Jackson Jambalaya

School Board member Bill Jones blamed lack of oversight on former state Superintendent Hank Bounds

In 2010, the then-Chairman of the Mississippi Board of Education, Charles McClelland, suspected some irregularities in the state's school ratings system because of some suspiciously high ratings assigned to historically poorly performing schools. He ordered an internal investigation of the Department of Education (MDE) and its watchdog entity, the Office of Educational Accountability. Two then-employees of the Office of Educational Accountability, Toby Frazier and Charlie Evers, conducted the investigation in 2010-2011, revealing corruption, cronyism, and ratings fraud within both of these organizations.

One of Frazier's and Evers' findings was that a division with the Office of Educational Accountability, the Office of Research and Statistics, was operating without oversight. The ORS is responsible for crunching the numbers for individual school ratings within the state's school Accountability Model. The lack of oversight left room for individuals within the ORS to falsely inflate some schools' scores.

Frazier and Evers revealed their findings in a September 2011 meeting with McClelland and Bill Jones, an attorney and school Board member who was also aware of some problems within the two offices. During the meeting, Jones blamed the lack of oversight on former state Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds. When Bounds came on as Superintendent, the director of the Educational Accountability was Steve Williams. Jones alleges that these two, Bounds and Williams, worked together to weaken the Office of Educational Accountability, thus decreasing its oversight of the Department of Education.

Jones said: “Hank with Steve Williams—and I think Steve Williams had pretty much shut down Education Accountability before Hank got there. Hank began to decimate the department” when he took over as Superintendent.

Jones said he was advised not to hire Bounds, but Bounds was a slick salesman, saying: “Hank can—pardon the expression—sell you the sweat off his balls. He is good. He’s got that air of confidence that is rare. But it’s not legitimate.”

It was within this “decimated” Office of Educational Accountability that the Office of Research and Statistics was not properly monitored while calculating school ratings, giving its employees the opportunity to manipulate school scores, according to Frazier, Evers and Jones.

Bounds served as state Superintendent from 2005 to 2009, and was succeeded by Tom Burnham.

Bounds is now Mississippi's Commissioner of Higher Education and answers to the state College Board.

• For more info on Accountability Model and power structure, see the Oct. 31 post: "Miss. public schools' rating system impossible to understand."

• For the transcript and audio recording of the September 2011 meeting, see the Oct. 28 post "Surprise: Cronyism and fraud in education" or click here.

• Look for upcoming posts on the individuals named by investigators as perpetrators of fraud.

Amy McCullough is a freelance journalist who has donated this material to Jackson Jambalaya in memory of Charlie Evers who passed away on Aug. 26, 2013. 

Kingfish note: Steve Williams is currently a lobbyist for the Parents Campaign.  

Kingfish here: I just can not resist after reading the headline a few post. I know Amy will shoot me for doing this.