What else is one to think after reading the first paragraph of Jason Spencer’s story today:
The Houston Independent School District and a former charter school manager have agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit and silence a former employee who’s been one of the district’s most tenacious critics.
It sounds as if Dr. Saavedra was left to clean up yet another mess that he inherited. I will say I am not sure Spencer’s characterization of the Margaret Stroud case is accurate:
A tip from Spuck earlier this year led to a Houston Chronicle investigation into consulting contracts awarded to the son of Chief School Administrator Margaret Stroud, who later resigned and agreed to repay the $63,000 given to her son.
The Chronicle may have received the tip from Spuck and passed it on to HISD, but HISD conducted the investigation — a fairly aggressive investigation — that resulted in Stroud’s resigning and agreeing to pay back money. I think Spencer takes some liberties there by suggesting a Chronicle investigation led to Stroud’s resignation.
Also, this whistleblower had a habit of filing voluminous open records requests (that probably brought HISD to a halt) and passed them on to the media. Part of the agreement is that she’ll knock that off now. Along that line, Sedosi has a take that made me laugh:
So the well is now dry for Channel 13 and Jason Spencer….
You can understand their depression over this fact. This does clear up a little about the negative tone that the Com.’s HISD coverage has had of late, as it seems that all the stories were stemming from a single (biased) source.
Adios, Ms. Spuck.
It will be curious to see how the Com.’s education coverage will be affected by this. I’m wondering if they will revert to quoting press releases and chopping up AP articles like the D.C. bureau and the Austin bureau?
Spencer had a terrific story in the paper earlier this week, so we know he can do it.
