As it turns out, Oden was right to suspect that the Austin Independent School District was leaking a lot more dropouts than it reported. And as a court ruled recently, Oden had full purview to pursue indictments of criminal negligence against the district. But last October, Oden agreed to let the high-profile case go if the district would just get its house in order. What resulted was a citizen dropout prevention task force and new attention on a festering problem. It was a laudable example of serving the public instead of advancing a career.
