28th ... the system automatically kicks you out," Campbell recalled. "She just kept saying, 'The system is new, and we're trying to work out kinks, and there are people with problems.' "

The DHS employee told Campbell she could immediately re-enroll but that she'd initially be covered through fee-for-service Medicaid, rather than Blue Cross.

"And I'm like, well, that's great, but my mental health counselor doesn't take Medicaid," Campbell said. She was told she should be able to re-enroll in Blue Cross in December or January. Until then, her counselor has agreed to see her pro bono, which she's thankful for. ("As a clinical mental health graduate student interning at a women's prison, it's pretty important that I have my own counseling," she added.)

Manley said the work requirement shouldn't trigger a closure before the last day of the month. Asked by email whether beneficiaries have been accidentally disenrolled after only two months of noncompliance with the work requirement, she replied that "no known instances of this have occurred." However, Campbell provided a screenshot of the Access Arkansas portal showing that she'd been noncompliant for just two months as of November, along with letters from Blue Cross notifying her that her plan would be closed at the end of September.

"I really don't understand why things happened. I just know that they did," Campbell said. "I think that it's messed up and it's wrong and my coverage was taken from me unfairly. I have met every requirement and I have actually gone above and beyond."

She also wonders if other low-income Arkansans are falling through the cracks. "I have the luxury of being able sit around on the phone for as long as it takes to get ahold of somebody — and being eloquent enough to explain my situation," Campbell said. "I'm savvy with a computer system. I'm working diligently to become a productive member of society. ... If I'm getting screwed, then how many other people are?"

Others losing coverage

The Arkansas Works program was shrinking well before the work requirement. Enrollment on Jan. 1 was 286,000. By Nov. 1, it had slipped to 246,000. Of the 40,000 who left Arkansas Works over that 10-month span, only about 12,000 cases were closed due to the work requirement, leaving 26,000 whose coverage ended for other reasons.

Governor Hutchinson has attributed the reduction to a strengthening economy and improved efforts at DHS to scrub the rolls of those no longer eligible for Arkansas Works. That group include workers making too much money to qualify for the program — for a one-person household, the monthly income threshold is $1,397 — along with people who have moved out of state, inmates at correctional facilities and seniors who have become eligible for Medicare. But it also includes cases closed for what might be called technical compliance issues, such as not responding to a DHS request for information quickly enough.

Two people interviewed for this story thought they had lost coverage due to the work requirement, but an inspection of letters sent from DHS revealed they'd been cut off because of a missing paperwork issue. DHS said it could not comment on individual cases, but its most recent report showed that almost 4,200 cases were closed in October alone because the beneficiary "failed to return requested information." (People whose cases were closed for reasons other than the work requirement are not subject to the lockout period and may re-apply for coverage. However, if people think they were kicked off due to the work requirement, they may also assume they're locked out.)

Kevin De Liban, an attorney for Legal Aid of Arkansas, is among the lawyers representing nine plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit seeking to undo the state's work requirement. (The National Health Law Program and the Southern Poverty Law Center are also working on the suit.) DeLiban said Legal Aid has seen an increase in people kicked off for failing to provide DHS with verification of income or other household information within 10 days of receiving notice, as the agency requires.

"In many cases they did, it just wasn't processed in time. Or maybe they provided it on day 11 or 12, but their case was already set to be closed," De Liban said. "It's immensely confusing, because it's more and more administrative hoops to jump through and figure out. ... Some people might have reported [work hours], or might not have, but then they get kicked off in the meantime for something other than the [work] requirement.

"And so it's, if they don't get you through the work requirements, they might get you through the verification procedures or the returned mail," he said. "At least from our clients' perspective, it seems like the state is trying to make it as hard as possible for people to retain coverage."

The cost of labor

In September, when the work requirement first began locking people out of coverage, Hutchinson said cutting off beneficiaries was not the policy's goal. "We'd like to see them all in compliance," he said at the time.

The governor noted that he's long defended Medicaid expansion from fellow Republicans in the state legislature who want to dismantle the program entirely. "I fought hard to maintain Arkansas Works, despite odds against it, despite enormous criticism," Hutchinson said. The work requirement represents a "proper balance," he said, between "providing assistance to those who need it, and ... the value of work and responsibility."

Hutchinson cited data showing many Arkansas Works enrollees had recently found employment, some of them assisted by the state Department of Workforce Services. At dozens of workforce centers around the state, DWS staff help clients search for jobs, prepare resumes, obtain scholarships and more.

Out of 21,841 Arkansas Works beneficiaries referred to DWS due to the work requirement, 1,366 have sought help at a workforce center as of Nov. 14, DWS spokesman Steve Guntharp said in an email. Some 2,887 people subject to the work requirement have found full-time employment since the requirement started. (That's with or without DWS assistance; the number was derived from the state's New Hire Registry, Guntharp explained.)

It's not clear what job gains can be attributed to the work requirement, because the working poor commonly cycle in and out of employment. Guntharp said DWS doesn't ask clients whether the requirement motivated them to seek work or whether they were looking for a job anyway. Workforce centers haven't seen a major rise in casework recently, he confirmed, and DWS hasn't hired additional staff.

In its Nov. 8 letter calling for a pause in disenrollments, the Medicaid commission criticized Arkansas for not collecting better information on whether the state's work supports are meeting people's needs. "[D]ata currently are not being reported on the extent to which beneficiaries are accessing such services, what services they are asking or qualified for, which barriers may exist for their use of these services, and whether services are being delivered," the letter said.

The Department of Workforce Services would not allow a reporter access to a workforce center to interview clients or staff, citing privacy concerns. When asked to be connected with Arkansas Works success stories, the agency emailed profiles of two individuals, Julia Bunch of Harrison and Jeff Snyder of Rogers, along with signed consent forms.

Snyder's profile said he sought help from the Rogers Workforce Center after being unemployed for nine months and searching unsuccessfully for jobs. With the help of a workforce specialist, Snyder, who had recently earned his associate's degree, found a new job Aug. 8 making $17.64 an hour. "I now work with a great company — in a job that I actually would not have gotten without the help from DWS," he was quoted as saying.

