Wait, What?

ESPN announces layoffs as part of Malloy’s “Jive Five” Economic Development Program

May 21

jonpeltoBudget Cuts, Corporate Welfare, Economic Development, ESPN, Malloy Budget cuts, Corporate Welfare, Economic Development, ESPN, Malloy No Comments

The Urban Dictionary defines “jive” as a “colorful form of speaking” that is “sometimes hard to follow.”

In the real world here is how it works;

On August 2, 2011 Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced that, in return for creating 200 new jobs over the next five years, the taxpayers of Connecticut would give ESPN $17.5 million toward the construction of a new building and at least $300,000 to train the new workers.  Malloy explained, “ESPN’s needs are not going to be ignored.”

That corporate welfare package brought the total Connecticut taxpayer support for ESPN to over $100 million in state tax breaks and grants over the past twelve years.

Then yesterday, May 20, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that ESPN, “was in the process of laying off a few hundred workers… a sign that the hugely profitable sports cable-TV powerhouse is responding to the rising fees it pays to air games as well as other changes in the media industry…ESPN said some of the job cuts are coming through attrition, or unfilled open positions, and didn’t disclose the precise number or types of workers who are being let go.”

Associated Press added, “ESPN is cutting its workforce, the latest Disney division to reduce staff…’We are implementing changes across the company to enhance our continued growth while smartly managing costs,’ the sports media giant said in a statement Tuesday. ‘While difficult, we are confident that it will make us more competitive, innovative and productive.’”

The AP explained that the ESPN layoffs follow 300 layoffs that occurred at LucasArts and LucasFilms after Disney acquired the companies for $4.1 billion.

As AP noted, “Still, Disney has been on a roll financially, beating or matching earnings per share estimates for the last eight quarters. After it reported a 32 percent gain in net income for its fiscal second-quarter earnings two weeks ago, more than a dozen Wall Street analysts raised their price targets on Disney stock to an average of nearly $72.”

So in essence, despite being an extraordinarily financially successful subsidiarity of an extraordinarily, financially successful company that is doing extraordinarily financially well in this extraordinarily financially successful Wall Street market, ESPN accepted almost $20 million in scarce taxpayer funds and promised to create 200 jobs but is now intentionally keeping vacancies open and laying off Connecticut residents, so that it can appear even more extraordinarily financially successful.

Despite this development, according to the Hartford Courant, when asked about, a spokesman for the Malloy administration said that ESPN will not be forced out of the First Five program as a result of its layoff plan because it is still intending to add at least 200 jobs during the period starting in August, 2011 when the Governor gave them the public funds.

Meanwhile, the Connecticut General Assembly continues to consider major cuts to some of the most significant and vital human and healthcare services.

Now if that jive is not a “colorful form of speaking” that is “sometimes hard to follow,” I don’t know what is.

Commissioner Pryor issues bullying report without recommendations, despite law…

May 20

jonpeltoMalloy, School Safety, Stefan Pryor Bullying, Malloy, School Safety, Stefan Pryor 6 Comments

The law required the State Department of Education to issue its report on Safe School Climate Plans in Connecticut no later than February 2012…

Commissioner Pryor issued his report 14 months late, in April 2013, after his failure to follow Connecticut law was reported on here at Wait, What?

The law also mandated that the report include recommendations for reducing school bullying and improving school safety.  In fact, the law actually reads that the Commissioner and the State Department of Education provide recommendations “… regarding additional activities or funding to prevent bullying in schools and improve school climate.”

Now that Pryor’s report is finally out, it turns out that his report FAILS TO MAKE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS for reducing bullying or improving school safety.

One of the most important issues of our time and Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor didn’t have a single recommendation for making our schools safer?

With much fanfare and press releases, the law in question was signed on July 13, 2011 by Governor Dannel Malloy.

