A new study confirms what many critics of the Broad Foundation’s Superintendents’ Academy long suspected. Despite Eli Broad’s boasting, his program had no positive effects on student performance, but the “graduates” expanded privatization by charter schools.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Month 202X, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1 –27
DOI: 10.3102/01623737221113575
https://doi.org/10.3102/016237372211135
Public-Sector Leadership and Philanthropy: The Case of Broad Superintendents
Thomas S. Dee
Stanford University
Susanna Loeb
Brown University
Ying Shi
Syracuse University
Using a unique panel data set on the 300 larg-est school districts, we examined the impact of Broad superintendents on a broad array of dis-trict outcomes. Our results indicate that the hir-ing of a Broad superintendent had no clear effects on outcomes such as student completion rates, enrollment, the closure of traditional public schools, and per-pupil spending on instruction or on support services. However, one exception to this pattern is particularly notable. We do find evidence that the hiring of a Broad superinten-dent results in a growing charter school sector. Specifically, we find that the hiring of Broad superintendents is associated with a trend toward increased charter school enrollment and a growth in the number of charter schools that extends beyond the short tenure of the typical Broad trainee.
We view the overall implications of these findings as nuanced. On the one hand, this Broad Foundation initiative was successful in placing new leaders with distinctive characteristics and training in a substantial number of U.S. school districts. Yet, we also find that these leaders had unusually short tenures and no clear effects on a variety of district outcomes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Supes & Dupes, Supes & Dupes …
Duperintendents
Broadly speaking: Superduperintendents
a few of THOSE still getting called onto political shows to speak as education “experts”
The Broad Foundation’s primary goal is privatization. Student success is secondary at best.
“Yet, we also find that these leaders had unusually short tenures and no clear effects on a variety of district outcomes.” And how many of these “Superintendents” were forced out by scandal and miraculously popped up somewhere else, having failed upwards? They “succeeded” only in humiliating and demoralizing dedicated teachers and squandering precious resources on testing and data collection based on inauthentic “standards” and the unconscionable narrowing of the curriculum. Not to mention having wreaked irrevocable havoc on children’s psyches.
Yes, when I read that they had no clear effects, I thought immediately of John Deasy, who quite clearly had a HUGE effect on the LA district (and not in a good way). Only someone one who was trying to ignore suchnegative impacts could claim people like Deasy had no clear effects.
A large part of the problem is that some of the same university departments (eg, at Stanford) and even sometimes “researchers” who were once rooting for reform” are now pretending to assess it’s outcomes in a non biased way.
On e you lose your credibility, everything you say should be taken with a block of salt.
Eli Broad’s goal in Los Angeles was to take over half the school district’s students with charters, effectively bankrupting the public school district. Deasy set out to privatize and terminate professional teachers at will. He bought a tech evaluation platform — still in use — aimed at firing teachers. He hired an army of teacher attacking administrators, more than was allowed by California law, like he did in Stockton. He sided against the school district in court regarding tenure. He fired a substitute teacher on his first day for following the teacher’s lesson plans instead of doing immediate “rigor” test prep.
Siding against us in court was his undoing. Oh, and I forgot to mention the FBI raid of his office for insider trading with Apple. That was, for some odd reason, not his undoing. Eli Broad’s goal was the elimination of public education. Deasy almost accomplished that goal of total destruction.
We are still here! But almost mortally wounded.
I couldn’t remember all the details of John Deasy’s deal to buy Apple iPads for every student and teacher in LA, loaded with Pearson curriculum. But here is some of them:
“Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy and his chief deputy developed a special relationship with executives from the companies that won a key technology contract, records show, raising new questions about the bidding process in a $1-billion effort to provide a computer to every student in the nation’s second-largest school system.
This collaboration between top L.A. Unified officials and those from tech giant Apple Inc. and Pearson, detailed in public records, underscores findings from an internal school district report, which warned that officials’ actions could have created an impression of unfairness in the bidding.
It appears that the officials began discussing the school system’s effort to supply students computers equipped with online curriculum at least two years before the contract was approved.
In one email, from May 24, 2012, then-Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino seems to strategize with higher-ups from Pearson, an international education-services company, on how to ensure that it got the job.
“I believe we would have to make sure that your bid is the lowest one,” wrote Aquino, who was an executive with a Pearson affiliate before joining L.A. Unified.
https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-ipads-deasy-20140825-story.html
The iPad curriculum was thrown together with tape and glue. Turns out the iPads didn’t even work on the SBAC. It would have been a colossal waste of a billion dollars, notwithstanding Deasy and his team’s sleazy, underhanded, back room spending habits.
