Andrew Ujifusa writes in Education Week about a massive number of leaked emails from government officials in Puerto Rico that have caused an uproar on the Island. The emails touch on many issues, and education is one of them. In the wake of the data dump, many people are calling no the governor of Puerto Rico to resign.
Puerto Rico’s political leadership is unraveling at high speed, pushed along by an ex-education secretary’s arrest last week and the leak of private messages between Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and his top officials that include derogatory comments about the teachers’ union president.
Julia Keleher, who was appointed by Rosselló as secretary in late 2016 and served as the island’s schools chief until April, was arrested last Wednesday on fraud charges related to how she handled millions of dollars in government contracts. Her arrest reignited ongoing debates about her and the governor’s successful push to expand educational choice, close hundreds of schools, and reform the island’s education bureaucracy, as well as her status as a non-Puerto Rican.
Then on Saturday, the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico published hundreds of pages of private messages—mostly in Spanish—between Rosselló and some of his top advisers. The leaked messages have caused a political firestorm on the island, leading to several resignations and growing calls for the governor to step down.
Among the messages’ targets was the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, the island’s teachers’ union, and its president, Aida Díaz. In a Dec. 19, 2018 exchange, the then-chief financial officer of Puerto Rico, Christian Sobrino, responded to a statement from AMPR about union negotiations by saying in English, “I DONT [sic] NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS!”
If that epithet sounds familiar, you might be thinking of former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who once called the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”
Four days earlier, in response to other comments from Díaz in support of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, Sobrino said he was “salivating” at the idea of shooting a person or people. However, it’s not entirely clear from Sobrino’s remark about shooting if he meant Cruz, Díaz, or both of them, or someone else. In the messages, Rosselló responded that this would be helpful to him. (Sobrino announced his resignation on Sunday after these and other messages were made public.)
The governor also referred to former Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, a staunch proponent of charters and vouchers, as a “monster,” upon learning that he was charging the bankrupt island $250 an hour to be a “consultant.”
On a related matter, a story from the Associated Press says:
Federal officials said Wednesday morning that former Education Secretary Julia Keleher; former Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration head Ángela Ávila-Marrero; businessmen Fernando Scherrer-Caillet and Alberto Velázquez-Piñol, and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, who are sisters, were arrested by the FBI on 32 counts of fraud and related charges.
The alleged fraud involves $15.5 million in federal funding between 2017 and 2019. Thirteen million was spent by the Department of Education during Keleher’s time as secretary while $2.5 million was spent by the insurance administration when Ávila was the director.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Paul Pastorek, along with Deborah Gist, Tony Bennett and Kevin Huffman were announced by Frederick Hess and Cynthia Brown (in a 2011 article at the Center for American Progress) as the “shiniest stars in the school reform firmament.” The article continues, “The federal government should provide political cover to states to drive implementation…philanthropic foundations can provide the resources to change the system.”
Speaking of Kevin Huffman, Michelle Rhee’s first husband, he’s a New America Fellow. New America is the tank of Eric Schmidt (Google). Its COO is a school privatizer. And, its infamy is based on the alleged firing of Barry Lynn’s group for exposing the threat of the power of technology corporations.
Where are they now? Gist is driving the reform agenda in Tulsa. Tony Bennett Left Indiana for Florida, then resigned in disgrace because of allegations that he rigged charter grades to favor a campaign donor. Huffman pushed charters in TN and is now with some billionaire-funded group.
Paul Pastorek is also busy writing reports that diminish the graduation fraud and abusive discipline at T.M. Landry School in Louisiana. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/tm-landry-fbi-college-admissions.html and https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/education/article_9067d6ec-5d38-11e9-b5cf-bf447abadfe2.html
BREAKING (and off-topic)
Here’s another leaked email story.
I check Michael Kohlhaas’ blog daily.
The latest is that the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and CCSA’s top charter operators actually write Nick Melvoin’s Board Resolutions — not just re-write, as was described in an earlier Kohlhaas’ piece, where they re-wrote Ref Rodriguez’ piece to their liking, and Ref just presents it as his own.
No, in this case, Nick just emails CCSA and asks them to write it — you charter honchos can collaborate if you wish amongst yourselves, first, if you want. They then write it in its entirety, then Melvoin will just present it at a live LAUSD Board meeting, and act as if it was his idea and act as if it was Nick himself who wrote the motion, when he most certainly did not.
