Oh, Valerie!

Every day I check my fabulous blog roll. I look up and an hour (or more) has passed and the item I was going to blog about has turned to mush. So I often end up copying and pasting links.

Thus, my deterioration as a blogger with something of his own to say. Everybody else seems to be saying it first. And better.

Today, Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet, has such a delicious post that I have printed it out, shredded it and sprinkled the pieces all over my morning toast. Mmmm, Mmmm, Good!

Here are just a few tidbits from How billionaire donors harm public education to wet your appetite:

Today the foundation set up by billionaires Eli and Edythe Broad is giving away $2 million to an urban school district that has pursued education reform that they like. On Friday a Florida teacher is running 50 miles to raise money so that he and his fellow teachers don’t have to spend their own money to buy paper and pencils, binders (1- and 2-inch), spiral notebooks, composition books and printer ink.
Together the two events show the perverted way schools are funded in 2010.
-----
Very wealthy people are donating big private money to their own pet projects: charter schools, charter school management companies, teacher assessment systems.
-----
What this means is that these philanthropists -- and not local communities -- are determining the course of the country's school reform efforts and which education research projects get funded. As Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent James A. Williams said in an interview: "They should come out and tell the truth. If they want to privatize public education, they should say so.”
-----

That none of their projects is grounded in any research seems not to be a hindrance to these big donors. And they never try to explain why it is acceptable for them to donate to other causes -- the arts, medicine, etc. -- without telling doctors and artists what to do with the money. Only educators do they tell what to do.
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[$2 million] is the same amount of money that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave away earlier this year to a company simply to market the education film “Waiting for Superman,” which portrays a distorted idea of the root causes of the problems facing urban school districts as well as the solutions.
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Surely these philanthropists think they are helping. But they don't understand education and have been somehow led to believe that "the answer" is specific and around the corner: a longer school day; a longer school year; charter schools; technology; standardized tests in every subject; assessing teachers by standardized test scores; for-profit education; training new college graduates for five or six weeks as teachers and then sending them into the toughest schools in America.
The fact is that there is no strong research to show that any of those elements will do much to help education, and many will actually hurt.
-----
let’s not imagine for a minute that the millionaires and billionaires giving out all this money are doing anything other than making it harder to fix the public schools that America needs.

Now on get over there and read the whole thing.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/how-billionaire-donors-are-har.html#more

Introducing "The Broad Report"

Hit the road Broad
And don't you come back no more no more no more

The Perimeter Primate has a new project on Broad the toad. PP writes:

I’m not the only one who is extremely bothered by what Eli Broad has been up to over the last several years. Since I started this blog in February 2008, I’ve been contacted by other people via private emails and blog comments. As it turns out, there are many other public school parents, public school teachers, and a variety of people all across the U.S. who are greatly disturbed by things that are happening to the public school systems where they live, courtesy of Eli Broad's "philanthropy." We certainly don’t feel like our communities, or our kids, are benefiting from his largess.

Because the dissatisfaction is definitely out there, I thought it was time to create a place where people could come together and share what they know. The result is a website I put together over this past weekend called The Broad Report.

Eventually, I plan to add more information about the Broad Residency, recipients of Broad Foundation grants, details about the individuals and all their connections, and other lovely tidbits. Grassroots contributions are most welcome. I'm most interested in accurate, verifiable information, so please include links when you can. I do realize that sometimes the reports may only be anecdotal.

Eli Broad is a wealthy and well-connected individual who has acquired an incredible amount of influence over a very important public sphere. He is also an unelected person who plies his trade in back rooms, or at by-invitation-only affairs. He never presents himself at truly public forums, thus conveniently protecting himself from any public response which would be negative. Those of us in the trenches are left to our imaginations to come up with strategies to counter what he's doing.

Class Size Skinny Awards Attracts Rock Stars of Education

I'm much more of an ed/pol junkie than a music fan. So, was I more impressed with last Sunday's A Night With Pete Seeger or Leonie Haimson's Class Size Matters fundraiser Honoring Ravitch, Jennings (Eduwonkette), Babad this past Thursday night at Jerry's Cafe on Chambers Street?

Leonie sure knows how to put on a party. Imagine: Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier (one of my ed idols since the early 70's) bridging their differences in person with Eduwonkette Jennifer Jennings. And her mentor and co-blogger Aaron Pallas, alias Skoolboy, also present. With superb satirist Gary Babad (who read us an "email" from Klein). And Patrick Sullivan. And of course, that force of nature, as Diane put it, Leonie Haimson.

