Thanks to GEM's Gustavo Medina for the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.
Written and edited by Norm Scott: EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Soon to be new "House of Tweed" |
staff focused on asking the coordinators to build relationships with satisfied parents who would be willing to show support for the DOE at Panel for Educational Policy meetings. “I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, honestly, and I didn’t really trust my own ears, so I wrote things down,” the parent coordinator said.
And parent activist Noah Gotbaum added this:In honor of OFIAGATE, Lisa Donlan commented and then penned a ditty:At the very least Ms. Hall must take responsibility for this series of inappropriate events taking place on her watch.I say at the very least, because I have no doubt the directives at Tweed come from above. That said, under her leadership OFIA has been the most embarrassinglyineffectual and incompetent of all of the many iterations of the oxymoronic "Parent Support" functions since Mayoral control destroyed parent engagement.
Quite a hit parade that has been, too:
OFIA Mambo No 5-
sing it with me now:
A little bit of Karen in my lifeA little bit of Jemina by my side
A little bit of Tom is all I need
A little bit of Martine is what I see
A little bit of Ojeida in the sunA little bit of Parent Support all night longA little bit of OFEA is my refuge
A little bit of OFIA makes me your stooge!
------
OFIA, like every department of the DOE, is simply a partisan political extension of the Mayor and his Chancellor. It has nothing at all to do with education nor with parent engagement, and everything to do with promoting the Mayor and the Mayor’s agenda, and quelling any dissenting or independent viewpoints.
Thus, OFIA, while under contract to support parent involvement and to provide legislated training and support to the City’s elected parent representatives including CEC’s, and SLT’s, has not held a single CEC training session or meeting this year, nor provided an iota of guidance or basic information to these groups. They also refuse to provide CEC’s the contact details of the PA and SLT’s reps that we, not they, are charged by New York State law to support and to oversee. Kinda makes it tough to do our jobs. And although Ojeda Hall has been in her position as head of OFIA since August, I don’t know of ANYONE who’s even MET her.
It’s now more apparent than ever that the “O” in OFIA stands for “obstructionist.” Neither OFIA, nor the DOE, nor the Mayor, should have anything to do with oversight or “support” of the parents and parent groups that they clearly disdain. If our legislators truly are serious about increasing parental input and involvement in our kids’ schools, they will remove the DOE and OFIA from any formal involvement or role in “supporting” parent engagement. Instead, and as agreed by the State Senate, they should replace OFIA with an independent parent training academy and support organization run by NYU or another credible educational institution/contractor.
noah
Parent Coordinators were emailed the above petition for parents to sign for their Lobby Day the end of March.. When you open the attachment you will see there is a line there asking Albany to end seniority rules of last in first out. Please get to your parent coordinators first thing tomorrow and ask them not to send that petition around.Using the guise of budget cuts (who can be against that?), they have added the end of seniority as a tag to the petition.
New York City Public School Lobby Week March 21, 2011 – March 25, 2011
We, the undersigned New York City students, parents and community members, strongly protest the State’s proposed budget cuts to New York City public schools.
Therefore, we urge our elected leaders to:
Provide New York City with it’s fair share of state funds and restore the proposed cuts to our public schools;
Reject the State’s proposed changes to Building Aid, which will delay the construction of thousands of new school seats in our neighborhoods; and
Allow the City to keep it’s most effective teachers by ending the State’s “Last In, First Out” policy, allowing teachers to be retained based on their performance, rather than just seniority.Go find the Parent Coordinator at your school today and point out what the DOE is doing.
Katie Couric after reading Ed Notes on her 60 Minutes TEP segment |
Hello,Hmmm. I think I'll send my list of questions to Jenifer.
This week on 60 Minutes Overtime, Katie Couric Katie Couric discusses her report on the ground-breaking New York City school known as TEP (The Equity Project), her own experience with mentoring students, and the accusation that teachers are "greedy."
To view the video, click here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20042201-10391709. html
Tiny URL: http://bit.ly/eApWza
Let me know if you have any questions.
Jenifer Boscacci
CBSNews.com
415.344.2441
Jenifer.boscacci@cbs.com
See video of last night’s 60 min: segment on TEP Charter school, featuring Joel Klein attack on tenure and celebrating the fact that Zeke Vanderhoek fired two of his teachers – that he had so carefully recruited. One was a sped teacher from Arizona who had moved to NYC to take the job.
Strangely, the segment never mentions the large class sizes that supposedly allows him to pay $125,000 per teacher; instead Couric claims the trade off was that teachers had to take on additional admin responsibilities.
