You just can’t make this stuff up…

Apr 16

jonpeltoAchievement First/ConnCAN, Education Reform, Malloy, Michelle Rhee, Stefan Pryor, StudentsFirst , , , , 19 Comments

Earlier today, StudentsFirst – yes, that’s right — Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst… (The organization that IS NOT LOBBYING in Connecticut) issued a press release attacking the opponents of Governor Malloy’s “Education Reform” bill.

In their press release, Tim Melton, the Vice President of Legislative Affairs for StudentsFirst argues that “since the facts aren’t on their side, they are resorting to negative and false political attacks.”

Apparently he believes that the work that the Connecticut Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the rest of us pro-public education people are engaged in, as we tell the truth about Malloy’s bill, is “resorting” to attacks.

Now, just to be clear, Tim Melton IS NOT the same StudentsFirst Vice President who was listed on the official State of Connecticut lobbyist filing forms as the “Principal Officer or Director” of GNEPSA (which IS the group that is lobbying in Connecticut).

That StudentsFirst Vice President was Woodhouse Enoch.

This StudentsFirst Vice President is Tim Melton.

So we now have StudentsFirst’s CEO, the “other” Vice President, the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Legal Counsel all lobbying on behalf of Malloy’s bill – but the “other” StudentsFirst Vice President, Tim Melton, is still working for StudentsFirst.

No wait, according to GNEPSA’s April 11th ethics filing that “back-dated” their team of lobbyists, Tim Melton IS listed as a lobbyist for GNEPSA starting back on February 22nd.

Which must mean that it wasn’t StudentsFirst’s Vice President Tim Melton who put out today’s press release but the “other” other StudentsFirst Vice President Tim Melton because the first “other” StudentsFirst Vice President is already a registered lobbyist for GNEPSA.

And Malloy wonders why some of us are a bit concerned with the notion of handing over our public education system to these people.

All joking aside, it is hardly a laughing matter.

The people of Connecticut are being had by a bunch of corporate hotshots who make the Keystone Cops look efficient and capable.

We have a Commissioner of Education (who helped set up and served as a director for Achievement First, the charter school management company) pushing a bill in which the single biggest financial beneficiary of taxpayer funds is – Achievement First.

We have a Democratic Governor proclaiming, with pride, that he will veto any “education reform” bill that doesn’t give that same Commissioner the ability to take over 25 schools, fire the staff, ban collective bargaining and turn the schools over to some group of unnamed third-party entities who will then be exempt from Connecticut’s laws on bidding and the use of consultants.

And we’ve still got the issue of why the Governor put language in the bill that provides former Hartford Superintendent of Schools (now Malloy’s “Special Master” in Windham) extra pension credits because he didn’t want to follow the same Connecticut law that 45,000 teachers and 9,000 school administrators have to follow.

I said it before and I’ll say it again.

If this bill passes there will be people going to prison before Malloy’s term is over.

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  • Linda

    The only thing I can say is they must be desperate. This was supposed to be easy and it turns out it is not.  I have posted this before and I will post again. Anyone who cares about education for their children and grandchildren should read this article. 

    Excerpt, link and author noted below:

    Hired Guns on Astroturf:
    How to Buy and Sell School ReformThe line of battle for the future of public education is clear. Allied on one side are free-market zealots in the business community, pro-voucher social conservatives, and this peculiar breed of reformers whose political movers are often wealthy, private-school educated, white, male, and under the age of fifty. They are the junior plutocracy, strivers whose do-good goal twenty years ago would have been a seat on the board of the municipal art museum. They are typically clueless about public education. On the other side are public school students, their families, their teachers, and believers in the link between democracy and public education. The first side has money, powerful political connections, and an infrastructure of nonprofit organizations with paid staff. The other side has this: the ability to become a true grassroots movement. This looks like an unequal contest. But with sustained effort, citizen activists at the grassroots can trump hired guns on astroturf.Joanne Barkan is a writer who lives in Manhattan and Truro, Massachusetts. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago where she attended public elementary and high schools. http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=4240

    • Msavage51

      I agree. I think they are finding CT a more difficult mark than they’d hoped, and they’re resorting to desperate measures themselves.

  • Linda

    Murdoch/Students First connection and why they need to keep testing the kids, all in the name of  reform:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/10-year-old-i-want-to-know-why-after-vacation-i-have-to-take-test-after-test-after-test/2012/04/10/gIQA1sOz8S_blog.html#commentsRupert Murdoch benefits. Murdoch said that public education is a $500 billion market waiting desperately to be transformed — right before he bought Wireless Corporation. Wireless was awarded a no-bid $27 million contract to track student performance throughout New York state, which was pulled back after the News Corp phone hacking scandal. Despite the scandal, New York state and 10 other states have agreed to give confidential teacher and student data for free to a shared learning collaborative funded by Bill Gates and run by Murdoch’s Wireless Corp. Wireless received $44 million for the project Former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein benefits. He is expected to make as much as $4.5 million this year working for Murdoch and Wireless Corp — even as he takes his pension for working eight years as chancellor. He continues to try to influence New York education policy and practices with the newly formed StudentsFirstNY .The culture of testing has created an enormous opportunity for profit for those connected with the testing and data industry as well as well-paid professional consultants. In the war on public schools, commonly referred to as ‘school reform,’ the weapon of choice is the test. Those tests are the basis for battering public school teachers. They are the basis for closing schools. They are the rock on which the whole corporate school reform industry stands. Without test scores as the bottom line, that industry would collapse.

