A reader offered this comment in response to the post about school closings in Sacramento:
A “Broad” superintendent who follows its “play-list” to “capture” the school board and privatize the district as much as possible:
– Convinced the board of education to turn all the power over to the superintendent.
– Keeps secret all the contracts and consultants hired by the superintendent. In fact, it’s been said that the latest consultant working with the superintendent was the principal of Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope H.S. None of this information can be found on the district’s web site. Even the organization chart with unfilled positions is dated July 2012.
– Consistently and knowingly breaches the contract to keep the union busy with grievances and court procedures.
– Whittles away at teacher tenure by creating a class of teachers in the district’s “priority schools” whose jobs are protected from last hired, first fired. (Yes, the union is
grieving this.)
– Increases class size to 30+ in all grades except those in “priority” schools.
– In “failing” schools the district insists on split grades rather than keeping class sizes
low.
– Forces remedial programs (more test prep on top of test prep) onto “failing” schools
without any input from the teachers and wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars on
consultants and test prep companies.
– Closes the neighborhood schools under the pretext that there are too few students in
the school. But in fact, it’s because they are “failing” (read: poverty and neglect.)
– “Allows” a private charter school to locate in the former “neighborhood ” school.
– Parents who want and need a neighborhood school drop out of the public school and send their kids to the charter.
– Pink slips for union teachers.
Our Louisiana Department of Education has ‘redesigned’ their website. You can no longer find ANY staff other than John White.
Oh, yeah…He’s a Broad superintendent.
Don’t forget, Michelle Rhee’s husband is the mayor of Sacramento and Michelle Rhee is on the Board of the Broad Foundation.
The BROADIES are perfectly united and loyal to their leader. The BROAD spawn all operate from the same playbook. But what else could you expect from only 10 weekends of training. Looks more like a cult than a foundation.
Well, who is Kevin Johnson’s wife, well, Michelle Rhee of Students Last of course. So, I might ask, “What else do you expect out of them?” They are the privatizeer corporatizers who are well funded by the financial elite for their future world of automatons for their benefit who are maintained in a constant position of “Permadebt.” Think about this. 200, or 20%, of the school districts in California have taken out these bonds which you do not start to pay back for 20 years. This takes the payback from a normal of about 2-1 to (10-12)-1. In fact, one school district is paying back 16.5-1. This is “Permadebt.” I have not heard Johnson or Rhee talking about this. Could it be that many of their backers make money off of these financial instruments?
Yes.
I want to add another item to the Broad Playbook (more accurate than my playlist reference):
The “LEVERAGE” play.
Just like hedge funds such as Bain Capital that buy companies, load them up with debt, liquidate assets and then declare bankruptcy this Broad superintendent and the board are moving the Sacramento City Unified School District in this direction. Left behind will be all the people who worked for the district schools.
– Load the district up with debt:
The District just convinced voters that it was necessary to pass another bond measure to fix up its schools. The district already owes millions to its bond holders from previous bond issues and now it will owe even more. In addition, the overspending by the Broad superintendent on consultants, test prep materials, etc. caused the district to be over-budget by about 28 million dollars last year. This district also has lost state funding due to its students transferring into charter schools now operating in previously closed district schools (that were closed because of “low enrollment.”)
The state has been cutting education funding for the past 5 years so the superintendent can’t say he didn’t know his budget would continue to decrease. Thus, I can only assume that the overspending was done purposely. The school board is not holding the Broad superintendent responsible because it turned its power over to him and his highly paid consultants. Obviously, the school board members don’t believe they need to listen to their constituents either. There have been many newspaper articles about the overspending and parents and teachers have brought this up at board meeting. So, the board knew and obviously approved.
– Getting rid off district assets:
Now the district is left with this huge debt to the bond holders and the Sacramento County Office of Education insists on a balanced budget. So, again like “good hedge fund directors” it’s time to get rid of more assest: schools and employees. This year it’s 11 more schools and many of their employees.
Next year, the bond costs will continue to be very high so it will be necessary to get
rid of more assets such as schools, employees. Then comes employee health benefits and teacher pension payments.
– Bankruptcy and Liquidation
Finally the district can declare bankruptcy and have someone appointed to take over this district and turn it over to charter operators.
We know that’s what The Broad Foundation, Michelle Rhee, Kevin Johnson, and Margaret Fortune want.
Heaven help Sacramento. Study what has happened in Detroit. A total debacle. Why don’t the teachers in Sacramento go on strike like Chicago? Why stand by and let this happen to you? It’s not going to stop until they can destroy the district and leave the district’s teachers and students in shambles.
This writer obviously has some comprehension problems with the difference between the districts general fund and bond funds. They are two completely different things and get their financing from different places. The general fund has four different sources of income: Revenue limit, State (catagorical), Federal and local. Federal runs about 13% in general. Bonds are funded by local property taxes generated inside of the boundries of the school district. They do not come from the general fund. They have no effect on general fund spending except that bond funds usually replace the general fund item of maintainence. Bond funds cannot be used for general fund purposes. Those school districts buying I-Pads with bond funds are breaking the law. Many are doing this anyway as no one watches the store today and those that do are ignored.
The one form of debt paid by the general fund are Certificates of Participation (COPS) which are debt the public does not vote on only the board of education. This debt is paid by the general fund. We found about $1 billion of these at LAUSD. Debt is the first thing paid from the general fund. Very few people understand financing of schools and that is just where they want you. In California much general financial work can be done at the California Dept. of Ed. (CDE) on their website. For detailed work on the general fund you need the superintendents budgets and for the construction bonds you need their Bond Strategic Execution Plan. The COPS are in the superintendents budget.
Hope this help many of you understand you this works.
You’ve got it! Not only that, but most of them are appointed, not elected, and they have golden parachute contracts and await the chance to go perform their reform magic elsewhere.
When Michelle Rhee’s last domino falls, I expect she will be taking a number of Broadies down with her.
Hopefully!
Don’t forget that “investing” in AFT President Randi Weingarten is also part of Broad’s playlist, and tha she has provided him with a substantial return on investment.
Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in 2009, Broad summarized his approach to ed. reform:
“We don’t know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that. But what we do know about is management and governance.”