How Eli Broad alumni are greatly involved in the corporate takeover of education.

[madfloridian]

Kansas City, Delaware, and Detroit are often recently mentioned by education bloggers. They are in the news because of their leaders who are alumni of the Broad Superintendent Academy.

Broad Alumni Making It Big in Corporate Takeover of American Education

Eli Broad's Superintendents Academy is paying big dividends for the corporate takeover of American education and the crushing of the teaching profession. In Kansas City a plan developed by Broad's lawyers and Broad Alum, John Covington, will close half of Kansas City Schools with large numbers of corporate charter replacements.

More about the closing of schools in Kansas City by a Broad superintendent.

Broad Academy Alum, John Covington ('08), Shuts Half of Kansas City Schools

The Kansas City School Board was enthused when they hired John Covington (Broad Class of '08) as Superintendent. So was the Kansas City Star's Editorial Board:

"Covington earned good reviews for his work as superintendent of Pueblo City Schools in Colorado over the last three years. He also is a 2008 graduate of the Los Angeles-based Broad Superintendents Academy, a program aimed at improving education in urban school districts.

School Board President Marilyn Simmons said the Broad experience, which includes continuing support and advice, was a plus for Covington.

Yes, that continuing support and advice from Eli and the Boys. Now with half the schools empty by this coming Fall, they will be ripe pickings for the property-hungry corporate welfare charters that will likely kill off most of the remaining public schools. The Board voted 5-4 to support the Broad plan to pull the Kansas City Public Schools into the bath tub for drowning.

In Delaware Broad Alumni, Lillian Lowery, will lead the Race to the Top funded initiative to use test scores to decide who teaches in the state. Delaware and Tennessee were the two winners of Arne's money.

And in Detroit, Broad star, Robert Bobb, has a plan developed by the Skillman Foundation, and dismantling of the public system is underway. The public money will continue, of course, even though public voice or public oversight will be a thing of the past.

Bobb is also getting a large portion of his pay from the Broad Foundation. I found it interesting that Governor Granholm is fine with this...in fact it is said she requested it.

From the Courthouse News Service:

Detroit Schools Ask Why Manager Takes Money From Charter Groups

- The Detroit Board of Education and community groups say private foundations are paying the head of the city's ailing public school system $145,000 a year in exchange for his support of charter schools - a glaring conflict of interest. The board says that Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager of Detroit Public Schools, is violating Michigan laws and its constitution by accepting the privately funded portion of his $425,000 annual salary.

Bobb is the only defendant in the complaint in Wayne County Court, Detroit. The board, two community groups and 26 people say the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which "aggressively promotes the spread of charter schools nationwide," pays Bobb $56,000, with the remaining $89,000 coming from "undisclosed private sources. Last year Bobb made $84,000 in such "supplemental compensation."

It is apparently with the blessing of Jennifer Granholm.

As proof that the Broad Foundation expects something for its money, the plaintiffs cite a 2009 Wall Street Journal article in which Eli Broad said he was in the "venture philanthropy business."

"Because Bobb has sole and virtually unreviewable control over the $1.4 billion DPS budget, it is especially dangerous to allow the Broad Foundation and similar 'venture philanthropists' to fund one-third of his salary," the complaint states.

The Broad Foundation disagrees. The foundation gave Bobb the money at the request of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and it "comes without requirement or restriction," Broad spokeswoman Erica Lepping said in an e-mail.

Too many Democratic governors are going along with the corporate hijacking of public schools.

I guess they have to do so. It is the policy of this Democratic administration, pushing the Bush and Gingrich free market education agenda to fruition.

Here is more about how the Broad Foundation gets its guys and gals in to public school systems.

How Eli Broad gets his guys into public school systems to exert control

If the Broad Foundation plants one of its elements in a school district, it is highly likely they will plant another one along with it, so their influence is maximized.

For instance, an element might be:
- The presence of a Broad-trained superintendent
- The placement of Broad Residents into important central office positions
- An "invitation" to participate in a program spawned by the Foundation (such as CRSS's Reform Governance in Action program)
- Offering to provide the district with a free "Performance Management Diagnostic and Planning" experience

The Broad Foundation likes to infiltrate its targets on multiple levels so it can manipulate a wider field and cause the greatest amount of disruption. Venture edu-philanthropists like Gates and Broad proudly call this invasive and destabilizing strategy "investing in a disruptive force." To these billionaires and their henchmen, causing massive disruption in communities across the nation is not a big deal.

Closing schools, highly disruptive indeed.