The profile did not say whether Snyder reported being motivated by the work requirement. Moreover, this reporter could not independently confirm the details provided by DWS. The agency said it could not provide contact information for Snyder or Bunch because of confidentiality laws. Other attempts to contact either beneficiary for an interview were not successful.

Whether motivated by the work requirement or not, some beneficiaries are undoubtedly finding better-paying jobs, considering the strong economy. But not all jobs come with insurance, and making more money often means losing eligibility for Arkansas Works.

Joe Thompson, the CEO of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, a nonpartisan health policy center in Little Rock, said any measurement of the work requirement must take into account both income and health outcomes. "It's not just getting a better job. ... It's a two-step process," he said. "You want [the beneficiary] to get a better job that has insurance or buy insurance on the individual marketplace. So success needs to be not just, 'Are they working?' but, 'Are they being successful in moving up that socioeconomic ladder and maintaining health insurance coverage?' "

Arkansas Works beneficiaries interviewed for this story — including some not mentioned by name above — expressed mixed feelings about the concept of a work requirement. A few said they felt it was a good idea in principle but believed the state was executing it poorly. All complained that the online-only reporting mechanism was flawed.

Many, like Nannette Ruelle, expressed anger and indignation that Arkansas was rescinding health coverage for its poorest citizens, many of whom depend on it for their day-to-day health needs.

"This was put in place to help us, and it helped us for like a short period of time, and then it was like ... whoever the caseworker is didn't do their part," Ruelle said. "They're getting paid to do their job, but they're not even doing it."

Dealing with DHS, she said, makes one feel "like you're just a number on a sheet of paper. That's exactly how they treat you." It fills her with the same sense of powerlessness she had when she was incarcerated. "If that were the case, why didn't I just stay in prison?

"I served my time, and I'm ... a resident of the United States of America, Little Rock, Arkansas," Ruelle said. "I'm a resident here, and I pay my taxes, which helps pay them, so I would expect something in return. I'm paying you, so I need some help back."

This reporting is made possible in part by a yearlong fellowship sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists and supported by The Commonwealth Fund. It is published here courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.

When Arkansas Works doesn't

[inezdarrow70-blog]

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[educator4academicintegrity]

My Learning Experience: Year Three

As the school year of 2016-2017 approached, I had mixed feelings. I was hopeful that a new environment would ameliorate the stress level in the ACAP classroom, which was now to be housed at the Blended Learning Academy. On the other hand, the Blended Learning Academy principal, who had resisted my efforts to bring academic integrity to the ACAP program at Del Rio High School, was still my supervisor. Call me overly optimistic, but I believed that once she saw first-hand what was happening she would come to understand what I had been trying to tell her from a distance. Also, I had a restful summer, so I felt somewhat regenerated. The previous summer, the summer of 2015, I had spent my time compiling evidence of academic fraud, which I had sent to TEA. I had planned to do the same thing for the summer school session of 2016, but my password to the online courseware system had been deactivated before the summer school session began. Apparently, I was not the only one undergoing a learning experience.

On August 17, 2016, at the first staff meeting of the Blended Learning Academy, I asked the principal if we had credit accrual policies for ACAP. Specifically, I wanted to know if the credit accrual policies for the Blended Learning Academy would be the same as the credit recovery policies as practiced at Del Rio High School. This was an important distinction because under a credit accrual program like ACAP the student has possibly never taken the course, while in a credit recovery program, students are trying to “recover” credits that they had failed through traditional instruction. I then asked for a password so I could gain access to the online courseware. I was told I would have to wait for both.

Nonetheless, the teachers and the staff members at the Blended Learning Academy were friendly and receptive. They welcomed me and made me feel at home. The Blended Learning Academy had two separate buildings. One was the 8th grade campus, which was now beginning its 2nd year. The 8th grade campus seemed worn and tired compared with the new building that housed the 9-12 campus, which is where ACAP and the other high school credit accrual programs were to be held. The new building was receiving its finishing touches when I arrived; it seemed like the perfect metaphor for a fresh start: fresh paint, new desks, clean walls, and new computers on the way. As I left that afternoon, I felt a sense of renewal.

But, later that day, I received a text from the principal informing me that I would not begin class in the new building. In the text, she asked that I return to campus so that I could ready my temporary classroom to receive students on Monday. When I arrived, the principal informed me that only two rooms in the new building were finished and those rooms were being reserved for the English teacher and Social Studies teacher. She asked that I be patient while they finished the other rooms. Although disappointed, I assured her I would. The principal then asked that I follow her so she could show me my temporary classroom. She then led me to the 8th grade cafeteria.

I spent that evening trying to recondition the cafeteria to look like a classroom. I was only partially successful; It still looked like a cafeteria, and why shouldn’t it—it still was used for that purpose. But I did manage to improve its academic ambience. Nonetheless, there were problems, which were exacerbated by the new flexible school day that the Blended Learning Academy had instituted. Under the new policy, students were allowed flexibility for scheduling their school day. While the policy required them to spend at least two hours a day in class, it gave them a choice so that they could come in the morning or the afternoon. This caused periods of overcrowding in which we did not have enough computers to go around. These overcrowding episodes were accompanied sporadically by periods in which few students showed up. It was not a well-thought-out policy. While the first week brought many challenges, I was blessed to be given great tutors. They are what I had hoped for (but never had) at the high school: professional, respectful, courteous, and academically responsible. They were great.

During the second week of classes I used my lunch period to go to the new building to check on its progress. I saw two gentlemen working in one of the classrooms. I introduced myself and asked them when the remaining rooms would be ready for classes. One gentleman, who introduced himself as the building supervisor, said that the rooms were ready. He explained that only the science classroom would be delayed further due to some equipment that needed to be installed. I immediately sought out my principal to tell her the good news. “The rooms are ready,” I said. She assured me they weren’t, saying they did not have internet capability. Disappointed, I returned to the building to ask the supervisor when the rooms would be internet ready. He said, they already have internet. Returning to my principal’s office, I requested that she talk to the building supervisor because he had told me that the rooms were internet ready. She looked at me and said angrily in a loud tone, “Mrs. Davis, I am going to let you know when the rooms are ready!” With that she went into her office and left me standing.