It was called An Act Concerning the Strengthening of School Bullying laws.  According to the Malloy Administration, “This legislation takes comprehensive steps to ensure every child’s right to learn in Connecticut public schools without fear of teasing, humiliation, or assault.”

The 2011 law built on an earlier 2008 legislative action that required then Commissioner of Education, Mark McQuillan, to also make recommendation in a report to the legislature.  That report included four major recommendations for making schools safer.

But this time, Malloy’s Commissioner failed to even produce the report in a timely manner and then didn’t have a single recommendation on this vital education and public safety issue.

Commissioner Pryor explained the lateness of the report by writing, “This report is being filed late due in part to personnel changes that occurred in the course of the agency review process.”

Wait, What?  Commissioner Stefan Pryor took office in September 2011, five months before the report was even supposed to be issued and now he wants us to believe that it took him and his personal staff 14 more months to review a 6 page report?  (17 pages if you count the appendices).

And during these past 14 months we witnessed the Newtown nightmare…and he still couldn’t come up with a single recommendation to make schools safer?

Instead he wrote, “Given recent legislative activity, including PA 13-3 and a new survey that will be distributed in the Spring of 2013, the CSDE plans to issue recommendations in the January 2014 report so that such recommendations address the current conditions in  Connecticut.”

You mean we need another survey and another year before he can come up with a recommendation?

The issue is school safety and bullying.

The Connecticut Legislature passed a bill.

Governor Malloy signed that bill into law.

And Malloy’s Commissioner of Education produces a report on the issue 14 months late and then has the gall to say he will get around to providing some recommendations on the issue next year.

Any place else but in the Malloy Administration and the person would be shown the door.

Oh, and PS…the new law he is referring to PA 13-3 is the gun control bill.  As part of that legislation the Connecticut General Assembly made this school safety report due every year instead of every other year.  So now the report that Commissioner Pryor was 14 months late on is required to be produced every 12 months.  It will be interesting to see if he decides to follow the law this time around.

Update: Connecticut Charter Schools outperform public schools…in suspending kindergarten students!

May 20

jonpeltoAchievement First/ConnCAN, Charter Schools, Malloy, Stefan Pryor Achievement First, Charter Schools, Malloy, Stefan Pryor, suspensions 36 Comments

Evidence reveals that it is a common practice for Achievement First Schools in Connecticut to suspend children 6 and under.

Well, we’ve finally found proof that charter schools do outperform their public school counterparts…In the percentage of children 6 and under who get suspended from school.

When Achievement First Hartford’s “suspension rate” for children 6 and under is 63.7% it is time for an investigation [Compare that to 6.8% in the Hartford School System].

When Achievement First Bridgeport’s “suspension rate” for children 6 and under is 55.6% it is time for an investigation [Compare that to  7.9% in the Bridgeport School System].

When Achievement First New Haven’s “suspension rate” for children 6 and under is 29.3% it is time for an investigation [Compare that to 2.7% in the New Haven School System].

Why schools would suspend children 6 and under on a regular basis is bad enough, but a new report reveals that suspension of 6 year olds is an extremely common practice in the kindergarten and first grades at Achievement First schools in Connecticut.

In a stunning story that was posted on the CT Mirror website Friday, the CT Mirror’s Jacqueline Rabe examines a new report that revealed that, “at least 1,967 students age 6 and under were suspended last school year – almost all of them black or Hispanic.”

Rabe writes, “According to a report from the Connecticut Department of Education, the number of students suspended is actually higher, but privacy issues restrict the state agency from releasing information that could identify unique student information.”

The CT Mirror goes on to write that after unearthing the data, Connecticut’s new Child Advocate explained, ’That’s a lot of kids… I do not think that [suspension] is an appropriate response’ to students behaving poorly at school.”

Jamey Bell added that, “Excluding such young children from the classroom ‘seems to me a non-educational, non-therapeutic response for those who are way too young to be culpable.”