You see Nick Melvoin is such “an independent voice”, who is all about “putting kids first.” (SEE BELOW)
This all a secret from the general public, btw, as CCSA’s Cassy Horton is careful to say in all her emails (contained in the Kohlhaas’ piece)
“We ask that you please do not forward or otherwise share this document.”
… and also say in the emails’ subject lines
“CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT FOR YOUR REVIEW”
… hmmm… “confidential” ? Not anymore it’s not. 😉
Kohlhaas sets up this story by pointing out how
1) The L.A. Times endorsed Melvoin, in large part, because he “is an independent voice” that is needed on the LAUSD Board.
2) Melvoin, in his inauguration speech, said that everything that he will do while serving on the LAUSD Board will be about about “putting kids first.”
Then Kohlhaas tells the story totally contracting these claims, providing smoking gun emails to back up this accusation.
He always has a snarky cartoon with a word balloon. In this case, here’s Nick Melvoin (w/Kohlhaas providing the dialogue, of course)
CCSA ‘s resolution … errr… excuse me … Board Member Nick Melvoin’s (COUGH! COUGH!) resolution Is about setting up a system and favorable conditions for charter orgs not just to invade traditional public school campuses via co-location. This is about ways for them to seize the land outright.
The system will be “performance” or test-score-based. Traditional Public Schools will lose the campuses — some of which they’ve existed on those campuses on for over 100 years — to the CCSA charter school orgs that bought Melvoin’s election. Those poor TPS’s will lose their campuses simply because their students have lower test scores compared to the students in those test-prep-factory charter schools.
Hunger Games for school campuses!!!
WTF???!!!
Never heard of that one … till reading Kohlhaas’ piece.
Read it:
http://michaelkohlhaas.org/wp/2019/07/15/in-january-2018-just-mere-months-after-millions-of-dollars-in-charter-school-money-bought-icky-sticky-nicky-melvoins-election-to-the-lausd-school-board-he-asked-the-california-charte/
Keep in mind that CCSA and its various backers, including Netflix billionaire Reed Hastings, pumped in $10 million to get Nick elected, and like a regular john with his favorite hooker, CCSA wants to get their money’s worth.
I love how Kohlhaas refers to Nick’s right-hand woman as “his utterly satanic senior advisor Allison Holdorff Polhill.”
Don’t mince words, Dude!
“DeVos and her federal education department have certainly been involved. DeVos’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Jason Botel has been in “close communication” with Puerto Rico’s Education Secretary Julia Keleher for months since the storm, and in a blogpost published in January, Botel wrote, “We look forward to supporting students, educators and community members as they not only rebuild what’s been lost, but also improve, rethink and renew.”
In an interview with The Intercept, Keleher, Puerto Rico’s education secretary, said that a local law firm helped them craft the bill, two law firms from the mainland that had experience working with charter schools, and a team from the federal department of education. “We did have a series of technical assistance from the U.S education department,” she said. “They didn’t comment on the bill, but they did help us think through it, and helped us define what we thought should be the final set of things to include.”
Usual ed reform product. Literally no involvement or input at all from anyone who uses those schools or works in the schools.
That’s how they keep their work “pure”. They exclude anyone who might have a question or concern or criticism. Everyone agrees! It’s miraculous how easy it is when one deliberately and rigorously excludes all dissenters.
I’d like to blame it on the Trump Administration but read the names. It would be identical under the Obama Administration. It can’t be anything else- it’s the same people.
painful and so carefully ignored truth: READ THE NAMES. Identical under the Obama Admin.
My husband just caught up with his WSJ reading, & ripped out a diasgusting, horrendous article about Providence, Rhode Island schools & teachers (Page A16, Opinion page, under “Review & Outlook,” Monday, July 8, 2019): “An Education Horror Show”–“a case study in public school failure & lack of accountability.”
The “horror show” nick comes from a “93-page review by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, conducted in May at the request of the R.I. education commissioner…”
Diane, what can you tell us about J.H.I.f.E.P.?
Their report blames the teachers & Providence Teachers Union, praises the “successful” Providence charter schools & blames…”collective bargaining agreements (that) limit the ability of school principals to fire lousy teachers.” (Oh, Senor Swacker, this should make your blood boil!)
If a teacher(s) from Providence, R.I. is/are out there, would love to read some comments
from you. And…if anyone can provide a link to this, please do…I never write the correct link…
I don’t know the JHU unit.
Oh, & I thought the aforementioned “Review & Outlook” would be most appropriate to this
post, as it begins:
“The National Education Assn. held its annual convention this past weekend, & the Democratic presidential candidates made their pilgrimage to promise the teachers union more money–and even more money.”