After my repeated queries concerning the credit accrual policies for the Blended Learning Academy went unanswered, the principal finally relented and asked that I and the 9-12 English teacher collaborate on a plan that would be applicable to the Blended Learning Academy. As the reader of my story knows, I had been thinking about this issue for a long time. So, on September 1st, we submitted our plan for Credit Accrual Policies at the Blended Learning Academy. The one-page document addressed all my concerns about maintaining academic integrity. One guideline said, “All Pretests, Mastery Tests, Unit Post Tests, and End of Semester Tests must be completed without any additional assistance.” Other guidelines addressed plagiarism, using the internet to complete tests, and other issues related to academic dishonesty. The principal used the same expeditiousness to amend our plan as we did in creating it. On September 2nd, she sent us her plan. Gone were all the policies that related to maintaining the academic integrity of the tests that were used to measure proficiency of content. I have included the actual document I sent to the principal for your review. Those portions which are highlighted are the ones that the principal deleted. She kept the policy that said that “pre-tests must be completed without any additional assistance, i.e., internet, tutor, or teacher.” For Mastery Tests, Unit Post Tests, and End of Semester Tests, there were no such restrictions. The students were free to use whatever resource that would get them a passing score. To my knowledge these policies remained in place for the entire 2016-2017 school year.

During the subsequent weeks I never once checked on the status of the new building, never once brought up the topic with the principal. I and my tutors remained in the cafeteria to service the needs of the 9-12 math students. Then, on September 22, the principal informed me that I was to be replaced by another math teacher and that I was being reassigned to teach 8th grade math at the Blended Learning Academy. I immediately protested. I was reminded what the English ACAP teacher had told me just the year before concerning her experience teaching the 8th grade at the Blended Learning Academy. I made my protest both verbally and in writing. The principal responded in an email that the “plan is currently under review by [the superintendent] and we will take direction from his feedback concerning the reassignment of all staff, including tutors.” I filed a grievance arguing that my reassignment was made in retaliation for reporting attendance and academic misconduct to the Texas Education Agency. Nothing would change however; the gears of the retaliatory machine had been well oiled and put in motion. Although, I was successful in delaying my reassignment for about a week, there was little I could do to stop it. I could resign, which in hindsight I should have done; or, I could try my best to teach 8thgrade math at the Blended Learning Academy. I chose to try.

On October 5, 2016, I reported to my new classroom, which, coincidentally, was directly across the hall from the 8th grade cafeteria. The new ACAP teacher who had replaced me also reported to her new classroom that same day. The principal had deemed the room in the new building ready to receive students. Just as I never got to experience teaching in the new building, my replacement never had to endure teaching in a cafeteria. I used the first day to introduce myself and to get to know the students. I asked them to fill out a questionnaire I had created. It was a way for me to get to know them, their hopes, dreams and desires. When I arrived home that night and began to read the responses, I knew that my classes (I had seven periods) would be challenging. Multiple students answered, “drug dealer” to my question asking what their dream job is. And the last question asked, “What is the biggest dream of your life?” Shockingly, I received more than one response that said: “To kill people.” Maybe they were joking, maybe not. Either way, it was a foreboding omen of what was to come. I showed the responses to my principal; she said she would talk to the parents. Unfortunately, if she did talk to the parents, it made little difference. The students were there the next morning and their attitudes seemed unaffected.

The first week in my new classroom was just as the ACAP English teacher had described to me the previous year. At least half of the class period was spent dealing with discipline issues. Not that there weren’t good students in my classes; there were. But the roles were reversed. In most classes, you have a few students who cause most of the problems; they are the outliers. But in the 8th grade at the Blended Learning Academy the good students were the outliers. Nonetheless, as I got to know all my students better, I did come to sympathize with them. Most came from unstable home and family environments. But this could only appease my attitude so much. Rarely did a day go by in which profanity was not directed at me by a student. I know some teachers who thrive in this environment and do great things with challenging students; unfortunately, I was not one of them. And when a student came at me with a pencil pointed like a dagger, I began to fear for my safety. As he came within my personal space with the pencil pointed at me, I said, “What are you doing!?” He played it off and said he was going to the pencil sharpener. I reported the incident, just like all the others, but the student was back in class the next day like nothing happened.

After three months, I was reaching my limit. I was reminded of a story a teacher had told me about her experience at the Blended Learning Academy. She said that one day she had gone outside during the lunch period to revive and renew her energy level for the afternoon classes. There, standing outside, she said that she began to cry and shake uncontrollably. She told me that she knew that she had to leave. Luckily for her, she was reassigned shortly thereafter. I had no such luck. On December 2, 2016, I received the district’s response to my Level I grievance; my request to reverse my reassignment was denied. I immediately filed a Level II grievance. Unfortunately, it was not just grievance hearings that I was losing; I also began to have health problems.

In November, I noticed physical symptoms that were painful and perplexing. I saw my personal physician who referred me to a specialist. There they ran a myriad of tests and eventually asked if I could come in for a biopsy. I did so; it came back positive for pre-cancer. The doctor recommended immediate treatment, so I filed for leave under the Family Medical and Leave Act.  When I told my students that I would be taking an extended leave to deal with medical issues, some showed genuine concern, but most seemed unfazed. A few asked if I was going to die. When I said, “No, I don’t think so”, a couple of students opined, “That’s too bad.” Even though only a few students responded this way, why are statements like this so painful to hear. Nonetheless, I tried to forget and focus on my treatment.

As I began my fight to return to full health, I heard from the Texas Education Agency concerning my complaint. On December 19, 2016, Brenda Meyers, Director of the Special Investigations Unit at the Texas Education Agency, sent my attorney an email which said, “The investigator has concluded their investigation and has sent me the case file to review.  A review of the case file will be conducted by two directors and legal before the complainant will be notified via TEA correspondence.” While I was happy with the news, I felt it was long overdue. I had sent TEA my complaint on November 20, 2015, at which time it appeared clear-cut and easy to decipher that there was widescale cheating in both the attendance reporting and the granting of academic credit in credit recovery.  I had used their tardiness to send them new evidence showing that the cheating had continued. I even sent them a copy of the Blended Learning Academy’s Credit Accrual policies proffered by the principal. Nonetheless, I remained hopeful that this ordeal was almost over and that the unethical behaviors that were still ongoing at SFDRCISD would cease.

