Knox County, Tennessee, has a superintendent, Jim McIntyre, who is a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendent’s Academy. McIntyre accepted a grant from Broad to hire another Broadie as director of planning and improvement. McIntyre didn’t seek approval from either the Knox County Board of Education or County Commission for the grant, which was partially underwritten by the Broad Foundation.
On Monday, the Knox County Commission rejected the grant, which has already been spent. perhaps Superintendent McIntyre should replace the taxpayer funds expended on this illegal hire. Was it patronage to his benefactor?
As we have seen in many districts, Broadies tend to hire other Broadies (and TFA). This is a rate rebuke to the Broad Foundation, which is a strong supporter of top-down management, high-stakes testing, charter schools, and school closings (to make way for charter schools.)
Thanks to reader Ellen Lubic for bringing this story to my attention.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To the owner of this blog: so it’s not WHAT you know but WHO you know?
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That’s rheeally disturbing news, even if you put the most Johnsonally sort of spins on it…
Really!
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The person that was hired – was that person let go?
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As of right now, Christy Hendler continues in her position with Knox County Schools. The Knox County Law Director has not yet determined how things will proceed. The “internship” is nearly over and it is unclear what happens next for (or with) her. The last Broadie we had (Nakia Towns) is now working for the TN Dept of Education, spreading the virus in the state.
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She still works for the system 7 months later, only now we pay her entire salary.
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Great work by the public employees. They looked at total cost versus benefit which is what ALL of them should be doing with these “gifts”, including costs that are hard to measure like “loss of agency and decision-making”. The only reason they did the cost/benefit analysis is because he broke the rules, but it should be ordinary practice.
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Something llike this happened in Los Angeles. LAUSD hired a whole level of “experts” with a grant. This grant only paid for their salaries for a year. The next year the district paid for the salaries. John Deasy was one of these experts. He at the time, made $25,000 more than the superintendant, Ray Cortines.
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It’s a way to put their preferred policy in and then shift the cost to the public.
They did it in Cleveland. They gave a grant to have the public school pick up the cost (and duty) of the “choice” system but the grant doesn’t cover the ongoing expense. That falls to the public.
There would have been a debate without the grant on whether the public thinks that’s a good investment. This bypasses that.
Elected representatives have to get more rigorous. They have to be advocates, not rubber-stampers. They get rolled.
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Important information and I thank Ellen too!!
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Dr. Ravitch. I am constantly amazed at how you find and keep up with these stories. I wish that the politicians who are ruining so much of education [plus so much more] would research in depth of the kinds of things you do.
Of course, it is more important for them to spend their time in getting money to get re-elected but they do have staff members.
BUT: academics or critical thinking is not their strong point.
Small wonder that Congress has an approval rate close to single digits.
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Gordon,
My readers send me links to what is happening in their communities. I bring to it my 45 years of experience in the field as a scholar and researcher. And having worked in D.C. and in various rightwing think tanks, I know most of the players.
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The vote turned out the way it did thanks to hard work from teachers and other community members involved in the group SPEAK (Students, Parents, and Educators Across Knox County) who would not let this misuse of funds go without a fight. Members worked hard to do the research, contact commissioners, and show up to speak at school board and commission meetings. Hats off to the commissioners who stood up for the students and taxpayers of Knox County.
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You can see in this YouTube proof that Dr. McIntyre committed a felony with this Broad Grant by not notifying the County Commission of the matching grant they had to pay.
The District Attorney should indict Dr. McIntyre for felony fraud and oust him from office.
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