Did Ravitch/Meier/Haimson/Jennings trump Springsteen/Baiz/Emmylou/Melankamp? Close. I'm an edugeek supreme.

Many parent leaders were there and some UFT officials showed up. There were even surprise guests, including some from the DOE and a Gotham journalist named Green, reiterating she is not biased. Okay, okay, already. Whatever she says. (She is irresistible and as much a force of nature as Leonie.)

I finally realized that Leonie had dubbed the award "The Skinny" as a take on the Broad (rhymes with toad) award. Duhhhh!

Leonie introduced each honoree with a gracious speech. I'll admit that as part of the anti-high stakes testing crowd, there was a lot of resistance to Diane Ravitch over the years. But even if she had not modified some of her positions ("I don't know if it's because of Deborah or Leonie," she said) her charm and wit can win anyone over. Once, at a Manhattan Inst. luncheon for Chester Finn, which she moderated, and I was the lone critic in the room, she whispered in my ear something like, "Good to see a voice of disent. I agree with you." That sure firmed up my spine
in hostile territory when I got up to ask my question.

Diane pointed out that she had resigned from the Hoover and Thomas B. Fordham Foundations and was more proud of being of the Class Size Matters board. She talked about what Leonie does on a slightly skinny budget. I expected her to pull out a shoestring.

Leonie introduced Gary by reading some of his satire, which in the bizarre world of Tweed, is often taken seriously. She said she started the NYC Public School Parent blog partly so people could read his funny stuff.

Jennifer, whose Eduwonkette blog in its short time of existence (less than a year) created a national sensation, made waves last week with her report on the school force-outs. (April 30 press conference on rising discharge rates). It caused some serious consternation at Tweed as they scrambled to respond.

In her speech, Jennifer was kind enough to give me credit for suggesting she start the blog. Frankly, I didn't remember. But I do remember her sending me some of her amazing research and I kept asking her to figure a way to share it with more people and offered to let her use Ed Notes if she wanted. We did have lunch (on the day BloomKlein received the Broad award) in Sept. 2007 and she asked me questions about blogging and we discussed how to protect her identity. Three days later she had the prototype up and the 'kette was off to the races.

Leonie, who has a good relationship with Randi Weingarten, also was kind enough to say some nice things about me despite the fact there were UFT reps in the room. She also gave me credit for urging her to blog and I do remember that. I actually started the Norms Notes blog solely to find a way to save Leonie's amazing comments and analysis on the web. Finally, after the Feb. 28, 2007 famous rally that brought so many people opposed to BloomKlein (I met Patrick and Diane for the first time that night) together, Leonie informed me she and Patrick were starting the NYC Parent blog. It's been a wonderful addition to truth, justice and the American way of democratic criticism.

It was good to see good buddy David Bellel get recognized by Leonie for his amazing dedication and work for the cause. I did recruit him to do some video for us at the GEM rally on Thurs May 14 starting at Battery Park and marching up to Tweed, after passing by 52 Broadway to call on our buddies at the UFT to join us. (I will be stationed there from 3:30 until they pick me up.) If you can't get there in time to join the march, go directly to Tweed and wait for us.

You didn't think I would let you get away without a plug, did you?

The Broad Prize for Losers

Though we totally reject the entire Broad prize concept as a political tool to undermine public education, isn't it interesting that Arne Duncan never got the prize in Chicago. And why aren't the Chicago schools after 14 years of the kind of mayoral control being raved about by so many, being given closer scrutiny before driving the urban school systems in this nation off a cliff.

Tauna makes some excellent points on the Broad Prize at This Little Blog.

Dear Eli Broad:
Does Eli Broad's peddling half-baked market solutions to education remind you of Johnny Carson's slick pitchman selling a vegematic? Johnny used to use charts too. Only they kept falling off the stand as he hit it with his pointer. Maybe that's where Broad got the idea on data manipulation.

Dear Eli Broad:

The days of the reckoning have arrived for you. Your soul died long ago but if your decrepit physical being survives just a little further into the future the full weight of justice will be meted out to you. And it will be the sweetest justice for the harm you have done to children of color in America's urban public schools is incalculable. No system of data collection is capable of quantifying it but there are an inexhaustible parade of human exhibits to be heard. Your crimes will be proven premeditated at trial. You've known all along what you were doing but the potential payoff drove you forward anyway.