And did you say Jaime Aquino worked for Pearson before LAUSD? I didn’t know that. What a bunch of liars and crooks. Unbelievable.
Deasy’s last act as L.A. Superinquisitor was to use the district credit card to take an all expense paid trip to Asia. Unbelievable.
But, other than that , Deasy had “no clear effects on a variety of district outcomes.” according to the Stanford and Brown researchers.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Diane,
fyi
the doi link does not bring up the report
I believe there is a 2022 study. This one by the same authors was published in 2020.
Public-Sector Leadership and Venture Philanthropy: The Case of Broad Superintendents
Author/s: Thomas S. Dee , Susanna Loeb , Ying Shi
Year of Publication: 2020
Major philanthropic initiatives that incorporate features of venture-capital practices have become increasingly prominent, particularly in K-12 public education. In this study, we provide empirical evidence on the reach, character, and impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a prominent and controversial venture-philanthropic initiative designed to transform leadership in the nation’s largest school districts. Using a novel dataset on all Broad trainees and a linked panel data set of all large school districts over 20 years, we find that Broad superintendents have had extensive reach (e.g., serving nearly 3 million students at their peak). We also show that, within districts that hired Broad trainees, Broad superintendents were 40 percent more likely to be Black than their non-Broad peers, but also had tenures that were 18 percent shorter. Panel-based estimates provide evidence that Broad-trained leaders had no clear effects on several district outcomes such as enrollment, school closures, per-pupil instructional and support-service spending, and student completion rates. However, Broad-trained leaders initiate a trend towards an increased number of charter schools and higher charterschool enrollment.
PDF icon Download 07/2020
Primary Research Area:
Other
Topic Areas:
Choice, Leadership Quality, Other, Societal Context
Education Level:
K-12
APA Citation
Dee, T.S., Loeb, S., & Shi, Y. (2020). Public-Sector Leadership and Venture Philanthropy: The Case of Broad Superintendents.
Brenda, this seems to be the 2022 link:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/01623737221113575
Yup. Oakland got 4 of these Broadies in quick succession, along with 46 charter schools. Deasy left LA, laid waste to Stockton, hired dozens of admin at $250K each, then bails out of there, leaving Stockton with a $30M budget hole. The clear path to destruction never deviates from the Broadie playbook. And yet these districts keep hiring these people. Because this time it will be different?? Don’t think so.
Perhaps not all the readers know that Broad is pronounced like ‘road’ or ‘toad’. Oakland suffered under a terribly long Broadent infestation. Broadents are filthy creatures who can bring disease and destruction to you, your children, and your property.
I do wonder what factors they considered. I suspect they did not address many of the issues that teachers and parents might have considered as important. Nice to know that their preference for charter growth was so evident, but given the penchant for data, I’m sure there are other factors that could be “studied.”
I thought it was well known that was the purpose of the so-called Broad Academy from the start, to train disruptive-specialists to infiltrate the public schools from the top down, like ras-Putin’s agent Traitor Trump, so they could spread havoc from inside, with an end goal to destroy their target, the public schools.
Correct.
Of course it had no affect. It’s the same system with less qualified teachers. Leave them to stand naked alone and flounder while we move ahead.
It was well known to everyone but the deformers…er, I mean “researchers” at places like Stanford U.
Good to see the work of economists applauded here.
Even a blind and anosmic squirrel gets an acorn every now and again!
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Other than undermining public schools by allowing charter schools to cherry pick the cheapest to teach students and concentrate the most expensive to teach students in underfunded public schools now stripped of their resources to address all of their education needs, all while enriching greedy charter administrators who pay themselves outrageously high compensation because their cherry picked students get decent test scores (because if they don’t they are put on got to go lists and shown the door), the Broad-trained superintendents made no difference.
This was pretty much my hunch back in 2019 before any empirical research was available: https://www.salon.com/2019/10/20/how-billionaire-charter-school-funders-corrupted-the-school-leadership-pipeline_partner/
The listed doi is not correct. The CEPA version (I don’t know if it is identical to the journal version) is at https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/public-sector-leadership-and-venture-philanthropy-case-broad-superintendents
Thanks.
Happy to help out where able.
Help! We’ve got a superintendent in Indian River County who is completing courses with the Broad Academy. I’ve done my research and when he announced his acceptance to Yale’s Broad Academy I knew we were ALL IN TROUBLE.
I’m not sure what to do next – I’m currently working in the district. What I do know is the people in this district would not follow this person if they knew his true intentions or what this academy promotes! Even our board members don’t know about the Broad Academy nor do they realize how destructive it is to school systems. How do I get the information out to the public while keeping my job ?