Reply #14: Eli Finally Won

[Starry Messenger]

This is from a year ago, but it seems even more significant this year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-vander-ark/eli-finally-won_b_174152.html

Eli Broad paved the way for radical moderates. He was a New Democrat before Clinton. He was a Democrat for Education Reform before there was a DFER.

But yesterday, Eli won. Obama's speech sounded like Eli wrote it. It was about choice and charter schools, human capital and performance pay. It was right on message from pre-school to college. We've never had a Republican president that so clearly articulated a Republican strategy. Only it's the new New Democrat strategy. It's Eli's strategy. He finally won.

From the Perimeter Primate in 2007 about the Broad circus in my old hometown of Oakland, CA:
http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2009/09/introducing-broad-report.html

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.

I started researching Broad and his effects a few years ago after my daughter's principal started complaining about the "Broad-people" who had taken over "downtown" (also known as the school district's central office). I had never heard the word "Broad" before, other than when it was used to refer to the home building company Kaufman and Broad. This particular principal was an excellent one and very highly regarded. She was a school budget expert who was extremely creative with finding ways to bring good things to her students. Close to retirement, she soon just decided to bag it rather than try to fight with the "downtown" mess being caused by the Broad-takeover.

At that time, Oakland was being subjected to the first of three successive Broad-trained state administrators who assigned a host of Broad Residents to important positions in the OUSD administration. These people drastically altered our district during the six years they were here. The breakdown was what the principal had been witnessing.

During the Broad-trained state administrators’ reign, which was very likely facilitated by Broad and other pro-charter heavies who had made huge contributions to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction campaign of Jack O’Connell, charter schools were opened, traditional public schools were neglected and/or closed, the community voice was blocked, etc. The damage to the integrity of our already less-than-strong community, as well as to our district's institutional memory, may never be regained. Of course, this was exactly what they were after, as their personal storyteller, Joe Williams (now executive director of Democrats for Education Reform), reports here. The more you look into it, the more you become aware that this is a very cozy group.

"Temporary Opportunity"?? Nice language! Shitty way to refer to takeover of the schools in a struggling community

edit to add: link to PP's analysis of the Joe William's "report" on the Oakland Broad Experiment--

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2009/02/national-model-or-temporary-opportunity.html

The document reveals that, “A group of Oakland small school creators, activists, technocrats, and philanthropists decided that the conditions were indeed ripe to try something big.” They had been waiting for a “politics free zone” to push their agenda; it was created once the state obtained control of the district. The speed at which they worked is evident today, as our district is, quite frankly, in a state of disarray. The morale of parents and OUSD staff has been deeply affected. In combination with the demands of NCLB, relief from the stress is desperately needed.

The report states: “Speed was important,” said Hall, who noted that all of the conditions that were in place in Oakland convinced the foundation it was a good investment. “We felt that if this happened slowly, you would give the forces of opposition too many opportunities to stop it in its tracks.”

It is bluntly revealed in this document that OUSD was a test case for the pro-charter movement, so much so, that OUSD worked with the New Schools Venture Fund to create a charter management organization which specialized in converting schools in need of Program Improvement to charter schools. Today this organization is Education for Change (http://www.efcps.org/) located on Hegenberger Road. EFC was founded in 2005 by Kevin Wooldridge (also current CEO) who had been an elementary school Executive Director in OUSD. This organization immediately obtained approval from OUSD as the manager for Cox Academy, Education for Change World Academy, and Education for Change Achieve Academy.

...

This is the legacy of the Broad-originated operation in OUSD. The CER report concludes that there are lessons the charter school movement could learn from what was done in Oakland. It admits that the “reform” attempt here was less than successful, mostly because it was too aggressive and fast, and that the academic “outputs” (test scores) never measured up to the program’s “inputs” (the money that was spent). However, the reform movement hopes the root of their project here has extended deep enough into our community so it can continue to live. They aren't particularly confident that it has.

Appalling.