Nancy Broner a former school board member and consultant for the Center for Reform of School Systems was brought in by current school board member and consultant for the Center for Reform of School Systems, Betty Burney to be the moderator of the community meetings that are assisting in picking the next superintendent.
The CRSS gets funding from the Broad foundation which a corporate reform minded outfit that also runs a superintendent academy that takes non-education types and puts them in urban school districts. This alarmed me and made me think where the individual candidate might not be determined, the type of candidate, a non educator with a corporate reform agenda was.
I was told by School Board chair Betty Burney that my concerns were unwarranted that the CRSS no longer takes funding from the Broad Foundation and it is an independent outfit. However a quick look at Betty Buney’s school board candidate site says she works for CRSS which is funded by the Broad foundation and if you go to the Broad Foundation it lists the CRSS as an organization they contribute to and furthermore if you go to the CRSS site they list the Broad foundation as a funding partner, in fact they are the first listed and no the list is not alphabetical. After being told one thing and discovering another it magnified my fears.
During my research I also discovered a few other things that were unnerving. You see we don’t have to trace the money all the way back to the Broad foundation to be alarmed about the CRSS as their own ideas are quite troublesome.
Cathy Minecberg president complained about the sunshine law as if open governance was a hindrance in a Times Union article.
This is a sentiment echoed by Don McAdams, chairmen and founder who not only has said boards should meet in private away from the public but has also called for boards to always vote 7-0. In a piece by the Texas Watchdog, "McAdams said he recommends that board members unanimously approve important or controversial proposals because doing so sends a 'message to the workforce and public that it's a done deal.' Have you ever wondered why so many of our board’s decisions have been 7-0?
The thing is Mr. McAdams might not necessarily believe in school boards at all (3). His benefactors the Broad foundation don’t preferring mayoral control of school districts and idea that was squarely rejected here two years ago during the charter review of the city.
However there is no doubt that McAdams believes in merit pay (2) which has no evidence that says it works. Merit pay might sound reasonable or even practical to some but do you know who isn’t clamoring in the street or fighting for it? Teachers that is who and if they are content with the traditional salary structure I believe that should be good enough. It is corporate minded groups like the CRSS and the Broad foundation that are shouting for merit pay and that is because they don’t understand that teachers get into the field for other reasons than salary.
So let’s examine what some of the CRSS’s beliefs are. They don’t believe in open governance, they believe in putting pretty bows on decisions even when they may not be settled and they believe in reforms for teachers that have no evidence that says they work and that teachers as a group do not want.
Then the people that fund them believe in mayoral control of school districts, don’t value the jobs of educators as they believe anybody can run schools or teach, support corporate reforms such as vouchers, charter schools, parent trigger legislation, merit pay and Teach for America or basically the exact opposite of what public education supporters do. (4)
Is the Center for reform of school systems really who we want leading us to find our next superintendent? Are they the ones really leading us or is it someone else?
(1) http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/05/split-votes-divisive-meeting-in-private-ok-former-hisd/1274909093.column
(2) http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/papers_presentations/reports/teacher_salary_schedules.pdf
(3) http://www.aei.org/article/education/assessing-the-case-for-mayoral-control-of-urban-schools/
(4) http://schoolmatters.knoxnews.com/forum/topics/the-broad-foundation-a-parents
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