Pro-Charter Billionaire Gives Yale SOM $100M To Train Public School Leaders

This article was brought to you by the 'Threefifths, Samuel T. Ross Lee, and Tmctague Warned Us About This Sh*t Foundation.' :)

If these people are so concerned with education, why are they only worried about it in "Urban" areas? Are they making the implicit, but firm, claim, by their focus, that suburban public schools are great enough not to need their "help?"

If they are making such a claim, and they sure seem to be, shouldn't they spend their millions to help bring the urban schools up to par, instead of creating an entirely different school system through which they receive public funds with no accountability?

I cannot imagine ANY situation where a group of wealthy African-Americans would be allowed to take over a tax-payer funded institution in the suburbs, receive public money without accountability or oversight, to improve the services offered by the said institution for the benefit of suburban residents.

That Wealthy White Privilege is LIT!!!!

The Rev. Mr. Samuel T. Ross-Lee

The Faces of School Reform

JOHN TARLETON Jan 29, 2010

Led by a band of billionaires, the school-reform movement has gained increasing momentum during the past decade, spreading its reach into urban communities across the country. But instead of truly transforming public schools, private funders want to restructure them. They insist running schools like a business is the solution. At stake is not only control over hundreds of billions of dollars in local, state and federal funding, but also the future of the next generation of schoolchildren.

Eli Broad
Net Worth: $5.4 Billion

Broad, a Los Angeles-based billionaire who made his fortune in insurance and real estate, has been at the forefront of the school restructuring movement over the past decade. Using the foundation that bears his name, he has pushed aggressively for schools to be run more like businesses. The Broad (pronounced like "road") Foundation has seeded charter schools across the country, including in New York. It has also developed a number of programs to train school administrators, including the Broad Superintendent Academy, which instructs business, nonprofit, military, government and education leaders in how to manage urban school districts. A number of top officials at the New York City's Department of Education have received Broad training. Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York City last year, Broad summarized his approach: "We don't know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that. But what we do know about is management and governance."

Feel free to read the list.

https://indypendent.org/2010/01/the-faces-of-school-reform/

Almost threw up at first glance of this headline.

NHPS is supremely underfunded in all areas. Suburban schools tend to have nicer buildings full of technology, arts, full time librarians/nurses, higher salaries, more sports, nicer uniforms, etc. Even with all of the bloat and waste we decry; we're doing it with less, and some of our students come to school with their own challenges on top of everything. Some repulsively smug snake-person is going to decide how we improve our schools? Our problems exist because 1) Yale Inc. doesn't pay taxes. They are the cornerstone of a powerful, important economy here in New Haven, but that's not cutting it. 2) Poverty exists because BILLIONAIRES give $100MILLION to IVY LEAGUE institutions.

Didn't Broad know they have like $30 billion in the bank? No gifts needed.

I hope the NHFT reacts to this: keep Broad out of NHPS. Let them spread their good ideas at Achievement First. Garth Harries was trained by Broad's program and we FIRED HIM.

Yale these days is like a high-end call girl that will debase itself before any rich man ready and willing to throw a cool hundred million its way.

Trump's financier Steve Schwartzman wants to turn Commons into a shrine to his ego? No problem! Evil drug-dealing Sacklers want to whitewash their reputation by setting up a research center emblazoned with their name? Let's do it! Billionaire breeder of charter-school vampires would like to turn SOM into a laboratory for his next scheme to undermine public education in America? Awesome, just write a check!

As a Yale graduate (JE '93), it makes me wonder. Should I burn my diploma? Or just throw it in the trash?

Maybe we can sell 54 Meadow Street for a 'sympathetic rehab'......

$3 trillion to billionaires in tax cuts to bankrupt the middle class and now Dalio and Broad are here to save public education. Got it. Kind of like the "hybrid public/charter" training model for NHPS leaders but worse. This is how to privatize public services and turn schools into joyless data production centers. You will need a very compliant union to facilitate such a scheme, a union NOT led by Tom Burns....

Remember when Yale used to train teachers? https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/pioneer_teachers_get_started/

@tmctague

I agree with your concerns around letting people like Broad influence the workings of a school system, and the absurdity of donating money to an organization that refuses to pay taxes to fund the schools it's trying to "improve." I experience and fight against it first-hand, every day. I want to remind you that the kids who attend AF schools are children who deserve to be advocated for and treated humanely by adults both within our system (where I and other dedicated teachers fight for them daily) and in the broader community (among anti-charter and community advocates like yourself). "Let Broad spread his ideas at Achievement First" dehumanizes and sacrifices kids at our schools as somehow less worthy of your empathy, and alienates adults within our system dedicated to systemic change from what should ultimately be our common cause. If you were wondering what contributes to AF teachers viewing pro-union and anti-charter advocates like yourself with a skeptical eye, it's because of what comments like that betray about your attitude toward our place in the fight for justice for kids in New Haven. Don't conflate our kids (and the school-based personnel fighting for them) with the billionaires using our schools as their own experimental playgrounds.

Hard to believe that I'm contrrarian here but I think that supporting hte charter system is absolutely where the money should go. So far, charter schools have proven that they provide a much more useful education https://edreform.com/2011/09/do-charter-schools-work/
at a much lower cost.

Our current public school system is not "supremely underfunded in all areas". New Haven School system is one of the highest funded in the State of Connecticut yet its results are among the worst. This has been the case for decades. There are so many looters in the system, that very few of the dollars are applied to helping the students. We do not need more admin, more consultants, more building costs, more union profit, and more mandated government programs. We need good teachers, and good tools (books, computers...etc)

When a system built to focus money and energy on the students, we should expect the looters to scream - they are losing their money and their influence. The question that we should ask ourselves is "What is the purpose of our schools?" If it is to enrich well connected adults, that drives one set of actions. If it is to educate the next generation, then an entirely different set of priorities should be in place.

From Nick Hanauer's article in the Atlantic ('Better Schools Won't Fix America'), which is freely available on-line and a must-read in these kinds of discussions:

"We have confused a symptom—educational inequality—with the underlying disease: economic inequality. Schooling may boost the prospects of individual workers, but it doesn't change the core problem, which is that the bottom 90 percent is divvying up a shrinking share of the national wealth. Fixing that problem will require wealthy people to not merely give more, but take less."

Compare this with Dean Kerwin Charles's take on why the Broad initiative is so important:

"By contributing to the improvement of public education, the Broad Center at Yale SOM will help remove arguably the key impediment to upward economic mobility and greater socio-economic equality."

This, it seems to me, is at the heart of the argument.

Who are the looters? The people who are in it for the money, not the kids.

That means consultants, contractors, and... charter schools, which are designed to turn a profit for their investors.

Broad didn't become a billionaire by caring about people, he did it by maximizing (and disguising) his ability to loot.

A tiger doesn't change its stripes.

Faith in the inherent goodness of billionaires is one of the great delusions of this age.

They are nothing but robber-barons, version 2.0.

Anyone familiar with the Broad Foundation's activities in Los Angeles and California should be very worried. The Broad Foundation has served as a pipeline for the well organized, well capitalized charter school movement which, over the course of 10-15, transformed (i.e. privatized) a majority of public schools in Los Angeles and invested millions of dollars in municipal and statewide politics. The 2019 UTLA strike and special election in BD5 were essentially referenda on the charter school movement and its scions. Public schools won that round, and they won it big.

My guess is that Broad can see the writing on the wall. Their days are numbered in LA. Between Dalio and Broad it seems like the forces of privatization are setting their sights on New Haven. Watch out. Seriously.

For more: https://dianeravitch.net/category/broad-foundation/

Teachers in New Haven need smaller class sizes, more funding for basic supplies and multiple support systems for students, many of whom suffer the effects of chronic poverty and socio-economic isolation. Imagine what $100 million or even a small portion of that could do to address these issues. But instead, those resources will be used to install an oppressive data mining system in New Haven to further enrich the billionaire class and exploit kids in need of resources not drone SOM disrupters. Charter schools are embroiled in scandals and incompetency around the nation. The NAACP has declared a moratorium on charters because of racial segregation. Harries was trained in Broad's unaccredited Superintendent academy and was fired. So obviously more of the same is what we all need.

Becoming a billionaire suggests having achieved some measure of expertise in at least one area. Unfortunately, becoming a billionaire also leads to the self-delusion of being an expert in all areas.

>>> "Our current public school system is not 'supremely underfunded in all areas'."

It is, given the level of need here.

>>> "New Haven School system is one of the highest funded in the State of Connecticut"

New Haven receives a comparatively high ECS amount, but its spending per-pupil is dead average, despite expensive challenges. The taxpayers of New Haven do not (and cannot) supplement ECS to the level other towns can.

