Jean-Claude Brizard, Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2007

TEACHERS VOTE "NO CONFIDENCE" IN SUPERINTENDENT JEAN-CLAUDE BRIZARD; February 10, 2010; WHEC-TV (Rochester, NY) 

An overwhelming number of Rochester teachers take a stand against their superintendent.

In a lopsided vote, some educators are telling Jean-Claude Brizard change your ways or change your job.

Nearly 82-percent of eligible teachers took part in today's vote.  The ballot was simple: “Yes, I have confidence in Superintendent Brizard" or "No, I don’t.”

It took hours to sort through boxes of ballots.  Here are the results:  just 140 teachers said they do have confidence in Brizard, compared to the more than 2713 who said they don't.  A vote like this has never happened in the history of the Rochester City School District…

The vote is a symbolic one, not a legal one.  It has no bearing on Brizard's contract or his employment.  But some parents are already saying Brizard should look for a new job.

“He's making it clear that he does not value parents and community members as partners in terms of developing a solution to this crisis,” said RCSD parent Howard Eagle…

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PROPOSED ROCHESTER CHARTER SCHOOL HAS TIES TO JEAN-CLAUDE BRIZARD; November 12, 2010; Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY) 

Organizers of a new all-girls charter school aiming to open in 2012 have been busy amassing supporters in the city of Rochester.

But they already have one high-profile local education leader behind their effort — City School District Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard, who also happens to be married to one of the new school's would-be founders.

Brizard makes no secret of his support for charter schools, saying that he wants to help more of the privately run programs open in the city school district. Now, K. Brooke Stafford-Brizard could lead one such school, drawing students and state money away from city schools and raising questions about a potential conflict of interest. "We have the vision and the passion and we're working on the application," said Laura Rebell Gross, who is partnering with Stafford-Brizard.

Stafford-Brizard and Gross have been working with the Young Women's Leadership Network, known nationally for opening the first single-sex charter school in the country. Gross also serves on the network's Board of Directors…

Both Jean-Claude Brizard and Gross said they were trying to keep the proposal quiet until the women submitted the application. But word of the proposed school started circulating in the community after they hosted an informational meeting with a number of high-profile community leaders to try to win support for their effort several weeks ago…

The meeting occurred at the Brizards' house after the group went to see Waiting for Superman, a new documentary about the public school system that has been criticized for glorifying charter schools…

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EEOC FINDS BIAS IN OUSTER OF ROCHESTER SCHOOLS OFFICIAL, July 7, 2010, Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY)

A federal commission has determined that the Rochester School District discriminated against its former highest-ranking instructional official when it forced her out of her job earlier this year.

Acting on a complaint filed in January by the official, Marilynn Patterson-Grant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the district discharged her “because of her sex, her race and her age,” according to a letter issued by the commission last week.

The findings, which are nonbinding, are the basis for a federal discrimination lawsuit filed Tuesday by Patterson-Grant against the district and its superintendent, Jean-Claude Brizard.

Patterson-Grant, a 35-year veteran of the city school system, is of African-American descent and was 57 years old when she was ousted from her position as deputy superintendent by Brizard, who is a black Haitian immigrant. He has said he discharged her because of poor performance...

The EEOC complaint charged that Brizard told Patterson-Grant and other veteran district educators, “You are all old” and “in teaching, age matters,” and implied that Brizard saw veterans as a threat to his authority under a mayoral-controled system.

“You remember that one of the charges made against me was keeping too many of the old guard,” the complaint alleged Brizard said. “(The) people most affected (by mayoral control) will be central office people. The effort will be to get rid of a lot of R.I.P.’s. You know what R.I.P.’s are? Retired in place.”

Brizard has said he does not recall making such statements.

The lawsuit is seeking punitive damages, although Patterson-Grant’s attorney, Christina Agola, said there was no reason her client could not continue working.

“When you have such a high-ranking administrator making statements that are so plainly, on-their-face discriminatory, it has to be brought to task,” Agola said.

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THE CORPORATE AGENDA FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS: IS BRIZARD ON BOARD? July 24, 2009, DragonFlyEye.Net (Rochester, N.Y.)

My daughter came home from Wilson High School one afternoon and told me the new Superintendant, Jean Claude Brizard, had recommended that the students read The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman’s anecdotal tribute to the global expansion of the corporate world. The book is notorious for completely ignoring the structural and geopolitical causes of increasing global poverty. That was the first red flag. The next red flag was at a Parent Council meeting where the superintendent read a passage of a book. The book, written by a former military officer, offered us the advice that schools should be run more like businesses. I thought to myself, “Does he mean AIG, GM or the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?”

On the American Association of School Administrators website Brizard recommends a third book, a business management guide entitled Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. The book was recommended to him by NYC Superintendent Joel Klein who currently is enjoying a 22% approval rating among parents. Brizard comments that the current teacher contract negotiation model is out of line with sound business management.

With Brizard eliminating over 200 teaching positions in the Rochester City Schools it is fair to start asking what his agenda is. We know that Brizard is a Broad Institute Fellow. He has talked publicly about consulting with other Broad (rhymes with “road”) Fellows. What is this Broad Institute and who is Eli Broad?

Billionaire Eli Broad is one of the wealthiest men on the planet. With Bill Gates Broad he funded and launched the Strong American Schools initiative, seeking to move Presidential candidates in the ’08 election to embrace national education standards (enforced with high stakes testing), merit pay and longer school days and years. Sure enough, these issues have been embraced by the Obama administration. The billionaires have put the public schools in their sights and they are pulling the trigger.

In The Corporate Surge Against Public Schools Steven Miller and Jack Gerson outline the corporate agenda for schools and identify the players.

According to Miller and Gerson, “The Broad Institute trains school superintendents, school boards and even union leaders in what they consider ‘appropriate corporate approaches.’ A central problem for corporate privatizers is the issue of governance, i.e. who has legal authority over the schools. Broad favors state take-overs (New Orleans, Washington DC, Oakland, Ca, St. Louis) or mayoral takeovers (Chicago, Pittsburg, attempted last year by Villaregosa in LA) to eliminate messy interference from the public.”