See you in the docket of a people's court soon.

Paul A. Moore
Miami, FL


Follow up from NYCEducation News Listserve
I had a personal experience with Broad housing while living in Los Angeles in the late 80s/early 90s. To make a long story short, my husband and I drove up to Pacoima to tour Broad's hugh new condo complex (which received some mighty generous CA tax rebates, allowances, incentives.) We were shocked to find this brand-new complex already showing signs of deterioration, literally coming apart at the seams! We couldn't believe how shoddy the construction was. We didn't even bother going inside, just turned around and went home.

If the quality (or the lack thereof) of these Broad condos are any indication of the man and his principles, then why in the world would we entrust our educational system to him?

Nor do I understand why GE's Jack Welch is deified for being a titan of industry when he spent half his time polluting the Hudson River and the the other half avoiding cleaning up his mess.

No Reckoning for Eli Broad on KB Homes

The "B" in KB stands for Broad, as in Eli.

Sub-prime mortgage shenanigans helped fuel Eli Broad's philanthropic contributions to the ed reform movement that have unleashed the same forces of de-regulation, market-based concepts and privatization. And also the same type of financial shenanigans that we see in the BloomKlein administration in NYC. As Ann Cook pointed out at a parent forum on mayoral control the other night: the CEO one person in charge dictatorships means no accountability.

John Lawhead to ICE mail:

This NY Times article is mostly about the construction giant, KB Home. It neglects to mention the name of Elli Broad who made his fortune from the company. Poor Henry Cisneros. The billionaire Broad gets to ride above the fray. Maybe it's because Broad is such an important household word in education. To link him to the mortgage crisis would be like associating Bill & Melinda Gates with the mountains of outstanding college-loan debt...

Would that "the reckoning" weren't just for Henry but alas, the sacred dogma is not to be disturbed. Working class city kids must only hope for escaping their communities by way of college and a professional job title (if not home ownership).

As the Clinton administration’s top housing official in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions so first-time buyers could qualify for loans they could never get before.

Then, capitalizing on a housing expansion he helped unleash, he joined the boards of a major builder, KB Home.

For the three years he was a director at KB Home, Mr. Cisneros received at least $70,000 in pay and more than $100,000 worth of stock.

The Broads Breed

ENN is reporting the Eli and Edyth Broad (pronounced Brood) Foundation, the source of so much funding in undermining the urban public school systems (BloomKlein won the Broad prize for education "improvement" last year), has just given a whopping $400 million to a genetic institute, a joint venture by Harvard and MIT.

The money will be used to study the type of genetics that would produce teachers capable of eliminating the achievement gap.

"This is the cutting area of research. There is no more important issue the world faces than finding quality teachers and that will never happen without some genetic intervention," said a spokesperson.

Genetic manipulation of pre-determined embryos is expected to produce teachers who will:

• work 14 hour days without interruption
• teach class sizes of 40 and up without complaining
• never join a union

All candidates will be sterilized to assure they never have their own children who might interfere with the primary mission- to create millions of super human quality teachers.

Read the NY Times article here.

Broad Foundation and Merit Pay

From Marjorie Stamberg to ICE-mail:

Teachers have asked for information on the Eli Broad Foundation and its connection to NYC schools.

Here are some information points, with references.

The "School Wide Bonus Pay" is being funded by private funds. The major contributor is the Eli Broad Foundation. He is a California billionaire real estate mogul whose agenda, along with others on the "Business Roundtable" is the charterization, privatization of public schools, and for teacher pay linked to student tests scores.

A press release from Mayor Bloomberg (17 October 2007) announcing the school wide bonus plan says the first year there will be about $20 million in bonuses. "These money are being raised privately, and so far, commitments have been made by The Eli and Edythe Broad foundation, the Robertson Foundation and the Partnership for New York City."

Why is private money being used the first year, to be followed with "public funds" later? According to the influential financial weekly, 'The Economist", (November 10, 2007):

"Mr. Klein says that this private source of funds was crucial in paying for experiments that might have involved huge political battles if they had been paid for out of public funds. The hope is that in the future, such reforms might be widely supported."

Mr Bloomberg "has avoided inflammatory political terms --'merit pay' and 'vouchers' are red rags to teachers' unions." Instead, "by using the carrot of pay rises to extract performance concessions from principals and teachers, and by persuading philanthropists such as Bill Gates to pay for innovations that might be hard to sell to the public" he is putting his agenda in place.