Most disturbing of all is where the suspensions were taking place.  Not only were nearly all the suspensions targeted to low income, minority children, but there was an extraordinary difference between how district schools handle the behavioral problems of little children and how charter schools handle those problems.

While the CT Mirror included a chart listing the total number of suspensions by town, for purposes of comparison, I’ve added the total number of students in the grade range for 6 year olds (kindergarten and first grade), which allows for a more appropriate apples to apples comparison to be made.   The percentages are actually higher since some 1st graders are 7 years old.

While data does not reveal whether it is the same children being suspended multiple times, what is clear is that suspension is used far more often in Connecticut’s charter schools.

Readers will recall that Achievement First, Inc. is the charter school management company that was co-founded by Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.

The CT Mirror story is an absolute must read.

The story includes quotes from Joette Katz, the Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families and Governor Malloy’s criminal justice policy advisory, Michael Lawlor.

Katz tells the CT Mirror, “I was shocked…Clearly when children are being suspended, something else is not being attended to.”

Lawlor said, “These high suspension rates are an indicator of weak leadership…It has to do with the culture in a school…It’s not about the kids at that school. It’s about the policies in those schools.”

The most important conclusion is that something is very, very wrong with the way discipline is being handled at Connecticut’s charter schools.

The Department of Children and Families, the State’s Child Advocate and the State Department of Education must begin an immediate investigation into these practices and they would do well to bring in Connecticut’s Attorney General to determine whether Connecticut laws are being violated.

You can read the full CT Mirror Story here:  http://www.ctmirror.org/story/hundreds-kindergarten-students-suspended-school

Corporate Education Reform Industry spends nearly $4.7 million on Connecticut lobbying, little of it telling the truth.

May 19

jonpeltoA Better Connecticut Education Reform Lobbying Group, Achievement First/ConnCAN, Charter Schools, Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER), Ethics, Excel Bridgeport Inc., Malloy, Michelle Rhee, Stefan Pryor, StudentsFirst, Teach for America, Wendy Lecker A Better Connecticut, Achievement First, ConnCAN, Ethics, Malloy, Michelle Rhee, Stefan Pryor, StudentsFirst, Wendy Lecker 6 Comments

Pro-public education commentator Wendy Lecker has written another “must read” piece, this time pointing out the fact that corporate education reformers are either unwilling or unable to tell the truth as the spin their political stories to try and convince elected officials and the public to support their “education reform” agenda.

Lecker, like many of us, has heard the latest round of ads that side-step the truth in a politically self-righteous attempt to convince us that we can improve out public education system by handing it over to private corporations and charter schools.

This new $1.5 million advertising campaign by a front organization called, ironically enough, A Better Connecticut, is just one more step in the most expensive lobbying effort in Connecticut history.

Here are the latest numbers;

To date, since Governor Malloy took office, the corporate education reform industry has spent at least $4,650,721.54 on lobbying, breaking all Connecticut records for the most expensive effort in history to buy up Connecticut Public Policy.

The following chart reveals the players in this scheme.

Following the chart is a link to Wendy Lecker’s latest piece in the Stamford Advocate, Bridgeport Post and other Hearst media outlets.

Wendy Lecker: Imagining where all that money could have gone

“Proponents of corporate-driven education reforms seem to believe that the notion of telling the truth is a low priority. Take for example the false claims being made by charter school advocates about the size of waiting lists for charter schools.

In as diverse locations as Massachusetts and Chicago, charter lobbyists having been pushing charter school expansion by claiming lengthy waiting lists. In both locations, investigations by journalists at the Boston Globe and WBEZ revealed that the waiting list numbers were grossly exaggerated, often counting the same students multiple times. As a Massachusetts legislator noted, raising the charter cap based on artificial numbers “doesn’t make sense.” Unless, of course, your main goal is charter expansion rather than sound educational policy

Another common theme promoted by charter schools is the questionable claim of amazing success. Recently, Geoffrey Canada of the famed Harlem Children’s Zone gave an online seminar in which he boasted a 100 percent graduation rate at his schools. However, if one looks at HCZ’s attrition rate, the true graduation rate is 64 percent. Many have also noted that Canada kicked out two entire grades of children because of sub-par test scores.

