School residency cheaters investigated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear ms. Watson,

You're not a crusader. You are a self-aggrandizement small person harassing children. Really? You're shocked that many parents were upset that you stalked them? I'm shocked that you have the balls to even basically say that what you really want is for Ludlow Taylor to get white enough for your kids to go there.

God help your kids.

I can see why you might be annoyed that someone might discover your fraud. But should you really be surfing the 'Net while on your day job at the DC DMV?

DP, Whose net are you surfing or are you a SAHP without a job, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I do believe there is residency fraud. However, I believe this reporter out right lied in this article. How many people would stop and share their family situations with a stranger? Would any of you? And he states that he pulled tax records among other things to determine their lack of residency. Who gave them the names to pull? How many people would share their names with a stranger standing on the street asking questions.

You don't need a name if you have an address.

+1

They followed these people to their home. Once you have the address, you can pull all sorts of property and tax records from the District and MD county websites. Then once you have a name, you can cross-reference it with property in the District. They can also then look up marriage and divorce records to establish the household make-up.

My guess is that these parents didn't willingly volunteer information. More likely is that they were ambushed by these reporters with rhetorical questions - "Why do you live in MD and send your child to school in DC? Are you paying tuition to DCPS? Can you confirm that you are Joe Smith that works at the Department of Labor?" - that the reporters already knew the answers to. Using public records, you can easily figure out with 95% certainty if someone is a cheater. If these parents work for the government, they're even dumber - all their salary info is public record.

[Anonymous]

The school is almost entirely black and government statistics indicate that few of the students live in the neighborhood. Poor test scores have left neighborhood parents feeling they can’t use their own school, and must pay for private education or enroll their children in a more distant public school.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/04/investigation-md-residents-ripping-off-dc-schools-while-admins-refuse-to-address-it/#ixzz4DYsNU91D

Basically she is arguing that there are too many Black children at the school and the good white folks in the neighborhood won't send their kids to the neighborhood school. Therefore, clean out those blacks, so the whites who can already attend the school will be more comfortable in attending.

[Anonymous]

Interesting to see Eagle Academy mentioned. I had a co-worker who sent her son there. I asked her, "but I thought you lived in Maryland?" She had no problem telling me she used her mother's address and it was okay, because everyone who grew up in DC but moved to PG did it. She indicated that a sizeable number of students at that school were not DC residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school is almost entirely black and government statistics indicate that few of the students live in the neighborhood. Poor test scores have left neighborhood parents feeling they can’t use their own school, and must pay for private education or enroll their children in a more distant public school.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/04/investigation-md-residents-ripping-off-dc-schools-while-admins-refuse-to-address-it/#ixzz4DYsNU91D

Basically she is arguing that there are too many Black children at the school and the good white folks in the neighborhood won't send their kids to the neighborhood school. Therefore, clean out those blacks, so the whites who can already attend the school will be more comfortable in attending.

This - I found the article distasteful because she basically was saying "less black kids, higher test scores, more white parents would go"

Just...icky.

That being said, there are a lot of MD parents at the school which should be looked at, but you didn't need to be a racist ass to prove your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school is almost entirely black and government statistics indicate that few of the students live in the neighborhood. Poor test scores have left neighborhood parents feeling they can’t use their own school, and must pay for private education or enroll their children in a more distant public school.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/04/investigation-md-residents-ripping-off-dc-schools-while-admins-refuse-to-address-it/#ixzz4DYsNU91D

Basically she is arguing that there are too many Black children at the school and the good white folks in the neighborhood won't send their kids to the neighborhood school. Therefore, clean out those blacks, so the whites who can already attend the school will be more comfortable in attending.

This - I found the article distasteful because she basically was saying "less black kids, higher test scores, more white parents would go"

Just...icky.

That being said, there are a lot of MD parents at the school which should be looked at, but you didn't need to be a racist ass to prove your point.

Yeah, I shared this article on FB and then deleted the posting after I read more of the article.
The authors did a disservice to a very serious issue that is on the minds of a lot of District residents who are shut out of their nearby school. This could have been handled much more diplomatically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is off topic, but what's funny to me is how quickly DCUM falls into typical misogyny. There are two authors listed for the story - Someone named Luke and someone named Katie.

