In Ed Deform, Consultants Get The First Cut

Gotham Schools' piece on the ruling the other day on the turnaround schools, Judge rules that city must reinstate staff at turnaround schools,

contained some interesting tidbits about the "consultants" and "partners" and I'm disappointed that Gotham or the rest of the press never delves into this issue by asking the most basic question: WHY DO WE NEED THEM AND HOW MUCH DOES THIS ALL COST?

Here is an excerpt:

Along with New Visions for Public Schools, which is working with the former John Adams and Automotive high schools in Queens, educational partners include Diplomas Now, which is working with Sheepshead Bay and Newtown high schools this fall, and Institute for Student Achievement, which is working with the Dewey campus.
Vincent Brevetti, Institute for Student Achievement’s senior director for program management, said it was difficult planning a summer training program not knowing who would work at the school this fall.
“We proceeded on the basis of the principal bringing whatever staff was available to come to the institute, regardless of whether or not they were rehired because we didn’t know what was happening,” he said. “So our stance is that we’re working with whatever we’re handed.”
If the city loses its appeal, teachers who weren’t chosen by personnel committees would be allowed to return to the buildings, creating potential friction with their supervisors. It’s not clear if any principals who left during the 2011-12 school year could come back if the arbitrator’s ruling holds up.
Mr. Hughes, of New Visions for Public Schools, said the entire episode revealed two big weaknesses.
“The long-term problem is how do we deal with the fact that we have no clear strategic plan to turn around some of the city’s lowest performing schools,” he said. “And in the short term, we have the challenge of opening in the fall after an extraordinarily frustrating process that remains unresolved.”

Guys like Robert Hughes and Vincent Brevetti are amongst the blood suckers feeding at the public ed trough. Ed deform which is based on the idea that public school systems have no ability to manage themselves (unless they are in white suburbs) --- and how ironic that Bloomberg/Walcott/Klein/Duncan - who are/were charged with managing public schools sign on to the idea that they are not capable of managing the schools they run.

So New Visions and Institute for Student Achievement join how many other such agencies that have become part of the education money tree? These guys and their orgs must be making some bucks that are taken out of the hide of our classrooms and children. We all know that at least 30% of the money goes to these consultants and the rest for stuff like staff development that so many teachers find problematical.

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