Here in Connecticut, ConnCAN, the charter school lobby, is the prominent peddler of shaky claims and half-truths about charter schools.

Recently, in an effort to promote the expansion of charter schools in Bridgeport, Jennifer Alexander, the CEO of ConnCAN, Inc. declared that nearly 80 percent of charters outperform their host districts. However, data from the State Department of Education reveals that about 90 percent of Connecticut’s charters serve a less needy population than their host districts: fewer poor children, fewer English Language Learners or fewer students with disabilities, with most having a combination of two or three of these categories.

Considering poverty, language barriers and special education needs are the prominent factors influencing standardized test scores, it is not much a feat to have higher test scores with a less challenging population. ConnCAN’s claim is hardly an indication of success or innovation.”

Read the rest of Lecker’s commentary piece here: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-Imagining-where-all-that-money-4526450.php#ixzz2TlStOU64

The Malloy/Pryor Education Reform Consultant Full Employment Gravy Train

May 17

jonpeltoMalloy, Mass Insight company, State Board of Education, State Deficit, Stefan Pryor Education Reform, Malloy, Mass Insight Company, State Board of Education, State Budget, Stefan Pryor 13 Comments

While it’s true that Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, has failed to fill some of the most critically important administrative positions in his agency that actually serve Connecticut’s schools and children, such as a Bureau Chief for the Special Education Division, Pryor’s dedication to retaining corporate education reform consulting companies and corporate education consultants is impressive.

Yesterday Wait, What? explored a $123,930.00 taxpayer-funded payment to Mass Insight Education, an education reform consulting company that has been retained to help develop Commissioner Pryor’s “Turnaround Network.”

Although the total magnitude of the consulting contract with Mass Insight hasn’t been reported, that initial six figure payment is chump change compared to the amount of taxpayer money that is being spent on the salaries and benefits of the consultants and education reformers who have been hired to surround Pryor at the Department of Education.

Leading the way is Chief Turnaround Officer, Debra Kurshan, who is pulling down $149,000 plus benefits.   The former head of School Portfolio Development for Mayor Bloomberg’s school privatization efforts also served as a consultant to the superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, another hire, Talent Officer, Shannon Marimon, is collecting $110,000 plus benefits.  She joined Pryor’s operation after working for the TNTP, an education reform group.  As the TNTP website explains, the majority of TNTP’s revenue comes from its work with clients on a fee-for-service basis. This approach incentivizes TNTP to meet the needs of its clients while continually assessing the value and cost-effectiveness of its services. The fee-for-service model also encourages TNTP’s clients to be motivated, active collaborators by literally “investing” them in the success of their partnerships with the organization.”

Then there is the growing list of Pryor’s “education staff assistants,” beginning with his chief of staff, Adam Goldfarb who followed him from New Jersey.  Hired at $75,000, Goldfarb is now making $106,000 despite the fact that he has no professional education experience other than serving on the Board of a Charter School in Newark.

There is also Mark Day, the Director of Performance Management, who is getting $105,000.  He joined the state payroll after working as an employee of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm that advertises that it is “the trusted advisor to the world’s leading businesses, governments, and institutions. “

Add to that the two $95,000 education staff assistants who are interns from the Broad Foundation’s Residency Program, Gabrielle Ramos and Katina Grays.  The Broad Foundation is one of the three largest pro-education reform foundations in the nation. Their motto is that they are “Transforming K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”

Despite the fact that the Broad Foundation has assets of $2.1 billion, the state of Connecticut is paying these two so they can work on Pryor’s education reform agenda while they are doing their Broad Foundation Residency.

