Matt Barnum reports that school board members in several cities have formed a new organization to consult with one another. They claim they don’t have an agenda but they are funded by Education Cities, the organization that was created to promote the “portfolio model” that favors charters.
If all that was wanted was an organization where school board members could communicate, such organizations exist. Every state has a state school boards association. There is also the National School Boards Association. Clearly, something else is intended here, and you don’t need a big imagination to figure it out. These are school boards members who are part of the “Reformer” agenda, and they are impatient to disrupt their district’s schools.
This is yet another organization trying to pump life into the moribund charter movement, which has failed to close the achievement gap anywhere or to introduce any innovation other than strict discipline (a return to the late 19th century) and which lobbies to avoid accountability and transparency.
The charter lobby is doubling down and pumping out more organizations as existing charters close or fail to produce results, kind of like buying more of a sinking stock. If the stock doesn’t rebound, you lose it all.
Barnum writes:
School board members are elected to make the most local decisions about school policy. But a new group is trying to get them to join forces to form a network of school board members in at least 10 cities.
School Board Partners says it wants to create a “national community” of board members and will offer coaching and consulting services. Emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate the group is targeting board members in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Stockton.
The group spun out of Education Cities, an organization that advocated for the “portfolio model,” a strategy focused on expanding charter schools as well as giving district schools more autonomy. Denver, Indianapolis, and New Orleans have enacted some version of that model, and Education Cities also counted member groups in most of the cities on School Board Partners’ list. And School Board Partners’ website says its community will be “aligned to a common theory of change” — signs that this is a new strategy for portfolio advocates.
But Carrie McPherson Douglass, who previously worked at Education Cities and founded the new group, says it won’t push specific policies.
“One of our core beliefs is the need for local autonomy,” she told Chalkbeat. The group is open to board members from any city who will prioritize equity and want to see “dramatic change,” she said — and that’s not simply code for the portfolio model.
“I am very hopeful that there are other ideas out there,” Douglass said.
School Board Partners’ website offers limited information, but an August email sent to recruit potential members offers more details. Douglass wrote the group has “secured our first large multi-year grant” and plans to offer “pro-bono consulting services to help school board members research, plan and execute thoughtful change initiatives.” (The email also lists San Antonio as a target city, but Douglass says it has since been removed because Texas already has a support system for school boards that want to adopt the portfolio model.)
Douglass, an elected school board member in Bend, Oregon, said the group grew out of her experience. “I thought I was going in pretty prepared, pretty knowledgeable,” she said. I “really just found it to be an incredibly unique and difficult challenge.”
The group doesn’t have a list of members and is still raising money, Douglass said. The email said the group would hold its first national convening in October, but Douglass said that’s been pushed to February.
School Board Partners was announced in July, as much of Education Cities’ work and staff was absorbed by The City Fund, a well-financed new group that hopes to bring the portfolio model to cities across the country.
Douglass says her group’s funding so far has come from money raised by Education Cities, which had been funded by the Arnold, Dell, Gates, Kauffman, and Walton Family foundations, among others. (Chalkbeat is also funded by Gates and Walton and Gates.)
Of course, there are no specific policies, no agenda, but the new group is funded by the same foundations promoting privatization of public schools.
You sure they didn’t mean Charter Board Partners?
https://charterboards.org/team#supporters
Is there any difference?
Charter Board Partners is a different organization, which has been operating for many years now, according to their 990 tax filings.
The Mind Trust spawned Education cities which spawned School Board Partners
**Carrie McPherson Douglass, who previously worked at Education Cities and founded the new group, says it won’t push specific policies.
“One of our core beliefs is the need for local autonomy,” she told Chalkbeat. “**
If Douglass follows the pattern, another of her core beliefs is undoubtedly that, as head of School Board Partners, she should get a six figure salary just like Ethan Gray (CEO of Education Cities –$200k) and David Harris (CEO of The Mind Trust — $300k)
You forgot to add The City Fund
https://educationcities.org/
It’s very difficult to keep track of all this stuff, not least of all because the founders of these organizations sometimes change the names of their organizations.
For example, in 2014, Ethan Gray headed an organization called Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust, Inc, which seems to have morphed into Education Cities.