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Mayor Duffy only started to make noises about mayoral control after Brizard came to town…

So far Brizard has followed the Broad management playbook, breaking up Franklin, decentralizing budgets to individual schools, laying off teachers and advocating for a longer school year and mayoral control. How far will Brizard follow Broad’s corporate lead?

Getting to know the Schwarzenegger-appointed, Broad-connected, pro-charter-dominated State Board of Education

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been working overtime to expand charter schools in California. Since 2004 on their behalf, he has secured federal funding, removed school district approval obstacles, supported state bond funding, signed legislation to provide charters with tax exempt and low cost facility financing for school facilities, and removed roadblocks so charters can access millions in construction project funds (12/07/2009 press release). In addition, Schwarzenegger has insured that the California State Board of Education (SBE) is continually loaded with pro-charter members.

I suggest you take a moment to contrast Schwarzenegger’s intense, and near single-minded focus on fostering the expansion of charter schools (which serve less than 4.6% of the children or 285,617 kids) with his extreme neglect of the schools attended by the remaining 95.4% (5,966,394 kids) of California’s children. EdData figures here.

The SBE sets K-12 education policy in the areas of standards, curriculum, instructional materials, assessment, and accountability. It also authorizes charter schools and has been involved with developing charter school legislation. There are 11 members on the SBE, ten of whom are appointed by the Governor, one of which is a student. The eleventh member is the State Superintendent of Public Instruction who serves as the SBE's executive officer and secretary. SBE members are unpaid. Appointments are subject to confirmation by the state Senate.

Ending their State Board of Education terms just recently are Rae Belisle and Jorge Lopez.

RAE BELISLE, the recently-stepped-down CEO of EdVoice, had been appointed by Schwarzenegger in February 2009. She was a full SBE participant for one year until March 2010 when the Senate refused to give her a confirmation hearing. They had received staunch opposition to Belisle. For instance, this was the first time in its 39-year history that the Association of California School Administrators had taken an active stance against a state board appointee, according to Corey Johnson, K-12 Education Reporter of California Watch (a reporting initiative of the Center for Investigative Reporting). Belisle is a strong charter school advocate, who had previously given controversial legal advice to the SBE.

JORGE LOPEZ, the executive director of the Oakland Charter Academy, had been appointed in March 2009 and fully participated on the SBE until February 2010 when he abruptly withdrew his name. His withdrawal coincided with the point in the senate confirmation process when his financial documents and business arrangements were being reviewed and concerns were arising about complicated business and real estate arrangements with his partner Ben Chavis (of American Indian Public Charter School fame).

Three new Swarzenegger appointments are awaiting confirmation.

ALAN ARKATOV who, among other activities, sits on the board for Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a charter management organization which has opened 16 charter schools in the Los Angeles area. Source here. Alliance received a total of $2,525,000 from the Broad Foundation between 2006 and 2008. Alliance has received $4,635,100 from the NewSchools Venture Fund since 2003.

BEN AUSTIN is an assistant city attorney for Los Angeles and the executive director of the Los Angeles Parents Union (formerly the Small Schools Alliance, aka the Parent Revolution). He used to work for Green Dot Public Schools and also served as a Deputy Mayor under Richard Riordan. Austin was involved with the “Parent Trigger,” an initiative where if enough parents can be convinced, pressured, and tricked to sign a petition, a school will be closed down and replaced with a charter. Eli Broad contributed nearly 50% of the funding for the launch of the LAPU and gave a total of $4,469,040 to Green Dot from 2005-2008. Read my 2/21/2010 entry The "Parent Trigger" and its connections to the phony LA Parents Union, Green Dot, Steve Barr, and Eli Broad

(Update: Caroline Grannan writes, "At one school where Ben Austin's Parent Revolution has succeeded in getting enough signatures to take action against the school, the community member who's the lead spokesperson for the successful effort is an alumni parent, not a current parent at the school." Also, follow Robert Skeels' valuable research about Ben Austin by starting here.)

JEANNIE OROPEZA, program budget manager for the California Department of Finance, was also nominated, but on April 28 the Senate Rules Committee recommended rejecting her nomination because her job at the Department of Finance presented a conflict of interest.

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The confirmed members sitting on the SBE with strong ties to charter schools and/or Eli Broad are:

TED MITCHELL (SBE President) is the President and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, an organization which supplies charter management organizations with extra funding. He has been a member of the CSE since 2007 and was reappointed in February 2010. Mitchell has multiple strong connections to billionaire Eli Broad.

Mitchell's NSVF salary was $480,000 in 2007 (Form 990). NSVF received a total of $9,115,000 from the Broad Foundation (EIN 954686318) from 2002 to 2008.

Also, 2002 news reports revealed that Eli Broad had offered to donate $10 million to Occidental College in an attempt to persuade Mitchell (then O.C. President) to run against a L.A. school board trustee. Furthermore, Mitchell revealed to his trustees that that former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan had also offered to donate money to cover a top-level executive position at the college if Mitchell ran for the seat. Mitchell did not run. Read here to learn about the close relationship between Broad and Riordan as longtime friends and allies in ed deform.

YVONNE CHAN is the principal of a conversion charter school in LA, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. Chan was appointed in 2005 and reappointed in 2008. Her term ends in 2012. Vaughn International Studies Academy, the high school at Chan’s “learning center,” is in the International Studies Schools Network (ISSN or Global Studies Schools), a charter management organization started by the Asia Society in 2003. Both Chan and Eli Broad have been speakers for the Asia Society. Broad donated $12,500 to the Asia Society in 2007 and $2,500 in 2008.