For my earlier post on this school: Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter
Recent events in Wisconsin have been a real eye-opener. Anyone in America not mesmerized with Dancing With The Stars or the latest on Charlie Sheen or their X-Box 360 knows now that a class war is on now.
When the banks and their corporate partners decided to maximize profits and globalize the economy the war was on. It was then that the US was de-industrialized and the great industrial trade unions were smashed. The United Auto Workers, the United Steel Workers, the United Mine Workers unions are just shells of their former selves now.
That hollowing out of the US has left the teacher's unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) combined, as the largest national force of organized workers left. And that explains the withering attack on teachers, not just in Wisconsin, but from coast to coast which in is progress right now. The forces of globalization see more profits to be won by destroying the public schools and impoverishing teachers and other public sector workers. At the same time they seek to destroy public worker pensions and will ultimately mount a full frontal assault on Social Security and Medicare.
But right now it's organized teachers in the cross-hairs. Recently, a teacher in Oakland named Anthony Cody reacted to the events in Wisconsin in the context of the stunning appearance of President Obama with Jeb Bush at a South Florida inner-city high school. Cody, who is a National Board Certified teacher and taught science for 18-years in the inner-city, paid homage to the teachers of Florida. He wrote, "Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6. They ultimately convinced Republican governor Charlie Crist to veto the bill. This year they have launched a campaign called Awake the State that is holding dozens of rallies across Florida to oppose the huge budget cuts that loom for schools and social services."
An insiders account from Florida would have to concede to Brother Cody that there was indeed immense pressure from teachers and their parent allies. This pressure included a massive demonstration in Tallahassee, volumes of testimony before committees of the Legislature, visits to the Legislator's home offices, a well-funded lobbying campaign run through the Florida Education Association (FEA), a mountain of e-mail and other communications to the lawmakers, the creation by parents of powerful YouTube videos that went viral on the Internet, and the wearing of red T-shirts in public schools around the State.
And SB6 sailed through both chambers of the Florida Legislature! Not a vote was changed because money calls the shots now in Florida and all the teachers and parents and people of the state can demonstrate and e-mail and vote until they're blue in the face and money will still make the law.
Getting back to our story though, as the legislation worked its way to the governor's office, Charlie Crist had made nothing but supportive statements. He repeatedly assured the bill's prime sponsor, Jeb Bush's man, Sen. John Thrasher of Jacksonville, that he intended to sign it. Never was heard a discouraging word from Crist on SB6.
Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred.
I’m not at liberty to reveal the teacher’s name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. “You have a doctor’s appointment Monday” went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010. It was a call to sick-out, in effect, an illegal strike.
Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.
But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade’s 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District’s public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did a complete about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write “thank you notes” to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.
Very few thank you notes went to the now retired Crist from Miami-Dade. Teachers there knew better. We had done it! We had the power! When we moved together, nothing could stop us! And they knew it too! Not a single teacher among the 6,300 MDCPS teachers from the illegal strike was fired or disciplined in any form or fashion. Administrators, union bureaucrats, teachers, parents and students just celebrated the defeat of SB6 and President Obama’s new friend Jeb Bush.
Much the same dynamic is playing itself out on a larger scale in Wisconsin today. The teachers united, an irresistible force, has become conscious of itself. Teachers shut down schools in Madison and several other districts for three days when Gov. Scott Walker’s machinations became clear. He even threatened them with the National Guard but they remain unbowed. They forced Gov. Scott Walker to resort to thoroughly undemocratic measures, the acts of a petty tyrant, to get his union busting way.
As with Charlie Crist in Florida, some are determined to give the lion's share of credit in Wisconsin to 14 Democratic politicians who crossed the state line into Illinois. It is critical that someone else get the credit because their power is the secret that must be kept from teachers around the country if the public schools are to be destroyed. Teachers in Wisconsin are now being misdirected away from their real power, the ability to shutdown and eventually to take over the schools, into dead ends like recall petitions and electoral politics. So Wisconsin may prove that we are not quite ready to win yet.
But Florida one year and a step closer in Wisconsin the next. We are about to get there!
Paul A. Moore
Teacher, United Teachers of Dade (AFT-NEA-FEA) member
Miami Carol City Senior High School
President Mulgrew:
I was very happy to see that the union is moving forward with a city-wide day of action in solidarity with Wisconsin on the 22nd, and I understand that we need a long term strategy for effective solidarity in defense of the attacks on collective bargaining across the Midwest. However, given the events of the last 48 hours, it seems there is an urgency for an immediate and vigorous response to the latest actions of the Republicans in Madison.