--Eli Broad is a California billionaire and real estate and life insurance mogul. With assets valued at $5.8 billion, Broad is the 42nd richest person on the planet, according to "Forbes" magazine. Broad believes "the best way to fix troubled urban school districts is to employ the classic American business model in which a powerful chief executive runs roughshod over a weak governing board." (East Bay Express [California], 10 October 2007. The East Bay Express goes to on say:

"Many Broad Foundation watchers around the country say the real purpose of this group is to diminish the power of school boards for an incremental and eventual takeover of public education by the corporate sector. There are concerns that Broad is carrying out the goals and education agenda of the Business Roundtable, made up of the CEO's of the nation's biggest companies, one of which Eli Broad headed. [Bloomberg is a member of ths Business Roundtable, which has called to privatize all NYC schools and to cut off public education at the 10th grade (!)]

An article in a Oregon community paper ("Willamette Week" 3 May 2006) was titled "L.A. Foundation's Role in Portland Schools Alarms Teachers, Some Parents." The articles states:

"They're troubled by how entrenched billionaire Eli Broad's Los Angeles foundation, which is devoted to making schools more businesslike, has become in Portland schools...."

Eli Broad says "urban public schools are failing and must adopt methods from business to succeed, such as competition, accountability based on 'measurables' and unhampered management authority--all focusing on the bottom line of student achievement, as measured by standardized tests."

"Broad wants to create competition by starting publicly funded, privately run charter schools, to enforce accountability by linking teacher pay to student test scores, and to limit teachers' say in curriculum and transfer decisions."

"In Portland, the foundation has flown all seven school board members since 2003 to Park City, Utah for weeklong all-expense-paid training."


[Note; at our UFT/NYCDOE informational meetings on "school wide bonus pay," the representative from Tweed tried to downplay the contribution of Eli Broad to the fund for performance pay. However, an NYCODE statement (12/18/07 states that "The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Robertson Foundation have each committed "$5 million to the City's school-wide bonus program. This is the largest amount that the Broad Foundation has contributed to teacher performance pay initiative."]

Eli's Bold New Play - from Ohanian

(No, not the Giant QB)
REVISED: Note comment #2

Eli Broad is an ally of Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg - the Broad Foundation gave them the Boobie - er - Broad Prize.
Eli Broad is also an ally of the UFT and Randi Weingarten - he gave their charter school $1 million.
Eli Broad and his brood have spent money attacking teacher unions - see San Diego conflicts where his surrogates Anthony Alvarado (yes, that Alvarado) and Alan Bersin attacked teacher unions.
Eli Broad spends lots of money on school reform related to high stakes tests - hmmm, hasn't the UFT task force been critical of high stakes tests - maybe on another planet.
Eli Broad is a pro-business, anti-union education "reformer."

Lots of people have been saying the standards and accountability education reform movement is all about making every school seem a failure so they can be privatized.

From Susan Ohanian's Daily Digest comes this satirical piece by Tauna Rogers
Press Release
2007-12-01

Billionaire philanthropist, entrepreneur, and public education expert Eli Broad has teamed up with the International Star Registry to promote a provocative plan of action to raise individual student achievement (as measured by standardized test scores) and overall achievement in Title I schools across the nation.

"Asked about public schools which fail to meet the much prized 2014 standard, Broad said they should probably lower their flags to half-mast and be taken over by private companies."

Read it in full:
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_news.html?id=696

Vichy, Anyone?

New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein, second right, hugs United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten as Eli Broad, left, and U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings look on. Broad is announcing that NY City won the annual Broad Prize for corporate suck-up district of the year.
- Susan Ohanian

http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=461


Boy, for someone who regularly charges the UFT collaborates with the forces looking to destroy public education, it doesn't get any better than this.

Of course the UFT is saying the Broad prize is deserved and is due to the teaching corps, "the best ever" in their words. Funny how they can argue that experience counts for teachers and then negate that argument by saying a system that has an enormous influx of inexperienced teachers, 50% of whom leave after 5 years, is the best ever. Then they validate high stakes testing, the results of which the Broad prize is given, negating so much of what their own task force on testing reported last year.

And then there's Green Dot and Broad and the UFT - perfect together.

BloomKlein WIN!

BloomKlein WINNNNNNNNN!!!

Say the above using your best John Sterling "Yankees Win" voice!


You can fool most of the people most of the time


But not all...