On January 12, I received the Level II grievance response from the district in which the Level I decision was upheld and my request to reverse the reassignment was denied. One week later, on January 19, 2017, I filed a Level III grievance. The last week of January, I received some great news: I was cancer free. Thanks to wonderful doctors and a loving family I had recovered and emerged from a very scary period, healthy and thankful. I met with my personal physician to tell him the news and to get a check-up. Understanding my work environment, he told me that he would not recommend submitting myself to a high stress environment; he said that there exists a possible correlation between stress and the spread of cancer cells. Even though I had been declared cancer-free, he advised me to consider extending my medical leave of absence. I discussed the doctor’s recommendations with my husband and he agreed that my health was more important than lost income. So, I applied for Educator Temporary Disability Leave, which was granted and began on January 30, 2017. I hoped that the SFDRCISD Board of Trustees, who oversees Level III grievance hearings, would correctly evaluate the validity of my grievance and return me to the ACAP classroom. So, I waited and did my best to relax and regain my strength.

My Level III Grievance hearing took place on February 12, 2017. I arrived at the SFDRCISD Administration Offices around 5:30 PM, thirty minutes prior to the start of the regular monthly meeting of the SFDRCISD Board of Trustees. I was greeted by my attorney who had preceded my arrival. We were later joined by my husband. The hearing would take place in closed session, which usually occurs at the end of the board meeting. So, we waited. There were two grievances presented that night; we were the second. Finally, we were summoned to the board room where my attorney, Mr. Tony Connors, would present our case. During a 10-minute presentation to the SFDRCISD Board of Trustees, Mr. Connors argued that the motive behind my reassignment was to retaliate against me for reporting illegal and unethical activities to the Texas Education Agency. Mr. Connors then told the SFDRCISD Board of Trustees that the evidence is overwhelming that the cheating occurred and continues to occur in the credit recovery and credit accrual programs at Del Rio High School and the Blended Learning Academy, respectively. During the presentation, I attempted to make eye contact with each board member; but not one would look me in the eye. I took this as a sign of guilt, but as we left the room I did not know what to expect.

We made our way to the auditorium to await the return of the board members from closed session.  While we waited we discussed the expectations with our attorney. He said that he did not know what to expect. Finally, the board members returned. They addressed the grievances in order as they received them. For the first grievance, Board President Joshua Overfelt called for a motion. There was no motion put forth by a board member so no action was taken. My attorney said that this was a common tactic when the board did not want to publicly render a decision. But, he continued, this tactic results in the original Level II decision being upheld. He further stated, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they do the same thing with your grievance.” Then the Board took up my grievance petition. Once more, President Overfelt called for a motion. Board member Robert Chavira made a motion to uphold the Level II decision; Board Vice-President Cecelia Martinez-Lozano seconded the motion and then all seven members raised their hand and voted unanimously to uphold the Level II decision.  The very same board members who were afraid to talk to me about the evidence I presented to them back in June of 2016, the very same board members who were afraid to look me in the eye as my attorney laid out the evidence of the cheating occurring in the credit recovery and credit accrual programs at SFDRCISD, these very same board members put their public bravado on display by enthusiastically raising their hands to deny my grievance.

The reader may be saying at this point, “What did you expect!” Yes, indeed. Although I had hoped for a different decision, living in Del Rio, Texas, a small town on the Mexican border, introduced me to the compadre system, a term that was unknown to me in Mexico.  The compadre system combines nepotism and cronyism into a system that favors friends and family in awarding jobs, contracts, and privileges, most of which, are paid for by tax dollars.  The reader of my story has already been introduced to numerous hiring decisions based on family connections: principals hiring their sons to be tutors, etc. This system extends to the board members as well. The SFDRCISD Board Secretary recently celebrated the dedication of a new SFDRCISD administration building named in her father’s honor; I could continue, but you get the idea. This system is reinforced across family lines through participation in fraternal organizations and other social clubs. The Superintendent and the SFDRCISD Board President are both active members of the same chapter of the local Lion’s Club, which, by the way, doesn’t allow female members. Loyalty, whether between friends or family, surmounts all other ethical considerations. As one “loyal” SFDRCISD employee said to me, shortly after finding out about my complaint, “Ms. Davis, shame on you for doing this to the district that gave you a job.” That seems to be the attitude in Del Rio. Loyalty demands that you look the other way. So, at this point, I knew one thing for sure: if the illegal and unethical activity was to cease it would have to be initiated and led by a state or federal agency.

My focus now turned to Austin and the Texas Education Agency. It had been three months since TEA closed its investigation, but the agency continued to hold on to its investigative findings. I tried to put a positive spin on the delay, thinking to myself that the substantive and substantial nature of the evidence necessitated that the agency take its time before issuing corrective actions and determining which educators to hold accountable. Then on April 4, 2017, my attorney called. Before we even had time to say hello, Mr. Connors, angrily emoted, “TEA closed your complaint.” What, I don’t understand! I tried to clarify what he was telling me. You mean after 13 months of investigation and another 4 months of departmental and legal review, TEA decided to simply dismiss it, like nothing happened. “Apparently,” Mr. Connors offered. Mr. Connors agreed that it was inexplicable; then, he said he was forwarding the TEA closure letter to me. The closure letter was surprisingly brief, which allows me to quote it in its entirety:

After a review of the allegations(s), evidence and documents received from the district, the TEA Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has determined that the district addressed the reported concerns that were within the scope of TEA. This concludes the SIU’s review of the matter and no further action will be taken.