A mention of action tomorrow (details below) in Union Square on the UFT website and in the Chapter Leader's Update tonight would help to build the momentum for the long term struggle.
Please consider taking these steps, and I look forward to working with you on future solidarity actions.
In Solidarity- Peter Lamphere
Body Forward Competition mat (8x4) |
The charter school movement at the macro level will result in the destruction of the public school system, the draining of enormous resources out of the hands of public control and into private hands, and enormous harm to the majority of children over the long run. They should be demonized.My response (to myself) was: fuck 'em.
I often find the debates that are ongoing in the education policy world suffer from a lack of explicit acknowledgement of underlying values, even as those debates are really just a fundamental clash of values. As I read articles heralding the decline in union power and calling for budgetary bloodletting in public services, I might posit that some values that the authors would hold are that of efficiency, expediency, and force as an agent of change. As someone who has been in positions of management, I can understand the perspectives that channel from such values. We seek immediate and replicable solutions to problems, to make systems run more smoothly and efficiently, and to increase performance and productivity.
As Diane Ravitch explains in “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” education leaders such as Joel Klein and Alan Bersin seemed to turn a deaf ears to their employee base as they rammed through reforms, as if this were effective leadership. Michelle Rhee has also most famously exemplified this style of leadership. Problem is, this is not effective leadership. Not in the business world, and most certainly not in the realm of education. At least, not in any sort of sustainable way. It might seemingly work for a few years — in that people conform because they have to —until the results start trickling in. Turnover will be high. Motivation will be low. And increasingly hostile rhetoric and a culture of mistrust will develop between labor and management.Anderson seems to be scratching his head as to why these so-called business leaders would be using a tactic that will fail in motivating teachers and is calling for a dialogue. between the two sides. What he is missing in that the intentions of the ed deformers is NOT to improve the schools but to take them over, turn over the massive amount of money into private hands while running the rudimentary school system left over on the cheap. THEY HAVE NO GOOD INTENTIONS AND YOU CANNOT ENGAGE IN DIALOGUE WITH PEOPLE WITH NO GOOD INTENTIONS. EVIL MOSKOWITZ INDEED!!!
When the balance of forces so overwhelmingly favors management and capital, as it currently does in this country, and when those unregulated forces are literally sociopathic, as is the case with the DOE and all urban education systems under mayoral control, then to speak about "building relationships" is naive and preposterous. It's hard to build relationships with people who are trying to kill you. I suggest you ask teachers in Wisconsin about how "dialogue" works in the middle of a class war.
Management's reflex to control labor as a cost and a factor of production, and to make it as fungible as possible, is axiomatic. Rather than reading the fairy tales contained in management how-to manuals found in airport bookracks, I suggest you carefully observe management behavior. In the social darwinist swamp that is the neoliberal economy (and Michael Bloomberg's New York City), behavior is the most honest form of communication. That behavior includes de-skilling labor, eliminating whatever vestiges of autonomy it has, and using that as leverage to reduce its wages, its benefits and maintain unilateral control over the terms of employment. Labor's status in this "partnership" is akin to that of school principal and student council president. They may listen to each other, respect and like each other, but the dynamics of power make it impossible to call it a true partnership. Sure you'll get your meeting, and maybe they'll even agree to serve chocolate milk in the lunchroom, but the parameters of power are set.
Additionally, your analogy about the woman on the subway is false, since as a civilized human being you responded appropriately to her established position by the door. Had you been the DOE (as a proxy for all corporate ed deformers), however, you (and your cronies, contractors, consultants, subsidized researchers, politically-connected vendors, advocacy satellites and astroturf shills) would have grabbed her handbag and pushed her and the people around her out of the way. In fact, you would have grabbed as much of that public space as you could, used it as your own, and proclaimed your munificence to the people you had just evicted.
Take a look around the world we live in, and especially the regime too many teachers in New York work under: can you say with a straight face that those in positions of policy-making and power are "building relationships" and "listening?"
The reality is that management and labor have intrinsically opposing interests, and that only in those rare periods when labor is able to counterbalance management and capital's inherent advantage (which does not exist at the moment) can we achieve the best we can hope for, which is a wary accommodation. Without that, the situation is the one we currently find ourselves in, that of one-sided aggression, deception (and self-deception) and contempt for the public good.
