August 5, 2008

All Employee Email Addresses Removed from the FCESC website 'Staff Directory'?

Interestingly, after initially emailing some questions to Franklin County Educational Service Center Superintendent Bart Anderson -- andersonb@fcesc.org -- on July 29, 2008 and receiving no response, a follow-up email was blocked by the FCESC.org mail servers. No doubt, the emailed questions probably surprised Bart Anderson and made him feel a bit uncomfortable about some past events in his professional career. Perhaps, he was not happy that copies of the email were sent to some of his FCESC colleagues and some media outlets. However, is it possible that he reacted (overreacted?) by removing from the FCESC webpages the email addresses of every FCESC employee from the "Staff Directory" ?

Because, it now appears, as of August 5, 2008, that every FCESC employee email address has been removed from the FCESC webpage "Staff Directory" -- http://fcesc.org/staffdirectory.htm

Has Bart Anderson (or someone else) chosen to disrupt the ease of outside email contact from the entire world to the FCESC offices and its employees -- the organization he oversees -- responsible for serving over 185,000 children in Franklin County and the surrounding central-Ohio area?

What if FCESC constituent school districts have a critical need to reach a particular FCESC employee via email, and in the past they would simply look-up the email address information on the FCESC
"Staff Directory" webpage?

It certainly seems strange that a couple of weeks before school restarts, someone at the FCESC has taken a measure that would seem to make email communication more difficult for its constituent districts and those they serve.

Can anyone confirm?

Update -- 8/6/2008 @ 2:44 p.m.

Here is a snapshot of how the staff directory looked until yesterday -- all employee email addresses were available

Unanswered July 30, 2008 Email to Superintendent Bart Anderson

July 30, 2008

Dear Superintendent Anderson:

Perhaps you are aware that your name, Bart G. Anderson, appeared as a recipient of a counterfeit "doctoral degree in public administration" in an article from the July, 29, 2008, Spokane Spokesman-Review, entitled 'Buyers of Bogus Degrees Named.'

http://spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=15898

Is the article accurate? Did you buy a doctoral degree at some point in your life? If not, how do you explain the inclusion of your name, along with a description of your current position, in the article?

While I understand from a colleague of yours that you received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 (I verified this fact with the school's registrar), I am curious to know if you have ever before, pre-2006, claimed to hold a "doctorate" degree and/or referred to yourself as "Dr. Bart Anderson". If so, please detail the time period(s) that you stated these claims -- and the name(s) of the degree-granting institution(s).

The reason I ask you this is simple. To explain, I will refer you to the following 2003 Toledo Business Journal article...

http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development-leadership/1035346-1.html

...wherein you are described on page 3 as "Dr. Bart Anderson" of Port Clinton Schools. Following, on page 4, your biography states the following regarding your education credentials:

"Anderson attended Miami University, graduated summa cum laude in mathematics education and earned a masters degree in educational leadership. He then earned a doctorate in cognitive development"

Is the above biographical statement from the 2003 article referring to your "doctorate" degree correct. If so, in what year and from what institution did you earn your "doctorate in cognitive development"? If not, how do explain this incorrect information -- and who provided this false biographical information to the Toledo Business Journal? If the information was listed incorrectly, did you ever notify the Toledo Business Journal to ask for a correction?

I would note that in the following year, 2004, in the same publication, Toledo Business Journal,a "Dr. Bart Anderson" nominated Chris Redfern, the current Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, for the same award that you received.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5333/is_200410/ai_n21357068

Was that you, "Dr. Bart Anderson", who made this nomination in 2004? How were you qualified to use the term "doctor" at the time?

After further considering the "doctorate in cognitive development" biographical statement, I did a Google search for:

"bart anderson" "cognitive development"

One of the 18 results listed the above referenced Toledo Business Journal article. Another was a newsletter that had both your name and the phrase ""cognitive development" in unrelated parts of the document.

Ironically, every one of the other 16 articles mentions a different "Bart Anderson". This "Bart Anderson" has a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Vanderbilt University and is a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney in Australia. Prior to his current position, he was an Associate Professor of Vision Science at MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts -- in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Quite frankly, the sum of the information I have listed above seems to contradict your current biography listed at:

http://www.broadacademy.org/fellows/fellow.php?alumni_id=87&category_id=12

Did you intentionally mislead The Columbus Dispatch reporters regarding your educational background? It sounds like dissembling to me.

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/29/anderson.html?sid=101

Did you lie to the Dispatch reporters when you spoke to them and they reported, "Anderson said he never put his St. Regis diploma on any job applications, including for the Educational Service Center in 2004, or his resume."?

If the St. Regis "degree" was never used by you, how do you account for the fact that you were referring to yourself as "Dr. Bart Anderson" for at least three years prior to receiving your degree from the University of Pennsylvania? Did your Port Clinton Schools job application list a doctorate degree of any kind -- and from where?

I will eagerly await for answers to these questions.

Curiously yours,