What “evidence and documents” are they talking about? As the reader of this story knows, the cheating continued long after TEA received my complaint (November 20, 2015). SFDRCISD issued no new policies to address the cheating. In January of 2016, I had found 112 pages of handwritten answers to courseware credit recovery tests being used in the afterschool sessions of credit recovery. The dates of the course completion times for 2015-2016 showed that the number of students completing semester-long courses in suspiciously short times actually increased after TEA received my complaint. And finally, in September of 2016, I had documented and sent to TEA the credit recovery policies written by a SFDRCISD Principal that stated students were free to use any resource, i.e., internet, tutor, or teacher to complete the tests for their credit recovery and credit accrual courses. Despite all this, TEA said that the district “addressed the reported concerns.” From my vantage point, the only thing the district did to address the “reported concerns” was to remove me from the credit accrual and credit recovery programs at SFDRCISD and reassign me to teach 8th grade.

By this time, I had informed my attorney that we could no longer pay him; we just couldn’t afford it. He promised to continue working on a pro bono basis because of his conviction for our cause. On April 19, Mr. Connors wrote to AJ Crabill, the Deputy Commissioner of Governance for the Texas Education Agency, “to express our disappointment and disbelief in the conclusions reached” in the investigation. You can see the actual letter in the Documents section. Furthermore, Mr. Connors asked for the evidence supplied by the school district that led to the closing of the case, “so we can better appreciate TEA’s investigation and its conclusions.” Mr. Crabill answered Mr. Connors letter with a brief email that said the “evidence” that led to TEA’s decision will not be supplied to us. It is secret and will remain so. He continued that we were welcome to submit a formal Public Information Request (PIR) “with TEA or through the attorney general’s office to pursue an alternative opinion.”

A formal PIR was made to TEA that requested all documents and evidence that led to the closing of my case. On April 27, 2017, the Texas Education Agency filed a ruling request with Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, to uphold their decision to keep the information from the public. TEA’s legal attempt to suppress evidence incensed my attorney, as it did me, and as it should every justice-minded citizen. How can a state agency, that never once interviewed me, close a case based on evidence that it deems must not be made public? TEA’s sole reason for existing is to oversee “public” education in the state of Texas.  Nonetheless, that is exactly what they did. Meanwhile, Mr. Connors penned another letter to Mr. Crabill of TEA. Once more, I have included the actual letter that Mr. Connors sent to the Deputy Commissioner of Governance for the Texas Education Agency. The letter, dated May 19, 2017, chastised the Deputy Commissioner and TEA for its lack of leadership, because when “educators cheat the way that was shown by this complaint, the students are robbed of an education, and the involved educators send the wrong message that cheating is okay.” Mr. Crabill did not respond to Mr. Connors letter. Once more, as I had done so many times, I waited. I waited for a response from the Texas Attorney General’s office and I waited for a responsible adult to stand up and say this behavior is unethical and unacceptable.

While awaiting the attorney general’s ruling, I submitted additional PIR’s to the SFDRCISD. Surprisingly, on June 16, 2017, I received a copy of the internal investigation completed by the district’s legal firm, Schulman, Lopez, Hoffer & Adelstein, LLP.  I say surprisingly, because my attorney had been asking for the findings of the internal investigation for over a year; yet, his requests had gone unanswered. Why would they now accede to my PIR and send me the Investigator’s Report. Did they no longer fear TEA and felt secure enough to let me see it? Did they feel sorry for me? Frankly, it’s a mystery, because the report, which was easily rebutted, was obviously the work of an advocate and not an impartial seeker of the truth. For example, on page 4, the Investigator’s Report stated, “we began our investigation noting the subjective and assumptive nature of most of the” allegations. One of these “subjective and assumptive” allegations was that “one of the students earned 18 semester credits in the span of two months.” This refers to Student #237, whose course completion times are documented in the Student Case Study referenced in Year 2 of my story. The allegation is either true or false, not subjective or assumptive; furthermore, I provided the district with all the course completion documentation and I provided the district’s law firm with Student #237’s SFDRCISD Student ID#. They could have easily verified or falsified my allegation.

This set the stage for the rest of the report which went to extraordinary lengths to dismiss my allegations. The Investigator’s Report intimated that the course completion times could be explained by technical problems with the software, students guessing the answers correctly, and other easily falsifiable hypotheses. There are large sections of the report that were redacted. Given that my complaint concerned both attendance and academic fraud, I assume (though I am usually not the assumptive type) that the redacted portions address the investigation’s findings of attendance fraud. If true, that would indicate that the district had already concluded that TEA would not punish them for fraudulent credits obtained through credit recovery or credit accrual courses. On the other hand, attendance fraud is directly tied to funding, so the district and their lawyers were more circumspect and cautious in releasing their findings that addressed my allegations of fraudulent attendance reporting practices at SFDRCISD. Or perhaps, they simply could think of no creative way to respond to the attendance fraud allegations proffered in my complaint to TEA.

During my battles with the SFDRCISD and TEA, I discovered the website https://advocatingexcellence.org/, created by Jeremy Noonan, a former science and credit recovery teacher in Georgia. Mr. Noonan’s experience in credit recovery echoed mine in many ways and he too fought back.  Mr. Noonan had turned his experience into a calling by becoming a recognized national leader on the academic abuses of online credit recovery programs. Jeremy was genial, kind, encouraging and supportive. He always lifted my spirits and encouraged me to keep fighting even when I was about to give up. By the time I contacted him, Mr. Noonan had already become a significant figure to educational journalists around the country. His research and experiences were referenced by educational think tanks around the country and he appeared in such well-respected publications as the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and SLATE. Mr. Noonan was a constant source of inspiration and information.  

On June 30, 2017, the Texas Attorney General’s office released its ruling. It granted TEA’s request to keep the “evidence” from public view. The document that detailed the ruling said that “the submitted information at issue consists of privileged attorney-client communications.” Therefore, “the agency may withhold the submitted information at issue.” I was never notified of the decision, nor was my attorney; in fact, I did not even know of its existence until July 6, 2017. Ironically, I found out about the ruling through a public document search on the Texas Attorney General’s website. So that was it. I now had nowhere else to turn. On Monday, July 10, 2017, I went to the administrative offices of the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District and resigned. I had fought against this injustice with every bit of strength and energy I had. And while I never found an ethical and responsible person with the power to put a stop to the cheating, I was secure in the realization that I had provided my children with the example that fighting for something that you deeply believe in is never a waste of time. Nonetheless, my children also learned the valuable lesson that assuming the role of a whistleblower comes with a price. Part of that price was to uproot ourselves and leave Del Rio. My husband, who is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Southwest Texas Junior College, accepted a transfer to its Uvalde campus, which is about 70 miles east of Del Rio.

