Paola DeMaria, an apologist for Ohio’s floundering, politically powerful, corrupt charter industry, has been named as State Superintendent. He is not an educator and proud of it.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer says he is a strong supporter of school choice and Common Core. Does he care about the public schools that enroll more than 90% of Ohio’s children? That’s not clear.
Stephen Dyer notes that DeMaria has defended charters when school boards claim that they are draining resources from public schools.
“DeMaria also is of the opinion that more money doesn’t improve student performance. This is a classic fallacy employed by many in the free market reform movement. The problem is it compares dollars spent with increases in test scores, claiming that if test scores don’t go up at the same rate as the spending, then clearly spending more doesn’t matter.”
Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy posted the new superintendent’s background:
“Profile of the new Superintendent of Public Instruction
“Statement in letter of application:
“Second, I love education policy and practice. My love is not rooted in the fact that I’m a professional educator-because I’m not.”
“Academic credentials:
1984 Furman University B.A. Political Science/Economics
1996 The Ohio State University M.P.A. Public Administration
Question 2 on the application:
Are you eligible for a superintendent license for this position? NO
Work Experience:
2010-present Principal Consultant, Education First Consulting, LLC
2008-2010 Executive Vice Chancellor, Ohio Department of Higher Education (formerly Ohio Board of Regents)
2004-2008 Associate Superintendent for School Options and Finance
2000-2004 Chief Policy Advisor/Director of Cabinet Affairs-Office of the Governor
1999-2000 Senior Resident Advisor-Barents Group, LLC
1998-1999 Director-State of Ohio/Office of Budget and Management
1991-1998 Assistant Director-State of Ohio/Office of Budget and Management
1988-1991 Senior Fiscal Analyst-State of Ohio/The Ohio Senate
Bill Phillis writes:
“Departure from tradition:
“Since the position of state superintendency was established in 1913, it has been filled from the ranks of professionals in the field of public education.
“A new era has begun. Steve Dyer, Policy Fellow with Innovation Ohio, made some observations today. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article also provides some interesting insights.”
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Payola says it all …
This is proof beyond doubt that the billionaire oligarchs and their corporate minions in the war against community based, non profit, democratic, transparent, public education controls Ohio. Ohio is no longer part of the Republic of the United States. Ohio is under control of the oligarchs that worship at the alter of avarice and their for-profit agenda.
The oligarchs do not control the United States or many of the states (yet) but they control a few states and cities and like terminal cancer, they are spreading their virus. I think it is time to give the corporate public education cancer an injection of the Polio virus to get rid of them.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/279981-60-minutes-fda-fast-tracks-cancer-treatment-using-polio-virus
Dear Ms. Ravitch:
You never write about how the NYC DOE and DC 37 is allowing out of license school aides to take over secretarial jobs. The union is doing nothing even though it was won in arbitration and circular 31 specifically outline the duties of secretaries and aides.
A living wage middle class job, primarily done by women, is being unjustly and, I believe, illegally, eliminated. Please write about that.
Thank you Sue Druss
On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 10:03 AM, Diane Ravitchs blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “Paola DeMaria, an apologist for Ohio’s floundering, > politically powerful, corrupt charter industry, has been named as State > Superintendent. He is not an educator and proud of it. The Cleveland > Plain Dealer says he is a strong supporter of school ” >
I think he’s the 5th superintendent since 2011.
Public schools are not a high priority down there in Columbus among the ed reform crowd.
Paola is proof that the overwhelming majority of Ohioans are inert and that their gerrymandered representatives, have self-interest in giving Ohio tax dollars to schemers and, in sending Ohio tax dollars to east and west coast tyrants, that own hedge funds and tech corporations.
New Yorkers are smarter. Period. They saw the repercussions of privatized education and, through political will, replaced the privatizing hierarchy in charge of the state’s education.
Well, if you look at past performance of ed reformers in this state he’ll only have the job a year or two and then be off the next ed-venture!
I look forward to more chaotic, fad-driven ‘innovation’ and huge piles of money directed to national consultants.
Disgusting. It’s about $$$$$$, root of so much evil.
It’s just surreal. This is right out of Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall. Well, except that the reformer/billionaire syndicate doesn’t even try to hide it.
Also, Boss Tweed and his minions didn’t expect the people they were ripping off to genuflect and bow down before their “merit.”