And then there are the two law school students/TFA graduates, Andrew Ferguson and Collin Moore.  One of whom is working as another one of Pryor’s education staff assistants, while the other is working in Pryor’s “Turnaround Office.”  Thanks to Commissioner Pryor, both are enjoying $80,000 incomes.

The list goes on and on…

While there are a record number of essential unfilled vacancies and the core work of the State Department of Education isn’t getting done in a timely manner, the sign on the door reads:

Only education consultants and those have taken the corporate education reform pledge need apply.

Oh look, there goes more Connecticut taxpayer money to out-of-state “education reform” consultants

May 16

jonpeltoBudget Cuts, Education Reform, Malloy, Mass Insight company, State Budget, State Deficit, Stefan Pryor Commissioner's Network, Education Reform, Malloy, Mass Insight Company, State Budget, Stefan Pryor 7 Comments

Eighteen months ago, on January 5, 2012, Governor Malloy’s sponsored an Education Reform Workshop at Central Connecticut State University.  During the first breakout session there was a panel discussion focused on the issue of “Low-Performing Schools and Districts.”  The panel was moderated by Justin Cohen, President of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight Education company.

A few weeks later, Mass Insight Education’s Justin Cohen returned to Connecticut to submit testimony in support of Governor Malloy’s education reform bill, Senate Bill 24.  Cohen wrote,   “To dramatically and systemically improve our nation’s failing schools, comprehensive state turnaround initiatives, like the Commissioner’s Network included in Senate Bill 24, must be pursued as part of a spectrum of interventions. As the President of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight Education, I applaud the Connecticut State Senate for its consideration of Senate Bill 24 and strongly support its passage.”

Cohen added, “Senate Bill 24 creates part of the structure and authority necessary for the state to perform this work and hold districts accountable…”

Two trips to Connecticut in a matter of weeks.

Talk about a dedication to Governor Malloy’s education reform proposal!

And now it turns out that just last month, on 4/13/13, the State of Connecticut wrote out a check to Mr. Cohen’s Mass Insight Education company for $123,930.00.  It was an initial payment on a much larger contract signed by the Malloy Administration’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.  Mass Insight Education was chosen, over a number of entities including Connecticut’s Regional Education Service Centers, to assist with Stefan Pryor’s Commissioner’s Network Turnaround Program.  Funny…that was the very thing Cohen came to Connecticut to testify in favor of the year before!

Prior to becoming President of Mass Insight Education’s School Turnaround Group, Justin Cohen was the Director of the Office of Portfolio Management and senior advisor to Chancellor Michelle Rhee at the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS).

Rhee’s time there in Washington DC won her fame and fortune, as well as the demand for investigations into allegations about widespread cheating to inflate standardized test scores.

Before he worked as Rhee’s Director of Portfolio Management, Cohen worked as Director of Industry Support and Development for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

And before that, worked for the Edison Schools company.  Finally, of course, having won a contract from Stefan Pryor, we shouldn’t be surprised that Cohen also went to Yale University.

Fellow education blogger Gary Rubinstein investigated and wrote about Mass Insight Education.  Rubinstein observed that while Mass Insight claims to lead turnaround projects around the country, their track record is  murky, at best.  Rubinstein wrote, “On their School Turnaround Group [website] they list eight successful ‘turnarounds’ from around the country. Ironically, these eight ‘turnarounds’ were led by companies other than Mass Insight, but as Mass Insight doesn’t seem to want to put its own record up to scrutiny, they use these case studies to show the sorts of strategies that Mass Insight employs in its own turnarounds.”

Not surprising, Rubinstein discovered that the examples that Mass Insight Education relied upon are similar to what charter school companies here in Connecticut have been doing.  The “improved test results” that they education reforms tout are simply the result of policy changes that allowed these schools to skim off students that are less poor, have fewer language barriers, need fewer special education services or display fewer behavioral problems.  As usual, the “miracle turnaround” was a product of comparing apples to oranges, not comparing real “turnaround” in the existing population of students.

