After half a decade, perhaps I've finally got the legit media educated about how the Clark and Washoe school districts cook their books.

After my first 2012 Sparks Tribune report, it took the Las Vegas Review-Journal a year to figure out they'd been had by a retiring superintendent.

The Reno Gannett-Journal finally sniffed the shuck more than two years down the road after sufficient time had elapsed to justify their "scoop" as original. Their piece was so bland that it had attracted zero online comments after three days.

On February 17, 2015, I reported that newly elevated Washoe County School Superintendent Traci Davis "said she has ended former Superintendent Heath Morrison's practice of cooking the books by erasing the existence of over-18 returning dropouts, resulting in inflated graduation rates."

After a little journalistic backgrounding by myself and the Reno-Sparks NAACP, Charlotte Observer education reporter Ann Doss Helms knew what to ask and actually got Morrison to brag and admit his sins. (A case of Trump virus.)

On March 22, 2016, I wrote that "Traci Davis told us at a Reno-Sparks NAACP meeting that...she's still basing current grad rates on the old inflated numbers."

Last week, she announced "historic" achievements. The RGJ kids on Kuenzli Street at least followed up with how a new state law relaxing graduation standards has biased rates upward statewide.

Still, no one has ever adjusted for the phony gains of bygone years perpetrated by the now-departed Morrison and Pedro Martinez in Washoe and Dwight Jones in Gomorrah South.

Morrison and Martinez graduated from conservative Eli Broad's school for supers which teaches manipulating performance stats, resulting in better jobs in bigger markets.

With Ms. Davis' tenure (and contract) approaching their expiration dates, I forecast that she will follow them into the sunset of greater glory and greater salary while her boast of "historic" can still be defended.

TURF WARS, PART DEUX. Last week, local auto dealer and University of Nevada-Reno alum Don Weir, Jr., announced a $1 million commitment to the college athletic department, part of which will go toward resurfacing the Peccole Park baseball fields.

Current turf is so toxic that it cannot be dumped in a landfill.

I hope Donnie insists on something innovative like that newfangled stuff called grass.

I've won three Nevada Press Association awards for reporting on the above schoolhouse shenanigans. Persistence pays, if only lowly and slowly. Phony grad rates are finally being questioned but cancer-causing, brain-damaging crumb rubber turf has thus far been a lonely Tribune-only pursuit. (See right —>)

UNR athletic fields, including Mackay Stadium, risk the re-used-tire zombie grass. Likewise McQueen, Manogue, Carson and Douglas high school football fields.

Although well past its life span, only a small portion of Sparks' Golden Eagle Park is currently scheduled for replacement.

Don't let your kids play there.

THE PLOT SICKENS. In last week's column, I misquoted the online threat to black Yerington High School undergrads in a recent Snapchat photo caption featuring a Yerington teenager with a rifle, a pistol and a knife.

I have since received the (pardon the expression) smoking gun photos, the worst of which is captioned "The redneck god of all gods we bout to go nigger huntin" (sic, sic, sick). Old Pizen Switch educators need to add bonehead English as well as ethics classes.

The legit media are now working the story. I'll upload all the viral photos with the expanded online edition of this column at Barbwire.US, including the purported perp's apology.

A federal case may be in the offing, as Title IX prohibits discrimination against female athletes. The girls in question have been unable to attend school due to racist threats and bullying. The Nevada attorney general has received a complaint about Yerington cops shredding reports.

As always, thou art a dependable job creator for lawyers, O Nevada!

Stay tuned.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

ONLINE EXTRAS —>
We Don't Need No Education Part LXXX—>
The poisoning of old Pizen Switch proliferates
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-1-2017 Sparks Tribune
We Don't Need No Education Part LXXVIII—>
You've got to be taught to learn to hate
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-18-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 10-19 and 10-29-2017 GMT
Window of opportunity: 48 hours for human rights
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-11-2017 Sparks Tribune
Las Vegas 2017: Fire is the devil's only friend
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-4-2017 Sparks Tribune
Rewriting the Civil War and the Mexican War
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-27-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 9-28-2017
Freedom loving racists shoot to rewrite history
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-20-2017 Sparks Tribune
Rewriting History
Reno News & Review Editorial: Remove Klansman's sculpture at UNR / 9-14-2017
Virginia City Nevada celebrates Slave Labor Day
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Special online Labor Day edition 9-2-2017

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is. A thousand thanks to those who keep sending show suggestions.

  Stay tuned.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/ The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

  This is important. We've got a lot of work to do.

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Hush Hush!

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Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)