While I find a 990 tax filing for the latter, I can not find one for the former.
The IRS must have difficulty following these name changes.
No matter what they call it, the funders are the same and it’s all about money not kids.
Yes, as I noted below. It’s turtles all the way down. Or, in this case, turdles (little turds)
It’s almost funny (if you drink heavily and squint hard). The rephormers don’t want to be called “reformers” and painted as a monolithic block. Yet they do every single thing in lockstep. “Portfolio schools” is the latest buzzword on all of their lips (along with variations of “personalized learning” [sic]). If you don’t want to be seen as a monolithic block, try looking like something other than the Chinese Army on parade.
It’s turdles all the way down
They’re all exactly the same:
“The group spun out of Education Cities, an organization that advocated for the “portfolio model,” a strategy focused on expanding charter schools as well as giving district schools more autonomy.”
You know what they don’t do?
Anything to benefit any existing public school in the district.
The entire focus of these “portfolio” cities becomes the charter schools. You will not hear another word about the existing public schools. They’re disappeared. It’s as if the schools and families no longer exist as soon as the ed reform crew lands for the take-over.
Go try to find anything on an Indianapolis public school. 80% of the students in that city have fallen off the face of the earth because they don’t attend a charter school.
The ten cities targeted for more useless disruption, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Stockton, are all cities with significant minority populations. The NAACP should work in these cities to throw a monkey wrench in their hostile takeover agenda. Stockton and other cities in Texas under consideration for attack are Latino majority communities. This is not “innovation” in education. It is a wide scale privatization assault on minority communities.
People that care about opportunities for students start with looking at the needs of the students. They do not start by figuring out ways to co-opt local school boards. What they are trying to implement is more top down corporate takeovers of public schools backed by dark money in order to create more separate and unequal treatment of minorities.
“They do not start by figuring out ways to co-opt local school boards.” Exactly right! These people are all about stamping out grass roots.
Is it just a coincidence that the echo chamber are all lock-step promoting “the portfolio model” this year, or do they have actual (mandated) coordination with one another?
This cannot be accidental. It’s too monolithic and uniform.
Who decides on these marketing pushes and why are we continually subjected to them?
Of course they will recommend the same corporate agenda. One of four board members is Carl Zaragoza is Senior Director of Elected Leadership at Leadership for Educational Equity – the TFA funded group that pushes for pro-privatization elected leaders including school board members. https://www.schoolboardpartners.org/team/
Carrie McPherson Douglass has big-time Oakland connections. She used to work for our local privatization non-profit, the Rogers Foundation (of Dreyers Ice Cream fame) and was also employed at Aspire. So off she goes to make create more havoc for Oakland, and several other cities. It explains why, very recently, those of us Oakland rabble-rousers (public school advocates) found out that one of our school members (Mr. Head-Privatizer, someone who had once been a member of both a failed-charter board and the district board at the same time) was planning a visit to the Atlanta school board. My school board contact in Atlanta was not happy about the current state of affairs with the privatization of Atlanta schools and asked if I knew about the visit. I didn’t, but now it all makes sense. I’ll bet Ms. McPherson thought that it would be most excellent to spread the gospel of System of Schools Love (from Oakland) to Atlanta. Just in case Atlanta didn’t have enough problems already with its own portfolio model. Sounds like Ms. Douglass is currently enjoying a nice life in Bend, OR, free of the portfolio model craziness that she and the rest of the DPErs like to spread around to other peoples’ children. Probably not a lot of school “choice” there in Bend. Hmmm….
The institutional hierarchy created by Republicans (and, a few DINO’s like those aligned with the Center for American Progress) enables education’s rip-off by profit takers and explains the community’s inability to stop the betrayal of its values, by those with concentrated wealth.
There’s an illuminating graphic posted at the Daily Tarheel. It shows the mismatch of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors and the state’s registered voters and student population. The Board is approx. 80% White, 80% male and 80% Republican. N.C.’s voters are 70% White, 46% male and 40% Republican The students are 60% White, 43% male. (The University of North Carolina system is public.)
Colonialists exploit. They are predators by nature which is why they should never hold leadership positions where general welfare is concerned.
The attempts to “break open the $6 billion dollar piggy bank of public education” will continue as long as our policies encourage free market profiteering at the expense of our public schools and young people. We need a systematic policy change if we want to free public schools from the grip of these vandals.
It is a $600 billion piggy bank.
“Systematic policy change” requires a political process without financial benefit for politicians and their appointees. Wisconsin’s GOP lame duck legislature shows us oligarch greed.
The success of political spending by Charles and David Koch, Art Pope, Bill Gates, John Arnold,… is provoking rebellion which will turn violent.
The active promotion of or, silent acquiescence to climate change by the richest 0.1%, costs the world dearly, both in human and economic costs. There will be uprising against men like the Koch’s.
Currently, there are more suicides by gun than homicides by gun. The pace of suicides is increasing. It is becoming a leading cause of death. There will be a tipping point when the 99%, who seek to alleviate the misery of powerlessness, will collectively target the source of their misery- those who have concentrated wealth, instead of themselves.
I have been poking around the “School Board Partners” initiative.
Beware the word “partners” in this initiative. It is charter school,Teach for America, and take over as many school boards as you can so charters can thrive and supply high quality seats in a system free of elected school boards.
So far, there are only two staff, both from Education Cities and four members of a board of directors.
STAFF:
CARRIE MCPHERSON DOUGLASS worked for Education Cities for five years. In May 2017, Carrie was elected to the School Board for Bend-La Pine Schools in Oregon – a district with nearly 20,000 students. She has a BA in education from the University of Portland and holds an MBA from Boston University. She is an alumnus of the Broad Residency and Education Pioneers Fellowship programs. Among other jobs, she led the HR and talent departments at Aspire Public Schools for five years. She is on the board of EdFuel, talent management for education, based in D.C. See also a financial problem with her “relay” activities. https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/6440691-151/bend-mayoral-candidate-accuses-family-members-of-fraud
KEVIN LESLIE has several jobs in finance and operations for Education Cities and its two new initiatives: Community Engagement Partners and School Board Partners. He holds a with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. He lives in Memphis, TN.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
NATHANIEL EASLEY Ph.D., is Founding Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners, a 501(c)(3) public charity “focused on increasing the availability of high quality public schools in Denver through quarterback investments in educator/leader talent, high performing schools, and a supportive policy environment.” Prior to joining Blue School Partners, He served as President and Secretary of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education from 2009 to 2013. He is a current member of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s Education Compact, the National College Access Network Board, the Colorado Education Initiative Board, and co-chairs the Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He has served on the board of several charter school in Denver in addition to other activities cited at the website.
CARRIE IRVIN is the CEO and Co-Founder of Charter Board Partners (CBP)a national organization helping public charter schools build ” strategic” boards. She has delivered a TEDx talk about CBP’s work. Carrie chaired the Board of Trustees of the National Child Research Center and currently serves on the Georgetown University Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advisory Council. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Brown University, and is a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area .
THERESA PENA has twice been elected as an at-large representative on the Denver Board of Education. She also served as the Executive Director of the Denver Education Compact, a cradle-to-career initiative launched by Mayor Michael Hancock. She is a board member of the Denver Preschool Program, the Denver Community Health Services and the Colorado Community College System. She has a B.A. in sociology from Pomona College in California and MBA from Cornell University.
CARL ZARAGOZA is Senior Director of Elected Leadership at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) LEE prepares and supports Teach for America corps members and alumni as political candidates at every level of government. Carl was elected twice to the Creighton Elementary School District Governing Board in Phoenix and had two terms as President. He is U.S. Army veteran. he taught middle school civics in a Title 1 school in Phoenix. He has BA in Political Science and is studying for an Executive MBA at Arizona State University. He is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
There is a strategy for School Board Partners. It is described in a paper titled FROM TOKENISM TO PARTNERSHIP by Charles McDonald. This short publication includes one chart that shows the intended strategy for privatizing the governance of schools in the manner of Mind Trust’s operation in Indianapolis.. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/6f37f4ec-1d34-4743-963d-036a11570dcf/downloads/1cjmq5paf_935717.pdf
The author of this paper, Charles McDonald , is Executive Director for Community Engagement Partners (an initiative of Education Cities). His bio says that he “served as Senior Managing Director, External Affairs for Teach For America – South Carolina for four years. He also served as Program Manager for Education Pioneers’ Greater Boston Analyst and Graduate School Fellowship programs for two years….. He is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He lives in Columbus, OH .