David Quintana rains on the parade

As one of the four (4) parent participants in a focus group held at Tweed for researchers from the Broad Foundation, I am disappointed in the fact that NYC received the Broad Foundation prize today.

This group of parents, handpicked by Martine Guerrier of the Department of Education (DOE), expressed uniform disappointment with the various changes put into place by DOE, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the lack of consideration given the views of parents about what their children really need to succeed.

Clearly the Broad Foundation did not take parents views into consideration when awarding this prize to NYC today.

I feel that the DOE is totally dismissive of parents views and makes short shrift of our concerns for our children (i.e. - class size reduction, cell phone ban, school bus fiasco, numerous reorganizations of the DOE, et al)

Thank you.

David M. Quintana

District 27 Presidents Council - Recording Secretary; District 27 Representative to Chancelors Parents Advisory Council, Queens Community Board 10 - Education Committee and Queens Borough President's Parents Advisory Council member

http://davidmquintana.blogspot.com/

"never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; it's the only thing that ever has" - Margaret Mead

Why is Joel Klein Broading?

Joel Klein has headed down to Washington for the announcement of the Broad Prize. He is expected to come home with a check for $1 million. At least he stays even with the UFT which got its own one mil from Broad last year for its charter school. (Wouldn't Broad be doing a lot more for American education if he spent his money buying a sports teams like other billionaires?)

Here are a bunch of articles, posts, etc. on Eli Broad on Norm's Notes with direct links. Graphic shamelessly copied from the NYC Public School Parents blog.

Eli Broad's article "System Failure" in "Democracy" reveals the shallowness of his vision for American ed. Read our quick and dirty critique here along with his complete article.

Diane Ravitch comments on Broad in her regular featured conversation with Deb Meier on Ed Week. She thinks based on Broad's narrow view of education, BloomKlein do deserve the Broad prize. I wish Ravitch would expand her criticisms to address the national assault on urban public schools.

Leonie Haimson and 50 NYC parents take the position that NYC doesn't deserve the Broad Prize and have sent a letter to that effect to the Broad Foundation.

Deborah Meier responds to Ravitch where I include her comments on how mayoral control was a gimmick in the NY Times in Sept. '02.

George Schmidt, editor of Substance, comments on how Broad's vision leads to totalitarian school systems (did Broad really write that article for a mag named "Democracy"?) with the creation of all sorts of expensive job titles.

In his inimical style, Sean Ahern savages Ravitch et. al. endorsed the schools takeover which they now bemoan. Could it be that the ("Recall that Ravitch and the UFTeducrats were promised a secure perch that has at least for the moment been pulled out from under them? Maybe they hitched their wagons to the wrong horse?").

I do not agree with Sean's point of view at this time in history. While a feel the UFT still backs mayoral control and are enablers and collaborators, I give Ravitch the benefit of the doubt. I commented:

Diane Ravitch has enlisted in the NYC school wars - on the right side. While she focuses on BloomKlein, her nationally recognized voice is very welcome as a counter to the BloomKlein spin. As she continues to reexamine her positions I expect we will be hearing a lot more.

Broad Jumping

There are lots of warning signs in this post. Even if the governance law in NYC is changed to allow for more oversight, it is clear the takeover artists who have captured so many urban public school systems and put them under what is in essence private management (Broad, Gates, et al decide public ed policy) will never allow their poster boy in NYC to fall from their grasp. So watch the money pour in to assure a continuation of BloomKlein (with new surrogates) in perpetuity.

The BloomKlein gang at Tweed are suffering rotator cuff fatigue from patting themselves on the back for their expected victory for the Broad [pronounced Brood] prize, which will be announced Tuesday, Sept. 18 at high noon in Washington DC. Some people are saying they do not deserve the prize. But if you follow Broad's anti-union, simplistic business model of education, it is clear that BloomKlein and Broad are perfect together. Want to have some fun? Watch the UFT dance around this one. Broad is a major benefactor of UFT partner Green Dot charters. And they also received $1 million from Broad for their own charter school. And, oh yes, Broad is a lifelong Democrat. Emphasis on the large D. I've posted a whole bunch of Broadisms on the Norm's Notes blog.

Here are some more resources sent by John Lawhead culled from Susan Ohanian.
http://susanohanian.org/


Gary Stager's "Bill Gates and Eli Broad Go Gangsta" makes for some great reading.

