May 22
jonpeltoBridgeport, Connecticut Education Assocation, Malloy, New London, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor, Steven Adamowski, Windham Bridgeport, CEA, Malloy, New London, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor, Steven Adamowski, Windham
For one thing, properly utilizing School Governance Councils is the law in Connecticut!
In addition, even Governor Malloy, at least when he was a candidate, supported the creation of School Governance Councils. In fact, he promised to expand their use.
In support of the federal government’s Race to the Top program, candidate Dan Malloy backed a 2010 Connecticut law saying that it sought to “engage parents in a meaningful way.”
In a response on the website On the Issues, Dan Malloy wrote, “The bill establishes local school governance councils that include parents and help create a sense of community that can make schooling more relevant to kids, and kids more connected to their community. However, these councils are only required for low-achieving schools. We should not stop there… While governance councils are one tool for improving achievement, they are still a top-down approach to decision-making that limit involvement to only a few engaged parents. My administration will create opportunities for all parents to be involved.”
Apparently the memo concerning his commitment to “create opportunities for all parents to be involved” didn’t make it to the desk of Paul Vallas, Bridgeport’s “Superintendent of Schools.”
In fact, Paul Vallas’ unwillingness to follow the law and properly include parents, teachers and community leaders in the decision-making process has become so severe that the Connecticut Education Association has taken the unprecedented step of filing a complaint with the State Department of Education.
Although Connecticut law requires that School Governance Councils be utilized in school districts that are facing the greatest challenges, in Bridgeport, Paul Vallas appears either unwilling or unable to meet his obligation to include the community, parents, and teachers in the educational decision-making process.
The complaint against Vallas cites numerous situations in which Vallas violated the law.
In particular, the complaint charges that Vallas failed to provide Bridgeport’s School Governance Councils the opportunity to; (1) to review the fiscal objectives of the draft budget for the school and provide advice before it was submitted, (2) participate, as required, in the hiring process of administrators, (3) work with school administration to develop and approve a school compact, (4) be involved in developing and approving a written parent involvement policy outlining the role of parents in the school, (5) participate in analyzing school achievement data and school needs relative to the improvement plan for the school, (6) assist the principal in making programmatic and operational changes for improving the school’s achievement and the list goes on.
As CEA President, Sheila Cohen explained, “These are just some of the examples of the flagrant disregard Bridgeport Public Schools Superintendent Vallas has shown for School Governance Councils and state law.”
“School Governance Councils have a successful track record of engaging parents, teachers, and community members in important school activities and providing collaborative support to improve student achievement. These opportunities and the benefit of state laws must be afforded members of the Bridgeport school community.” Cohen Added.
In addition to his pattern of failing to appropriately include School Governance Councils, the CEA’s complaint actually cites a school board meeting at which Vallas said that there were priorities more important than governance councils.
After the CEA issued their complaint, the Hartford Courant wrote that, “Vallas, reached at his office late Tuesday afternoon, said: ‘We are really busy and we don’t have time to deal with this type of nonsense because that’s what it is. No one has reached out more than my team — to parents, the teachers, faith-based organizations, even the non-teachers..’”
Vallas made a similar claim to the CT Post saying, “We are in full compliance,” Vallas said, adding, “I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
How Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, handles the complaint will be interesting to watch since Vallas brags that he came to Connecticut because Pryor asked him to take over the Bridgeport School System.
Pryor’s action will also be closely watched because there has also been widespread discussion that Steven Adamowski, the Department of Education’s Special Master for the Windham and New London School Systems has also failed to properly include School Governance Councils in those two school districts.
You can read more about the issue at: http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-teachers-union-complaint-0522-20130521,0,5097870.story and http://www.ctmirror.org/story/union-files-complaint-against-bridgeports-superintendent and http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Union-Vallas-snubbed-governance-councils-4536210.php and http://blogcea.org/2013/05/21/complaint-cites-violations-of-law/
May 22
jonpeltoAchievement First/ConnCAN, Bridgeport, Education Reform, Malloy, Nate Snow, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor Achievement First, Bridgeport, Charter Schools, Malloy, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor
Paul Vallas has pledged to do to Bridgeport what he did to New Orleans. However, there is still time to stop him.
Paul Vallas was the CEO of the New Orleans Recovery School District of Louisiana from 2007 to 2011…
According to his resume, Vallas says he was responsible for “developing, implementing and managing reform measures” for post-Katrina New Orleans. In that capacity Vallas says, among other things, that he:
(1) “raised test scores three consecutive years, at a growth rate that greatly exceeded that of the state” and
(2) “Implemented Response to Intervention (RTI) model, a three-tiered approach to ensuring the academic success of all students.”