Meanwhile, Mass Insight Education has been raking in the money. According to research conducted by EduShyster, a public education blogger with extensive experience in Massachusetts, “In 2009, [Mass Insight] CEO William Guenther reported earning a cool $370,000–for 30 hours per week work. That works out to roughly $237 per hour.”

By 2011, Guenther, the Mass Insight CEO, was making $450,000.

Among its purported services, EduShyster discovered that “Mass Insight has moved into the highly lucrative consulting world, offering helpful tips to public districts and state officials around the country about how to “modify collective bargaining agreements .”

It figures that senior officials in the Malloy administration would hire a pro-charter, anti-union consulting company to advise his administration on how to undermine collective bargaining agreements.

And to further their standing, according to their IRS 990 filings, Mass Insight even engages in lobbying, although their most recent report fails to identify whether their 2012 efforts to support Governor Malloy’s education reform bill counted as lobbying.

But like all good lobbying, it would appear that their government relations expenditures can really pay off.

For example, last month’s check for $123,930.00 could have been spent here in Connecticut, supporting a Connecticut school or it could have retained the services of Connecticut residents, but instead it joined the millions of dollars flowing that are flowing to the corporate education reform industry outside of our state.

In this case, Malloy’s Department of Education is using Connecticut taxpayer funds to pay corporate consultants from Massachusetts, while Connecticut towns are left laying off teachers and reducing vital services.

Let’s hear it for the success of the corporate education-industrial reform movement!

Malloy visits Jumoke at Milner: Says don’t confuse me with the facts:

May 15

jonpeltoCharter Schools, Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE), Hartford, Jumoke Academy, Malloy, Michael Sharpe, Stefan Pryor Fuse, Hartford, Jumoke Academy, Jumoke at Milner, Malloy, Michael Sharpe, Stefan Pryor 4 Comments

According to the Hartford Courant’s Vanessa De La Torre, Governor Malloy joined former Hartford Mayor Thirman Milner yesterday in the library of Jumoke Academy at Milner to celebrate the success of Malloy’s “education reform” proposals.

Milner explained, “You walk in the school, you can see the difference.”

And Malloy was all too happy to take credit for the changes claiming that it was the privatization effort of his administration that accounted for the changes.

But of course, the truth is far from that.

In fact, neither Malloy nor Milner admitted that the changes aren’t due to the fact that the local elementary school was handed over, last year, to a private charter management organization but is directly attributable to the fact that the State of Connecticut and the City of Hartford are finally making a real financial investment to support the school.

Malloy and Jumoke Academy’s CEO, Michael Sharpe, would have us believe that it is the $345,000 annual contract to hire the FUSE/Jumoke Academy charter school management company that is responsible for “turning around” the Milner School…

However, the facts reveal a very different truth;

First, it wasn’t until AFTER the Milner School was added to the “Commissioner’s Network” and turned over to Jumoke that the state added well over $1 million in additional operating funds for the school and the City of Hartford provided more than $2 million in new funds to fix up the school. (Insiders report that while some of the funds have been used for cosmetic changes, the school continues to have a fairly significant rodent issue.)

Second, despite the fact that Malloy’s education reform law required that turnaround schools maintain the same entrance requirements; Jumoke was allowed to introduce a provision that prevents students from transferring into school after October 1^st.  This change significantly reduces the number of more transient students coming into the school, students who often arrive with a variety of educational and language challenges during the school year.

Third, an audit conducted by the State Department of Education in December revealed that Jumoke at Milner still hadn’t filled a vital bi-lingual position and that teachers were unaware or confused about whether the school’s English language development program was based in “pushing into” the classroom or “pulling” children out of the classroom for the extra help they needed

Fourth, while Jumoke CEO Sharpe told Malloy that student attendance was up and only 15 have left Jumoke at Milner to date, Sharpe failed to admit that while the school is getting significantly more resources, the total population is down significantly since last year.