You may have heard by now that bad boy billionaires, Bill Gates and Eli Broad, are kicking it together. They invested $60 million (lunch money) in the Strong American Schools Project, also known as ED in ’08. They hope that this charitable non-profit organization “will catapult the need for improved public education to the top of the 2008 presidential candidates’ agendas.”(Heszenhorn, 2007) One can hardly criticize an effort to get presidential candidates discussing critical education issues, but it is unclear if Gates and Broad should be steering the agenda.

It is disingenuous that Gates and Broad are investing $60 million just to inspire spirited debate.

“One complication, however, is that ED in 08, isn't just pushing candidates to have some real education agenda; it also wants them to support a specific trio of policies: more learning time for students, common academic standards across states, and tying teacher pay to things like subject specialty, performance, and working in high-poverty schools.” (Education_Sector, 2007)

Read the full article (with videos)
http://districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=48233

Also check out:

An 2004 article from San Diego Reader.com on Eli Broad's impact on the San Diego schools. Guess who was instrumental in running them? Our old friend and former chancellor Anthony Alvarado (playing the role of Diana Lam to Superintendent Alan Bersin's Joel Klein). He had a Leadership Academy which was Klein's model and installed his then girlfriend (and now wife) Elaine Fink as the head (at a cool $250 grand a year). Those numbers ought to warm Eli Broad's cockles as a sign of the efficient management he loves so much.

The article shows how even when there is public school board oversight, the Broad forces will go to no end to gain contol over the schools by pumping lots of money into school baord elections while trying to hide that this is what they are doing.

Here is an excerpt:

A champion of public school "reform," Democrat Broad, a longtime Bersin ally, has a history of hiding his financial support of the superintendent's efforts to retool the school district.

Broad's involvement in San Diego school politics dates back to summer and fall 2000, when Padres owner John Moores (along with Moores's partner, downtown real estate mogul Malin Burnham) and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs spent more than $720,000 on a campaign of television spots attacking Democratic board incumbent Frances Zimmerman and her opposition to Bersin's policies.

More than two years later, after the foundations filed 2000 tax returns, it became clear that Eli Broad had used his own nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation to funnel his contributions to the two eastern charities that had given the money to the anti-Zimmerman advertising campaign.

A May 2001 tax return showed that in 2000, the Broad Foundation contributed $110,000 to Essential Information, according to a letter signed by Broad himself. "I am pleased to inform you that the Broad Foundation has approved your recent grant request to support Essential Information's efforts to encourage citizens to become active in public education issues in their communities.

LA Weekly had a great article in July 2006 on how Broad operates, in this case vis a vis LA Mayor Villaraigosa's attempt to gain control of the LA school system in an attempt to mimic Bloomberg. But there's a very different dynamic in LA with a reform teachers union putting up a bit more resistance than the UFT in NYC. Plus the fact that the Mayor's old job was not a billionaire entremanure, but a union organizer.

Here are a few excerpts:

Broad, who made his fortune developing the outer sprawl of Southern California, has long fancied himself something of a policy maven on public schools, telling anyone else who would listen that the mayor needs control over the school district’s budget, its curriculum and — most importantly — its salary talks with the powerful teachers union.

With all that behind-the-scenes advocacy, it wasn’t a surprise that Broad sounded a bit betrayed in his June 30 letter to Villaraigosa in which he admonished the mayor for playing footsie with the unions and reaching a compromise that allows the elected school board to keep a few duties, including contract negotiations. Read more at:

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/where-did-the-love-go/14052/


Broad is all over the place – at least where he can steal an urban school system. Here's one more from Willamette Week in Portland, Or. Why doesn't he take a shot at Scarsdale? Oh, right, those schools work -and they spend 20 grand per schild with low class sizes - not in Broad's lexicon.

While Portland Public Schools loudly debates closing some schools and reconfiguring others, teachers and parents are worried about a much quieter but significant long-term development for local education.

They're troubled by how entrenched billionaire Eli Broad's Los Angeles foundation, which is devoted to making schools more businesslike, has become in Portland schools.

They're raising red flags about the private Broad Foundation's payment for all seven Portland School Board members to take weeklong training sessions in Utah and its help with funding two key district positions.

But it's not just the teachers union that's alarmed by the foundation's influence.

Parents like Anne Trudeau of the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, a grassroots parents group, see a right-wing tilt to Broad's ideas that she considers a poor fit for progressive Portland.

"I don't think our school board are puppets of Broad," Trudeau says, "but I think the influence is insidious."