On the Daily Caller website, Luke is listed as the "first author." For question for comments, the article suggests contacting Luke.

And yet, here on DCUM, people who are calling out the investigative reporters are EXCLUSIVELY directing their ire at Ms. Watson.

When all else fails, attack the messager, and if that messager is a woman, so much the better. Ridiculous.

Whatever you may think of the Daily Caller (and I don't think much of it - it's the site started by Tucker Carlson), these people are reporters, they are investigative reporters, and where they live and whether or not they have children is completely irrelevant to the story they are investigating.

Calling them investigative reporters is stretching the truth. Look, how could they have possible sat outside people's homes night after night to determine the residency. Are adults not allowed to have sleepovers? How many nights did these so-called investigative reporters sleep in their cars hiding in the dark, watching the comings and goings of the occupants? Did they follow the car one-time out of the city? How far did they trail the car? Did they stop at the border of the city? What. You know when my kid has a doctor's appointment, its; normally at the end of his school day. If the car followed me out of the city and not all the way to appointments, would they consider that an affirmation for their hit piece?

Also, somebody said once they followed a car the were able to find out who lived there. That's not true. I have a house in DC and I rent out another one in DC. The tax records to both homes would have my name. My sister rents her condo in DC to DC government Section 8. Because it is Section 8, my sister's name is on all the utility bills and taxes. So no, just following someone to the door does not give you the name of the occupants. Again, I think the so-called investigative reporter lied. What parent would provide their personal information to a stranger on a street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:here's one for those who really want to believe DC is a legit journalism outlet

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/05/10/daily-caller-back-publishing-roger-stone-after-pulling-his-plagiarized-piece/210335

Thank you for confirming what I believed. The writer and the paper is full of hyperbole and a bunch of other sh**.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not OP but I don't see why parents who are approached by reporters can't honestly answer basic questions about their residency. And if people are making excuses (like the L-T principal and the poster on here who keeps defending residency cheaters) that explain away why they have MD license plates, why fault the investigators who followed these tax cheaters home?

I'm a DC resident (with DC plates), but I'm going to side with the parents here. If a strange person pulled up to me while I had my kids with me and wanted to know where I lived, I'd be a bit angry too. I'm sure these "reporters" didn't have any press credentials as this a more of a blog, then USAToday or WaPo.

I'm all for taking this information and investigating (as I do not want MD residents in our schools) but I think the way it was handled is gross.

Agreed. Let some stranger roll up to my kids and I, taking pictures and demanding my residence info?

As a DC parent, I have reported a few MD license plates when I can get a name of a parent who speeds past us, almost hits my kids and me in the cross walk to pull up in front of a school and then curse out the security guard when he tells them they are driving too fast. Unrelated to my reporting, there have been 3 kids who left my kids' classes due to not living in D.C. But given the divorce rate and custody issues between other parents and grandparents, the lines are not so bright.

But I wonder if a parent with weekend custody in D.C. can enroll a kid in D.C.?

As long as the custody is joint custody, DC does not discriminate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I do believe there is residency fraud. However, I believe this reporter out right lied in this article. How many people would stop and share their family situations with a stranger? Would any of you? And he states that he pulled tax records among other things to determine their lack of residency. Who gave them the names to pull? How many people would share their names with a stranger standing on the street asking questions.

You don't need a name if you have an address.

+1

They followed these people to their home. Once you have the address, you can pull all sorts of property and tax records from the District and MD county websites. Then once you have a name, you can cross-reference it with property in the District. They can also then look up marriage and divorce records to establish the household make-up.

My guess is that these parents didn't willingly volunteer information. More likely is that they were ambushed by these reporters with rhetorical questions - "Why do you live in MD and send your child to school in DC? Are you paying tuition to DCPS? Can you confirm that you are Joe Smith that works at the Department of Labor?" - that the reporters already knew the answers to. Using public records, you can easily figure out with 95% certainty if someone is a cheater. If these parents work for the government, they're even dumber - all their salary info is public record.