And finally, as parents at Milner know, there have been significant communication problems at Jumoke Academy at Milner including a disastrous lock-down drill in which students were marched into the gym and cafeteria rather than required to stay in their rooms behind locked doors.  As one parent on the scene put it, children were told to sit on the side of the gym, “in front of the inside gym windows, in plain sight.”  The drill left parents and children shaken and extremely worried about whether the Jumoke Administrators were capable of handling a real emergency.

So while Malloy and Jumoke congratulate themselves about their education reform achievements, parents in every other Hartford school would do well to remember, smaller class sizes, having a teacher and an instructional assistant in every classroom and providing more support services is not a result of Malloy’s education reform efforts but a result of Malloy, the State of Connecticut and the City of Hartford actually stepping forward and providing the resources necessary to make appropriate changes —- changes that should be being made at every Hartford School if only elected officials would address the broader issue inadequate funding for Connecticut’s schools.

You can find the Courant’s account of the meeting here:  http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-malloy-education-0515-20130514,0,4682765.story

GOP to Malloy: No Worries, we don’t want to win…

May 14

jonpeltoGubernatorial Election 2014, Malloy, Republicans Democrats, Gubernatorial Election 2014, Malloy, Republicans 20 Comments

File this one under the headline; Connecticut Republicans reiterate dedication to snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory…

Faced with the reality that Governor Malloy has spent the last two years alienating just about everyone and every group that was part of the coalition that put him into the governor’s office, the Republicans could be facing an unprecedented opportunity to beat an incumbent governor.

It would take a history buff to recall when that last occurred in Connecticut.

So with that in mind, the Republican Party’s upcoming 35^th annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner provided the Connecticut Republicans with a special chance to showcase the type of leadership they’d bring to the state if Connecticut voters elected a Republican governor in 2014.

Given that reality and the opportunity to invite any person in the nation to serve as their keynote speaker, who did the Republicans turn to for their big annual gala event that is taking place next Monday night?

Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin.

Call it colossal stupidity or a deep and abiding commitment to alienating the very voters that the Connecticut Republicans would need if they actually wanted to win the next, or any, gubernatorial election.

That’s right, the Connecticut Republicans chose Scott Walker, the wing-nut, tea-bagger, ultra-conservative, anti-teacher, anti-state employee, anti-union, pro-corporate education reformer to serve as their keynote speaker and the “face” of the biggest event the Connecticut Republicans hold each year.

The Governor Scott Walker who opposes abortion including in cases of rape and incest, supports abstinence-only sex education in public schools and opposes any state funding for services related to birth control and the testing or treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

The Governor Scott Walker who supported Wisconsin’s Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages and, as governor, tried to undo the state’s domestic partner registry because it created, “a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals.”

The Governor Scott Walker who returned $37.6 million in federal funds meant to set up a health exchange in Wisconsin because he thought it was related to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Walker also rejected $11 million in federal funding to improve the state’s Medicaid enrollment system because he claimed it would  make it easier for the poor to get healthcare.

The Governor Scott Walker who was part of the right-wing effort to suppress voter participation by requiring that only government-issued IDs could be used before a person was allowed to vote.

And the list goes on…

Imagine the statement the Connecticut Republicans are making to the Connecticut voters who are yearning for new and innovative leadership…

The Connecticut Republican Party could have chosen anyone in the nation to showcase their ideals and principles and they chose Scott Walker.

The Connecticut Republicans have proven, yet again, their commitment to failure and have made the case, even more clearly, that if we are going to get the change in leadership our state needs and deserves it will have to come from a candidate that is running separately from the state’s two existing political establishments.