On August 1, 2017, we made the move to Uvalde, Texas, and I tried to begin anew. I concluded that I would not reenter the teaching profession in the Texas Public School System. I tried to reevaluate what I wanted to do professionally, but mostly, I just tried to recover from three years of frustration and disbelief by concentrating on my roles of wife and mother. Then, on August 13, I received an email from Jay Matthews of the Washington Post informing me that he planned to do a story on me and my experience in credit recovery. A well-respected journalist and author, Mr. Matthews had written the seminal book on Jaime Escalante, the math teacher portrayed in the movie, Stand and Deliver.  Recently, Mr. Matthews had become interested in the rise of online credit recovery programs around the nation and their association with rising graduation rates. After doing a story on Jeremy Noonan of educators4excellence.org, Mr. Matthews was introduced to my story and the documentation I had collected to back up my claims. Mr. Mathews was professional, courteous, and got to the heart of the story very quickly. In a bombshell, TEA said it has no authority to oversee credit recovery programs. In fact, Gene Acuna, spokesman for the TEA said, “TEA does not have the authority to review/approve [any] curriculum programs.” My first thought was, “Why didn’t you tell me this on November 20, 2015, when you received my complaint?” Why did you hold on to my complaint for a year and a half without telling me that credit recovery programs are none of your business? Why did you not mention this in the letter that officially closed my complaint? Why would it take being contacted by the Washington Post for you to finally reveal that the awarding of high school credit in the state of Texas is wholly at the discretion of the local school district?

On Sunday, August 27, 2017, the Del Rio News Herald, the local community newspaper, followed Jay Matthews lead by publishing a story on my allegations of cheating in the credit recovery and credit accrual programs at the SFDRCISD. I shared with them the same documentation and data that I gave to Mr. Matthews. I also made myself available to answer any questions. The article did yield more interesting comments by TEA. “According to DeEtta Culbertson, TEA information specialist, the agency has no policy regarding how independent school districts conduct credit accrual programs. ‘Although a teacher providing answers for a local test does not violate any rules, it does raise ethical concerns,’ she said.” Summarily, Ms. Culbertson stated that “there are no legal ramifications to cheating on credit recovery tests.” Disappointingly, the Del Rio News-Herald did their best to protect the school district from further embarrassment. The story remarked that the district hired a law firm to investigate the allegations, giving the impression that the law firm was an impartial and outside contractor, when in fact, the law firm is the very same firm that has represented the district’s interests for many years. Unsurprisingly, the story reported that the law firm found “no wrongdoing by the district.” The phrase “no wrongdoing” appears three times in the brief article. This is the very same phrase that the Superintendent uttered when contacted by Jay Matthews of the Washington Post. But Mr. Matthews did not fall for it. He verified everything through TEA before publishing his story and TEA never said that they found “no wrongdoing.” Then, remarkably, the story stated that the TEA found no evidence of wrongdoing on “credit -recovery tests.” I do not know if this was purposely added to protect the school district or if the reporter was fooled or confused. I just know that TEA never said this. I emailed the reporter and demanded to know the source for this statement. “If you have no evidence for this statement,” I said, “then I demand a retraction.” I received no evidence from the Del Rio News Herald to back up the statement and my request for a retraction went unheeded as well. So, the Del Rio News Herald, the same newspaper that has no problem posting pictures of misdemeanor-committing young adults from the wrong side of town in their weekly crime report for all to see, thought it appropriate to slant the story to protect the local elites—one more lesson learned.

My learning experience had supplied many valuable lessons. But the most important lesson is the one that is being disseminated throughout the secondary education system in Texas. At all levels, the message is clear: Cheating and Dishonesty leads to success. I fought against this. I did not want to believe that educational professionals would accept, embrace and actively participate in promulgating this adage. But they have. In my state, it begins with the Texas Education Agency. TEA has told school districts that you will not be burdened with oversight when awarding course credit. Whether it is lowering the bar in the classroom or using credit recovery and credit accrual programs to grant course credit, it is your decision. Even if, as was done in my district, you want to take the tests with/for the students that show proficiency of course content, we will not interfere. And the credit earned by that student will be equivalent to one earned by a student in a rigorous setting. It’s a great system for TEA administrators. They can point to rising graduation rates as cogent proof of their effective leadership, all the while, keeping their hands clean by letting the individual school districts do the dirty work of putting cheating boots on the ground. The Texas Education Agency has made the adage systemic: Cheating and Dishonesty leads to success.

For the past ten years, graduation rates have skyrocketed throughout the state. Texas now has one of the highest graduation rates in the country. SFDRCISD witnessed one of the largest increases in the state. In 2007, the graduation rate was 69.1%. By 2015 it had risen to 93.2%. During this same period, the percentage of students passing the SAT or the ACT at the college-criterion level decreased to 7.73%. But the administrators and board members of SFDRCISD were proud of their accomplishment. And why shouldn’t they be. The Texas Education Agency awarded SFDRCISD with a college readiness index of 80%. As constructed by TEA, one-half of the college readiness index is based on graduation rates. Twenty-five percent of the score is based on the 4-year graduation rate while another twenty-five percent is based on the number of students who graduate with college preparatory courses in Math, Science, et. al., the very same courses that are most prevalent in credit recovery programs and the very same courses where the cheating is most obvious. With this 80% college readiness index, TEA coronated SFDRCISD as the best district in the region for readying its students for college. Cheating and Dishonesty leads to success.

