Still More About Central Falls Firings Pt 3: Attack of the Broad (rhymes with "toad") People

[Hannah Bell]

It's no secret that big-money private parties have been funding an attack on public education.

- Hedge-Fund Guys:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/06charter.html?_r=1

- Religious Groups:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/17/opinion/churches-and-charter-schools.html?pagewanted=1

- Foundations like Gates, Walmart & Broad:
http://thebroadreport.blogspot.com/2009/11/saltman-on-venture-philanthropy-eli.html



They're funding charter schools, they're funding voucher initiatives, they're funding PR machines, astroturf groups, credentialling and authorization infrastructure --

Think about that for a minute.

A bunch of rich people are funding a parallel private infrastructure to credential education personnel & authorize (or deauthorize) schools.

On whose authority? Who voted for these guys? By what power, except the power of money?

They're also funding the recruitment & training of administrators & managers. This is where Deborah Gist comes into the story.

Gist is the Education Commissioner of Rhode Island, appointed in April 2009. She's Frances Gallo's boss. Frances Gallo is the Superintendent who fired the Central Falls teachers.

And Deb Gist is a 2008 graduate of the Broad Superintendents' Academy:

http://www.broadacademy.org/fellows/239_Deborah+Gist.html?page_filter=0



There's no polite way to say it. Broad trains people like the CIA trains people: to place them in strategic locations in order to collect information, make contacts, & manipulate policy.

Here's a map of locations where Broad Residents are working:

http://www.broadresidency.org/residents/map.html

Here's a map of locations where Broad Fellows & Supers are working:

http://www.broadacademy.org/fellows/map.html



Did you notice there are five Broad grads in and around Providence RI?

Broad likes to place several of its people in the same locale. For the synergy.

If you've ever been in management, you know how the "pre-decided decision" works:

"Preselected ally number 10, do you agree?"

"Most certainly!"

"Well, since so many independent stakeholders agree, it's settled."

Which leaves the rubes who thought they were coming to some open discussion of equal participants blinking and blindsided.



Another interesting thing about the Broad training is its military connections. For example, in the class of 2010, we find:

SEAN BYRNE
Commanding General of the US Army Human Resources Command
United States Army, Va

CASEY WARDYNSKI
Director, Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis,
United States Military Academy
United States Army, N.Y.

MICHAEL ROUNDS
Director, Human Performance Resource Center
United States Army

DANIEL HAHN
Former Chief of Operations
NATO Afghan Operations, Netherlands

http://www.broadacademy.org/fellows/2010.html

That's 29% of the class of 2010. What's the deal?


Broad trains people *for* the military, & also trains military people to be placed inside school systems.

For example, Providence RI is about a 15 minute drive from Central Falls. And the Superintendent of the Providence School System is one of the military Broad grads: Tom Brady, Broad class of 2004.

http://www.projo.com/ri/providence/content/brady_arrives_07-15-08_A6ARUQC_v16.3da7d20.html

He's 25-year army & the former commander of Ft. Belvoir, Va, headquarters of US Army Intelligence & Security Command.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Intelligence_and_Security_Command

IOW, the head of the Providence schools is a *real* spy.



Brady has promoted a variety of neo-lib, marketized changes in the Providence schools, sometimes teaming up with Deb Gist:

"In a series of weekend-long negotiations involving Brady, (union leader) Smith and Gist, Gist offered several concessions that made her plan palatable to Smith. Risking his own political future as leader of the state’s largest teachers’ union, Smith endorsed the commissioner’s school-reform plan because it was “the right thing to do for kids.” He was the only teachers union leader to do so."

(Maybe because he was in the strategic top spot & was easiest to buy off?)

http://www.projo.com/education/content/Providence_union_cooperation_02-28-10_R8HJ3SC_v26.38ad8ae.html


PS: For all those outraged by the Central Falls teachers' salaries, here's some salary info on Brady & Gist: both top $200K.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/education_commissioner_salary_05-12-09_D9EAHF_v14.3b4f1b3.html.

And Brady gets a "performance bonus" paid by a private foundation. I wonder which foundation that is? And I wonder what he has to do to earn that bonus?

And I especially wonder WHAT THE HELL private parties are doing paying bonuses to supposedly *public* officials?