Schwarzenegger has been generous to Chan. From a May 2008 press release:

Today at one of the nation’s leading charter schools, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, Governor Schwarzenegger announced the allocation of $463 million in Proposition 1D funds for new construction and modernization projects for 29 charter schools statewide. The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center will receive $6 million of the $463 million to build seven new classrooms for 189 students at the center’s high school, Vaughn International Studies Academy…

…“This funding is exactly what our kids need to continuing excelling at Vaughn,” said Vaughn Next Century Learning Center Principal Dr. Yvonne Chan. “I will now be able to move forward with the new classrooms my students need and make improvements to our campus so we can continue to make a difference in this community.”

JOHNATHAN XAVIER WILLIAMS is a charter management organization founder and co-director (The Accelerated School network in South Central Los Angeles). He was appointed in 2004, and reappointed in March 2007. His term ends in January 2011. Williams is a member of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO). (Update: See article from 1/2007 "Charter School [The Accelerated School] is in default on $9.9 million LAUSD Loan", h/t Caroline Grannan)

DAVID P. LOPEZ, President of The National Hispanic University in East San Jose, was appointed to the SBE in July 2006, and reappointed in March 2010. He is awaiting reconfirmation. The National Hispanic University is a small, private non-profit institution which also runs the Latino College Preparatory Academy, a charter high school, adjacent to its campus.

RUTH BLOOM (SBE Vice President) was appointed in 2004 and reappointed in February 2007. Her term ends in January 2011. Bloom is a partner in a jewelry company (AR Designs), and is heavily involved with collecting art, art education, and art museums, both in Southern California and Sun Valley, Idaho.

From the 1990s until February 2009, Bloom served with Eli Broad on the board of trustees for the LA The Museum of Contemporary Art. Broad is LACMA’s Founding Chairman and Life Trustee.

And here's something interesting. In September 2007, Ruth Bloom (listed as Arts Educator from Marina Del Rey), a stated Democrat, gave $20,000 to Schwarzenegger, according to ElectionTrack.

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Only two SBE members appear to not have allegiances to the promotion of charter schools or direct connections to Eli Broad or the Broad Foundation.

JIM ASCHWANDEN was appointed in October 2006, and reappointed in February 2008. Aschwanden is executive director of the California Agricultural Teachers’ Association, and serves on advisory councils for Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo and Chico State University. In addition, he has served as Vice-Chair of the Vocational Alliance, a consortium of educational organizations supporting Career and Technical Education, for the past several years.

GREGORY W. JONES was appointed in March 2008. His term ends January 2012. Jones is a State Farm insurance executive. In addition, he is chair of the California Business Roundtable and chair of California Business for Education Excellence.


Read comments to the same posting here.

Broad defends pal facing 20 felony charges

If you read “The Broad Effect”: Part Two, you’ll already know about the connections between some of these characters.

Broad’s friend faced 20 felony charges of securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and making false statements in securities filings.

UPDATE ON APRIL 22, 2010: - Bruce Karatz found guilty on stock option backdating charges

“Eli Broad is latest character witness for ex-KB Home chief Bruce Karatz.” LA Times, 03 Apr 2010

The billionaire philanthropist, who co-founded the home-building firm, follows former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan in vouching for Karatz at his stock-options backdating trial.

The celebrity endorsements of former KB Home Chief Executive Bruce Karatz resumed Friday morning when billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad took the witness stand to defend the character of the man federal prosecutors say made millions of dollars in illegal profits by secretly backdating stock options.

Broad, who co-founded the company that became KB Home in 1957 and later operated SunAmerica insurance company, told jurors that he had known Karatz for 38 years and considered him to be a man of impeccable integrity.

"I know of no instance in those 38 years where he's done anything unlawful or improper," Broad said under questioning from defense attorney John Keker…

During his brief testimony, Broad said he and Karatz were longtime friends who met regularly for dinner…

Before Broad took the witness stand, U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright II said he was concerned to learn that a juror had a brief conversation with former Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan after he testified Thursday as a character witness for Karatz…

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Special features on Karatz's KB Home:

• KB Home built houses on former military bombing ranges without bothering to clear unexploded ordinances.
• KB Home built houses with poisonous drywall from China.

“The Broad Effect”: Part Two

Read Part One here.
Because of his immense wealth and interest, billionaire Eli Broad is one member in a very small set of non-elected, extremely wealthy individuals who have acquired the power to determine U.S. public education policy and the future of our public education system. Most of the masses are not aware that public schools are being dismantled by the coup. For those who have caught on and are reading this, I offer you some information about him, all easily accessible on the internet. Just consider "The Broad Effect": Part Two my variation of the popular TV show, ""Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

The Inauguration Party thrown by Broad for President Obama

Broad, a longtime Democratic supporter, was so thrilled at the election of Barack Obama that he threw what was described as “the most exclusive dinner of the week” to salute his friends who are members of the new president's cabinet. As the New York Times reported:

Anyone who is anyone in Washington was at Tuesday night’s pre-ball dinner, thrown by the California billionaire Eli Broad at the Park Hyatt Hotel to honor members of the new Obama administration.
The guest list looked like a who’s who list of Washington old and new: Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s choice for secretary of state and her husband, former President Bill Clinton; Lawrence Summers, the former treasury secretary and new White House chief economics adviser; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve; Arne Duncan, Mr. Obama’s pick for Education Secretary, Leon Panetta, the nominee for director of the C.I.A.; Vernon Jordan, the power lawyer, as well as media celebrities like Larry King and Charlie Rose.

Jim Horn at Schools Matter expressed the feelings of betrayal felt by many when Obama selected Arne Duncan:

While many of us were out busting our humps to gather up a few dollars and votes for the change we thought we could believe in, the Harvard boys were cutting backroom deals with the multi-billionaire oligarchs to fully engage their plan to corporatize American public education, beginning with the urban schools.

(If you clicked on Horn's link, did you enjoy looking at the photo of Arne Duncan hanging out with Broad at the party?)

Eli Broad’s living quarters, lifestyle, etc.

Eli Broad’s primary residence is on Oakmont Drive in Los Angeles. (Brentwood, zip 90049). This would give Broad about a 5 mile & 11 minute commute to the Broad Foundation’s headquarters located at 10900 Wilshire Blvd. (at the corner of Westwood and Wilshire, zip 90024).