Teachers and administrators who learned this lesson and willingly submitted to its edicts have benefitted. I have already noted that teachers who followed the aggressive cheating practices set forth by administration were rewarded with the jobs they coveted. The Del Rio High School Vice Principal who oversaw the ACAP and credit recovery programs during my first year at the high school and who proffered the theory to investigators that the fast completion times could be explained by students guessing the answers was promoted to a Principal position. And the Principal at the Blended Learning Academy who rewrote the credit accrual guidelines to allow cheating and dishonest behavior was promoted to the position of Secondary Curriculum Coordinator. The school administrator who served as the Chief Instructional Officer for Secondary Instruction during my time in credit recovery is now the Chief Compliance Officer for Federal and State Accountability. And finally, what about the Superintendent who steered the ship through the rough waters of a successful coverup by deflecting blame from the school district. Well, on June 24, 2017, the SFDRCISD Board of Trustees awarded the Superintendent with a contract extension until 2021, which was accompanied with a $10,000 annuity. Cheating and Dishonesty leads to success.

Finally, the students themselves have seen this lesson up-close and personal. They know that they can learn nothing and be given credit for a course. Learning, as they have learned, is not part of the requirement for successful course completion. They have come to understand that everyone benefits when they complete the course with a passing grade. And they have witnessed the extreme lengths that teachers and administrators will go to make sure that happens. This lesson has been passed down from the Texas Education Agency, to local school district administrators, and finally through willing teachers on the ground. It is a lesson that will serve these students well if they ever decide to enter the education business in the state of Texas: Cheating and Dishonesty leads to success.

But the educational system is not a closed system. The effects of the current system that rewards cheating and dishonesty have many and profound ramifications that weave themselves into all aspects of society, and these threads do not lead to success. Most immediately, where do these students go upon graduation? Many if not most enter the community college and university system in the state of Texas. These students are either confronted with the fact that they must remediate, which is done at taxpayer expense, or be placed in a college-level class for which they are unprepared. Either option is fraught with frustration and failure. This puts pressure on community colleges and universities to continue lowering the bar to increase matriculation rates or risk the wrath of state politicians. In Texas, Governor Abbot mandated the 60x30 goal, that has 60 percent of Texas’ 25- to 34-year-old workforce achieving a postsecondary education credential by 2030. This is unreachable within the current system; therefore, to reach this goal the bar will have to be lowered even further.

My learning experience has taught me many truths, but mostly my three years as a secondary teacher in the Texas Public-School System has been confused with contradiction and irony. I have spent three years searching for responsible and ethical educators to stand up and say this is wrong. I have met many, mostly teachers, who believe as I do, but who lack the power or the will to effect change. Some of these educators leave the profession while others resolve quietly to live for the paycheck. However, I finally found an individual whose professional adage matches my yearning for a responsible adult to stand up against a system that promotes cheating and dishonesty as a pathway to student “success”. Ironically, this adage comes from none other than Mr. AJ Crabill, the Deputy Commissioner of Governance for the Texas Education Agency, whose actions, as seen in this story, are a contradiction of his words. The adage reads: STUDENT OUTCOMES DON’T CHANGE UNTIL ADULT BEHAVIOR CHANGES. Mr. Crabill—I couldn’t agree more.

[corpasa]

World Password Day — It’s Coming!

One of the most important yet underwhelming international events is coming up the first Thursday in May (in Canada, it’s March 15th). What is it? It’s World Password Day,

Yawn…

I know — words can’t express how tedious most people find passwords, how annoying they are to use, and how likely it is 99% of the world will not celebrate this event. Let me see if I can convince you otherwise. On January 1, 1983, when the Internet was invented, mankind agreed to a binary choice: Invent passwords or forever regret their absence. Without them, there would be no protection for your privacy, your online information, or even your personal identity. Passwords are now required to access websites, banking, email, social media, favorite shopping sites, chat venues like iMessenger, and even certain documents. These annoying, forgettable, intrusive entities are the first line of defense against hackers and for many, their entire defense.  Because so many treat passwords casually, despite all they know about their importance, password theft is one of the fastest growing and most effective crimes. 

While every expert recommends changing your password two-three times a year, no one does that. Do you? I don’t. I’m challenged to remember my password much less remember to change it regularly. As a result, World Password Day came into being:

Annually, on World Password Day, change all of your passwords

Why change passwords

A study in the UK found that the average person has around 118 accounts. That’s more than anyone can keep track of and why it’s popular to link logins to social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter being the most common) or Google accounts. Many schools use the latter to make it easier for students to remember the plethora of passwords for email, LMSs, cloud drives, math programs, and the increasingly common online resources used for their learning. Many people think they’ll never be hacked but a lot of damage can be done between now and never.

Personally, having a day a year dedicated to updating my passwords is a big help. Otherwise, I’d only change them when my bank, credit company, or favorite online store told me someone hacked their servers. Then, it’s a race to see if I can change the password before the hackers invade. Digital security protocols require I be more proactive with managing my passwords. Monthly would be wonderful but yearly works too.

How to create strong passwords

Creating a password that satisfies a website’s criteria and then remembering it the next time you want to log in — that’s nigh on impossible. It used to be good enough to use your birthday or maiden name. Who would think of those? The answer: Everyone. Same answer for the nineteen other most popular passwords:

password

123456

12345678

qwerty

abc123

monkey

1234567

letmein

trustno1

dragon

111111

iloveyou

master

sunshine

passw0rd

shadow

123123

654321

superman

Avoid all of these as well as words found in the dictionary, family pet names, birth dates, account numbers, prime numbers, and sibling’s names. A password should never be the same as the username, a sequence (such as abcde, 12345), any of these in reverse, empty, or contain personal information. Here are three quick tips on how to create a strong password:

Use 8-13 characters that are a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.

Use song lyrics, words in another language, or unusual movie titles.

Find a phrase you’ll remember. Use the first letter of each word.

Security Beyond Passwords

Many companies offer security that goes beyond the iconic password. Here are a few options you should be familiar with:

Two-step authentication: This requires not only a password and username but something that only the user has, i.e. the answer to a predetermined security question or a code delivered to a pre-registered cell phone.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): This requires a password in conjunction with a fingerprint, facial recognition, or a one-time code delivered usually via text message.

Steganographic login: This is based on an image that is coded to allow you to login via a finger swipe or tap.