So how is New Orleans doing today?
As Diane Ravitch recently noted on her blog, as a result of Vallas’ strategies, “New Orleans has a higher proportion of students in privately managed charters than any other district in the nation.”
Eighty-three percent (83%) of the schools in the New Orleans Recovery School District are now charter schools. According to the state’s school performance index, the Recovery School District of New Orleans is less than 2 points above getting a grade of F.
In fact, six years after Vallas began to promote his “Vallas Turnaround Model,” a Louisiana Education Research Group called Research on Reforms, determined that 79% of the charter schools in the Recovery School District were graded D or F by the state.
Meanwhile, another research group, The Cowen Institute of Tulane University, which has traditionally been a major supporter of charter schools, reported that 66% of the Recovery School District Charter Schools rated D or F.
The failing grades that hound Vallas’ charter school model is just the tip of a much larger record of failure when it comes to the broader “reforms” that Vallas implemented in New Orleans and now seeks to recreate in Bridgeport.
Teacher and Education Blogger, Mercedes Schneider, has written extensively on the real situation surrounding the “Vallas Miracle.” You can read her blog at: Mercedes Schneider’s EduBlog
In one recent example she explored a favorite claim of the education reformers, who are fond of saying that their efforts dramatically improve the number of poor children who attend college.
According to the latest numbers, the percentage of children who qualified for the Louisiana TOPS program, which provides funds to academically proficient students who want to attend 4 or 2 year colleges stands at 42%;
TOPS eligibility for students in New Orleans is as follows:
Recovery School District state-run schools: 14%
Recovery School district Charter Schools: 29%
Orleans Parish direct-run schools: 38%
Orleans Parish Charter Schools 54%
All New Orleans schools: 37%
Louisiana schools overall: 42%
As Schneider explains, “Prior to Katrina in 2005, all New Orleans schools in the subcategories above belonged to Orleans Parish Public Schools. Now, one can see that in general, charter schools fare better than their corresponding non-charter counterparts regarding percentages of students eligible for TOPS. This is hardly surprising since students can be deselected from charters and returned to traditional public schools…The traditional public school must accept all students– this is both the glory and the burden of traditional public schooling.”
So, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars, Vallas’ turnaround model has created a system in which the charter schools of New Orleans have “improved” TOPS eligibility while completely undermining the traditional public school system.
When the data is analyzed, the Vallas Turnaround Model is not a tribute to improving public education, but a lesson in privatization by replacing failing public schools with failing charter schools and creating a two-tiered education system where certain students get access to higher performing institutions, while leaving all the other students behind.
Vallas is moving forward with a similar strategy in Bridgeport. In just the last few weeks we’ve seen aggressive efforts to expand charter schools in Bridgeport including a new charter elementary school, a plan to turn over another elementary school to the FUSE/Jumoke Academy of Hartford and a proposal by the Chairman of the Bridgeport Board of Education, Kenneth Moales, Jr. to create a boys-only charter school that would augment his present church affiliated school.
For the latest Bridgeport’s new charter school proposal see: http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Charter-plan-draws-impassioned-arguments-4534361.php and http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Against-proposed-new-charter-school-4535321.php.
Of course, this all comes on top of continued expansion of the Achievement First Charter School in Bridgeport.
Education reformers are busy trying to replicate the New Orleans model around the country. Here in Connecticut, Paul Vallas has the strong backing of Governor Malloy and Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.
But unlike in New Orleans, and places like Chicago and Philadelphia, here in Connecticut there is still time to stop them before it is too late.
May 20
jonpeltoMalloy, School Safety, Stefan Pryor Bullying, Malloy, School Safety, Stefan Pryor
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.
May 20
jonpeltoAchievement First/ConnCAN, Charter Schools, Malloy, Stefan Pryor Achievement First, Charter Schools, Malloy, Stefan Pryor, suspensions
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.
