More than two years ago, an article by Isaac E. Young Middle School Principal Anthony Bongo was published in Middle Ground, a publication of the National Middle School Association.
Several months later a newsletter published by the City School District of New Rochelle referenced the Bongo article. Soon thereafter I contacted Patricia George, the magazine’s editor. The article contains information that the author, Mr. Bongo, admits is wrong. Despite this, Ms. George has refused to run a correction. After providing assurances that she would look into the error and getting an email from Mr. Bongo acknowledging the error, George continues to refuse to run a correction. In an email last month, George claims that her publication values “accuracy and strive to publish truthful, accurate articles.” Except when they don’t.
She closed by saying that “Nobody contacted us regarding a correction.”
In fact, I have contacted her repeatedly over the past two years.
Patricia George claimed she would look into my report of a significant error and never did. She said she would get back to me. She never did. She ignored an email from Anthony Bongo in which he admits the number is off by a factor of 1,000% and still refuses to run a correction. So much for valuing accuracy. One can only wonder if the National Middle School Association takes the same cavalier approach to accuracy embraced by Patricia George.
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from Robert Cox
to Patricia George
message dated 1/16/2009 2:13:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Dear Ms. George,
Earlier this week I read an article from your magazine published in April 2008 by Mr. Anthony Bongo. That article contained a rather startling statement which led me to make an inquiry at the school. In the article, Mr. Bongo wrote “At Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, New York, we have reduced incidents of graffiti and vandalism by more than 800% in two years.” Of course, this statement is obviously incorrect since it is a mathematical impossibility to reduce incidents of anything by more than 100%. I contacted Mr. Bongo and asked him to provide the data he relied upon as the basis for this claim. In his reply, he declined to do that but now states that incidents were down 88.8% during the two year period he cited.
In his response below he does not take responsibility for the false claim made in your publication and instead seems to blame you or someone on your staff for making “an error” which caused this false statement to appear in his article. He wrote, “I believe there was an error in communication with the written document and/or the verbal interview.” In re-reading the article I see no indication that Mr. Bongo gave a “verbal interview” or that he interviewed someone for the piece or otherwise relied upon a third-party for the data he cited. I am also not clear on what is meant by an “error in communication with the written document”. The article carries his byline and it was obviously transmitted to you or your staff because you published it. The only thing I can make out of this claim is that he is alleging that he provided the correct information but that someone at your magazine changed what he wrote to make it incorrect.
I do not find Mr. Bongo credible on this issue. Mr. Bongo has a habit of playing fast and loose with facts – especially when it comes to making exorbitant claims of “success” in improving his school. He and his staff also have a track record of being unable to perform basic mathematical calculations when presenting data analysis on school performance to the public. For example, two months ago at a school board meeting the claim was made that the percentage of “African-America, black” students getting a 3 or 4 on the NYS 8th Grade math test increased by 8.3% a year over three years (which was described as “steady and sustainable growth) when the data they were presenting at the time showed that growth had increased 27% over a two year period. Similar claims (and errors) were made with regard to test scores of hispanic students.
I intend to write an article about the exchange below and would appreciate your answering a few questions.
Was there any “verbal interview” involved with the publication of the article by Mr. Bongo?
Did the document he originally submitted use the figure “800%” or, as he now claims “88.8%?
Did you or anyone on your staff edit his piece in a way that caused the incorrect figure to appear?
After the article appeared, did Mr. Bongo inform you of the “error”? Did he request a correction? If so, why did you not publish a correction (and note the correction on the web site)?
Regardless of the source of the “800%” figure, and given that the claim is impossible, how did this figure end up in a published piece? Who edited the article? Who fact-checked it?
Finally, having now been made aware of my inquiry, do you intend to publish a correction?
Thank you for your time.
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound
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Robert Cox 1/16/2009 9:46 AM >>>
Mr. Bongo,
The District “School News” brochure noted that you wrote an article last April for “Middle Ground”, a magazine published by the National Middle School Association. I read it. In the piece you wrote “At Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, New York, we have reduced incidents of graffiti and vandalism by more than 800% in two years.”
As it is not possible to reduce incidents of ANYTHING by more than 100%, I am curious as to how you were able to achieve this amazing achievement. I would like the figures that you relied upon to make this claim. I am also wondering whether the effort to reduce graffiti and vandalism at your school had anything to do with dealing with the problem of gangs in your school. Can you elaborate on that as well?
Mr. Quinn – Mr. Bongo has indicated that the school district is tracking “incidents of graffiti and vandalism”. I would like to make a FOIL request for the entire district, broken down by school, for “incidents of graffiti and vandalism”. I am not clear how this information is recorded so if it is not clear what I am requesting please advise as to how the district tracks “incidents of graffiti and vandalism” so that I can be sure to provide a more detailed request.
If my request is sufficiently clear, please email me the information for the past 10 years (I am willing to accept a few less years if there is a certain look-back period that the district uses). I would like the information in electronic form and emailed to me but if it only exists in paper form let me know. I am willing to pay.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound
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Begin forwarded message:
From: Anthony Bongo
Date: January 16, 2009 10:50:15 AM EST
To: Robert Cox , John QUINN
Cc: Tawanda GERALD
Subject: Re: 800% reduction in incidents of graffiti and vandalism + FOIL request
Mr. Cox,
Thank you for reading my article. It was a piece on “Caring in the Middle School”. Yes, I believe there was an error in communication with the written document and/or the verbal interview. For that period in question, our incidents were down 88.8%.
I would be happy to explain more about our school-based initiatives regarding character development, school pride and our appreciation for our physical environment. However, any request for that information (or any additional questions) should be directed to our superintendent, Richard Organisciak at 914-576-4200. Thank you.
