This is an astonishing report about the destruction and privatization of public schools in Oakland, California, and the billionaires who facilitated the looting of that city. The article by Eugene Stovall appeared in “Black Agenda Report.” The audacity of this attack on public education is astonishing. The mechanism for the destroyers were graduates of the Broad Academy, known as Broadies. Since billionaire Eli Broad gave Yale University $100 million to take charge of his program, someone should warn Yale about its record.
Read it all. It will take your breath away.
Stovall writes:
Eli Broad (rhymes with “toad”) conconcted a scheme to privatize Oakland’s public schools and produce a revenue stream for his billionaire cronies.
“Operating unethically and illegally, Broad managers used their training to cripple and plunder Oakland’s schools.”
Eli Broad is a liberal Democrat. He opposes Trump’s Muslim ban, immigration policies and withdrawal from the climate change treaty. In fact, like Democratic billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Blloomberg, Broad opposes Trump’s entire right wing agenda. However, just as the Trump Foundation created the Trump University scam, the Eli Broad Foundation created the Broad Superintendent Academy, an educational enterprise that has become so successful that it is now associated with the home of the Skull and Bones Society, Yale University. But despite its aura of respectability, the Broad Superintendent Academy is no less a scam than Trump University.
Billionaires Want More
Eli Broad created two Fortune 500 companies, Kaufmann-Broad Homes and SunAmerica Bank. With an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion, Eli Broad ranks as Forbes Magazine’s 78th wealthiest man in the United States. But like many billionaires who create mechanisms to increase their wealth, Broad created a “non-profit” academy as his entré into the private education market. The Broad Superintendent Academy attracts applicants who willingly pay exorbitant tuition fees for the chance to get placed in a top management public education position. Broad academy applicants do not need educational degrees or teaching certificates. Neither are they experienced teachers or successful school administrators. The Broad academy is uninterested in strategies for improving student achievement and does not teach its students about fundamental educational issues, pedagogies and methodologies. The Broad academy only indoctrinates and commits its students to the privatization of public education and the generation of revenues for private corporations. Broad Academy attendees are taught the disruptive management tactics needed to ignore “best educational practices.” They are taught how to overcome objections when mandating school closures and school property sell offs to the billionaire-owners of private schools. When Broad placed his academy graduates in management positions at the Oakland Unified School District, they left a trail of fiscal mismanagement, budget overruns and demoralized staff, students and teachers. Operating unethically and illegally, Broad managers used their training to cripple and plunder Oakland’s schools.
The Broadies Who Plundered Oakland’s Schools
In 1998, Eli Broad recruited Jerry Brown, the former Governor of California and a former presidential contender, to become mayor of Oakland. Broad needed someone with Brown’s political clout with the Democratic Party to implement his plan to privatize Oakland’s schools. Broad had been a close personal friend of Jerry Brown’s father, Pat Brown, and had financed all of Jerry Brown’s political campaigns. Now Broad realized California’s top Democrat and his control over the statewide Democratic Party machine gave him a unique opportunity to make money from private education.
Broad’s scheme to privatize Oakland’s public education resources required the support of other billionaires capitalizing on the private education market. Netflix founder, Reed Hastings, a Bay Area resident with a net worth of $3.7 billion, was associated with the multi-million dollar Rocketship Charter Schools. The late founder of The Gap, Don Fisher, with a net worth of $3.3 billion, was associated with the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), one of the largest chains of charter schools in the country. With a net worth of $3.5 billion, John Doerr, partner in the investment firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, the firm that brought Google and Amazon to the market, cofounded the New Schools Venture Fund which sucks public school resources into for-profit K-12 corporations. Another critical partner in Broad’s clique of billionaires was the bishop of Oakland’s catholic diocese, a representative of the multi-billion dollar, worldwide Vatican empire. With its profound interest in co-opting public funds and real estate for its own network of parochial schools, Oakland’s catholic bishop gave Broad’s unholy coalition a solid block of votes that not only put Jerry Brown in City Hall, but changed Oakland’s charter into the ‘strong mayor” form of government, that gave “Boss” Brown the power function as Eli Broad’s “bag man.” In return for its electoral support, the diocese of Oakland received a multi-million dollar cathedral on the downtown shore of Lake Merritt.
Once “Boss” Brown controlled City Hall, Reed Hastings went into action. Hastings funded another charter amendment that gave the mayor the authority to pack the school board with his own unelected appointees. Greasing the wheels of the Democratic machine, Hastings financed the passage of a State Assembly bill that permitted charter schools to operate without accreditation and to hire teachers without teaching credentials. Then Hastings funded the Proposition 39 campaign to force local school districts to share revenues with charter schools. “Boss” Brown’s buddy, Democratic Governor Gray Davis, who later was recalled on corruption charges, put Reed Hastings on the State Board of Education. In the meantime, Don Fisher gave Jerry Brown’s wife, Gust Brown, the position of CEO over The Gap Corporation.
Getting Control Of The Schools … And The Money
In 2001, the Oakland Unified School District had a $37 million budget deficit. The district’s fiscal managers decided to resolve the shortfall by borrowing from its construction fund, a practice other California school districts in similar situations routinely used. But Brown and Broad saw the school deficit as an opportunity to advance their scheme.
Brown contacted Tom Henry, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Team (FCMAT), a firm located in Sacramento and staffed by lobbyists and political hacks. Brown used Henry’s services, on occasion, when he was governor. FCMAT did “hit” jobs for anyone willing to pay. Brown paid Tom Henry to prevent Oakland from solving its fiscal problem. FCMAT lobbied the State Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, the former Democratic Assemblyman from Alameda, to rule that Oakland’s plan to borrow construction funds was a violation of state and local law. Then Henry worked with Don Perata, the State Senator for Alameda County, to lobby a bill through the state legislature that forced the Oakland school district to accept a $100 million loan to cover its $37 million shortfall. In addition, the bill put the Oakland school district under the control of a state administrator to be appointed by Jack O’Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Education. When Jack O’Connell campaigned for state superintendent, he received financial support from Eli Broad’s billionaire cabal. Reed Hastings contributed $250,000, John Doerr $205,000 and Eli Broad, himself, contributed $100,000 to O’Connell’s campaign. With the state takeover of Oakland’s schools, O’Connell agreed to appoint anyone “Boss” Brown wanted. Thus Eli Broad and his cronies got complete control over the $63 million slush fund forced on the Alameda County tax payers. Jerry Brown described the state takeover as a “total win” for Oakland’s schools. In reality, the state takeover was a total win for Eli Broad and his billionaire cronies. For the tax payers forced to repay the loan and for the Oakland school children whose schools were plundered by malicious billionaires, the state takeover was a disaster.
The Table Was Set And The Feasting Began
The Democratic state superintendent of education, Jack O’Connell, appointed Randolph Ward, a graduate of Broad’s superintendent academy, as Oakland’s state administrator. Ward appointed Arnold Carter, another Broad academy graduate, to serve as his chief of staff. Both state administrators appointed a bevy of Broadies to fill the Oakland school district’s top management positions. Then Ward implemented Broad’s privatization agenda. He closed public schools and opened charter schools. He created additional management positions for Broad academy graduates and issued multi-million dollar consultation and construction contracts to private corporations. Randolph Ward gave Broad’s billionaire cronies complete access to the $63 million slush fund created by top Democrats, Jerry Brown, Bill Lockyer, Don Perata, Jack O’Connell, Tom Henry as well as other members of “Boss” Brown’s Democratic machine.
When the state took over the Oakland schools in 2002, Randolph Ward fired the superintendent, Dennis Chaconas. When Ward resigned in 2006, Broadie Kimberly Statham replaced him. A year later, Statham left and her chief of staff, Vincent Matthews, another Broadie, took her place.
In 2008, Oakland Assemblyman Sandre Swanson broke with “Boss” Brown and introduced a bill to force the state to relinquish its control over Oakland schools. Eli Broad gave a Sacramento lobbyist $350,000 to oppose Swanson’s legislation, but Swanson’s bill passed and local control was returned to the Oakland School Board. In July 2009, the school board hired Anthony “Tony” Smith as the district’s superintendent.
Smith was not associated with Eli Broad. However, even though local school board resumed control over the schools, Eli Broad was not finished, He funded a front group, Greater Oakland [GO], which financed the election of five Broadies to the Oakland school board. In 2014, the Broadie school board forced school superintendent Tony Smith to resign and appointed another graduate from Broad’s academy, Antwan Wilson , Oakland’s next school superintendent, resuming Broad’s decade-long privatization scheme.
A Decade of Corruption
Under Randolph Ward, Oakland Schools struggled with the overwhelming debt imposed by the Democratic Party machine. When Ward left Oakland, millions of dollars went missing with him. Though FCMAT received a multi-year contract to help manage the debt, Tom Henry provided little substantive support, financial or operational. In 2007, Jerry Brown left Oakland for his cattle ranch in Northern California. In its 2007-08 report, an Alameda County grand jury investigation found that the Oakland Unified School District had been looted.
Between 2003 and 2006, Ward shut down 14 public schools and opened 13 charter schools. He increased the district’s shortfall by nearly $15 million. Ward’s successor, Kimberly Statham, another Broadie, opened 4 charter schools and Broadie Vincent Matthews, who followed Stratham as state administrator, opened 9 charter schools. Under state control, the district’s debt ballooned from $37 million to $89 million while school enrollment, the district’s primary source of funding, dropped from 55,000 in 2002 to 38,000 in 2009. When Assemblyman Sandré Swanson forced the state to return local control, Oakland’s schools had $5.6 million less than what was reported and a total of $9 million unaccounted for and completely missing. But with the return of local control, the district’s fiscal mismanagement problems only worsened. Eli Broad now directed his Broadie school board to support his schemes.
Antwan Wilson: The Most Corrupt Broadie Of Them All
When the Broadie school board replaced Tony Smith with Antwan Wilson, it hired a thoroughly corrupt, incompetent and morally reprehensible superintendent to run the Oakland Unified School District. Ignoring all budgetary, ethical and legal constraints, Wilson zealously implemented Broad’sprivatization plan. Wilson overspent the school district budget by overpaying Broadie administrators and conniving with Broadie consultants. In 2015, though the school board authorized only $10.4 million, Wilson paid consultants $22.6 million. The board approved only $7.1 million for administrators and supervisors, but Wilson spent $22.3 million. From July 2014 to January 2015, Wilson spent $22.3 million on district office managers while Smith spent only $13.1 million the entire previous year. From 2013-2014, Tony Smith spent $10 million on classified managers, but in 2015-2016, Antwan Wilson spent $22.3 million. Under Wilson, the number of students shrunk, but spending for administrators and supervisors with teaching certificates grew from $13.9 million in 2013-2014 to $20 million in 2015-2016. Wilson increased spending on outside consultants from $22.7 million in 2013-2014 to $28.3 million in 2016-2017. In Wilson’s last year with Oakland schools, he exceeded the budget for consultants by 32 percent.
These revelations galvanized Tom Henry’s FCMAT into action. Henry immediately lobbied for another state take over even as he collaborated with the Broadie school board to close even more schools and make even more valuable real estate available to billionaire-owned charter schools. But without Boss Brown’s backing, Henry was unsuccessful in getting Governor Gavin Newson’s support for another state takeover.
Open the article and read the ending. It doesn’t get better for the students of Oakland. Eli Broad, Jerry Brown, and their allies used Oakland as their Petri dish. Oakland was raided and looted. Antwan Wilson left Oakland to become chancellor of the D.C.schools, where he was booted out after seeking preferential treatment for his own child. Upon Wilson’s abrupt departure, the mayor of D.C. replaced him with Lewis Ferebee, superintendent of Indianapolis, who is also a graduate of the Broad Academy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Warn Yale?
Ha ha ha.
The reason Yale teamed up with Broad and Company is quite specifically because they are in bed with him on privatization.
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Yale School of Management has been neck deep in education “reform” for a long time.
See “Racing to the Top of education Reform is focus of Yale SOM conference” (2010)
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deep connections, not surface connections
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“an educational enterprise that has become so successful that it is now associated with the home of the Skull and Bones Society, Yale University”
Stoval writes that as if being associated with Skull and Bones is something admirable.
The “Society” is little more than a power brokers club whose members come from the wealthiest families in America and has a history of skull-duggery.
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This well documented report explains why we need to get money out of politics. It explains the how and why Jerry Brown, a reasonable liberal, failed to protect Oakland’s public schools. His connections to Eli Broad went all the way back to his father.
Silicon Valley has one of the highest concentrations of uber-wealthy people in the world. Broad and his wealthy cronies ganged up on the people of Oakland. They gained control of the schools to pick the bones of a democratic institution that serves the city’s young people. If billionaires continue to manipulate the reins of power, there is little hope for the rest of us, particularly in minority majority communities.
