Indiana's Corporate Education Reformers Get An Earful from Educators

Sanity breaks out in Indiana. From WISH-TV reporter, Deanna Dewberry:

. . . .University education leaders say a good teacher must have both a mastery of the subject he's teaching and knowledge of children and how they learn.

That's why university education leaders, those who teach teachers how to teach, say they oppose Dr. Tony Bennett's Proposed Rule Revisions for Educator Preparation and Accountability or REPA. Educators argue the proposed rules will erode the quality of preparation of teachers and administrators.

"Anyone can be a principal without any educational requirements," said Deb Lecklider, Associate Dean of Butler's College of Education.

Opponents argue the revisions greatly reduce the hours needed in education courses and classroom experience. The proposal encourages people from other fields, like business leaders, to become school administrators by granting temporary licenses to those with no education training.

"I think we need to consider the business community and what they have done to the United States of America and where we are with regards to that now and ask ourselves the question, 'Do we really want to turn our children over to these people?'," asked Elise Matthews of the Anderson Community School Corporation.

Matthews' comments were met with thunderous applause at Monday's meeting.

Then, a dramatic moment came late morning.

"We are delivering, as a part of public comment to REPA, 2,480 petitions," announced Jill Shedd of the Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

At that point, a half dozen educators carried every petition to the front of the room and stacked them on a table in a dramatic show of what they said is public opposition to the proposals, giving Indiana Department of Education leaders plenty of reading to do.

A few weeks ago Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels, one of the surviving specimen of the Bush years to successfully find a new political host, was crowing about finishing the work that Bush's old reading czar, Reid Lyon, had dreamed of for so many years--namely, to blow up America's colleges of education, where prospective teachers of the poor are poisoned with democratic dispositions and ethical commitments and caring attitudes and real teaching skills. Here is part of Daniels's rant:

“When the Professional Licensing Board begins starting next week to redefine what is required to get a teaching license in Indiana, the schools of education are going to have to make some major changes of their own. They are not going to need as many people teaching what to me is mumbo jumbo. We’re going to expect students who want to teach spending much more of their time studying the subject they are going to be teaching in the schools.”

Well, it is too early to tell if Indiana's corporate education reformers will prevail, but on Monday they got verbally hammered by a whole bunch of Indiana educators who have some crucial elements of their anatomies and who are no longer afraid to speak the truth to the know-nothing corporate clowns who want to destroy public schools and the teaching profession. From the Courier-Journal:

By Rick Callahan
Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS — A proposed revamping of Indiana's teacher licensing standards that would reduce the amount of required courses on how to teach drew sharp criticism Monday from educators, with one teacher calling it “a slap in the face.”

The comments came at the last of three public hearings on the plan as more than 250 people filled a hearing room at the Indiana State Library to comment. The proposals by Indiana schools chief Tony Bennett would require elementary education majors to take no more than 30 college credit hours in pedagogy, or how to teach.

Education schools say the Department of Education moved away from dictating the number of classes taken in recent years and should not get back in the business of regulating a college curriculum.

The department says education schools have piled on too many how-to-teach classes and that limits are needed.

Bennett's proposals also would have prospective educators major in a subject area, such as math or English, and earn a minor in education.

Most of the speakers criticized the plan, telling Indiana Department of Education staff members who oversaw the hearing that it had been inadequately researched and would not improve the quality of the state's teachers.

Opponents delivered a foot-high stack of petitions signed by nearly 2,500 teachers, principals and other educators from around the state. They urged the state to hold more public hearings and allow public school stakeholders a chance to help shape the initiative.

Elise Matthews, an Anderson teacher who has taught for 31 years at Anderson Community School Corp., said the proposals, if approved, would leave people without the necessary expertise to teach.

“I think it's another slap in the face. We need to stop slapping teachers in the face,” Matthews said.

Matt Moll, a 10th-grade English teacher at Franklin Community High School, said the state was moving too quickly and without consulting stakeholders in the education community.

“I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell my students who run down the hall: Slow down. Someone might get hurt,” he said.

More than 120 people signed up to speak at Monday's public hearing, which followed hearings that drew hundreds of critics last week in Scottsburg and Rochester.

Bennett has said that elementary education majors need to take more classes in the subjects they'll teach.

But John Ellis, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, said the proposal was wrongly targeting pedagogy instruction, which he said is crucial.

“You have to know how to teach,” Ellis said. “There are people who are extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily gifted in their areas of specialty but just simply didn't know how to relate to kids.”

Several college educators testified against the proposals, including staff members from Indiana University, Purdue University, Ball State University and Butler University.

Deb Lecklider, associate dean of Butler's College of Education, said many students who are failing classes in Indiana's private, parochial and public schools are low-income, blacks, Hispanics or those with special needs.

“What we don't need are unprepared teachers in our classrooms with that very group of students that need us the most,” she said.

Bennett has said his proposals could save college students money on tuition-based courses.

Department of Education spokesman Cam Savage said the Indiana Professional Standards Board, which would have to approve any changes in the standards, next meets Nov. 18 but will not be voting at that time on Bennett's proposals.

“The board members have indicated that they would like a couple of meetings to discuss possible changes to the proposals,” he said.

When You're Rich and Connected, Call the US Treasury!

Yesterday, the U.S. Treasury Department gave a $50 million tax credit to Excellent Education Development, an organization helping with the rapid expansion of charter schools in the state of California (and, conveniently, in Eli's backyard). Eli must have been mighty pleased to see the U.S. Treasury Department step up to the plate and help his cause - after all, one of the lessons we learned during the banking collapse of '08 was the rich can always count on the feds to offer bailouts, buy-outs, tax breaks, and other forms of corporate socialism. Oh - and EED's board is headed by, you guessed it, a former banker, William Siart.

In this case, the feds dished out $50 million in tax credits as part of the Los Angeles Charter School New Market Tax Fund, described as "an innovative financing mechanism created by ExED in partnership with the U.S. Treasury Department." The partnership already distributed $71 million, including a $12 million loan to Steve Barr's Green Dot project. What about public schools, oh dear Treasury? California's "starve the Beast" tax policies are working out quite nicely for Eli and other market-driven reformers with their eyes on public education. The decision to support charters instead of public schools becomes much clearer after taking a peek at EED's supporters:

Ahmanson Foundation

The Broad Foundation

California Community Foundation

Michael J. Connell Foundation

Joseph Drown Foundation

Rose Hills Foundation

James Irvine Foundation

The Riordan Foundation

William B. Siart Family Foundation

The Walton Family Foundation

Washington Mutual

Weingart Foundation

For a little extra dose of EED reality, check out board member Guilbert Hentschke talking about the "shaking out" of charter schools - we're not talking mom and pop charters (as originally conceived), we're talking about the massive charter chains, the Wal-Mart version of education. No wonder the Wal-Mart family loves this guy!

Think of it this way: Eli and his rich buddies can donate money to their favorite cause, and then lobby the Treasury to give them even MORE money! Ain't bein' rich great?

From the Business Wire:

Excellent Education Development Receives $50 Million Tax Credit From U.S. Treasury Department

Mon Nov 2, 2009 12:52pm EST

Largest Allocation to Date Will Boost Financing Efforts for Charter Schools inLow-Income Areas of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES--(Business Wire)--

The U.S. Treasury Department has awarded Excellent Education Development (ExED)with a $50 million allocation of New Markets Tax Credits (NMTCs), which will be used to support high-performing charter schools in Los Angeles. This is ExED`s third NMTC allocation and the largest to date, reflecting the success of the organization`s past efforts to transform schools in the most underserved regions of Los Angeles.

The recent $50 million allocation will allow ExED to continue offering low-interest rate loans to build and improve facilities for charter schools. In addition to providing construction and permanent financing, ExED will also expand its current activities to offer new programs that finance improvements to leased facilities.

"We are thrilled about this new allocation, as it will enhance our efforts to bring great new schools to the lowest-income areas of our city," said ExED Executive Director Anita Landecker. "We look forward to working with more high-achieving charter schools to continue to create affordable facilities in neighborhoods that so desperately need them."

This new allocation marks a significant milestone for the Los Angeles Charter School New Market Tax Fund, an innovative financing mechanism created by ExED in partnership with the U.S. Treasury Department. ExED pioneered the application of this tax credit to charter schools, using it to finance the creation of facilities at 12 charter schools throughout the Los Angeles area. The organization recently finished dispersing the $71 million allocated by the Treasury Department in two funding rounds over the past four years.

One of these new facilities is Stern Math and Science School (MASS), which opened its permanent 34,000-square-foot school in November 2008 on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). Attending school on a college campus every day, Stern MASS students have access to the university`s student teachers, counselors, library and selected courses, for which they receive high school and college credit.

In the nearby Boyle Heights neighborhood, KIPP LA Preparatory School received a $2.75 million tenant-improvement loan through ExED`s NMTC fund to rehabilitate a former tortilla factory into a middle school for 360 students, which opened in February 2009. A high-performing school serving a very low-income population, KIPP LA Prep prepares its students for college with elements such as an extended school day and regular field trips to university campuses.

ExED`s NMTC fund also provided a loan of nearly $12 million to transform a large warehouse property into a new facility for Ánimo Pat Brown School, which is located in an impoverished South Los Angeles community. Last fall the school moved into its new facility - the first likely charter school candidate for LEED-Silver Certification in Los Angeles. Administered by Green Dot Public Schools, Ánimo Pat Brown offers a renowned math and science program, reporting extraordinary math scores for a school with a large underserved student population.

"We are proud to be part of such a ground-breaking program, which puts tax credits to their best use," said Landecker. "This financing enables charter schools to fulfill their mission, creating innovative buildings that foster learning, while revitalizing surrounding neighborhoods in the process."

About ExED

ExED is the premier non-profit provider of back office and business consulting services to charter schools in Southern California. The organization assists charter schools with the essential functions they often find most difficult: securing affordable facilities, dealing with school districts, complying with state and federal regulations, accounting and payroll. Since its founding in 1998, ExED has served over 25,000 students across more than 75 schools.

How Imagine Schools, Inc. Preys on Schools in Poor Neighborhoods

Here is a clip from Part II of the the three part investigative series by the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette called Education Inc.:

. . . .Troy Bell knows exactly how Imagine Schools Inc. operates.

Bell used to be the director of development and new school concepts for Imagine Schools in Indianapolis but was laid off after what he calls a "power struggle" between him and Guy Platter, Imagine executive and former principal of Fort Wayne's Imagine MASTer Academy.

Imagine executives in Virginia look for cities in which to begin charter schools, pinpointing areas with poor test scores that are not meeting federal accountability standards, cities with low property values and states with solid charter school laws, Bell said. They then solicit community members in those cities to "start" the charter schools and become members of the board, he said.

It's not people self-organizing, it's a corporation encouraging the structure, Bell said.

"That initial stuff is what places the whole charter concept into a realm of potential misuse," Bell said.

In theory, Imagine Schools facilitates the charter application process, but in reality, an Imagine official completes the entire application and local people sign it, Bell said. The board then enters into a contract with Imagine Schools to manage the operations of the school.

At any time, the board can cancel that relationship, but then it's left with nothing: Imagine employs the teachers, administrators, usually owns the buildings and often owns the curriculum.

"Even though (Imagine) formally doesn't control the charter or the charter board, the school would really not exist if Imagine doesn't stay, and that's the leverage Imagine has over a board," Bell said. "That's basically the same model Imagine uses everywhere."

If Imagine – Fort Wayne Charter School were to break ties with Imagine Schools, for example, it would have to find a new campus after its lease expires, would have no Web site and would have to change its name. Teacher contracts would transfer to it, but those teachers would have no health insurance or other benefits until the school board bought them.

Bell confirmed the message in Bakke's memo is company policy.

"The attitude that Mr. Bakke has is the boards are there to support the efforts of the company, they're not there to run the school," Bell said. "They're there to provide us with the flavor and the culture of the community that we as outsiders of the community might not be privy to. They are not there to make decisions. They are there to help build relationships. That's the general attitude I was privy to when I was with the company."

It's a message that's getting through: In the 2 1/2 years the Imagine – Fort Wayne Charter School board has been meeting, not a single "no" vote has been recorded at its meetings, documents show.

None has been recorded for the two other Imagine school boards here, either. . . . .

The Selective Attention of the New York Times

My favorite national corporate newspaper of record, the NYTimes, has a story today by NYTimes reporter, Tamar Lewin, which is on the story researched by the Chronicle of Higher Ed regarding private college presidents' pay (I guess you could say Tamar blogged it for the Times).

The gist of the story is that 23 college presidents make, hold onto your coffee cup, more than a million dollars per year, with the top college exec making almost $1.5 million a year. I know--I am shocked, too, and saddened that in a world of market-based salaries and accountability, there is no accountablity in higher ed. On what profit-based metric can these CEO wannabes justify their exorbitant salaries? Over a million!

I decided to search the Times to see if I could find a similar story on corporate CEO pay, with the neat graphics that the Times staff put together for this public shaming of college presidents. Couldn't find one.

But I did find one at Forbes, where multimillion dollar CEO pay is a badge of honor, rather than one of shame. The latest I found was for 2008, and Larry Ellison of Oracle topped the list with $192.92 million annually. In fact, I had to go 20 pages deep into the chart to find a CEO that made under $1 million per year. Poor Donald Hoaglin of Huntington Banschares comes in at #483 on the list with only $980,000, although he had $7.5 million over the five year stretch.

Oh yes, I found another story that the Times did not bother to report. From UPI, "World's Top 100 Universities Named":

SHANGHAI, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. universities were tops among the world's top 100 institutions of higher education, a report found.

Once again American universities dominated the world rankings as they have for the past six years, taking all but three of the top 20 spots, The University World News Web site said.

Three U.S. universities took the top three positions. Harvard ranked first, Stanford second and the University of California Berkeley came in at third place.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked 5th, the California Institute of Technology ranked sixth, Columbia University ranked seventh, Princeton University rated eighth on the list and the University of Chicago came in at number nine.

The universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Tokyo ranked fourth, 10th and 20th respectively. Emory University in the United States was allocated the last slot in the top 100 institutions.

The Web site said 67 of the top 100 universities are located in the United States, 13 in Britain and five in Japan.

Israel's Hebrew University in Jerusalem ranked 64th, data released by the Center for World Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University said Sunday.

The rankings were based on criteria which included the number of scientific publications released by institutes and the number of graduates who won the Nobel Prize.

For Fenty to Survive, Rhee's Got to Go

Adrian Fenty is stuck with the same problem at the city level as the President at the national level: How to rein in a chief education appointment who has been taken over and run amok by the self-appointed philanthrocapitalist gangs in charge to corporate education reform at both the city and national levels.

Sadly, the corporate media such as the Washington Post is treating the most recent crimes by Michelle Rhee as some kind of bizarre he said/she said between Councilman Vincent Gray (who offered a blistering appraisal of Rhee last Thursday) and Chancellor Rhee, herself, who thus far has depended upon her arrogance, unlimited supply of hubris, and the opinions of Eli Broad's lawyers to face this latest debacle of her own creation. If any school teacher or principal acted with the premeditated insubordination that Rhee has displayed most recently with her conspiracy to fire 266 experienced teachers, he or she would already be looking for another job. As it is, the Washington media seem to think that Vincent Gray is somehow as much to blame for the reckless, irresponsible, and law-defying behavior by Corporate Ed Reform's Poster Girl, M. Rhee. The best Valerie Strauss can do in today's WaPo is end her piece with a cutesy plea to "bring together Rhee, Gray and whoever else matters. Shame them, if you must, to end their feuding."

Before Strauss makes her final scraping bow, however, to her Editors' politics, she does make a few good points:

. . . . Rhee seems to think she can do whatever she wants because she is sure she is on the side of the angels in her reform efforts. She clearly views Gray as the defender of process rather than poor kids.

Such characterizations are not only pointless but dangerous because they only increase a polarization that is sure to end in another failed reform, which would be tragic for the nation's capital.

The more the bureaucracy doesn't trust Rhee, the more entrenched it will get, and the less it will do what she wants.

If you don't think this will happen, look at what has gone on in the District for years. With every new superintendent and every new reform policy, the folks who don't trust their leaders just dig in, waiting for the next boss to show up. That's how we got to the place we are today.

Rhee would get a lot further if she made her case to the public, explaining why she was doing what she was doing. She doesn't have to be nice about it. She just can't say one thing when something else is true. And she has done that more than once in recent months, and not only about the layoffs.

I found disturbing a recent story about Rhee by Turque, in which he quotes a few principals who said that Rhee asked at a meeting how she could regain the trust of teachers. Such a question indicates that she recognizes that having their trust is useful.

But when Turque asked her about it, she denied ever saying it. My instinct tells me that the principals did not misquote her. So why would she deny having said it? None of the possibilities is good.

Does it matter? Yes. . . . .

And yes, Councilman Gray is the defender of process, the process on which our Constitution is based and the process upon which orderly society depends. It is called the rule of Law.

Jay's Intro

A few days ago, Jay Mathews over at the WaPo asked, "Are Post authors biased?" Jay, is the Pope Catholic? In the same column, readers are invited to submit disclaimers Jay could insert at the top of his blog posts. Submit your own - either here or at WaPo. Below is my suggestion, which is sure to be DENIED:

“Class Struggle” is dedicated to sweeping all dialogue about poverty, economic injustice, and social inequity under the rug in favor of discussing test scores, the saintliness of KIPP, corporate missionaries from TFA, and a litany of other quick-fix education programs and test-happy pedagogical approaches. Show me a test and I’ll pump it; heck, the newspaper I write for pulls in the majority of its profits from Kaplan (do you really think I’d bite the hand that feeds me?). Visit “Class Struggle” any time you want a puff piece on DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a sanitized version of charter chaingangs, or just a little bit of reassurance about the legitimacy of the testing regime known as No Child Left Behind. Happy testing, kids!

Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette Investigates Corporate Charter Outfit, Imagine, Inc.

Reporters Dan Stockman and Kelly Soderlund of the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette have produced a piece of investigative journalism that is rare in these late high times for corporate school reform, as crooked stock manipulators have turned their eye to the mountain of federal dollars intended to feed the corporate charter school movement. Reform of, by, and for the Corporation, all with public tax dollars and without oversight, the corporate charter movement is a sewer of corruption waiting to have its smelly cover popped off, a cover that the New York Times and the Washington Post won't go near, since their editorial boards are owned by those crafting education policy.

Stockman and Soderlund have performed a huge public service that is rare in American journalism today, with a three part investigation of Imagine Schools, Inc., a charter chain gang outfit operated by lunatic megalomaniac, Dennis Bakke. Here is a clip from Part One of "Education Inc:"

FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The local school board was about to spend almost $100,000 of taxpayer money on a busing service for students.

But there was no discussion of bids to ensure taxpayers got the best deal. There were no questions about cost, insurance or alternatives to this contract awarded to a southern Indiana trucking company.

Most importantly, there was no vote.

Despite spending millions of tax dollars a year, the board of this public school votes on almost nothing.

Not the $87,510 a year to operate school buses. Not $114,871 to run a lunch program. Not which teachers are hired or whether to hold summer school, or even whether to borrow more than $1 million for operations.

All those decisions and many more were made by a private company from Virginia, though Internal Revenue Service regulations say tax-exempt organizations such as this one must have independent, local control.

Welcome to Imagine charter schools.

When Imagine board members do make major decisions, they often do so by signing papers outside of public meetings, with no public debate and no public vote. Instead of local control, a Journal Gazette investigation found, executives with the for-profit management company tell the Fort Wayne board members how decisions will be made and how money will be spent.

Local school officials deny any wrongdoing. Imagine corporate officials, who operate two Fort Wayne schools and hope to open a third next year, did not return calls for comment.

“We’ve not heard any comment from the IRS in any way that I’m aware of,” said Don Willis, a local businessman who founded the Imagine charter schools in Fort Wayne and is chairman of the Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter School board.

Other board members refused to answer questions or said they did not know the answers.

Founded in 2006 and opened to students in the fall of 2007, Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter School Inc. is a local non-profit agency that supposedly runs Imagine MASTer Academy, a public charter school paid for with taxes. Its sister entity, IFWCS Campus II, runs Imagine Schools on Broadway, and IFWCS Campus III will run the planned Imagine Bridge Academy.

Charter schools are public schools, funded by the state on a per-student basis. They can also receive money from federal grants, state tuition support and private foundations, but they are free of some of the regulations imposed on traditional public schools, so they can use innovative techniques and try to improve education.

Imagine Schools Inc., a for-profit company in Arlington, Va., makes nearly every important decision in Fort Wayne and has even used the local agency’s non-profit status to expand its charter school empire of 73 schools in 12 states.

“Ultimately, for all charities, the board of directors should be the entity that has full oversight and control over the organization,” said Bennett Weiner, chief operating officer of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, a national charity-monitoring organization based in Virginia. “The staff reports to the board of directors, not the other way around.”

That might be news to board members, the IRS, state regulators and the Hoosiers whose tax dollars pay for those schools. For the 2007-08 school year, Imagine MASTer Academy received $2.9 million in taxes, plus a $1.24 million low-interest loan from the state. . . .

Do read on. And on.

Rhee: "Cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building are way overrated."

From Bill Turque at WaPo:

. . . .In Rhee, Fenty, 38, has chosen a philosophical soul mate with his passion for public policy based more in metrics and outcomes than consultation with stakeholders, critics say. Rhee told an Aspen Institute audience last year that one of the lessons she'd learned in Washington was that "cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building are way overrated."

Other high-profile mayoral takeovers have involved seasoned urban politicians whose initial leadership choices were more conventional. Chicago's Richard M. Daley named his budget director, Paul Vallas. In Boston, a committee appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino selected Thomas Payzant, head of the San Diego school system.

The tumult in the District reflects the pace -- detractors say recklessness -- with which Rhee has moved since coming from the education nonprofit group she founded after three years as a Baltimore teacher. In 28 months, she has upended almost every sector of public school operations, from school closures to classroom instruction to teacher evaluations to labor relations. . . .

Norming NAEP Under Bush I

From Bill Wraga in the Athens Banner:

In any organization, agency, or institution, public or private, there always is room for improvement. Such is the case with our public schools. But the National Assessment of Educational Progress performance levels cited in the Banner-Herald's Thursday editorial, "Schools may need money, but must do better job," are inappropriate indicators of the academic performance of public school students.

Here's why: During the late 1980s, rising NAEP scores contradicted the George H.W. Bush administration's platform that the public schools were failing and in need of serious overhaul. In order to be able to use the NAEP scores to criticize the public schools and promote the administration's policies, administration officials invented the "advanced," "proficient" and "basic" performance labels. For each label, they set the criteria so high that few students could meet them, making student performance and the public schools look worse off than they actually are.

Testing experts regard the criteria for the NAEP performance labels as arbitrary, unreasonable and technically indefensible.

In fact, according to the Georgia Department of Education's Web site, NAEP scores in fourth-grade reading and math and eighth-grade reading and math for Georgia public school students have risen for 10 years and are very near national averages.

So, let us continually improve our public schools. But let us also be aware that NAEP performance labels now function more as political weapons than as educational tools.

William G. Wraga
Watkinsville

William G. Wraga is Professor in the Program in Educational Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia.

Rhee Defied Law In Order to Slash More Teachers

Apparently the pleas of Grover Norquist were not enough to rally the pro-Rhee troops this past Thursday, as the Lady with the Broom went before DC City Council without cheering crowds to explain why she took it upon herself to ignore the law along the way to creating the latest crisis within the DC City Schools.

Whether or not Rhee and her flunky CFO, Noah Wepman, will end up fired for incompetence, mismanagement, and breaking District laws remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that on November 5, Judge Bartnoff will have ample reasons to seriously consider ordering the reinstatement of the 266 District teachers who were canned by Rhee and her henchmen on October 2, despite the budget decisions given her by DC City Council.

Here are just some of the relevant details that the Court may consider on November 5.

Mr. Wepman admits that the Chancellor's Office knew in early July 2009 that the new DC Schools were seriously overspending their projected budget by hiring over 900 new teachers during Spring and Summer of 2009, which represented 300 more teachers than normal, even though no one projected any sizable increase in student enrollment for this year. Mr. Wepman nor anyone else in the Chancellor's office bothered to share this overspending information with the District CFO, Natwar M. Gandhi. This maneuver, in fact, allowed the new Budget to be certified, which, in turn, required $43.9 million to be cut from the budget.

Mr. Wepman offered the Chancellor "about 10 options to cut costs that did not involve cutting teachers," but the Chancellor could not be dissuaded from her plan to cut experienced teachers while keeping the new hires that were largely responsible for the deficit that Ms. Rhee had created.

Instead of making the cuts as the District's legislative body legally mandated, Chancellor Rhee took it upon herself, without even bothering to send an email to Council, to reinstate $9 million that the District had ordered cut from the 2010 summer school budget, which could have saved 100 of the 266 teacher positions that Rhee sliced out.

From Bill Turque in WaPo:

. . . .For some council members, the revelations confirmed suspicions that Rhee ignored a council directive to trim the summer school program and manipulated this year's budget process to further her goal of replacing a large portion of the city's 4,000 teachers. They vowed to press their investigation of the dismissals.

The hearing also laid bare festering tensions between Rhee and D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), a possible mayoral candidate next year, who has for months criticized the school leader for a lack of communication and transparency. He said her decision, which he called "incredibly cavalier," violated legal requirements that she submit a "reprogramming" request to the council when shifting funds.

"I'm talking about the law," Gray said. "Why bother to have a legislative body if the people in the executive branch do whatever they choose because they don't like the decision of the legislative body?" . . . .

And more juicy details from the Washington Times that show that Rhee was planning personnel cuts even while she was hiring an unprecedented number of new teachers:

. . . .Mr. Wepman acknowledged he should have told Mr. Gandhi in July when the school system became aware of projected overspending, but he said he did not because the school system was considering options, including cutting personnel, that would address the problem.

"We had to predict options that would occur in the future that would get us [under budget]," Mr. Wepman said. "We knew based on the actions we planned to take that it would be balanced."

Mr. Gray said he would look into Mr. Wepman's actions, saying there appeared to be "no question" the law was broken.

The revelation further incensed several members of the council who for weeks have questioned the legitimacy of the layoffs, which occurred after the school system hired more than 900 teachers before the school year began.

Council members and education advocates have speculated that the personnel cuts were an intended consequence of overhiring that would allow the chancellor to make targeted firings of teachers and school employees.

Ms. Rhee said the high number of hirings, almost 300 more than in recent years, was the result of a budget that put more money in individual schools than in previous years.

Eliciting further outrage from council members was the revelation that Mr. Wepman provided Ms. Rhee with about 10 options to cut costs that did not include cutting teachers.. . .