So says faux-Democrat Cory Booker in his love letter to the reformers who put him where he is today. Sure, let's not abolish tenure. Let's simply make it meaningless. The Wal-Mart family did not finance Booker so as to help working people. Wal-Mart money subverts public schools because union is a scourge that must be stopped, so that people can do as they're told, shut the hell up, and work until they die. MORE
There is no question in my mind that the path we're embarking upon is littered with, reeking of, completely composed of sheer nonsense. We're moving into an evaluation system that relies on "value-added" information, information that can make an exemplary teacher look like an utter incompetent. And we're also playing right into the hands of "reformers," yet again. MORE
This will help destroy the illusion that workers in Wisconsin and across the US have any recourse to legislative or electoral remedies. Government and all of its branches are under corporate control.
Teachers, shut down the schools of Wisconsin tomorrow. You will be urged to rely on the courts. You will be urged to rely on the recall process. You will be urged down all manner of dead ends. Be not deceived though, you are now in an openly declared class war. Fight fire with fire!
"Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6." This pressure included a massive demonstration in Tallahassee, volumes of testimony before committees of the Legislature, visits to the Legislator's home offices, a well-funded lobbying campaign run through the Florida Education Association (FEA), a mountain of e-mail and other communications to the lawmakers, the creation by parents of powerful YouTube videos that went viral on the Internet, and the wearing of red T-shirts in public schools around the State.
And SB6 sailed through both chambers of the Florida Legislature. Not a vote was changed!
As the legislation worked its way to the governor's office, Charlie Crist made nothing but supportive statements. He repeatedly assured the bill's prime sponsor, Sen. John Thrasher, that he intended to sign it. Never was heard a discouraging word from Crist on SB6.
Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred.
I'm not at liberty to reveal the teacher's name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. "You have a doctor's appointment Monday" went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010.
Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.
But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade's 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District's public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did an about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write "thank you notes" to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.
Very few thank you notes went to the now retired Gov. Crist from Miami-Dade. Teachers there knew better. We had done it! We had the power! When we moved together, nothing could stop us! And they knew it too! Not a single teacher among the 6,300 MDCPS teachers from the illegal strike was fired or disciplined in any form or fashion. Administrators, union bureaucrats, teachers, parents and students just celebrated the defeat of SB6 and President Obama's new friend Jeb Bush.
Much the same dynamic is playing itself out on a larger scale in Wisconsin today. The teachers united, an irresistible force, has become conscious of itself. Teachers shut down schools in Madison and several other districts for three days when Gov. Scott Walker's machinations became clear. He even threatened them with the National Guard but they remain unbowed. They have Walker stopped cold unless he decides to escalate the conflict.
As with Charlie Crist in Florida, some are determined to give the lion's share of credit in Wisconsin to 14 Democratic politicians who crossed the state line into Illinois. It is critical that someone else get the credit because their power is the secret that must be kept from teachers around the country if the public schools are to be destroyed.
Paul A. Moore
NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS FED UP WITH
BUDGET CUT THREATS AND MAYOR’S AGENDA
(New York, NY) - Concerned NYC Public School parents spoke out today at City
Hall regarding the state’s proposed $1.5 billion education budget cuts. In
strongly worded statements, parents expressed their collective frustration and
displeasure regarding the rising class sizes, program cuts, and teacher layoffs
that would happen if budgets are slashed. Parents directed most of their anger
not at their Governor in Albany, but rather at their long lost education mayor.
“NYC cannot afford to allow Mayor Bloomberg to cut our education budget and
get rid of our teachers,” said parent organizer Rebecca Woodard. “As parents,
we are fighting for our children and teachers to receive the funding they need to
be successful. We must stop him from exercising his ridiculous power and
demand he lives up to his self-proclaimed title as the “Education Mayor”. I am
here on the steps of City Hall letting him know that we will NOT go away, we will
NOT stop and we will keep coming back.”
Parents are particularly angry at the threats Mayor Bloomberg is making about
their teachers’ job security and fed up with the Mayor trying to draw them into a
collective bargaining negotiation concerning LIFO. High School parent, Larry
Wood comments, “What's particularly outrageous to me is that the Mayor has
spun the teacher lay-offs into a debate on HOW the lay-offs should be
conducted. That's NOT the issue. The issue should be WHY are we laying off
thousands of teachers at all!! We should be focused on stopping the cuts not a
better process to implement them.”
Having experienced last year’s cuts, including the loss of some 4000 teachers
through attrition and mid-year in-school reductions averaging 6%, parents
voiced anger at additional proposed reductions on kids and schools: “My fourth
grader now gets gym once every six days, my 5th grader’s combined music and
drama program takes place with 60 other kids on a piece of a shared auditorium
stage, and my special needs Kindergartener was placed in a class of 27 kids even
though the DOE’s own Committee on Special Education recommended a program
no larger than 12 kids,” said Noah E Gotbaum, President of Manhattan’s
Community Education Council for District 3. “At the classroom and school level,
the fat has been cut; now the Mayor wants to go after the bone.”