It was a spoils system, just like today, only in the Tweed era they were much more honest about it. Today, us lowly proles must endure Ivy Leaguers constantly telling us that they’re the “best and brightest” (with not a scintilla of awareness of the original usage of that term), and are expertly brainwashed into believing they earned and deserve the spoils they’ve accrued through a rigged system.
Check out OH Fordham’s twitter:
This is the mindset they come in with. You won’t find a single positive mention of an Ohio public school, which is pretty amazing, considering it’s 93% of students in the state.
Ed reform isn’t about public schools. If it WERE about public schools the omission of our schools wouldn’t be so consistent and glaring.
You can try the same with any of the ed reform lobbying groups- it’s true of most of them.
Such awful news….Kasich despises the public schools in Ohio. I’m so blessed to be completing my career next year. It is not good here in Ohio for public schools. This will be a death blow to our Ohio public schools.
Other pushers of charter schools and tech-based schools applied for the position. I guess they thought the record of charter corruption made the job attractive.
I spent the better part of a day looking at all of the applications (over 40 people).<any were unemployed superintendents and administrators from failed or failing districts. One applicant was a much-honored Dean of Graduate programs that someone nominated because he was a big promoter of disruptive innovation.
We had applicants who are fresh from other professions with no experience in education but offering a polished elevator pitch. We had an unemployed USDE official with not an ounce of experience in education other than by political appointment. We had an applicant eking out some income from Pearson—scoring online essays.
We had a charter school leader from Turkey, active in the Gulen Movement with administrative and IT experience in the Harmony and Frontier charter chains.
We had marketers of cyber learning. We had a refugee from the Detroit Public Schools, one from Houston, two from Atlanta. We had about six CEOs of one-or-two-person consultancies.
One applicant took pride in being the salesperson who landed a big US contract for the Tribal Group, based in the United Kingdom. Tribal Group is an international corporation (London stock exchange) providing “education support services.” For an example, see: http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/metro-nashville-paid-a-foreign-company-to-study-our-schools-so-why-did-its-reports-get-an-icy-reception/Content?oid=3748828
We had graduates from online universities noteworthy because they are under ripoff sanctions from USDE—among those schools Capella, Grand Canyon, Walden, and American International College.
We had an applicant proud of being a pharmacist and a “Lean Implementation Specialist” with training in “Total Quality Management” in addition to having a passion for becoming State Superintendent of Education on behalf of “Grades, Graduations, and Great Educators.” There was only one Broad fellow who was also a charter founder from Sacramento. She was looking for an executive director for that school while applying for the job in Ohio.
We had one applicant who is a pastor, more that expected letters of references from pastors. We had missing references from last employers, and several superintendents mired in professional lawsuits.
Several applicants will push for technology, more opportunities for
Paolo DeMaria, had cozied up to politically powerful Republicans in Ohio. He served for two years at the Ohio Department of Education as “Associate Superintendent for School Options,” then became Executive Vice Chancellor (Board of Regents). That was before he joined Education First as a principal. No doubt that DeMaria learned a lot from the founding partner, Jenn Vranek whose prior career was at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she was in charge of "advocacy grants."
I think the whole application process was a farce. It was managed by an executive search company. The state board with the power to recommend or not is stacked to favor appointees, so this is the choice of Kasich.
If your list represents the quality of applicants that were under consideration for this post, it looks like no one with the credentials and/or credible experience even bothered to apply. Professionals either don’t want the aggravation or were actively discouraged.
Reblogged this on rjknudsen.
OSU’s John Glenn College, had Paola as a speaker at a leadership conference last year.
The College misled citizens, by describing charter schools as “public”.
The reputation of John Glenn suffers, when his namesake institution advocates for the charter school boondoggle. John Glenn attended public schools. The H.S. named after him, saw a transfer of more than $500,000, in taxpayer money, to charter schools. Seven of the 8 schools had “D” and “F” ratings, as shown at KnowYourCharter.com.
Linda, that is why it is important to refer to charter schools and public schools, and not for the baloney about “public charter schools.” That is sheer propaganda.
The rephormers’ new replacement for the false description, “public schools”, is, “community schools”. Of course, that doesn’t quite jibe with the Gates-funded, New Schools Venture Fund, whose goal is “to develop charter management organizations that produce a diverse supply of different brands on a large scale.” It’s like calling Walmart, main street.
But, rephormers don’t draw a line at lying.