Before hiring on in Providence in 2008, Brady was interim super in Philadelphia. Before that, he spent 2 & 1/2 years in DC as CBOO of the DC schools.

Coincidentally, Deb Gist was also working in the DC schools at the time:

- 2000-2004: DC Mayor's Office, head of "Serve DC," an organization promoting volunteerism, where she was involved with Teach for America, among other duties.

- 2004-2007: State Education Officer for DC

- 2007-2009: State Superintendent of Ed for DC

http://www.projo.com/news/content/new_education_commissioner_04-02-09_T4DT3E0_v127.3788c1e.html


Here's another of Deb's associations:

The Education Equality project is an elite-funded advocacy group trying to promote their brand of school "reform" as a civil rights issue.

Note the signatories:

Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Daley, Joel Klein, Margaret Spellings (NCLB), Michelle Rhee...Eli Broad & his lackey Ben Austin from the astroturf "Parent Revolution," the right-winge Aspen & Hoover Institutes, Steve Barr of Green Dot Schools, KIPP, Aspira, Tiki Ventures, Educate Inc., Advance Innovative Education, iMentor, Eve Moskowitz of Success Charter Network...etc.

http://www.educationequalityproject.org/who_we_are/the_signatories


Sure, when I think of civil rights, Jeb Bush immediately comes to mind.

But who knows? Deb was running a literacy organization in Florida during the reign of Jebbie, & her career path took her to DC shortly afterward....could be...

But I digress.


Notice how these folks are focusing on race in association with educational inequalities, even though poverty & class are more closely linked to educational achievement than race.

Perhaps it's because race provides more opportunities to demagogue the issue & pit members of the old New Deal coalition against each other....?

Or maybe it's just because discussions of class are inevitably embarrassing to silver-spoon kiddies like jebbie - as everyone knows sans the monied background, dunces like the Bush brothers wouldn't have made it anywhere near Yale.

*******************


In Part 4, I'll draw some conclusions about what really happened at Central Falls based on the facts presented in Parts 1, 2, & 3.

Pt. 1 explained how a new grant requirement from Arne Duncan precipitated the firings at Central Falls High School.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7831790&mesg_id=7831790

Pt. 2 laid out the timeline, from the rules change to the pink-slipping.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7832036

And here you can learn more about the students & teachers of Central Falls High, including the interesting fact that CFHS had recently received an excellent state evaluation (due to two years of gains on state tests & other improvements):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7830386

Not to mention Obama's praise for a school with scores & progress WORSE than Central Falls:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7834768

But it was Gates-funded.

I'm sure the fact that Gates was one of Obama's big campaign backers has nothing to do with anything.

[leveymg]

1. KNR for visibility. Important, little-known topic deserves a wide reading.

Thanks, for posting this, Hannah!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. K & R

[arendt]

3. These three posts have been tremendous...

I don't post here any more, but the frauds who call themselves "investigative journalists" could learn a lot from this series.

I can't believe this fell to page two of the Latest, and was rec'd less than zero when I saw it. WTF is the matter with people who can't see this episode as the opening salvo in the latest right wing war to dismantle the middle class, the Enlightenment, and democracy?

I really am going to have to learn more about Eli Broad. On the one hand, he funds the Broad Institute (cutting edge genomics lab at MIT) to the tune of $600 M. OTOH, he is militant about charter schools. Clearly he has an elitist vision of education. What makes this 70+ year old real estate (FIRE) billionaire do it?

Thanks again.

Re-cloaking.

arendt

[tonysam]

15. You can read all about Eli Broad's shenanigans here

at the blog called The Broad Report:

The Broad Report

[LWolf]

4. Thanks, HB. nt

[ipaint]

5. Thank you! K+R

For the work you and others have done to get to the rotting bottom of all this. They rely on stealth and an unquestioning, authority worshiping public to eat away at the public commons from within and destroy it.

[ipaint]

6. AIG Bailout And Eli Broad

AIG Bailout And Eli Broad

By Ian Wilhelm

The billionaire Eli Broad is under fire for what one blog writer sees as an inconsistency in how he approaches business versus philanthropy.

Mr. Broad has given millions of dollars to improve American public education, in part pushing schools to be run more business-like.