    • guest

      There are so many things wrong with standardized testing.
      Getting into the school testing market, the textbook market, and the curriculum market sounds very lucrative for Rupert Murdoch.  School children are like one huge tabloid audience waiting to be indoctrinated.  Some of this reminds me of the “channels” and adverts they tried to push onto schools.  That didn’t work, but school Rheeform and Charter (cable) School Management companies just might.

      • Magister

        Standardized testing turns education into widgets, with which the business folks are comfortable. This MacDonaldization of education is the most destructive step yet in the maladroit application of the business model to schooling.

  • guest

    These people are vultures!

  • am

    Forgive me for asking, but what would people be going to prison for?  Bribes? That I get.  It’s just that Malloy is so crazy, I wonder if he’ll round up people he doesn’t agree with.  Okay I’m exaggerating….well

  • Msavage51

    Was just reading about Rhee’s hubby, the mayor of Sacramento, and his multiple accusations regarding sexual impropriety. Also the misappropriation of Americorps funds by both Rhee and her hubby in connection with St. Hope. Yet this guy still managed to get elected mayor of Sacramento? Are Americans really that stupid, or elections really that rigged?

    • am

      And he scored another Americorp grant after that debacle.  BTW, Rhee was the chief PR person doing damage control after the sex assault allegations.

  • CONconn

    MICHELLE RHEE WILL TAPE YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

  • ConcernedTeacher

    How can anyone (Malloy himself even…) look at a company like Rhee’s where it’s not transparent who is in charge, or acting on behalf of what company (StudentFirst / GNEPSA (still have no idea what that stands for) and think that it’s the right move to bring them in and hand over the keys?

    A simple Google search of Rhee and there are plenty of articles discrediting her and her practices and the allegations surrounding her work. Where there’s smoke….

    Malloy and the rest of them (so called “reformers”) are desperate. The people have spoken and there has been reform. The Education Committee passed it. But Malloy didn’t get what he wanted, so instead of signing the bill he’s going to veto it (the grown-up political version of taking his G.I. Joe and leaving the sandbox because he didn’t get his way). WAAAHHHH!!!

    Local school budgets have been SLASHED across the state and Malloy told many of the state’s mayors that they won’t receive additional monies unless he gets his way. I hold an advanced degree, albeit not a law degree, but isn’t that coercion?

    If there is money to be had, why not spend it on Pre-K and full day Kindergarten and really start putting a dent in the achievment gap?

    • Msavage51

      Certainly sounds like coercion, doesn’t it?

  • ConcernedTeacher

    FYI, according to Norwich Bulletin.com the city council of Norwich is standing behind Malloy and his original SB24. The mayor and the council have expressed their views and believe Malloy has got it right with the original bill. They feel the sweeping changes are the correct steps towards tackling the achievement gap.

    • Linda

      He has left them with a threat that if this doesn’t pass they may not get their money. It is surprising that politicians would support another politician. It is a complicated issue and it is easier to jump on the bandwagon and just hope it works.  All the alphabet soup organizations (ConnCan, CCER, CABE, CASS, CRAP etc) are circling the wagons now. This was supposed to be a shoe-in. They could always paint the union as greedy. They never expected, because they don’t respect us, the teachers to read, analyze and question the bill. They disregarded and underestimated us.

      • ConcernedTeacher

        This is the first of the 30 or so towns/mayors that Malloy met with to cave into his demands. Unfortunately Norwich is a district hit hard and could benefit from that money, but to compromise ethics and morals to improve student achievement by caving into Malloy’s threats is just wrong.

        The Superintendent out there also offered the city’s schools up as a guinea pig for the teacher evaluation system.

        Norwich teachers heading towards a “no confidence” vote on that super?

      • Linda

        All the supers threw us under the bus when CABE and CASS supported this bill. But why not? Their contracts are extended to five years. They have more power; the BOE has less. Their salaries are not tied to any evaluation system. The supers are strengthened; the teachers are weakened. A win win for them.

  • Linda

    Read the latest pitch to get us all on board – once again a non-teacher insulting us – we don’t understand the bill and if we did we would be all for it.

    http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/op-ed_senate_bill_24_a_punishment_or_an_opportunity_for_cts_teachers/

  • sharewhut

    “You just can’t make this stuff up…”
    Wait! What? You mean you’re NOT making this up?!
    I thought I was reading galleys for a political intrigue novel you’re putting out!
    A cast of caricatures, drawn slimy enough to be despised, realistic enough to be believable but who’s shiftiness is exaggerated  juuuuust enough for reader to say: “Nah, couldn’t reeeeally happen here”.
    Comment section to gauge whether to go straight to paperback, and if positive form foundation of followup…”Wait,What I Learned From ‘Wait, What?’ ”
     (And in that followup book, any of my comments can just attribute to “that tiny voice coming out from under that bloodied rock”)

    • jonpelto

      Sharewhat puts up yet another “funniest comment” of the day!

      Sent from my BlackBerry please excuss typos