Why these cuts are necessary, however, was not clear to the parents, who
offered up some alternatives: “Despite the Mayor’s fear mongering and layoff
threats, New York City will see an almost $2 billion budget surplus in 2011,
primarily due to higher Wall Street revenues. Allocating just 15% of this will
prevent all teacher layoffs,” said Stefanie Goldblatt, public school parent of two.
“And at a time when services for our most vulnerable are being decimated, it is
unconscionable to be offering tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. The
Millionaire’s tax alone could generate enough to make up for all education cuts –
statewide.”
Some wondered where the mayor’s business expertise has gone. Shino
Tanikawa, District 2 Community Education Council Member, said:
“The Mayor, who prides himself as a business leader, apparently is unable to
manage the City's budget. He threatens to lay off teachers while increasing the
budget for IT related contracts for the DOE, because the DOE did not budget
properly. Are computer consultants more important to education than teachers?
Our children need teachers before they need high-priced consultants, many hired
on no-bid contracts.”
Parents also shared their observation that weak schools drive families out of the
city faster than anything else, something that seemed lost on Mayor Bloomberg,
whose PlaNYC invited new residential development, full of family amenities and
multi-bedroom apartments, but did not address the long term needs of the city’s
school system.
"It is uncertainty about what will be left of our public schools after the education
budget is slashed yet again, and not the extension of a modest existing tax, that
will drive families and their tax dollars from our City and State. Preserving the
existing source of funding in a budget shortfall is both good policy and good
business,” said Mark Diller, public high school parent.
There is a citywide schools meeting at 6pm this evening at The High School of
Fashion Industries (225 West 24th Street) to continue the discussion about
education budget cuts and determine next action steps for parents.
Parents, unite! |
Thursday, March 10 1PM City Hall* |
"I thought it was because of Joel Klein," Mr. Mulgrew said. "I honestly did. But that's not the case anymore. It's just [Mr. Bloomberg] there and it's become worse. ... He has a whole new team around him. ... Everything is carpet bomb and toxicity.He has to be kidding. Randi fooled him too? We're in more to trouble than I thought. Then Mulgrew comes up with this goody:
Mulgrew and the Observer declined to mention that Howard Wolfson was (and still may be for all we know) on the UFT payroll for years. (Just check the LM-2 reports of past years.)"Since I know Deputy Mayor Wolfson's strategy is this when he runs a campaign, I'm assuming it's his influence on [the mayor]," said Mr. Mulgrew. Mr. Wolfson is of course the mayor's hard-driving senior adviser, who notably fought against Barack Obama's campaign long after Mr. Wolfson's candidate, Hillary Clinton, seemed to abandon the 2008 Democratic primary.
The plan would also involve forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs and using a committee of teachers, school administrators and parents to pick who got to stay. The teachers’ contract would give them some measure of job protection, but it would be easier to fire them. The teachers also would work under more flexible rules, including longer hours in exchange for higher pay. “It’s about, what do we need to get this staff in order for them to meet the needs of the children and stop with this one-size-fits-all stuff?” said Michael Mulgrew...Right Mike! One size fits all. If I were teaching in one of these schools, I would be scared, very scared.
Results on the standardized tests were lackluster, but the school gets high marks in other indicators of progress.The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, and only a few percent tested at the next level down, basic.How interesting what the Times leaves out. GEM/ICE's Lisa North commented:
Two years ago, Steve Barr and his Green Dot charter schools group engineered a hostile takeover of Locke High School, a large public high school in Los Angeles. Despite the opposition of United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA Unified School District, Barr was able to convince a bare majority of Locke's permanent faculty (37 of 73) to opt for Green Dot." Barr promptly dismissed the entire staff, forcing them to reapply for their jobs. Over 70 percent were not rehired.And then there is this side of Barr: According to the Green Dot website, he is no longer on staff either.
Barr stepped aside this fall as board chairman of Green Dot but remains on the board and on staff. The expense problem had nothing to do with Barr's change of role, said Shane Martin, who replaced Barr as chairman.
Green Dot charter schools founder repays group $50,866Lie down with privatization dogs and you get fleeced. Can't wait to hear the spin at the DA today.
The nonprofit's tax return shows that Steve Barr repaid the organization after an internal review found that expenses he had charged were undocumented or unjustified.