What percentage of the entire dissertation text do these instances of copy-paste and improper attribution constitute? Sorry if I missed it in the post, but I think quantity would be an important factor here. If it's a small percentage of the text, I could plausibly attribute it to "inattention to details". I would be even more curious to see this analysis done on the dissertations of all other PhD administrators and Board members in D65. Something tells me this is not unusual. At $300 a pop, maybe a gofundme is in order.
So it's really hard to get a firm metric here. iThenticate reports that it is 11% when I exclude quotes, exclude bibliography and only use matches that are >20 words. I think that's a hard upper bound, though. Its probably in the 5-10% range.
I would like the same thing to be done to all PhD, EdD (if they even require a dissertation), and Board members in DeKalb County School District. The more powerful AI becomes, the easier this will be.
Horton hired the completely incompetent principal, Jennifer Gates, for Peacthree Middle School, in DeKalb County School District, GA. She lasted 13 months and, thankfully, was ousted two days before the indictment. I have always suspected her dissertation is fraudulent as well. I may do the same process. We believe Horton kept her in place to disrupt, and oh boy, was she disruptive.
The cheapest/easiest way to do this is to use grammarly, you can copy/paste in the dissertation and it will check it for you. It's not as complete as iThenticate but will give you the gist.
I don't have a PhD, so I'm not an expert, but it seems like her entire dissertation is based on a few observed interactions. Is that normal? Can someone really get a doctorate on such a limited scope? "An additional limitation was the small number of participants (four teachers, four
principals) and consequently, the amount of data collected was limited."
It can be about whatever the doctoral advisor says is OK. Looking at this paper, I think this is a totally fine masters level paper - she interviews 8 people and gets hours of interviews and analyzes those interviews. Subjectively, this is certainly light years better than Dr. Horton's dissertation but is this worthy of a doctorate? Should our educational system be awarding doctorates for just doing a lot of masters level work? Is a Doctorate just a masters-level paper that is 200+ pages long? I feel like that's currently the situation in a lot of places.
Full disclosure: I dropped out of a PhD program before I could get to the dissertation because I didn't think I had enough original research to do a good one.
Subjectively, this is not a very good dissertation. It’s full of phrases like “no one disputes..” and his data analysis makes no sense. The empirical results themselves show the polled respondents seemed mostly fine with the level of training they received. He also includes a weird word count thing, I don’t know what the purpose of that is other than to show respondents talk about students a lot and fill space, which like, ok?
Also you shouldn’t get a doctoral degree for running a survey on 53 of your friends, that’s stuff we have kids do in 7th grade. I have nothing against non-empirical work, I did theory in grad school, but he doesn’t present any novel theory here. It’s honestly hard to tell what is his opinion and what he took from others. After 200 pages I have no idea what he actually believes. Its like a bad undergrad paper where all they do is snipe citations from other people.
I can’t imagine reading this and feeling confident he understands data and how to interpret test scores. The problem is I am probably the only person who has read this thing cover to cover now, including the board, the superintendent search firms, and probably even Chicago State.
That's not even the book I was talking about. I was talking about this one, which is a must read about life in the early days of facebook, but I'm sure that one is lit too.
One month’s salary is a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the legal fees Horton will be facing when he arrives on Thursday October 23 at 11 am for his perp walk and arraignment ! Location: Dirksen Federal Office, 219 S. Dearborn Street.
"Horton agreed not to disparage the district or engage in any harassing conduct toward the district. This section of the agreement is in bold and underlined." This is .. interesting. I wonder what the story is here? Don't say anything bad about the Board? Buying off his silence for a month worth of pay?
They may have decided that it was easier to just throw money at him then to deal with him inevitably hitting them with an unfair dismissal lawsuit threat. Honestly if it were me, I'd pay him to just go away and pretend like it never haopened.
The only time I ever had one of those was I was part of a sizable layoff in 2024. Since I'd been there under a year I was just happy to be getting something and signed it without any reservation.
just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in! (Coppola, 1990)
Also (Costanza, ~1994)
Legendary scene in a terrible sequel!!
agreed
I'm shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked!
What percentage of the entire dissertation text do these instances of copy-paste and improper attribution constitute? Sorry if I missed it in the post, but I think quantity would be an important factor here. If it's a small percentage of the text, I could plausibly attribute it to "inattention to details". I would be even more curious to see this analysis done on the dissertations of all other PhD administrators and Board members in D65. Something tells me this is not unusual. At $300 a pop, maybe a gofundme is in order.
So it's really hard to get a firm metric here. iThenticate reports that it is 11% when I exclude quotes, exclude bibliography and only use matches that are >20 words. I think that's a hard upper bound, though. Its probably in the 5-10% range.