How do you know it was their home. How did they verify it was their home. How did they cross-match to confirm that who they followed to a particular place was the same person on the property tax. I mean who gave them the original name? If I followed you to your place of residence, without knowing your name, how can I be certain that I followed the person whose name is on the tax records. You're just a Nancy Doe I followed, but the name on the tax records state Suzy Homemaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Calling them investigative reporters is stretching the truth. Look, how could they have possible sat outside people's homes night after night to determine the residency. Are adults not allowed to have sleepovers? How many nights did these so-called investigative reporters sleep in their cars hiding in the dark, watching the comings and goings of the occupants? Did they follow the car one-time out of the city? How far did they trail the car? Did they stop at the border of the city? What. You know when my kid has a doctor's appointment, its; normally at the end of his school day. If the car followed me out of the city and not all the way to appointments, would they consider that an affirmation for their hit piece?

Also, somebody said once they followed a car the were able to find out who lived there. That's not true. I have a house in DC and I rent out another one in DC. The tax records to both homes would have my name. My sister rents her condo in DC to DC government Section 8. Because it is Section 8, my sister's name is on all the utility bills and taxes. So no, just following someone to the door does not give you the name of the occupants. Again, I think the so-called investigative reporter lied. What parent would provide their personal information to a stranger on a street.

Why could they have not sat outside people's homes night after night to determine the residency? I'm sure she was smart enough to know you didnt live at the doctors office and waited for you to finish. So what is your solution to stopping these people "we'll never know"?? The lengths youre going to to give these cheaters the benefit of the doubt is ludicrous. She probably knocked and confirmed it with your neighbors or coworkers. Once you have a name which you can get from an address you can find out everything about a person.

[Anonymous]

I work at a DCPS, and the amount of residency fraud is incredible. Students don't bother to hide it and neither do parents. I don't work at a highly coveted DCPS either, and don't think the quality of education would be worse in PG County. It's about convenience for a lot of parents.

[Anonymous]

Setting aside the quality of the reporting, we can all agree that there is some degree of residency fraud. Perhaps not 40% but let's not kid ourselves that there is 0% or that every residency cheater involves some fragile kid suffering from abuse and poverty. But instead of recognizing that there is a valid problem, some of these posters are saying that residency fraud is not an issue because the article is crap. Our taxes are paying for residents in another state! Wake up people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I do believe there is residency fraud. However, I believe this reporter out right lied in this article. How many people would stop and share their family situations with a stranger? Would any of you? And he states that he pulled tax records among other things to determine their lack of residency. Who gave them the names to pull? How many people would share their names with a stranger standing on the street asking questions.

You don't need a name if you have an address.

+1

They followed these people to their home. Once you have the address, you can pull all sorts of property and tax records from the District and MD county websites. Then once you have a name, you can cross-reference it with property in the District. They can also then look up marriage and divorce records to establish the household make-up.

My guess is that these parents didn't willingly volunteer information. More likely is that they were ambushed by these reporters with rhetorical questions - "Why do you live in MD and send your child to school in DC? Are you paying tuition to DCPS? Can you confirm that you are Joe Smith that works at the Department of Labor?" - that the reporters already knew the answers to. Using public records, you can easily figure out with 95% certainty if someone is a cheater. If these parents work for the government, they're even dumber - all their salary info is public record.

How do you know it was their home. How did they verify it was their home. How did they cross-match to confirm that who they followed to a particular place was the same person on the property tax. I mean who gave them the original name? If I followed you to your place of residence, without knowing your name, how can I be certain that I followed the person whose name is on the tax records. You're just a Nancy Doe I followed, but the name on the tax records state Suzy Homemaker.

Once you have a license plate number you can get the name the car is registered to.

Once you have the address the publicly available tax records will tell you who pays the taxes on the property.

If those match you are onto something. Then a review of DC property tax for that name (or either name if they don't match) will give you more info.

It isn't that hard to do even as a faux investigative reporter.

[Anonymous]

Imagine if they had one of the directories from LT...