Anthony Bongo
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from Patricia George
to Robert Cox
cc atibbles@nmsa.org
date Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:35 PM
subject Re: Error in an article from April 2008 by Anthony Bongo
Dear Mr. Cox,
Thank you for your inquiry. I will do some research and get back to you next week.
Best wishes,
Patricia George
Editor, Middle Ground
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New Rochelle Talk to Patricia George
show details Aug 28
It has been quite a while and I never heard back from you.
Am I ever going to hear back from you on this?
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound
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from Patricia George
to Robert Cox
date Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 8:19 AM
subject Re: Error in an article from April 2008 by Anthony Bongo
Mr. Cox,
We have had no further correspondence with Mr. Bongo and no feedback relative to the article in question and do not intend to follow up at this point.
Patricia George
Editor
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from New Rochelle Talk
to Patricia George
date Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 9:59 AM
subject Re: Error in an article from April 2008 by Anthony Bongo
Ms. George,
I am not clear what you mean when you say you have had no “feedback” relative to the article in question or what “correspondence with Mr. Bongo” means or why that is even relevant.
As best as I can tell you, you have published an acknowledged factual error that overstates a key figure in an article by a factor of 1,000% but will not run a correction even when the author admits the error. You said you would get back to me on my original email but took 18 months to do so and only after I pursued the matter further.
For the record, the 1,000% figure is based on Mr. Bongo’s unsupported statement that the correct figure is 88.8%. Mr. Bongo does not document that figure either. Further, the school district has not provided, under a Freedom of Information Law request, any records that support the claim or even that the district tracks “incidents of graffiti and vandalism” let alone that there has been any reduction.
My takeaway is that your publication is not particularly concerned with publishing stories that are accurate or correcting errors once they have been brought to your attention.
Am I wrong?
Sincerely,
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound
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from Patricia George to Robert Cox
Sep 24
Mr. Cox,
I appreciate your efforts as a journalist to gather accurate data with regard to the district’s/Mr. Bongo’s claims. And I understand your frustration with not receiving the information you have requested from us or from the district. Please understand that we do, indeed, value accuracy and strive to publish truthful, accurate articles. Like you, we do not have the verified data relative to Mr. Bongo’s claims. We did not have a verbal interview with Mr. Bongo and we did not change his original figure of 800%. I will assume he meant 80.0%. Nobody questioned that figure during the production process.
We have not been in contact with Mr. Bongo or anyone else in the district since publication of the article. Nobody contacted us regarding a correction.
Patricia George
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from New Rochelle Talk to Patricia George
Sep 24
Ms. George,
I am not looking for a debate but please understand that in my experience your willingness to ” assume he meant 80.0%” is a very bad assumption. I have documented many, many “issues” with Mr. Bongo’s willingness to play fast and loose with the facts including fabricating student tests scores, making false police reports, violating New York State law and NYSED policy and more.
I am sure you do not have time read through every article but here is one that might suggest to you the problem with making assumptions about Mr. Bongo’s claims when it comes to numbers.
Isaac Young Math Department Chairman Struggles with Basic Calculation
http://www.Robert Cox.com/node/238′
After the board meeting, neither Mr. Gulland and Mr. Bongo were able to comprehend my explaining and re-explaining why their presentation to the board was wrong. Consider this in the context that these two “educators” were presenting to the board their remarkable achievement of turning around decades of low math scores at Isaac in just two years.
In short, Mr. Bongo is a fraud who could not get a job managing a Burger King. It is my view that because his father runs a major construction company in New Rochelle that does a lot of “favors” for local power brokers and public officials and because Anthony Bongo barely made his way out of college (8 years) and unable to hold a job outside his father’s company he was given a “lifetime appointment” with the school district and ultimately the job as Principal of Isaac Young which is, by far, the worst performing school in the district.
It is my view, based on long experience, that Mr. Bongo either completely fabricated the number or or was his basing his number on something like this: there were 10 incidents at one time and then 2 at another and since 10-2=8 that is an 800% reduction. It is most likely that he simply made the number up but it is also possible that he reported phony numbers on the NYSED VADIR (Violence and Disruptive Incidents Report) for his school — something else we have documented based on a comparison of police reports compared to school reports.
What concerns me is that the New Rochelle School District, including Mr. Bongo, spends a great deal of time on spin and PR. If they worked as hard to fix problems in the schools as they do on getting positive stories in the press we would have a 100% graduation rate instead of a 66% graduation, third lowest in Westchester County.
What should concern you is that your publication was one of many used by the school district. They feed you lies, your report it and then they turned around and distribute copies of your article as “proof” of what a great job they are doing.
It would seem to me if you were really concerned with accuracy, you will inform Mr. Bongo that his claim has been challenged. He would then tell you what he told me — that his number was wrong. At that point you might then tell him that you are going to run a correction stating that the number was wrong and that if he cannot provide data supporting either number that you are going to retract the entire article.
If he cannot substantiate that they are even tracking this data, that perhaps there is no data or perhaps he misrepresented the data then you do not really have much of a story, right?
Having raised this issue with you over a year I do not expect you will take any action — even correcting an error that Mr. Bongo has acknowledged. That we are even “debating” this tells me all I need to know about how much you “value accuracy” and how are you “strive to publish truthful, accurate articles”. You have published a single-source article. Your source has admitted giving you incorrect information that is the center piece of the entire story — that his “program” has been successful and thus, presumably, should be emulated by others. You have other information that suggests Mr. Bongo and his staff are not even capable of doing the simple math required to produce the data he provided. Despite all this you have not lifted a finger to fact-check a story brought into question nor run a correction of the one piece of information the source has admitted is wrong.
Maybe you will let me publish a story about how I reduced crime at the local high school by sprinkling fairy dust on the front steps of the building.
Good luck in your “career” as an “editor”.
Sincerely,
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound