D.C. Public Schools have come a long way since the days when administrators used after-school program funds for vacations, money for textbooks and school repairs routinely disappeared, and thieves helped themselves to school cafeteria food right off the loading docks. But there are troubling signs that elements of the culture of corruption that robbed generations of District children of a quality education are still around. A probe by D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan into McKinley Technology High School’s alleged misuse of a $100,000 AARP award led investigators to a much more serious accusation: grade tampering by McKinley principal David Pinder, who was brought in from Baltimore by former schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Transcripts obtained by The Washington Examiner’s Lisa Gartner showed Pinder listed as the “teacher” of at least 13 McKinley seniors, even though he never taught a class. School data clerks also said Pinder ordered them to assign some seniors bogus credits for courses they never took, presumably as a way to maintain McKinley’s coveted 96.5 percent graduation rate — the second-highest in the city.
Changing data is a whole lot easier than making real improvements in school performance, which is why it is such a temptation. Two years ago, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale excluded thousands of low-performing students from Virginia’s mandatory standardized testing as a way to jack up test scores until the State Board of Education put a stop to the practice. Doctored grades and test tampering not only cheat the students who don’t deserve them, they are unfair to all the students who worked for their grades, as well as the teachers who are professionally evaluated on how much they improve.
In her Oct. 16, 2009, testimony before the D.C. Council, former McKinley counselor Rhonda Robinson accused Pinder of tampering with student transcripts. But it was the whistleblower, not Pinder, who was laid off. U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen is now investigating what happened to the $100,000 AARP Ethel Percy Andrus Award, which was supposed to help students teach senior citizens how to use the Internet, but appears to have been squandered on lavish invitation-only dinners, new office furniture and a tricked-out tour bus that McKinley students only used once. At least four DCPS officials — including then-Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson — had access to those funds, so Pinder is not the only one who has some explaining to do.
