Jeb Bush created an organization called Chiefs for Change, whose original membership consisted of state superintendents who shared Jeb’s ideas: high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, school grades of A-F, and school choice (charters and vouchers).
Chiefs for Change has now become a clearinghouse for district superintendents.
You can be sure that anyone recommended by Chiefs for Change is dedicated to disrupting and privatizing your district.
Here are some of the district superintendents that Chiefs for Change points to with pride.
Lewis Ferebee, the new Superintendent of the schools of the District of Columbia.
Susana Cordova, the new Superintendent of the Denver schools.
Jesus Jara, Superintendent of the Clark County (Nevada) Schools. Nevada’s State Commissioner Steve Canovera is a member of Chiefs for Change.
Donald Fennoy, Superintendent of Palm Beach County, Florida.
Deborah Gist, Superintendent of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Schools, along with Andrea Castenada, the district’s “chief innovation officer.”
There are more.
This is the Jeb Bush pipeline, the leaders committed to his vision of disruption and privatization. Of course, you won’t find those two words on Jeb’s website, but those are the results of his convictions, and the proof of those convictions can be found in Florida, the state whose education policy he has controlled for 20 years.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think the privatizers have their eye on the Escambia County, FL, public schools. While it not a gigantic urban district, it is a district with about 41,000 students, many of whom are poor minorities. Last year there was a referendum to make the school board appointed instead of democratic. A lot of money was pumped into the election, and the current superintendent has only one year left on his contract. The supporters claimed that this school board shift would result in “better candidates for superintendent from all over the country.” This proposal passed by a narrow margin. I think they will appoint a privatization stooge that will seek to “reform” the district. I predict the new stooge will monetize the low performing, mostly minority schools.
What a horror!!! Unfortunately, the Deformers have a lot of money with which to spread propaganda of the “better candidates fro superintendent from all over the country” type in such cases. Of course, what that means is “candidates recommended by Chiefs for Change that will continue to push high-stakes standardized testing, VAM, school grading, and privatization via charters and vouchers.
What would truly turn the tide on Deform? my take is this: The turning point will occur ONLY WHEN WE GET RID OF THE FEDERAL STANDARDIZED TESTING MANDATE. And how might that happen? Well, I think it will only happen if BOTH OF THE MAJOR TEACHERS’ UNIONS COMMIT TO MASSIVE ORGANIZING TO END THAT MANDATE. They are the organizations with the money and power to get that message out. Until they do this, they are complicit. Crumbs in the form of occasional negative states about overtesting are not enough. The unions need to be very, very clear that their position is that the federal testing mandate must end. And then they need to lobby politicians, issue white papers, write legislation forbidding the feds from mandating preK-12 testing, organize protests, and conduct a media campaign.
Parents and kids HATE the testing. Such a declaration of war, by the unions, on standardized testing would be met with overwhelming grassroots support. Soon, every politician would be quaking in his or her overpriced shoes and rushing to get on board.
and yet year upon year, the unions somehow never lead this rebellion
The federal testing mandate is attached to receiving Title 1 funds. We tested grades 3-8 prior to NCLB in order to get Title 1 to support compensatory reading, math and ESL. However, the standardized test used was one that had gone through the validation process. We started with the CAT (Calif. Achievement Test) and then switched to the Terra Nova. These tests were not above grade level like the tests based on the CCSS.
I don’t want to be too hard on the unions here. They are doing an AMAZING job in pushing back against privatization. Very, very important.
I heard that the recent NEA meeting in Houston heard many of the candidates then voted that the candidates’ views on garters would not be taken into account when choosing a candidate to endorse.
I am dumbfounded. Do they not understand that 90% of charters are non union and that chArters divert money from public schools and cause Union teachers to lose their jobs?
Everyone can be better informed by taking a look at this report on Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. He was wealthy enough to start his foundation and that has been a magnet for other flows of money. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Excellence_in_Education
key words underpinning all of that Jeb Bush educational theory: magnet for money
AKA, Chiefs for Cash
yes!
Chiefs for Change–all the change in the public treasury.
Chiefs for Cha-ching!
I think that’s the hardest part to accept about “ed reformers”. How they completely dominate the policy discussion but don’t actually offer anything to public school students, except urging them to transfer to a charter or public school.
Oh, and tests. Don’t forget the constant scolding on the tests. That’s the other “upside” for public school students.
Ed reform is super duper unless you happen to attend a public school. Then it doesn’t offer much of anything. That this doesn’t occur to any of them is to me a blinking red light that it might be an echo chamber, but it seems to not penetrate “the movement”, no matter how much local pushback they receive. Scream “protecting the status quo!” enough and you won’t hear anything, I guess.
The previous superintendent of Utah schools was one of these jokers. NO experience whatsoever in education. He was a (bad) lawyer who managed to finagle a job as superintendent for one of the poorest districts in the state. He lost tons of teachers from that district because of his nasty and idiotic policies. So, of course, the state gave him the job. He was SO unpopular, and his policies were SO bad, that even in a state that doesn’t pay much attention to education, people were furious. He was gone after 18 months. No love lost here, I can tell you that.
The subsequent (and current) state superintendent is a teacher. Go figure.
Don’t these districts do their homework before they hire someone? A dead give away is someone with a business degree and no education experience. When districts see this, they should toss the application in the round file.
With these people comes all the support from the oligarchs. People think that with one of these connected sups in place, they are going to get to roll in some of that oligarchical green. Case in point: Elia and Gates in Hillsborough Co., Florida. But then, it turns out, the VAM costs a lot more than Gates provides. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/hillsborough-county-schools-loses-both-gates-money-and-financial-reserves/
In Utah’s case, everyone knew about this guy and the destruction he had done to the school district. They put him in as state superintendent anyway. A ton of teacher from the district he ruined, and the other districts that got teachers in the wholesale fleeing of the district, screamed to high heaven about it, but the state board hired him anyway.
The state board was composed mostly of businessmen and lobbyists at the time. The school board member for my area owned three charter schools. The state legislature had made a policy to put in school board members that got rid of some of our VERY good board members by essentially stacking the way the candidates were selected.
That changed as the state superintendent trashed teachers and public schools. About the same time, several would-be board candidates sued the state to stop the secretive way of choosing board candidates. They won in the courts. And the businessmen and charter school operators on the board were mostly voted out in favor of actual teachers.
I think Jeb Bush is doing more damage to the United States than his brother G. W. Bush did as president for eight years.
I don’t know. It’s hard to beat the Iraq War and the horrific costs and fallout from that. 6 trillion and counting. Enough money to have put solar panels on the roof of every enclosed structure in the United States–every pubic and commercial building, school, house, doghouse twice over. But yeah, Jeb has done some real damage.
Good Point. Jeb might have to have another decade or two to catch up to his brother.
I doubt the superintendent of my local school system was chosen by Jeb, but he tries very hard to get on Jeb’s radar screen so that he too might be able one day to cash in on his administrative cynicism. He’s certainly doing all he can to get into Fordham’s good graces.
Tell your superintendent he is trying to get on a dead horse. The disruption machine is the status quo and the times, they are a’changing.
Nice closing phrase, Diane. You should write a song using that!
Greg should buy his superintendent a copy of your new book on the Counter-Reformation. This might encourage him or her to switch sides before all the rest of the Vichy swine do.
Chiefs for Ka-CHING !!
&, does anyone know or can someone who was at the Houston NEA RA comment on Diane’s 6:18 PM comment above, RE: candidate endorsement regardless of his/her stance on charters? Is the convention over yet? Will a candidate actually be endorsed early, yet again?
Wait, wait, don’t tell me…Joe!