In June 2009, Broad threw a party at his home in honor of the 40th anniversary of Art Basel, an international contemporary art exhibition ("the Olympics of the art world") held each year in Basel, Switzerland, and in Miami, Florida. W Magazine describes the event:

Almost everything about a recent dinner at Eli Broad’s Los Angeles home in honor of the 40th anniversary of Art Basel was outsize, starting with the estate itself. Visitors approached the mansion—designed in part by Frank Gehry—through a private sculpture park, then entered a sitting room the size of a hotel lobby before descending a stairway into a series of double-height galleries. “This is bigger than the Gagosian Gallery,” said fashion-world fixture Richard Buckley as he arrived at the first subterranean white cube, with its cranelike Calder sculpture and pair of giant Chuck Close portraits.

High-end art collectors like Eli Broad pursue collecting as a financial investment. The article continues:

Throughout the evening, Broad loomed almost as large. “Times are tough,” he allowed, when he rose to address his guests. “But we got a lot of great things in the early Nineties, which were also tough times.”

Look at a slideshow of the amazing art party here.

As an aside, Broad’s Brentwood residence is only about 10 minutes from the Getty Center, a stunning and relatively new major art museum. J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) was an American industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company, making him one of the world’s richest-ever men. He was an avid art collector.


Incidentally, the Getty Center was designed by Richard Meier, the same architect who Broad commissioned to design a Malibu beach house in 1999. On Meier’s Web site, scroll down near the end to see several photos of the house which is located on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu (zip 90265) along the famed Carbon Beach, “…the highest value beach neighborhood on Pacific Coast Highway…” where:

Homes here tend to be carefully designed by leading architects and adhere to very tasteful standards. Privacy has a high value along with insulation from PCH noise. Money, of course, is no object. When billionaire entrepreneur Eli Broad planned his Carbon Beach house he employed Getty Center architect Richard Meier to design a home on two adjoining parcels. Broad paid $2.5 million for one lot, then owned by Freddy DeMann, Madonna's former manager. It had 45 feet of beach frontage -- the 1952 three-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house was demolished. Next door was another 55 feet of beach frontage Broad bought for $2.6 million, including an 1,800-square-foot house built in 1955, also demolished.

But back in Brentwood...

In 2002, Barry Munitz sold a piece of Getty Trust-owned land to his close friend Eli Broad at a substantial discount. The LA Times reported the story:

The J. Paul Getty Trust sold a valuable piece of Brentwood real estate in 2002 for $700,000 less than its appraised value to billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, a close friend and professional associate of Getty Chief Executive Barry Munitz, according to trust documents and officials.
Munitz directed his aides to delay listing the property so that he could discuss a transaction directly with Broad, despite what Getty records call "many requests to purchase the property," which is adjacent to Broad's hilltop estate.

and

Not long after Munitz took the Getty's helm, Broad invited Munitz to sail along the coast of southern France on his yacht, mixing recreation with visits to a string of small museums.
" 'Don't you think it would be nice if you actually knew something about what you are about to get into?' " Munitz recalled Broad, a noted art collector, teasingly asking him. Munitz came to the Getty with no background in the art world.
It was Munitz's first invitation to join Broad's "boat trip summers" and travels to such places as Croatia, Greece and Cuba with a circle of entrepreneurs and philanthropists. The group sometimes included then Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan and billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle.
Back in Los Angeles, Munitz and Broad's collaborations in the arts, education and politics continued.

Did you notice Richard Riordan’s name popping up?

Riordan (b. 1930) is a longtime and good friend of Eli Broad (b. 1933). They have a strong common interest in LA civic and business affairs. Both are also strong promoters of charter schools and school choice, and, in particular these days, with supporting the candidacy of State Senator Gloria Romero for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.


Riordan served as Mayor of Los Angeles (1993–2001) and as the California Secretary of Education (2003–2005). Originally trained as a lawyer, he had become wealthy by founding a series of private equity firms which focused on venture capital investments and leveraged buyout transactions. Riordan ran for Governor of California unsuccessfully in 2002. The funding priorities of his foundation are listed as “…technology, school choice, and leadership development programs.”


Ravitch (p. 197) reminds us that, “Foundations exist to enable extremely wealthy people to shelter a portion of their capital from taxation...”


It is important to mention, that when Riordan was mayor, he employed Ben Austin as one of his Deputy Mayors. Austin, also once employed by Green Dot, has been serving as the Executive Director of the Parents Union (aka LAPU/aka Parents Revolution, a phony grassroots organization) for nearly two years. All those connections are reviewed here and here. (Maybe someday I'll write a book!)

In addition to yachting together in exotic locales, Riordan once owned a house next to Broad’s beach house along Malibu’s Billionaires Beach (aka Carbon Beach). It seems to now be officially owned by Riordan’s estranged wife, Nancy. At times, residents in this neighborhood have been annoyed with noisy, paparazzi-attracting parties thrown by the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton at beach houses which they've rented:

"On any given Monday morning, Eli Broad would be calling city hall with a list of what he'd had to put up with the previous weekend," said Jay Marose, a PR guru who worked alongside Fingerprint Communications in developing the Polaroid Beach House.

Billionaires Beach residents have also been annoyed by members of the masses who have demanded public beach access. That particular conflict seems to have been resolved:

Last Monday, two white wooden doors swung open for the first time onto Carbon Beach, courtesy of David Geffen, the DreamWorks co-founder, who owns a large shingled compound on the ocean and has the option of borrowing suntan lotion from billionaire neighbors like Eli Broad and Haim Saban. The mile-and-a-half-long beach, among the first glimpses of Malibu on the drive up from Los Angeles, is public by law, but to get to it, visitors must find a way to penetrate a wall of multimillion-dollar homes. [Here’s the solution to that puzzle, just in case you're in the area and feel like going for a beach stroll.]