I would like the same thing to be done to all PhD, EdD (if they even require a dissertation), and Board members in DeKalb County School District. The more powerful AI becomes, the easier this will be.
Horton hired the completely incompetent principal, Jennifer Gates, for Peacthree Middle School, in DeKalb County School District, GA. She lasted 13 months and, thankfully, was ousted two days before the indictment. I have always suspected her dissertation is fraudulent as well. I may do the same process. We believe Horton kept her in place to disrupt, and oh boy, was she disruptive.
The cheapest/easiest way to do this is to use grammarly, you can copy/paste in the dissertation and it will check it for you. It's not as complete as iThenticate but will give you the gist.
https://galileo-mum.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991005673198305956/01GALI_MUM:MainLibrary
wow the dedication at the top of that is a real thing
I don't have a PhD, so I'm not an expert, but it seems like her entire dissertation is based on a few observed interactions. Is that normal? Can someone really get a doctorate on such a limited scope? "An additional limitation was the small number of participants (four teachers, four
principals) and consequently, the amount of data collected was limited."
It can be about whatever the doctoral advisor says is OK. Looking at this paper, I think this is a totally fine masters level paper - she interviews 8 people and gets hours of interviews and analyzes those interviews. Subjectively, this is certainly light years better than Dr. Horton's dissertation but is this worthy of a doctorate? Should our educational system be awarding doctorates for just doing a lot of masters level work? Is a Doctorate just a masters-level paper that is 200+ pages long? I feel like that's currently the situation in a lot of places.
Full disclosure: I dropped out of a PhD program before I could get to the dissertation because I didn't think I had enough original research to do a good one.
“…an aim of developing and applying management theory through the lens of the system of profound knowledge (Land, 1973)”
THE system of PROFOUND knowledge?
How did that get by unchallenged by any dissertation committee?
So pretentiously ridiculous it hardly merits a smirk.
🤣
Subjectively, this is not a very good dissertation. It’s full of phrases like “no one disputes..” and his data analysis makes no sense. The empirical results themselves show the polled respondents seemed mostly fine with the level of training they received. He also includes a weird word count thing, I don’t know what the purpose of that is other than to show respondents talk about students a lot and fill space, which like, ok?
Also you shouldn’t get a doctoral degree for running a survey on 53 of your friends, that’s stuff we have kids do in 7th grade. I have nothing against non-empirical work, I did theory in grad school, but he doesn’t present any novel theory here. It’s honestly hard to tell what is his opinion and what he took from others. After 200 pages I have no idea what he actually believes. Its like a bad undergrad paper where all they do is snipe citations from other people.
I can’t imagine reading this and feeling confident he understands data and how to interpret test scores. The problem is I am probably the only person who has read this thing cover to cover now, including the board, the superintendent search firms, and probably even Chicago State.
So did she:
"Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism" by Sarah Wynn-Williams. It's a hoot.
That's not even the book I was talking about. I was talking about this one, which is a must read about life in the early days of facebook, but I'm sure that one is lit too.
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Monkeys-Obscene-Fortune-Failure/dp/0062458191
I figured, since you said "he". Apparently there are at least 2 disgruntled former Facebook employees.
Sorry, in reference to the Facebook non-disparagement.
One month’s salary is a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the legal fees Horton will be facing when he arrives on Thursday October 23 at 11 am for his perp walk and arraignment ! Location: Dirksen Federal Office, 219 S. Dearborn Street.
Holy crap! He kept grifting on the way out the door in DeKalb! https://www.decaturish.com/schools/indicted-dekalb-superintendent-resigns-for-a-month-s-salary/article_b0b2b543-713e-46cf-ae6f-b0db24ede4b2.html
"Horton agreed not to disparage the district or engage in any harassing conduct toward the district. This section of the agreement is in bold and underlined." This is .. interesting. I wonder what the story is here? Don't say anything bad about the Board? Buying off his silence for a month worth of pay?
They may have decided that it was easier to just throw money at him then to deal with him inevitably hitting them with an unfair dismissal lawsuit threat. Honestly if it were me, I'd pay him to just go away and pretend like it never haopened.
Not a terrible deal. A guy I knew at facebook when I worked there got offered $35,000 for a non-disparagement (he turned it down and wrote a book)
The only time I ever had one of those was I was part of a sizable layoff in 2024. Since I'd been there under a year I was just happy to be getting something and signed it without any reservation.
I tried to negotiate with facebook and get a $35,000 non-dispargement but they wouldn't bite and told me to go fuck off