District or School
|
Number of Suspensions for children 6 or under
|
Total number of children 6 or under in district or school
|
Percentage of suspensions compared to total number of students
|
Bridgeport Schools
|
293
|
3,692
|
7.9%
|
Achievement First – Bridgeport
|
50
|
90
|
55.6%
|
|
|
|
|
Hartford Schools
|
238
|
3,477
|
6.8%
|
Achievement First – Hartford
|
114
|
179
|
63.7%
|
|
|
|
|
New Haven Schools
|
89
|
3,235
|
2.7%
|
Achievement First – New Haven
Amistad, Elm City |
85
|
290
|
29.3%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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
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
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.
| Corporate Education Reform Organization |
Amount Spent on Lobbying |
| |
|
| Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Inc. (ConnCAN) |
$1,121,672.17 |
| |
|
| Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc. (ConnAD) |
$758,969.00 |
| |
|
| A Better Connecticut |
$1,490,000.00 |
| |
|
| Students First/GNEPSA (Michelle Rhee) |
$876,602.08 |
| |
|
| Achievement First, Inc. (Dacia Toll/Stefan Pryor) |
$237,504.22 |
| |
|
| Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER) |
$126,559.85 |
| |
|
| Students for Education Reform (Michelle Rhee) |
$15,714.22 |
| |
|
| Connecticut Charter School Association/N.E. Charter School Network |
$22,000.00 |
| |
|
| Excel Bridgeport |
$515.00 |
| |
|
| Teach For America |
$1,185.00 |
| |
|
| EDUCATON REFORM LOBBYING EXPENDITURES |
$4,650,721.54 |
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
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
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.
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
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!
May 16
jonpeltoBridgeport, Kenneth Moales, Mayor Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor Bridgeport, Kenneth Moales Jr., Mayor Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor
The last agenda item at this week’s Bridgeport Board of Education meeting was entitled “School Readiness Grant Program, Priority School Districts, July 2013 – June 2014”.
According to the agenda and board packet, the Board of Education was being asked, as it has for more than a decade, to authorize the City of Bridgeport to submit a grant application for federal and state funds to run the City’s early childhood education and day-care slots. This time the grant totaled just over $11.4 million for the next two years.
However, what made this year different is that a major controversy surfaced because over $1 million a year of those funds are targeted for daycare facilities owned and operated by the family of the Chairman of the Board of Education, Kenneth Moales.
In what could only be called a bizarre move, when the Board reached the daycare agenda item, rather than confront the conflict of interest that is facing Moales, Chairman Moales and the other 4 members of the Bridgeport Board of Education who are aligned with Mayor Bill Finch simply adjourned the meeting, claiming that they had discovered that no vote was actually needed in order to allow the city to submit the grant application.
Bizarre indeed because a quick search of news articles about the School Readiness Grant Program will reveal that over the last month, boards of education and town councils across Connecticut have been voting on whether or not to submit their school’s own School Readiness Grants. In just the last few weeks, “yes” votes have taken place in Waterbury, East Haven, Thomaston, Vernon, Middletown, Winchester, Canterbury and dozens of other communities.
So how is it that Bridgeport suddenly determined that its Board of Education was free to simply walk away from the issue rather than vote on whether to authorize the grant application?
At least a portion of the story can be found in a recent article in the CT Post.
When the agenda item in question was reached, Board of Education member Maria Pereira appropriately demanded that Moales relinquish the chair for the debate and recuse himself from the vote on this year’s grant since he and his family would directly benefit from the Board’s action.
Instead, Moales refused to hand over the task of running the meeting to the vice chair and, instead, announced that a vote on accepting the grant was not needed,
When his statement was challenged, Moales asked for a motion to adjourn and on a vote of 5 to 4, with the 5 board members loyal to Mayor Bill Finch voting to end the meeting, the Bridgeport Board of Education voted to go home rather than fulfill their longstanding responsibilities related to the grant.
According to the CT Post story, the decision to forgo any vote was based on the news that Bridgeport’s director of early childhood education had explained that according to a communication she had with the State Department of Education, since the city itself was receiving funds for daycare slots, the Board was actually prohibited from voting on the distribution of the grant.
No documentation related to the conversation with the State Department of Education was provided.
Nor was there any mention as to how the Mayor and the Superintendent of Schools had the authority to sign an $11.4 million contract without Board or Council approval.
In fact, there was no substantive discussion, whatsoever, about how Connecticut and Bridgeport’s laws and regulations related to the grant process.
Instead, Moales, a prime beneficiary of the grant, simply assured the Board that they could go home and Connecticut taxpayers would still send along the $11.4 million.
Of course updates will be posted, as they become available.
To read the CT Post story on the Board vote go to: http://blog.ctnews.com/education/2013/05/14/no-one-votes-preschool-slots-get-awarded-anyway/
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
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 1st. 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
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
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
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