Meanwhile, deal surfaces to give Bridgeport elementary school to Jumoke’s charter school management company

May 13

jonpeltoBridgeport, Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE), Jumoke Academy, Malloy, Mayor Bill Finch, Michael Sharpe, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor Bridgeport, Fuse, Jumoke Academy, Malloy, Michael Sharpe, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor No Comments

Re-post:

Fresh off Malloy’s “victory” of getting the Chief Operating Officer of FUSE/Jumoke Academy on to the State Board of Education, the Malloy Administration, Mayor Bill Finch and “Superintendent of Schools,” Paul Vallas, have apparently concocted a deal to hand Bridgeport’s Paul Lawrence Dunbar Elementary School over to Hartford’s Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE)/Jumoke Academy to run.

FUSE/Jumoke Academy is best known for its complete failure to provide educational opportunities to children who go home to households that don’t speak English or children who need special education services.

In fact, since Jumoke Academy opened its doors in Hartford, it has failed to admit ANY non-English speaking students or ANY students from non-English speaking households.  In addition, less than 4 percent of Jumoke Academy’s students receive special education services.

All this despite the fact that the Jumoke Academy is located in Hartford; a city in which more than 1 in 4 students aren’t fluent in English, where more than 4 in 10 go home to households where English is not the primary language and where more than 1 in 10 require some type of special education services.

As a result of this new deal, FUSE/Jumoke will be given control of the Dunbar School where, according to the State Department of Education’s School Profile Database, at least 18 percent of the students go home to households where English is not the primary language and about 12 percent of the students receive special education services.  Thus Team Vallas is proposing to turn a Bridgeport school over to a company that has absolutely no meaningful experience with two of the most important populations that attend Dunbar.

The Bridgeport deal would mirror the one in Hartford where FUSE/Jumoke Academy was given Hartford’s Milner School under a deal between Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor and the Hartford Public School System.

Speaking for Team Vallas about the Dunbar deal, Bridgeport’s chief operating officer, Sandra Kase, explained to the Connecticut Post that, “Jumoke rose to the top of a short list of turnaround models — the others included Classical Studies Academy, a local magnet school, and the Interdistrict Six-to-Six Magnet School in Bridgeport — because it was ready, willing and able to start this fall.”

However, it is unclear whether Vallas et. al. bothered to follow the requirements of the Commissioner’s Network planning process which includes extensive parent and public involvement before any plan can be submitted to the State Board of Education for approval. More

Deal surfaces to give Bridgeport elementary school to Hartford charter school company

May 12

jonpeltoBridgeport, Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE), Jumoke Academy, Malloy, Mayor Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor Bridgeport, Fuse, Jumoke Academy, Malloy, Mayor Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor 12 Comments

Fresh off Malloy’s “victory” of getting the Chief Operating Officer of FUSE/Jumoke Academy on to the State Board of Education, the Malloy Administration, Mayor Bill Finch and “Superintendent of Schools,” Paul Vallas, have apparently concocted a deal to hand Bridgeport’s Paul Lawrence Dunbar Elementary School over to Hartford’s Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE)/Jumoke Academy to run.

FUSE/Jumoke Academy is best known for its complete failure to provide educational opportunities to Latino and non-English speaking children, children who go home to households that don’t speak English or children who need special education services.

In fact, since Jumoke Academy opened its doors in Hartford, it has failed to admit ANY non-English speaking students or ANY students from non-English speaking households.  In addition, less than 4 percent of Jumoke Academy’s students receive special education services.

All this despite the fact that the Jumoke Academy is located in Hartford; a city in which more than 1 in 4 students aren’t fluent in English, where more than 4 in 10 go home to households where English is not the primary language and where more than 1 in 10 require some type of special education services.

As a result of this new deal, FUSE/Jumoke will be given control of the Dunbar School where, according to the State Department of Education’s School Profile Database, at least 18 percent of the students go home to households where English is not the primary language and about 12 percent of the students receive special education services.  Thus Team Vallas is proposing to turn a Bridgeport school over to a company that has absolutely no meaningful experience with two of the most important populations that attend Dunbar. More