[Broad] Foundation spokeswoman Karen Denne rejects any charge that the foundation is right wing, noting that Broad is a "lifelong Democrat."

http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3226/7507/

Barry, Mike and Joel: It Ain't Tainted

The connections is so obvious, this post can pretty much write itself. Barry and BloomKlein have been using the same cream(ing) to get similar results - pumped up everything - home runs, grad rates, test scores. Tweed has been slipping the cream into Leadership Acad. water coolers.

Barry is significantly more honest and up front than Mike and Joel. No one got hurt. Teacher and student lives weren't ruined. Just a few extra home runs. Didn't Babe Ruth spend whole nights in whore houses drinking and carousing? Give him an asterisk for using artificial stimulants.

If Joel and Mike get the Broad prize on Sept. 18, as expected (Broad giving BloomKlein a prize is like Halliburton giving the Bush administration an award for fiscal responsibility) we need to prepare an asterisk the size of the Goodyear blimp to put next to Mike and Joel's "achievements."

(Any photoshoppers out there want to take a shot at this?)

Privatization & Mayoral Control

Mayoral control of school systems is a symptom rather than a cause. What has occurred is privatization of policy over public schools, where people like Eli Broad and Bill Gates get to use their private money to make public policy and shape urban public school system the way they want to without public oversight. Mayoral control is their instrument since it allows then to do their thing without having to open themselves up to public scrutiny. All they have to do is get Bloomberg, et al on board, which is easy to do by the offer of money.

Can you imagine them getting away with this in places like Scarsdale? "We think you should break up your high school into small schools."

All over this nation, local people have some say over their schools. But not the people in urban areas that have given themselves over to mayoral control. When the UFT agreed to this model, we should not pretend they did not know what they hath done. They hath proven themselves part of the Broad/Gates cabal of corporate takeover of the public schools to the detriment of students, teacher, parents and the general public.

Ex-general is Baltimore schools chief of staff

Another ex-general and Broad Superintendents Academy fellow has just been appointed to a leadership position in a large urban school district.

"In a move to fix the city school system's managerial problems, Andres Alonso, the system's chief executive officer, has chosen a retired Army officer with a strong background in logistics to act as his second in command."


http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=7356
Alonso trained at the feet of Joel Klein, so he must be making good decisions. And these generals have done so well in Iraq, why not let them run school systems? Note in the article how the Broad Academy has few people who actually taught. I wonder exactly what kind of teaching Alonso himself did during his 10 year teaching career. He must have been deprogrammed to purge all identification with teachers, who clearly are not to be trusted with running things on their own.

Broad Jumping

The Educational Intelligence Agency's Mike Antonucci reports in this week's posting on his coverage of the NEA convention:

The delegates also pulled their annual punch at Eli Broad, referring to committee an item that directed NEA to "aggressively work to expose the dangers of pursuing the 'Broad Prize' and other veiled awards promoted by those who seek to destroy public education."

Don't expect even a light jab from the AFT at Broad, who gave the UFT charter school $1 million and is the backer of Green Dot charters' Steve Barr who has been in a love fest with the UFT's Randi Weingarten. When Weingarten takes over the AFT next July, will her connections to Broad be one of the sticking points in the long-sought merger between the AFT and NEA?

The Broad prize has been much coveted by BloomKlein so they can use it politically to validate their daily reorganizations of the schools. Getting the Broad prize for NYC would be the equivalent of the Bush Administration getting the Halliburton prize for humanity.

People consider it a slam dunk they will win it this year (announcement is Sept. 19) so the Broadies can use NYC for their own political purposes: defang teacher unions, privatize as much as possible, etc.

Pretty ironic, eh, for Broad to give $1million to both BloomKlein and Weingarten? But then again, you know the mantra of this blog - that the UFT collaboration with BloomKlein has been instrumental in allowing them to do what they did to the system - sort of a 5th column. You know, like in the old WWII movies, where you are shocked to find out the supposed leader of the Resistance was actually working for the Narzi's all along.

The one chance to make a statement opposing them by holding a massive rally on May 9th was undermined by Weingarten who sold teachers on the deal by claiming the deal with Bloomberg would keep schools from being penalized for hiring higher salaried teachers. See if that's true by checking out the post: The Bronx is burning with ATR's.

Note: Leonie Haimson came up with an interesting idea for a date to hold a rally: Sept. 18, the day before the Broad prize is announced. Want to bet my pension the UFT will nix that idea?