At the conclusion of the last post about Little Rock School District Superintendent Dexter Suggs’ problems with plagiarism, I noted that his blatant lifting of pages of material from a 2005 University of Oklahoma was not the only example of what he had done.
That’s because, if you scroll yet again to the bibliography of his dissertation–say, page 116 in the dissertation (118 in the PDF)–you won’t find “Lemke, Cheryl; Coughlin, Edward C. Technology in American Schools: Seven Dimensions for Gauging Progress. A Policymaker’s Guide.” Which, again, is interesting, because Suggs certainly found that source at some point when he was writing his own dissertation:
I mean, unless we are to believe that Dexter Suggs–he of the “ACT score between 13 and 15“–came up with the exact same verbiage as paid researchers for the Milken Family Foundation. And, honestly, if you believe that, you probably also believe that Dexter Suggs is working in the best interests of the district, so I’m not sure the rest of us can take you seriously, Mr. Hypothetical Person Who Believes Wrong Things.
Wait a second. Milken Family Foundation? As in the same people who gave Suggs an educator of the year award in Indiana in 2007?  He ripped off their work?! Man, that is some serious cajones.
Anyway…I guess that’s the end of it…
Also missing from Suggs’ bibliography is “Coleman, Arlene (2005). High School Hispanic Program Availability in Marion County, Indiana: A Multi-School Case Study.” Which, again, kinda crazy that he would omit, given:
So, we’re left with two options. In one, Dexter Suggs miraculously came up with the exact same phrasing as three different people, all related to his dissertation topic; in the other, he found three sources that said what he wanted to say, ripped off whole passages from those sources, and didn’t attribute to them at all.
Hmm…
Let’s see…
Umm…
Yeah, I’m going to go with the second one until proven wrong.
Besides, as a legitimate educator pointed out to me after the first post:
What I also found concerning were the number of quotes used in [the] 27 pages [of the literature review section] – 76 quotes in 27 pages. The general rule is that less than 10% of the paper should consist of direct quotes. When my students hand in papers like this, I give them back and tell them I can’t grade it because its not their words. We teach students to paraphrase (and cite original source) not take the easy way out and just use direct quotes through the entire paper.
I suppose here is where we all hold our collective breath and wonder if Johnny Key will fire Dexter Suggs? Or will he continue the farce that is the current superintendent?