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Excellent synopsis about the political machinations at work to disrupt Oakland’s public schools. In addition, the other gears in the machine include: GO Public Schools, the propaganda arm (district and charters are the same and we just need to get along), funded by Dreyers Ice Cream gazillionaire Gary Rogers, along with Bloomberg (yeah, that guy) and the Waltons. The group works in tandem with Educate78, a charter incubator that puts out all kinds of biased, test-score “school quality” data to justify school closures and steer parents out of their neighborhood schools and into charter schools. Finally, the disruption wouldn’t be complete without the long arm of CCSA, who has their stench in every piece of privatization legislation passed by our billionaire-bought school board. Through numerous PRA requests, we know that board members review any legislation around privatization through CCSA to make sure they give it their stamp of approval before the board vote. CCSA essentially runs Oakland schools now; the board can’t think for themselves any more.
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When CCSA buys school boards, they choose people who take their marching orders from CCSA.
Watch Los Angeles election, where billionaires are opening up the money spigot to elect charter bots.
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Broad is not a liberal Democrat; he’s a neoconservative masquerading as a moderate Democrat…same as his DFER cronies. Effectively quashed in California two years before the Governator left office, the Republican party resurfaced throughout the state in the guise of various grassroots organizations and power mongers like Broad, the CCSA, Tom Torlakson, Marshal Tuck and Reed Hastings.
The Oakland School District was on crash and burn trajectory long before Broad arrived on the scene and there are flaws in Stovall’s analysis, but the much of his piece rings true.
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Given that the terms “liberal” and “Democrat” have been coopted by wolves in sheep’s clothing and have therefore been divorced from their original meaning, he probably IS a “liberal Democrat”.
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The politicking of the USCCB and state Catholic Conferences is anathema in a nation founded on the principle of guaranteed freedom from religious persecution. Religions dictating the terms of reproductive medical care, tax support for religious schools, limiting insurance coverage, etc. unAmerican!.
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A poll currently in the news- group claiming to represent Christian lawmakers asked, “Do you believe Americans would be better off if more Christians served in elected office?” Currently, nearly 90% of the Senate and House are Christian while only 65% of the population is, and 1 in 4 people state no religion.
Public institutions becoming religious extensions are a threat that some in business callously ignored. Unexpected- wealthy libertarians embraced the opportunity of an alliance with the two major religions- Catholic and Christian Right to put themselves in power.
Broad’s legacy is Espinosa v. Montana.
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Where I live in north Florida, some counties proposing laws to make the county a “pro-life sanctuary.” The county commissioners will at least put the issue on the ballot. This mixing of politics and religion is out of control.
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One suggestion to the original author. Change the word “liberal” to “neoliberal”.
“Neoliberalism is a controversial term that refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.”
https://mises.org/wire/whats-difference-between-liberalism-and-neoliberalism
adjective: liberal
open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
(of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
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Advertising corporation CBS Outdoor entered into a 20 year agreement with the Port of Oakland in 2005 to construct and operate a double-sided LED general advertising billboard located at the eastern approach of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge on Port property “Parcel 9B”. This was a good deal for CBS Outdoor corporation generating millions of dollars in advertising rent annually.
But this was also a sweat-heart deal for Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), a privately managed charter school, that had been created by then Mayor Jerry Brown.
The agreement included a promise that CBS for 20 years would send a portion of the millions in advertising rent to Oakland School for the Arts.
In 2018 Audit posted on Oakland School for the Arts’ webpage shows that CBS Outdoor had sent to Jerry Brown’s charter school over $5 million dollars, approximately 35% of that year’s “Parcel 9B” Port land located billboard advertising rent.
The millions in revenue stream to Jerry Brown’s privately managed charter school, Oakland School for the Arts, from a promise brokered in 2005 will likely continue to flow Oakland School for the Arts to at least until 2025.
2014 CBS Outdoor became Outfront corporation but under its new named continued to deliver annually millions in promised revenue to Jerry Brown’s Oakland School for the Arts privartely managed charter school.
Some may wonder how Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown got CBS Outdoor to promise to send millions in advertising revenue to his privately managed charter school?
The Oakland Mayor appoints the members of the Oakland Port Authority governing board. No quid pro quo benefiting Jerry Brown’s charter school. No millions in advertising revenue from CBS Outdoor being located on Port Authority land at the toil booth for the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Bridge.
Millions associated with one word: location! Jerry Brown’s brokering promise of millions for his privately managed charter school is associated with four words: abuse of elected office. Because elected officials are suppose to operate in the public interest, not a private interest. Jerry Brown’s Oakland School for the Arts in a private interest and a public private conflict when he was Mayor of Oakland.
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