>>> "yet its results are among the worst."

Which is to say that your understanding of "results" is standardized test scores.

>>> "There are so many looters in the system, that very few of the dollars are applied to helping the students."

There have certainly been looters in the system. What's harder to recognize, though, is that their looting -- while egregious and totally unacceptable -- has been relatively small compared to the multi-million-dollar chasm between funding and student needs. I think we can expect a further proliferation of looters, shysters and sellers of ed-tech snake oil from this Broad program in a couple of years.

posted by: LookOut
"Hard to believe that I'm contrrarian here..."

You're on the side of a Billionaire and the Yale School of Management, doesn't seem contrarian to me.

ilnh1212,

"If you were wondering what contributes to AF teachers viewing pro-union and anti-charter advocates like yourself with a skeptical eye..."

I am most certainly pro-union. All workers benefit from unions, because unions set pay standards and workplace protections. Union employees make an average of 30% more than non-union workers. 92% of union workers have job-related health coverage versus 68% of non-union workers. The corporate education reform movement is backed by predominantly White, anti-union billionaires that want to serve the cheapest possible education to students of color.

'When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.'

AF teachers are subjected to hostile working conditions without protection of a union to file grievance, and are worked until burn out, where they can be replaced by inexperienced TFA/Relay members. These inexperienced teachers are not good at their difficult job, and subject their students to an intricate disciplinary system that is meant to counteract their shortcomings as inexperienced teachers. It is important for you to acknowledge the attack on public schools launched by AF and their backers:

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/charter_advocates_rally_for_40000_in_failing_schools/

And the students? Here they are:

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/mass_walkout_at_amistad_high/

Of course I feel for the students at AF, and I support their organization (pro-union) to combat this movement.

I have never seen a teacher-led movement at AF, maybe you can lead the way. Until then...

Yours in the common pursuit of an equitable education,
Terence McTague

Big budgets and unionized staff have very little to do with creating a good education. The latest US News and World Report rankings have the 2 AF schools in our state in the top 12 (out of 228).
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/connecticut/rankings

For disclosure, I do not have kids in any school system but I know kids and teachers in both systems and the differences that I see as a bystander are amazing. AF has happy kids - focused on learning....adn the teachers use teamwork to constantly search for better ways to educate the children.

LookOut,

Do you know what goes into the rankings you cited? They are often criticized for their metrics and methods. Most parents would send their student to Staples High School over Amistad, not that I have any love for the segregated schools in rich suburbs.

Here are a couple examples of policies that can encourage challenging students to withdraw:

"PROMOTION & GRADING POLICY:
Amistad High uses 70 as the minimum grade to pass a course and 50 as the lowest published grade. Amistad High students who fail a course may recover one credit during Summer Academy. Students who fail more than two courses in an academic year are required to repeat the grade and all previously taken courses in the failed year."

Imagine getting an A in Biology, and having to re-take it because you failed Geometry and Spanish!

"If a child is absent for 10 consecutive days during the school year and there has been no successful contact between the family and the school to explain the absence, that seat may be filled with another scholar from the waitlist."

Some students will go to another country for extended time, many of these students are English Language Learners.

"Amistad requires that during each summer after their 9, 10, and 11th grade years, scholars complete a school-sanctioned enrichment program."

In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of AF is their inability to serve students that struggle in school, for whatever reason, and that results in a disproportionate amount of high needs students in public schools.

My partner taught at AF for 5 years, and is much happier teaching for NHPS. We'd be happy to meet with you to give you a different perspective.

@ LookOut

"Hedge funds and bankers have become the Sugar Daddies of charter schools."

Glen Ford.

Charter school advocates are among the biggest scam artists in politics. They use the language of community control to transfer public assets into private hands."Anyone who believes that the Lords of Capital would finance anything that puts real power in the hands of poor parents, is in serious need of remedial education."

Glen Ford

Even the billionaire Eli Broad claims to want to preserve the public schools – and, in a sense, he does. The fat cats behind charter schools want to keep them technically part of the public sphere, but only so that the public will continue to pay the costs. That's why billionaires love charters! The public pays the bill, while private companies reap the profits. Public education represents an almost trillion dollar a year pool of money. That's what's got the billionaires so hot: charters are the ideal deal, where the public takes all the risk and the corporations can't lose. Only the kids, and the society they inherit, lose.

Glen Ford