But Michael Klonsky, an education consultant in Chicago, attacks Mr. Broad’s views on education given his role at the insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, which was taken over by the U.S. government yesterday with an $85-billion buyout.

According to BusinessWeek, Mr. Broad, a former director of AIG, helped install Robert Willumstad as the company’s chief executive. Mr. Willumstad was forced to step down as part of the deal with the government.

On. his blog, Small Talk, Mr. Klonsky writes that Mr. Broad should “stick to golf” before telling schools how to operate.

http://philanthropy.com/blogPost/AIG-BailoutEli-Broad/9872/



"Eli Broad, as in Ed in '08, the Broad Foundation, and the Broad Prize, played a big role in the collapse of AIG. But he, along with venture philanthropist Bill Gates, might still be the most powerful force currently pushing the so-called business model on public schools.

Broad helped negotiate some of the biggest pay and severance packages for failed AIG CEOs, in history. This should give educators plenty of food for thought about the hypocrisy of the Broad/Gates push for merit pay as part of business-model reform. If merit pay is so great, why didn't it begin with AIG?

The AIG collapse may also cause school boards to think twice about the top-down leadership model being pushed at Broad's own Superintendent's Academy, which offers special fellowships for military officers interested in running school districts. We all should consider the unwarranted influence these giant venture philanthropists are having over public education in general.

Broad co-founded Kaufman & Broad and later acquired Sun Life Insurance (renamed SunAmerica) in 1971 and sold the company to investment bank AIG in 1998 for $18 billion. Instead of retiring on his billions, Broad saw an opportunity to make billions more in the retirement business as millions of the baby-boom generation approached retirement age. As a director of AIG Retirement (VALIC), he was able to keep one foot in real estate and one foot in retirement—two legs planted deep into the sub-prime mortgage scandal."

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2008/09/eli-broad-stick-to-golf.html


Just the person to head up the destruction of the public school system. He's also $600 million into gene research. That ought to be interesting.

[Hannah Bell]

13. thanks, that's good information. & gates also big into genetic research & patents.

[Starry Messenger]

7. absolutely stellar work

These are the questions we all need to be asking. This is such a terrific series Hannah, thank you for this. I have to finish getting ready for work, but I'll go through all the links when I get back.

[Fire1]

8. Thanks Hannah. Bookmarked. n/t

[PufPuf23]

9. Great research!

Another facet of social Darwinists with idealogical agenda biases or what one could call eugenics-lite for the 21st century.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. kick

[glitch]

11. Very well done. K & R nt

[Vidar]

12. Thank you for all the information on this malevolent plot Hannah. I taught public school

for twenty years, & and thankfully left it behind many years ago. I had high hopes for Obama, but I now despise him for what he's doing to the teachers & unions.

[MissMarple]

17. Well the teachers need better leadership, and the unions should start demanding it.

And they should help find ineffective teachers a better job fit. I taught, as well, and I was a member of AFT in the 70's. Many public schools are a limping, bleeding target for outside predators. If you get rid of one another will just appear in its place.

[EFerrari]

14. I hope you put this series in the research forum.

:applause:

[Starry Messenger]

16. afternoon kick

[amborin]

18. K&R bookmarked to read later; off the bat: that's Eli Broad, the big CA developer

[Doremus]

19. Thank you for this. K&R

[Jakes Progress]

20. Excellent work Hannah. But of course

you keep giving the whole truth. All that truth and logic keeps falling to someone's "but I went to a private school and it was real good".

Myopia trumps knowledge for way too many here.

[suffragette]

21. Jaw-dropping

This is a stunning piece of research.

K&R

[varelse]

22. K&R

I'm bookmarking this, and sharing it.

[Hannah Bell]

23. kick

[Mithreal]

24. Well done

[flyarm]

25. Incredible research!! Thank you !!! eom

[Powerdot16]

26. Thank you for this

[ipaint]

27. kick for the facts. nt

[Bozita]

28. Detroit Public Schools uber-boss, Robt Bobb (a Broad grad), gets $81,000 raise from *private* donors

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7852620


Thanks, Hannah, for the excellent research!

[Hannah Bell]

29. kind of looks like a bribe, doesn't it. bribing public employees to carry out their policies.

[Bozita]

30. If labor unions paid 1/3 of the governor's salary, what would folks be saying?