After hearing from a parent in Brooklyn that decisions at the New York City Department of Education were being made by Broadies and TFA, Leonie Haimson did some digging. The parent was right. The same people appointed by Joel Klein more than a decade ago are still closing schools, imposing the portfolio model, and opening charters. De Blasio appointed Carmen Farina to run the DOE. Farina was Deputy Chancellor to Klein and left in a a dispute. But apparently she saw no reason to clean house.
Leonie shows that it is not only Broadies and TFA, but the nefarious Education Pioneers, another billionaire-funded outfit the is running the show in New York City.
Wake up, Bill de Blasio! You inherited the status quo! When if ever will you clean house?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Education Pioneers?
Apparently, they don’t know the history of the groups that used that name (eg, in the former Soviet Union).
Or maybe they do.
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This is wonderful research if discouraging for supporters of Public Education not the promoters of education “we choose our students” as if that is public education. The most recent boost for privatizing schools comes from the IRS, as reported here. https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2018-12-31/tax-guidance-relieves-some-private-school-choice-supporters
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Mike Petrilli wrote and asked me to remove the word “infestation” as it suggests “bugs,” and it is very Trumpian to call a person a “bug.”
I suggest that you consider that this post refers to a “zombie infestation,” not “bugs.”
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Another glitch for high paid positions in non-profits, including some of those launched by billionaires to shelter wealth from taxation, but also university presidents and coaches paid over $1 million. The glitch is an excise tax for pay over $1 million.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-smacks-down-excessive-nonprofit-executive-pay-commentary.html
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What is the point of having certification standards if New York City is going to accept non-traditionally certified administrators on par with those that have completed all the course work and training to run public schools? If they allow these alternates to circumvent the system that is in place to protect students and schools from imposters and fakes, including Broadies and TFA, they are cheapening their system with irresponsible policy. It is pathetic that New York is allowing this Trojan Horse to infiltrate their schools.
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When Bloomberg and Klein took control of the schools in 2002, they abandoned the old titles that required certification and created new titles drawn from the corporate sector, like Chief Accountability Officer (Jim Liebman, a Columbia University law professor); Chief Talent Officer (human resources); Chief Knowledge Officer (academics). On and on with brand new names for which the state had no certification standards.
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The union must have been sleeping or complicit.
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Complicit.
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We currently have an interim superintendent of Boston’s public schools who hasn’t even got the qualifications to be a substitute teacher. Laura Perille’s last gig was as CEO of an outfit called EdVestors, which is exactly what you think it is.
There are – quite rightly – stringent requirements to become a public school superintendent in Massachusetts. The MA DESE gave her a waiver. #TheFixIsIn
http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/603cmr7.html?section=09
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EdFesters would work too.
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Nah, sounds like a party! A fest. OcktoberFest.
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Oakland Unified is so infested with Broadies (part of the legacy of Antwan Wilson), that a Broadie is now in charge of representing the district during our OEA labor dispute, the one that has dragged on for two years with no resolution in sight. How can the district possibly negotiate in good faith while they are represented by an anti-union, privatization hack? Short answer, they can’t.
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They can’t because they aren’t interested in negotiations and/or collaborative management. They are interested in total control from the top down.
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This is one of the reasons that I left the NYCDOE during the school year–something I said I would never do. These people have made it virtually impossible to teach in New York, and they are one of the reasons I’ve never had a kind or respectful word to say about Carmen Farina. Nothing in New York’s schools improved during her tenure. In fact, in the school in which I served for ten years–the High School of Economics & Finance–became much worse.
I never did figure out why she didn’t clean house when she assumed the chancellorship.
As far as I am concerned, Mayor DeBlasio owns this mess–which is why I don’t have anything favorable to say about him, either.
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Nobody appointed to head DOE will clean house, no matter who the mayor is, unless an insurgent movement from below forces the cronies out of office and holds any incoming Mayor and DOE head accountable in the streets, outside govt., with strikes, boycotts, and blockades, etc. Dems in power are in same policy bucket as the GOP; Farina’s “failure” to clean house was the most likely outcome once she took office promising nothing to teachers and students in public, while promising everything to the Mayor in private to gain the position.
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