McDonald credits help on the paper to” leaders at Donnell-Kay Foundation, Leadership For Educational Equity, Memphis Education Fund, MN Comeback, The Mind Trust, SchoolSmartKC, and United Parents and Students.
The new organizayion builds on the failures of education in Memphis, in Indianapolis, in Minnesota and many more cities enticed into faux partnerships with existing public schools.
Thanks Laura for naming names. It is critical for the change that the public is increasingly demanding. Public shaming is powerful. Wisconsin Democrats may not stop Scott Walker’s actions in behalf of the Koch’s but, his life going forward will be known as that of democracy’s traitor.
Partners?
Like a bunch of ten foot long tapeworms in your intestines are your partners.
First time I’ve tried to understand what “portfolio model” is. I’m a few steps behind yall, so see if I’ve got it right. It looks even worse than straight-ahead charterization, because it includes recruiting district schools under its wings as so-called “innovation schools” [“giving district schools more autonomy”].
But tail wags dog. According to another Chalkbeat article, innovation schools are “run by charter networks and nonprofits, which have almost complete control of daily management. The operators hire and fire teachers, who are not part of the district union. And they control school hours, curriculum and spending.” They use a few district services as needed [example given, vetting vendors]… “But innovation schools are overseen by the IPS school board, and they are considered part of the district when it comes to counting enrollment — and test scores.” What oversight is possible under such a lopsided arrgt, & why would a distrsch sign on?
The concept of “portfolio management” was, in my view, nothing more than privatization disguised as a feel-good “we will only allow good schools to remain open.” Sounds fine to the newly initiated, but make no mistake. “Good” “high-quality” seats are synonymous for mostly charter schools. And their definition of “good” is like a moving target. Laws vary state-to-state, but in California, charter schools are nearly impossible to close. Test scores trump all else. And as we have seen, charters can and do anything to get the scores up, things that district schools could never get away with. Steal $3.8M for shady real estate deal? Pass. Operate as a Gulen school and flee the country with $400K of taxpayer’s money in your pocket? Pass. Shed more than 50% of your high school students so that you can market 100% grad rates? Pass. It goes on and on and on…but, but, but those amazing test scores! Nothing to see here, move along, move along…
The inventors of the concept of portfolios of schools let the cat out of the bag when they gave stock portfolios as their model.
And they have been trying to put that cat back in the bag ever since — to no avail.
How is “portfolio model” any different than “privatize the teaching of the least expensive, most motivated students in charters and have a dumping ground of public schools for all students that those privately run schools don’t find it profitable to teach”?
If those “reformers” really believed in teaching all kids, they would want CHOICE schools that were all part of the public system. That way no group could cherry pick a small portion of the most profitable kids and — adding insult to injury — demand even more money to reward them for their “success” in starting with an above average group of students and keeping that group above average.
There are choice schools in the NYC public school system. Not surprisingly, the ones who have more motivated families have better results, just like charters. The only difference is that there is no lying that those higher performing schools have discovered some secret sauce to turn the lowest performing students into scholars. There is no trying to cover up that huge numbers of students are flunked each year or shown the door. There is a true attempt to examine what works and what doesn’t work instead of an attempt to cover up what doesn’t work so that greedy charter CEOs can justify outrageously high salaries.
These school “reformers” are really just greedy operators saying whatever they know will pay their salaries. They have no interest in finding out what really works — which is why they cover up huge attrition rates and work really hard to convince white America that high numbers of African-American children whose family chose charters are naturally violent at age 5. Because they insist that the charter CEO who stated for the record that she wanted Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education and worked so hard to make it happen is absolutely a truth-teller when it comes to telling white America that she can’t help it that so many Kindergarten students in her charters with virtually no white students act out violently. They just do, says the same woman who told us Betsy DeVos must be confirmed for the good of children everywhere. And if you believe her, I have a bridge to sell ya.
Laura H. Chapman: count on you to connect all the dots…thank you!
&, to all: a skunk by any other name smells…
well, just smells. Bad.
“One of our core beliefs is the need for local autonomy,” she told Chalkbeat
– Carrie McPherson Douglass
Before Paul Hill, Founder for the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), joined “the University of Washington faculty, Dr. Hill worked for 17 years as a Senior Social Scientist in RAND’s Washington office, where he served as Director of Washington Operations (1981-87) and Director of the Education and Human Resources program (1979-80).” https://www.crpe.org/experts/paul-hill
Robin Lake, Direictor of CRPE, served “as a board member or advisor to various organizations, including the Journal of School Choice, the National Center on Special Education in Charter Schools, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and Education Next. She was named to the summer 2016 class of the Pahara-Aspen Education Fellows Program, designed to support exceptional leaders reimagining U.S. public schools.” Education Next is part of the NEXTGen communities impacting and encouraging density models in cities. Now it’s known as Next Gen Communities. https://www.nextgencommunities.org/
According to School Board Partners website, Charles McDonald is the Executive Director for Community Engagement Partners (an initiative of Education Cities).He is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory. We can understand why he’s there to lead this initiative. NextGen is ubiquitous and their plans to “FUND THE TEACHER QUALITY PARTNERSHIP GRANTS”
“This grant program is the only federal initiative directed to reforming and strengthening higher education-based teacher preparation programs. The program’s primary mission is to support the preparation of profession-ready teachers for high-need schools, usually in urban areas, and covering large school districts such as Newark in the state of New Jersey.”
Same old same old and includes the grammatical error:
“The program effectively provides teachers which clinical experience through a residency program; just as medical doctors do in hospitals. During two years, the program funds a two year graduate program for grantees and all candidates commit to teaching in a high-need field in a high-need district for three years after the program. Furthermore, all grantees commit to a 100% funding match after the funding ends.”
They say their goals are aligned with Presidential Goals:
“ The six major themes in the Department of Education budget are: (1) Provide better choices for more families to attend high-quality schools, (2) Support high-quality special education services to children with disabilities, (3) Create new and alternative pathways to successful careers for students, (4) Promote innovation and reform around STEM education, (5) Implement school-based opioid abuse prevention strategies, and (6) Make the department more efficient while limiting the Federal role in education”
https://www.nextgencommunities.org/
Our district is a wealthy one on the West Coast. We have a large number (not a majority) of Latinx students. As the rush to develop our city continues, our 7th and 9th graders don’t have science textbooks and younger grades are using lots of photocopies that are often illegible. The board doesn’t ask questions to answer reasons for sudden drops in test scores. It’s by design. The board tells us we are implementing the NextGen Science Standards. From what we’ve been seeing, this may be steering the Science curriculum and how it’s being implemented (mostly computer based and without textbooks.) We believe the goal is to create career ready local workforces by allowing city style initiatives to guide what’s taught, with that content threaded through all disciplines.
Education Cities appears to be aiming for Drop-In centers for learning and badge earning. The badges offered are feeders for employers. In our case HS grads will serve the hospitality, food service, green building/energy and tech industries. School boards are encouraged to and are adopting policies that lower the internship age to 14 yrs. Ours did that recently. Boards, like ours, are bringing in new initiatives that INCREASE District LEVEL Staff while leaving classrooms short on teacher assistants, counselors and mental health professionals. The plans ask for even more money for professional development for these new initiatives by people unqualified to teach let alone write curriculum! The kids are being funneled into career paths with the help of Naviance and other algorithmic software and apps while in 5th/6th grade. They will lose out and wind up with a narrowed education. At the same time, a new High School cohort is starting up with semi-charter-like autonomy. The purpose is to serve students and families who “choose” Project Based Learning (PBL). Under that term, however, and shielded by it, is where Individualized and Personalized Learning (in our case renamed “Interest” and “Inquiry” based learning, reside. We’re pretty certain it’s about using computers and producing career ready high school grads. The companies win.
Corporate “public” school district agenda.
Look to the City governments: Austin (and all of TX), Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Stockton.
Cities love it! Ours tried to include “Activity Centers” in our updated Zoning Code a few years ago. The public pushed back and we shut them down because NO One would tell us what they were! Looking back on it, we’re pretty sure it was about earning Education Badges. After that, the push was on to pass very hefty education bonds (Plan B.)
“We are helping build the next generation of cities and communities. We are interested in topics and discussions that will help change agents, social and tech entrepreneurs, policy makers, educators and community members tailor new technologies and interventions to improve the lives of citizens, and establish environmental friendly solutions to build sustainable and resilient communities.”
https://www.nextgencommunities.org/events/
We think the pitch to cities pairs well with City Hall objectives as they use “sustainability” mantra to offset community complaints about over development, overcrowding, immobilizing traffic, inefficient (by design) yet heavily subsidized public transit, lack of affordable housing, and overpaid government staff who need unfettered development to fund their pension liabilities,… etc. If local kids are funneled into the local jobs sector straight out of high school they can continue living at home and earn a living wage. Everyone’s happy, right? Teachers and students can’t win fair well. Cities are not talking to teachers they are talking to superintendents. Cities see public school lands as opportunities for development. The long term goal is to close them. The short term goal is to pass huge bonds to build GREEN BUILDINGS for 21st century learning that either lack parking in a city known for terribly untimely public transit or build it with the promise it can be be “repurposed” later on. In other words, using public funds to fix and to rebuild other schools in PRIME LOCATIONS with no accountability for how the money will be spent, extending community indebtedness without answering what’s owed on previous bonds, shifting costs onto the poor until they are forced out and potentially bankrupting the District is what’s happening in the name of “21st century learning.” Some ask if we’ll be forced to hand over the actual school keys (in addition to the aforementioned curriculum) to the city or the corporations as a result of these bad choices. But it’s about the kids, right? They have to be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow. And, because tomorrow is changing so fast there’s no time to give students choices when they’re mature enough to decide and determine their own destinies or at least wait for college degrees. Cities need a local workforce ready fourteen year olds we can groom and become part of us.
Corporations love it!
They get to write curriculum while requiring lifelong investments in the company goods! “Local Control” run by BIG MONEY BEHIND BIG CITY INVESTMENTS SUNK INTO LAND VALUE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
YOU can watch their “general audience” symposium from July 2017
Your post is scary. And sounds like CA, which often is our [E coast] harbinger of the future, so bear w/me as I react/ emote.
Holy cow, what a mishmash. Your district sounds like a national convention of digital-ed salesmen.
Could anyone seriously buy the idea of Naviance et al algorithmic sw & apps “funneling kids into career paths” at ages 10-11?
“Project Based Learning (PBL)… is where Individualized and Personalized Learning (in our case renamed “Interest” and “Inquiry” based learning), reside. We’re pretty certain it’s about using computers and producing career ready high school grads. The companies win.” (They have nerve using the moniker “Project-Based”…). Assuming you mean the companies selling the computer programs win. What companies will find “career-ready” applicants among grads of pers-learng pgms?
This one is the most outrageous: “Education Cities appears to be aiming for Drop-In centers for learning and badge earning. The badges offered are feeders for employers. In our case… hospitality, food service, green building/energy and tech industries. School boards are encouraged to and are adopting policies that lower the internship age to 14 yrs.” What I’m hearing: employers think they’ve found a way to get the public to pay for on-the-job training! But the method sounds random & chaotic. I’m guessing the potential employers will gain little or nothing, & the kids will lose out on ed basics. But the badge-program-sw company will rake in tax $ until the taxpayers get wise.
Guess I just sound like Debbie Downer. But I don’t get it: if it’s a wealthy district, weren’t their tradl pubschs already pretty good, re: grad rates/ college admission/ ultimately, careers? If so, why are distr admins trying to disrupt everything?
You address this in yr final para, guess I’m just having trouble digesting it: “Cities [beset by overdevpt, overcrowding, immobilizing traffic, inefficient pubtransit, lack of affordable housing, overpd govt staff who need unfettered devpt to fund pension liability] see public school lands as opportunities for development”… i.e…. want to close them! Makes me sad & mad, yet has a ring of truth about it