Lastly, Broad has a New York City residence located on the 33rd floor of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue (zip 10022), adjacent to the bottom of Central Park on the east side. He had been trying to sell it and had even reduced the asking price, but ended up taking it off the market last June. Of course it is lovely, with a view of Central Park. Photos of the interior can be seen here. 




UPDATE: More than two years after listing it, Broad's luxury apartment was finally sold in March 2011 for $8 million. Its original asking price was $15 million.

Eli Broad’s wealth was most recently listed at $5.2 billion. Imagine that you are a person with a net worth of $50,000, and you happen to drop a penny and watch it roll away. No big deal, right? Broad would have the same relative mental response as you did, if he tossed $1040 up in the air and watched it blow away.


By this comparison I am just trying to describe the degree of relative wealth; it's nearly incomprehensibly vast, which is why Broad is winning, and public school devotees are loosing.

Hopefully, the picture I’ve now painted sufficiently illustrates the nature and lifestyle of Broad, the man. It doesn't seem right to me that this unelected individual should get to control so much of the direction of the future of our city’s, my state’s, and my country’s public education, education for which ALL taxpayers, each of them as hard-working as Eli Broad, are paying their fair share, and know about the realities and needs in the public schools much more than he ever will. Does it seem right to you?

Is there anyone with political power who would be willing to stand up and stop this anti-democratic force?

“The Broad Effect”: Part One

(These postings originally appeared on The Perimeter Primate. Part One and Part Two.)

“The Broad Effect” is behind the recent events in Rhode Island (the Central Falls firings ), and in Detroit, where the Detroit Public School Board has just unanimously voted to file a second lawsuit against Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, saying the extra $145,000 in private foundation support he receives is an unlawful conflict of interest. Bobb's base salary is $280,000. The Detroit News reports:

“Bobb's supplemental income from private foundations increased from $84,000 last year to $145,000 this year, under a one-year contract extension signed by the governor and state superintendent this month. The only philanthropic donor publicly identified is the Broad Foundation, whose support of charter schools has stirred controversy among some members of the DPS community.”

Naturally, Robert Bobb (or Bob Bobb, as he was known in Oakland when served as the City Manager under former Mayor Jerry Brown) is a member of the Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2005. 
 
When the Broad Foundation plants one of its elements in a school district, it is highly likely that another element will be planted along with it, in order to maximize the Effect.

For instance, an element might be:

• The presence of a Broad-trained superintendent, or even more (the salaries of which might even be covered by the Broad Foundation partially, or in full)
• The presence of Broad Residents in important central office positions (the salaries of which might even be covered by the Broad Foundation partially, or in full)
• An "invitation" to participate in a program spawned by the Foundation (such as CRSS's Reform Governance in Action program)
• An offer from the Broad Foundation to provide the district with a FREE "audit" or "assessment" of some sort (eg. a "Performance Management and Diagnostic and Planning" experience), which issues a report with "recommendations." NOTE: This "diagnostic" is similar to the technique used by unscrupulous auto mechanics to drum up more business.

The Broad Foundation likes to infiltrate its targets on multiple levels so it can manipulate a wider field and cause the greatest amount of disruption. Venture edu-philanthropists like Gates and Broad proudly call this invasive and destabilizing strategy "investing in a disruptive force."To these billionaires and their henchmen, causing massive disruption for families with school aged children in (disadvantaged) communities (primarily of color) across the nation is no big deal.


“The Broad Effect” has been playing out in Rhode Island, where State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, a 2008 Broad Superintendents Academy graduate, worked in tandem with Frances Gallo, the district’s superintendent, to fire 93 teachers and staff members at Central Falls High School. Learn much more about the whole story here.


The April 2009 press release announcing Gist’s appointment as the new R.I. Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education stated:

“We are thrilled that Rhode Island is the first state to attract a Broad Fellow as not only the superintendent of its largest schools system, with Tom Brady in Providence, but also a Broad Fellow as a State Commissioner who can partner in addressing the challenges of transforming the state's educational systems to a position of international leadership."

As we learn from a March 2005 press release:

“The Mayor [Cicilline of Providence] today met with the School Board Monday night to discuss a plan that installs Fran Gallo as Transition Superintendent and calls for the formation of a search committee by next week. The plan is informed by counsel from the Broad Foundation (pronounced “brode”), a nationally-recognized consultant for superintendent searches.”

And as Providence Public School District eventually acquired Thomas M. Brady (Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2004), he was joined by Sharon Contreras (Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2010) as his Chief Academic Officer. Gallo took a position at Central Falls, an impoverished community 5.7 miles north of Providence. Read more about the Broad-in-Rhode-Island synergy here.

So now do you understand how it all works?

MORE EVIDENCE OF “THE BROAD EFFECT”

ANTIOCH, CALIFORNIA: Deborah Sims (BSA 2005) was asked to resign. The previous year, their school board had started in the Reform Governance in Action program via the Center for Reform of School Systems (CRSS) which is very heavily funded by Broad. After Sims' exit, the CRSS terminated its ties with the district. It was , "...a blessing in disguise," as one board member stated. 

BUFFALO, NEW YORK: This city was targeted early on, now they are land-o-the-charters.
CAPISTRANO, CALIFORNIA: In March 2009, this school district terminated its superintendent, Arnold Woodrow "Woody" Carter (BSA 2002), for material breach.

FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO: It seems that Bart G. Anderson (BSA 2006), Superintendent of the Franklin County Board of Education was calling himself “Dr. Bart Anderson” years before he earned a legitimate doctorate degree in 2006. He also got mixed up with a diploma mill called St. Regis University, which issued him a bogus doctorate in 2002.

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: Joseph Wise (BSA 2003) was given a four-year contract as the superintendent of Duval County Public Schools in the fall of 2005. Twenty-three months later, his spending habits were being questioned. He and the school board parted ways in October 2007, but not before he implemented a controversial reorganization plan. Read local community opinions here. In February 2008, he became the new Chief Education Officer for EdisonLearning. Legal problems persisted even after he left DCPS. Trouble had followed Wise from Delaware, where he had been the superintendent of Christina School District, the largest in Delaware. This is what he's doing now.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: As you would suspect, all sorts of intertwining connections are here. Read this report about Broad taking Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to dinner.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE: More suckers in Memphis (or are the school district officials just sucking up?). As usual, parents are pissed off but have little idea about what has hit them. As usual, New Leaders for New Schools is right in the midst of things.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: In January 2008, twenty-one allegations of improper behavior were made against John Q. Porter (BSA 2006), who had been serving as the superintendent of OKCPS for only six months (more here). He was suspended and then resigned in March amid accusations of financial mismanagement and poor job performance. Porter's spending habits were questioned during his previous work for Montgomery County Public Schools. I've looked for him online, but he seems to have disappeared. His Wikipedia page was deleted in 2008.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: In the summer of 2003, Jack O'Connell, the State Superintendent of Instruction (the recipient of a large campaign contribution from Eli Broad), assigned Randolph Ward (BSA 2003) as State Administrator of OUSD. Ward appointed Arnold Woodrow "Woody" Carter (BSA 2002) to be his Chief of Staff (see Capistrano above). Ward's slash-and-burn actions produced so much anger from the community, he hired a full-time body guard. Barak Ben-Gal (Broad Resident 2004-2006) implemented a controversial system called Results Based Budgeting in OUSD, then went into the private sector in Silicon Valley. Kimberly Statham (BSA 2003) hopped from job to job for years and is now at the NewSchools Venture Fund. Statham departed after only one year, and arrangements were made for Vincent Matthews (BSA 2006), who used to work for SF's (now failed) Edison school, to fill the State Administrator position. These three Broad Superintendents within five years left the district in a bigger mess, and in considerably more debt, than in which they had found it. The district regained full control in 2009, but since the district is still in debt to the state, Matthews was assigned as State Trustee.

NEW YORK CITY: Broad Foundation press release states that Broad "played a key role in former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein's appointment as New York schools chancellor." And here's Broad schmoozing with another N.Y. billionaire.

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND: This troubled school district thought it was finally going to get a long-term superintendent when they hired John Deasy (BSA 2006) in May 2006, but by September 2008 he was being investigated for having improperly received his doctorate. He resigned in short order and went to work for the Gates Foundation. Deasy's replacement was William R. Hite Jr. (BSA 2006) who appointed Bonita Coleman-Potter (BSA 2008) as his deputy superintendent.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: Jean-Claude Brizard (BSA 2007) is alienating people there. People are catching on.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: This group isn't too pleased with Maria Goodloe-Johnson (BSA 2003).

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Arne Duncan invited Broad Residents into his department so they can be in control at the the top.

WASHINGTON D.C.: Reporting that Michelle Rhee meets with Broad on a regular basis, including making multiple visits to his Fifth Ave. apartment in NYC.

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE: A 2006 article stated that Broad "plans to virtually take over the Delaware school system in 2007, pending approval from that state's legislature." He backed the winning slate of candidates for the local board of education in 1999 and helped hire the new superintendent. His energy was focused on the Christina School District. Their first Broad superintendent was installed in July 2003 ( see Joseph Wise under Jacksonville above). This is what he's doing now. In April 2006, Wise was succeeded by Lillian Lowery (BSA 2004) who served until May 2009. Lowery walked into her position and shortly discovered a huge district deficit. This is what she's doing now. Her replacement was Marcia Lyles (BSA 2006). This district is home to the incident with six-year old Zachary. His sentence was later reversed.

Note: Not all Broad Superintendents Academy graduates (called Fellows) are included on the Academy's Web site as "Featured Alumni."

This map will show you where the Effect has spread, and will link you to its players. More information is available at The Broad Report. Doing a perfect job of keeping track of “The Broad Effect” would be a full-time job!

I now share with you an excerpt from the Billionaire Boys' Club chapter of Diane Ravitch's book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education"(pp. 200-201):

But the offer of a multimillion-dollar grant by a foundation is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities.

And so it happened that the Gates, Walton, and Broad foundations came to exercise vast influence over American education because of ther strategic investments in school reform. As their policy goals converged in the first decade of the twenty-first century, these foundations set the policy agenda not only for school districts, but also for states and even the U.S. Department of Education.
Before considering the specific goals and activities of these foundations, it is worth reflecting on the wisdom of allowing education policy to be directed or, one might say, captured by private foundations. There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions. These foundations, no matter how worthy and high-minded, are after all, not public agencies. They are not subject to public oversight or review, as a public agency would be. They have taken it upon themselves to reform public education, perhaps in ways that would never survive the scrutiny of voters in any district or state. If voters don't like the foundations' reform agenda, they can't vote them out of office. The foundation demands that public schools and teacher be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountable power.

Read more about Eli Broad, the man behind the Broad Effect. Find out what makes him chuckle. Learn why he is described as a “billionaire philanthropist whose beneficence comes with not just strings but with ropes.” My previous postings with additional information are here.

IF YOU HAVE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT “THE BROAD EFFECT” IN YOUR COMMUNITY, AND CAN OFFER ANY LINKS TO THE READERS HERE, PLEASE SHARE THAT INFORMATION IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. THANK YOU.

(The Broad Foundation regularly monitors this blog, both directly and, more recently, via services provided by BurrellesLuce. When it occurs, I post the confirmation in my comments.)

And as eighth-grade students have learned at a public middle school here in Oakland, "Jefferson believed in the People. They can make good decisions when given enough information."

Connections between Eli Broad, the Parent Union (aka Parent Revolution, the creators of the "Parent Trigger"), and Green Dot

NOTE: This entry was updated on 2/24/2010 with an explanation of the relationship between the entities above and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). h/t to rdsathene.

Originally conceived in Los Angeles by Steve Barr’s (of Green Dot) Los Angeles Parents Union, and largely funded by the Broad Foundation, the "Parent Trigger" has spread east, and here and here. This is an initiative where if enough parents can be convinced, pressured, and tricked to sign a petition, a school will be closed down and replaced with a charter. On each Form 990 from 2005 to 2008, Steve Barr is listed as the CEO/President of the LAPU board.

Eli Broad contributed nearly 50% of the funding for the launch of the LAPU (formerly the Small Schools Alliance, aka the Parent Revolution). The money he supplied helped pay for the propaganda to make it seem like the movement is being generated by "the people," when in fact it is a carefully planned, targeted marketing campaign designed to wipe out the public schools.

The most important thing to know is that this organization is not grassroots; it's astroturf!

An absolute lie is being spread that it was "developed by the grass-roots group Parent Revolution in the Los Angeles Unified School District.’ The lie is that group was not a grassroots group by any means. Danny Weil explains its true astroturf nature. Community members in LA have even stated that they were offered monetary compensation [by Green Dot] in exchange for their signature on a petition. But when a potential buyer for the LA Times is Eli Broad, who would there be to investigate?

Broad-supported State Senator Gloria Romero, in the running as State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has been the main pusher at the California state government level.

GRANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BROAD FOUNDATION Source: Broad Foundation Form 990s (EIN = 954686318) obtained at the National Center for Charitable Statistics
Year	To Green Dot Public Schools/Green Dot Educational Project EIN = 95679811	To the Small Schools Alliance, dba as the Los Angeles Parents Union since 2007 (This organization became the “Los Angeles Parents Union” in 2007 and uses the same EIN = 202207418. The LAPU is the same organization as the “Parent Revolution” and has the web site www.parentsunion.org, making a total of four names for the same organization.)	To the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Education and Support Fund
2005	$700,000: “To support high-quality public charter schools in Los Angeles” (Total 2005 support in contributions, gifts, grants, etc. to this organization was $5,315,065)	$100,000: General fund (Total 2005 revenue for the Small Schools Alliance was $980,608. Broad supplied 10% of its direct funding)	None
2006	$700,000: “To support more high-quality public charter schools in Los Angeles (Total 2006 Direct Public Support in contributions, gifts, grants, etc. to this organization was $9,524,116)	None (Total 2006 revenue for the Small Schools Alliance was $383,500)	$64,750: “To engage SEIU members in Los Angeles around an education reform package to change the Los Angeles Unified School District”
2007	$1,210,040 total: $9,040 to the Green Dot Educational Project, plus $1,201,000 to Green Dot Public Schools, “To support the scale up of more high-quality charter schools in Los Angeles” (Total 2007 Direct Public Support in contributions, gifts, grants, etc. to this organization was $10,015,000)	$150,000 total: $75,000 “To match SEIU funds to support the Small Schools Alliance launch of the Los Angeles Parent Union” plus $75,000 “To match SEIU funds to support the Small Schools Alliance business plan of the Los Angeles Parent Union” (Total 2007 revenue for the Small Schools Alliance/LAPU was $323,343. Broad supplied 46% of its direct funding)	None
2008	$1,859,000 total: $9,000 to the Green Dot Educational Project, plus $1,850,000 to Green Dot Public Schools, “To support the scale up of more high-quality charter schools in Los Angeles” (Total 2008 Direct Public Support in contributions, gifts, grants, etc. to this organization is not available at this time on 2/21/10)	$25,000: “To match SEIU funds to support the Small Schools Alliance business plan of the Los Angeles Parent Union” (Total 2008 revenue for the Small Schools Alliance/LAPU was $324,628. Broad supplied nearly 8% of its direct funding)	None

QUESTION: What is the relationship between SEIU, Broad, and the Parent Revolution?

A presentation delivered at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform sponsored 2008 Emerging Knowledge Forum was called “Green Dot Public Schools & LA Parents Union.” The presentation team consisted of Steve Barr (Founder & CEO, Green Dot Public Schools), Sandy Blazer (Chief Academic Officer, Green Dot Public Schools), Christine Boardman, (President, Service Employees International Union, Local 73), and Ryan Smith (Executive Director, LA Parents Union). This is from their accompanying report.

“Steve Barr noticed that at one of Green Dots’ high schools, a large proportion of students has parents who were members of Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). From this observation, a partnership evolved between Green Dot and SEIU’s national organization, as well as its Los Angeles affiliate. While most professional unions have opposed charter schools, SEIU has embraced LAPU’s reform agenda because their members’ children are the main victims of failing urban schools. For almost a year, SEIU has formally worked with Green Dot and LAPU, providing LAPU with both funding and technical assistance from experienced organizers. In turn, SEIU is interested in exploring how Green Dot’s model and LAPU’s organizing efforts can drive school reform in other urban districts across the country.”

Mike Garcia, President, Service Employees International Union Local 1877, is currently listed as a member of Green Dot’s board of directors. Teacher union members beware: the SEIU is not your friend.

Interesting facts from Green Dot’s 2007 Form 990

• Joanne Weiss, who is now running the Race to the Top program for Arne Duncan, is listed as a board member, as well as Kevin Hall of the Broad Foundation
• Steve Barr as Executive Director/CEO was paid $215,467
• Marco Petruzzi as Board President was paid $204,022. His current Green Dot bio says he is also Venice chapter president of the Los Angeles Parents Union.

Also, this is the document which contains the following:

“The Corpoation's [sic] review, which was completed on August 15, 2008, concluded that during the period from January 2004 through September 2007, the Corporation reimbursed Mr. Barr in error a total of $50,866 for charges that were either not reimbursable in nature, or were insufficiently substantiated or documented to qualify for reimbursement.” More information here.

About Ben Austin, the Executive Director of the Parents Union

The section “Compensation of the Five Highest Paid Independent Contractors for Professional Services” shows that Ben Austin, with an address listed in Beverly Hills' Benedict Canyon, was paid $94,475 that year. In April 2008 he became the Executive Director of the Parents Union (aka LAPU/aka Parents Revolution). In his bio, Austin proudly states that he will be sending his two daughters to Warner Avenue Elementary. To demonstrate how exceptional and affluent the families of this school are, in 2007 the Warner Avenue Foundation (EIN 95-4072053) provided the school with an extra $449,022 (or an extra $747/kid).

Parents like Ben Austin provided supplementary funds to pay for "teaching assistants for each classroom, as well as providing all students with access to a physical education, art, computer, science and music specialist" ($330,979), capital improvements and facilities maintenance ($7,223), educational, computer, copy, emergency and cleaning supplies ($49,639), and teacher and principal grants and student scholarships ($27,583). The biggest money making events were the spring auction ($94,844), a Halloween event ($61,470), a walk-a-thon ($40,238), and a holiday boutique ($14,064). Oh, the poor public school attending children of Ben Austin, their LAUSD experience will be just like that of everyone else. By the way, Austin's day job is an assistant city attorney for Los Angeles. He was previously a Deputy Mayor under Mayor Richard Riordan, who is a longtime friend of Eli Broad and another Gloria Romero supporter and have hosted big fundraisers for her.

Read here to find out how Austin/Parent Revolution is trying to distance itself from Green Dot. Good luck with that, folks, especially since Mr. Green Dot is your board CEO/President.

More eye-popping differences between Ben Austin's LA public school and that of everyone else	Warner Avenue Elementary	Los Angeles Unified
African American	2%	10%
Asian	17%	4%
Latino	5%	74%
White	75%	9%
Socioeconomically disadvantaged (	3%	78%
Gifted and Talented Education	25%	12%
English Learners	6%	31%
Students with Disabilities	7%	12%
Average Parent Education Level: "1" represents "Not a high school graduate" and "5" represents "Graduate school."	4.47	2.22
Academic Performance Index	971	694

So now we have the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Parent Union and one of the originators/pushers of the “Parent Trigger” meeting with poor, limited English-speaking parents to convince them to sign school closure petitions and representing himself to them as just another typical LA Unified parent with children heading off to struggling schools, when in fact he resides in one of the most affluent areas of the city and will be sending his kids to one of the public schools which has absolutely no demographic relation to the schools used by his uninformed-about-the-dynamics and easily manipulated parent targets.

As a longtime public school parent who has used schools in my community with demographics much more aligned to my district as a whole, I am wise to the con Ben Austin is pulling off. ¡Qué cojones!

Addendum: Steve and Ben's project is certainly making the rounds. Arranging events and attending meetings must be what Barr has been busy with since he stepped down from his position as CEO of Green Dot last November.

From an email sent to me:

Get Smart Schools is part of a group of non-profits hosting an exciting new speaker series. Please join us at the event described below!

Want to help ensure that all kids in your community receive the very best education? Save the Date to join us for the next speaker in our series.

Speaker: Ben Austin, Los Angeles Parents Union (LAPU) and a Parent Revolution representative.

Thursday March 4, 2010

This is in Denver, Colorado.

GetSmartSchools is a program sponsored by the Piton Foundation. Christopher Scott, a parent and past Denver Public Schools school board candidate warns about this organization in the following statement submitted to the Denver Post last fall. It's more of the same:

"Secondarily, DPS senior executives have allowed the District to become the domain of special interests. Organizations such as Piton Foundation have unfettered access to District leadership, sitting important District committees like the Application Review Team evaluating charter applications for charters funded by the foundations themselves, providing recommendations to the District for more charter schools, while profiting by these recommendations. Moreover, under Michael Bennet, political action committees were brought to town to shape the school board election. This PAC, Stand for Children, poses as a pro-parent organization, but, in reality, its Chief Executive, Jonah Edelman, is a long time friend of Mr. Bennet, grew up next door to Tom Boasberg, whose sister served on Stand's Board of Directors until this month. According to Mr. Boasberg, he had no idea Stand was coming to Denver, as the decision was made while Bennet was Superintendent."

It is important to know that "The Piton Foundation is a private, operating foundation established in 1976 by Denver oil man Sam Gary. It is funded by the Gary-Williams Energy Corporation to develop and implement programs to improve education, expand economic opportunities for families, and strengthen lower-income communities." On its advisory board are

On the advisory board of GetSmartSchools are the usual ed deform/school privatization malanthropic foundations, big business interests, and charter-linked suspects:

• Amy Anderson, Donnell-Kay Foundation
• Jill Barkin, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
• Becca Bracey-Knight, Broad Foundation
• Phil Caplan, Urban West Group
• Heather Carroll, Edmonson Foundation
• Yee-Ann Cho, Envision Schools Colorado
• Ami Desai, Denver Venture School
• Wayne Eckerling, Former Assistant Superintendent, Denver Public Schools
• Sandra Elliott, Gnow-How
• Nora Flood, Colorado League of Charter Schools
• Lisa Flores, Gates Family Foundation
• Marcia Fulton, The Odyssey School
• Chris Gibbons, West Denver Prep
• Merlin Holmes, National Heritage Academies
• Rebecca Holmes, KIPP Colorado Schools
• Brooke Johnson, Carson Family Foundation
• Michael Johnston, Mapleton School District
• Rachel Kelley, Teach for America
• Ed Kennedy, Edison Schools
• Kim Knous-Dolan, Donnell-Kay Foundation
• Bill Kurtz, Denver School of Science and Technology
• Cathy Lund, Walton Foundation
• Zach McComsey, Atlas Prep School
• Alex Medler, Colorado Children's Campaign
• Gretchen Morgan, Envision Schools Colorado
• Alex Ooms, West Denver Prep
• Reyna Perez-Oquendo, Donnell-Kay Foundation
• Audra Philippon, AXL Academy
• Jane Shirley, William-Smith High School
• Tim Taylor, Colorado Succeeds
• Sean VanBerschot, Teach for America
• Brian Weber, Stapleton Foundation

To see what I've written previously about Green Dot and Steve Barr, read here and here.

The most important thing to know is that this organization is not grassroots; it's astroturf!

The most important thing to know is that this organization is not grassroots; it's astroturf!

The most important thing to know is that this organization is not grassroots; it's astroturf!