How to manage passwords

Passwords are critical to defending against identity theft. If a hacker can access your personal information, he can steal your identity, open accounts in your name, and prevent you accessing your own data and money. There are many ways this is done but you are the first step to preventing it. Take password management seriously. Protect your passwords with a few simple rules:

Never write them down.

Don’t share them.

Don’t type them when someone is looking.

Never send them in an email.

Change them immediately when compromised.

Use different passwords for different accounts

When one of your accounts notifies you that their server has been hacked, change your password. Don’t ignore it because you’re too insignificant to interest scammers.

Resources

Here are websites addressing this topic that I use in my K-8 classrooms and with my high school-level grad students:

How Secure is Your Password? — enter your password and this site tells you how secure it is. It takes only seconds to tell you how long your password would take to crack and how to lengthen it by using tricks you won’t forget. It’s a great activity for class when addressing internet safety.

Password Generator — enter the parameters you’d like for your new password (i.e., symbols, numbers, letters, capitals, numbers, and more). Once the website generates the complicated secure password, it provides a sentence to help you remember it.

***

Now go ahead — on World Password Day, take five minutes to have students change their passwords. Give bonus points if they talk their parents into doing the same.

#BBBPasswordDay

More on digital safety

Teaching Basic Cybersecurity Measures To Everyday People (For Parents of Digital Natives)

Preparing High Schoolers For A Career In Cybersecurity

Tech Tip for Teachers: Cover your Webcam

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

World Password Day — It’s Coming! published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[evnoweb]

World Password Day — It’s Coming!

One of the most important yet underwhelming international events is coming up the first Thursday in May (in Canada, it’s March 15th). What is it? It’s World Password Day,

Yawn…

I know — words can’t express how tedious most people find passwords, how annoying they are to use, and how likely it is 99% of the world will not celebrate this event. Let me see if I can convince you otherwise. On January 1, 1983, when the Internet was invented, mankind agreed to a binary choice: Invent passwords or forever regret their absence. Without them, there would be no protection for your privacy, your online information, or even your personal identity. Passwords are now required to access websites, banking, email, social media, favorite shopping sites, chat venues like iMessenger, and even certain documents. These annoying, forgettable, intrusive entities are the first line of defense against hackers and for many, their entire defense.  Because so many treat passwords casually, despite all they know about their importance, password theft is one of the fastest growing and most effective crimes. 

While every expert recommends changing your password two-three times a year, no one does that. Do you? I don’t. I’m challenged to remember my password much less remember to change it regularly. As a result, World Password Day came into being:

Annually, on World Password Day, change all of your passwords

Why change passwords

A study in the UK found that the average person has around 118 accounts. That’s more than anyone can keep track of and why it’s popular to link logins to social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter being the most common) or Google accounts. Many schools use the latter to make it easier for students to remember the plethora of passwords for email, LMSs, cloud drives, math programs, and the increasingly common online resources used for their learning. Many people think they’ll never be hacked but a lot of damage can be done between now and never.

Personally, having a day a year dedicated to updating my passwords is a big help. Otherwise, I’d only change them when my bank, credit company, or favorite online store told me someone hacked their servers. Then, it’s a race to see if I can change the password before the hackers invade. Digital security protocols require I be more proactive with managing my passwords. Monthly would be wonderful but yearly works too.

How to create strong passwords

Creating a password that satisfies a website’s criteria and then remembering it the next time you want to log in — that’s nigh on impossible. It used to be good enough to use your birthday or maiden name. Who would think of those? The answer: Everyone. Same answer for the nineteen other most popular passwords:

password

123456

12345678

qwerty

abc123

monkey

1234567

letmein

trustno1

dragon

111111

iloveyou

master

sunshine

passw0rd

shadow

123123

654321

superman

Avoid all of these as well as words found in the dictionary, family pet names, birth dates, account numbers, prime numbers, and sibling’s names. A password should never be the same as the username, a sequence (such as abcde, 12345), any of these in reverse, empty, or contain personal information. Here are three quick tips on how to create a strong password:

Use 8-13 characters that are a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.

Use song lyrics, words in another language, or unusual movie titles.

Find a phrase you’ll remember. Use the first letter of each word.

Security Beyond Passwords

Many companies offer security that goes beyond the iconic password. Here are a few options you should be familiar with:

Two-step authentication: This requires not only a password and username but something that only the user has, i.e. the answer to a predetermined security question or a code delivered to a pre-registered cell phone.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): This requires a password in conjunction with a fingerprint, facial recognition, or a one-time code delivered usually via text message.

Steganographic login: This is based on an image that is coded to allow you to login via a finger swipe or tap.

How to manage passwords

Passwords are critical to defending against identity theft. If a hacker can access your personal information, he can steal your identity, open accounts in your name, and prevent you accessing your own data and money. There are many ways this is done but you are the first step to preventing it. Take password management seriously. Protect your passwords with a few simple rules:

Never write them down.

Don’t share them.

Don’t type them when someone is looking.

Never send them in an email.

Change them immediately when compromised.

Use different passwords for different accounts

When one of your accounts notifies you that their server has been hacked, change your password. Don’t ignore it because you’re too insignificant to interest scammers.

Resources

Here are websites addressing this topic that I use in my K-8 classrooms and with my high school-level grad students:

How Secure is Your Password? — enter your password and this site tells you how secure it is. It takes only seconds to tell you how long your password would take to crack and how to lengthen it by using tricks you won’t forget. It’s a great activity for class when addressing internet safety.

Password Generator — enter the parameters you’d like for your new password (i.e., symbols, numbers, letters, capitals, numbers, and more). Once the website generates the complicated secure password, it provides a sentence to help you remember it.

***

Now go ahead — on World Password Day, take five minutes to have students change their passwords. Give bonus points if they talk their parents into doing the same.

#BBBPasswordDay

More on digital safety

Teaching Basic Cybersecurity Measures To Everyday People (For Parents of Digital Natives)

Preparing High Schoolers For A Career In Cybersecurity

Tech Tip for Teachers: Cover your Webcam

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

World Password Day — It’s Coming! published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse