How Jeb Bush's FEE Became the Conduit for Corporate Cash to Make ED Policy

Through FOIA, In the Public Interest has acquired hundreds of documents that provide the much-needed links between corporate interests and state and federal education policy makers.  Below is a commentary from IPI and below that are some page views that offer some graphic evidence of the depth of the sewer, which promises to give corruption in education policy entirely new boundaries.

What we find, essentially, is that Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education is the conduit that carries money, communication, lobbying, and logistics for making education policy at the state and federal levels.  Working in conjunction with ALEC to write legislation, this is how policy gets done without public oversight and without elected officials ever getting involved.

What I clipped from the huge stash is enough to give readers an overview of how Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education has come to dominate the education agendas in a number of states with its "Chiefs for Change." Below is a list of the Chiefs.

FLORIDA CHIEF Tony Bennett Florida Commissioner of Education & Chair of Chiefs for Change

MEMBER EMERITUS Gerard Robinson Former Florida Commissioner of Education & Member Emeritus

MEMBER EMERITUS Eric Smith Former Florida Commissioner of Education and Executive Director, Chiefs for Change

LOUISIANA CHIEF John White Louisiana State Superintendent of Education

MEMBER EMERITUS Paul Pastorek Former Louisiana State Superintendent of Education & Member Emeritus

MAINE CHIEF

Stephen Bowen

Maine Commissioner of Education

NEW JERSEY CHIEF Chris Cerf New Jersey Commissioner of Education

NEW MEXICO CHIEF Hanna Skandera New Mexico Public Education Department Secretary-Designate & Vice Chair of Chiefs for Change

OKLAHOMA CHIEF Janet Barresi Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction

RHODE ISLAND CHIEF

Deborah A. Gist

Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary & Secondary Education

TENNESSEE CHIEF Kevin Huffman Tennessee Commissioner of Education

Emails between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), founded and chaired by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and conservative state education officials show that the foundation is writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders. 

The emails seem to describe a project similar to the American Legislative Exchange’s (ALEC) pay-for-play operation. Corporate donors rub shoulders with state education policy makers while FEE moves the corporate-friendly policy agenda. 

The emails, obtained through public records requests, reveal that the organization, sometimes working through its Chiefs For Change affiliate, wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders, often in ways that improved profit opportunities for the organization’s financial backers. Bush has been referred to as the “godfather” of Chiefs for Change, an alliance of conservative state superintendents and education department directors with significant authority over purchasing and policy in their states. 

Education has the potential to be an enormous business opportunity and corporate America is looking for a way in. In 2010 Rupert Murdoch, who now has a growing education division called Amplify, said recently that "[w]hen it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S.” Amplify is one of FEE’s corporate donors. 

The emails conclusively reveal that FEE staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities, and demonstrate the dangerous role that corporate money plays in shaping our education policy. Correspondence in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Louisiana paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy. 

The Portland Press-Herald has reported, the emails were evidence of “a partnership formed between Maine’s top education official and a foundation entangled with the very companies that stand to make millions of dollars from the policies it advocates.” 

The emails paint a cozy picture of influence and, in some cases, actually outsourced policy making that could significantly expand markets for a new generation of for-profit education companies. Rick Ogston, the founder of for-profit online education company E2020, told Reuters last year that they go to FEE and say “these policies are in the way, and it would be great if you could change them.”
 
In New Mexico, FEE acted as a broker to organize one-on-one meetings between their corporate donors and individual Chiefs. A draft agenda for the Excellence in Action 2011 Summit blocked off two hours for “Chiefs for Change donor meetings” Another draft agenda for the meeting allocated nearly three hours to “Chiefs for Change donor meetings” The donors for the summit included The Walton Family Foundation, Bradley Foundation, GlobalScholar, Target, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Microsoft, State Farm, IQity, McGraw-Hill Education,, Intel, Pearson Foundation, Apex Learning, ETS, Electronic Arts, Koret Foundation, SMART Technologies, K12, Charter Schools USA, and Connections Academy. Demand for donor time was so high that Patricia Levesque wrote that she had to turn down opportunities for the chiefs to meet other representatives from companies. 

Maine Governor LePage proposed FEE written legislation and executive orders that would remove current barriers to creating online K-12 schools and in some cases would require online classes. The so-called barriers included eliminating class size caps and student-teacher ratios, allowing public dollars to flow to online schools and classes and eliminating the ability of local school districts to limit access to virtual schools. 

The Foundation for Educational Excellence also acted as a conduit for ALEC model legislation and policies. LePage’s order originated at ALEC, was tailored for Maine by the FEE and sent to Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen, who subsequently forwarded it to LePage to release unchanged. “Resolution adopting the 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning” is a model bill introduced by Arizona Sen. Rich Crandall at the 2011 ALEC Annual Conference. LePage’s executive order originated with the Digital Learning Council, a group co-chaired by Bush and funded by FEE donors K12 Inc, the Pearson Foundation, and McGraw-Hill 

In Florida, FEE helped write legislation that would increase the use of the FCAT, a proprietary test currently under contract to global publishing giant Pearson, an FEE donor.
In February 2012, FEE CEO Patricia Levesque urged state officials to introduce SendHub, a communications tool, into their state's schools. News reports indicate that Jeb Bush was an investor in the start-up by the fall of 2012. Levesque’s income actually comes from her lobbying firm, Meridian Strategies, not FEE. Meridian has several clients that are also FEE donors including I-quity, an online education company and The College Board testing company. 

“These emails show a troubling link between Jeb Bush's effort to lobby for ‘reforms’ through his statewide Foundation for Florida's Future, his national Foundation for Excellence in Education, and the powerful corporations who want access to billions of our tax dollars by reshaping public education policies just to create markets for themselves - none of which is in the best interest of our children,” said Kathleen Oropeza, a Florida parent. 

To read the emails, please visit: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2747

The first document below shows just one agenda for one of the regularly-scheduled conference call that included the Chiefs.  Note the upcoming meetings, where Chiefs were wined and dined by corporate insiders, salesmen, and other bottom feeders with enough cash to get a meeting (click to enlarge)

Below is a sample email showing dinners being arranged by Eli Brod during one of the many coferences arranged by Bush's FEE. (Click to enlarge)

Below is the "great opportunity for Chiefs" email (click it to enlarge):

Below is a copy of a thank you note from Jeb to the Louisiana Chief, Paul Pastorek.

And below is the check to cover some expenses.

Integration Evisceration Expert

More analysis from the NYTimes:

. . . . Writing for the other four justices in the majority, Chief Justice Roberts took a harder line. In an unusual effort to cement his interpretation of Brown, he quoted from the transcript of the 1952 argument in the case.

“We have one fundamental contention,” a lawyer for the schoolchildren, Robert L. Carter, had told the court more than a half-century ago. “No state has any authority under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.”

Chief Justice Roberts added yesterday, “There is no ambiguity in that statement.”

But the man who made that statement, now a 90-year-old senior federal judge in Manhattan, disputed the chief justice’s characterization in an interview yesterday.

“All that race was used for at that point in time was to deny equal opportunity to black people,” Judge Carter said of the 1950s. “It’s to stand that argument on its head to use race the way they use is now.”

Jack Greenberg, who worked on the Brown case for the plaintiffs and is now a law professor at Columbia, called the chief justice’s interpretation “preposterous.”

“The plaintiffs in Brown were concerned with the marginalization and subjugation of black people,” Professor Greenberg said. “They said you can’t consider race, but that’s how race was being used.”

William T. Coleman Jr., another lawyer who worked on Brown, said, “The majority opinion is 100 percent wrong.”

“It’s dirty pool,” said Mr. Coleman, a Washington lawyer who served as secretary of transportation in the Ford administration, “to say that the people Brown was supposed to protect are the people it’s now not going to protect.”

But Roger Clegg, the president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a research group in the Washington area that supports colorblind government policies, disagreed, saying the majority honored history in yesterday’s decision.

“There is no question but that the principle of Brown is that a child’s skin color should not determine what school he or she should be assigned to,” Mr. Clegg said.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Brown not only supported but also required yesterday’s decision striking down student assignment plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., meant to ensure racially balanced schools.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in dissent, said Chief Justice Roberts’s discussion of Brown “rewrites the history of one of this court’s most important decisions.” Justice Stephen G. Breyer, also dissenting, said the opinion “undermines Brown’s promise of integrated primary and secondary education” and “threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation.”

Professor Greenberg said he was also wary of the reaction to yesterday’s decision. “Following Brown, there was massive resistance” that lasted some 15 years, he said. “This is essentially the rebirth of massive resistance in more acceptable form.”

Mr. Clegg, by contrast, said the decision’s practical consequences should be minimal. “Kennedy does leave the door open to some degree of consideration of race,” he said, “but it’s not very clear what that would be.”

As a consequence, Mr. Clegg said, most prudent school districts would shy from any use of race in assigning students for fear of costly and disruptive litigation.

Professor Greenberg suggested that more than law was at play in yesterday’s decision.

“You can’t really say that five justices are so smart that they can read the law and precedents and four others can’t,” he said. “Something else is going on.”

New MSNBC Prison Channel Series: Crime and Punishment in Florida Kindergartens?

For enterprising entrepeneurs ready to leap on an opportunity, there could be a bundle waiting for the first one to manufacture and market handcuffs for small children. You see, the adult ones have to be clicked in around their tiny biceps, which can lead to some discomfort. Think of it--with all that Homeland Security money around, every police force in America would be sure to buy a half-dozen pairs, anyway. First, though, check the Web--China may already have something that can be imported immediately.

From Raw Story:

Florida police chief: Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we've arrested?

In an interview with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, the "no-nonsense" police chief of a small town in Florida defended the arrest of a six-year-old African American girl who had a tantrum in her kindergarten class.

"When 6-year-old Desre'e Watson threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago she could not have known that the full force of the law would be brought down on her and that she would be carted off by the police as a felon," Herbert writes. "But that's what happened in this small, backward city in central Florida. According to the authorities, there were no other options."

Avon Park police chief Frank Mercurio tells Krugman, "The student became violent. She was yelling, screaming -- just being uncontrollable. Defiant."

But after Herbert responded, "But she was 6," Mercurio's "reply came faster than a speeding bullet: 'Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we've arrested?'"

Mercurio adds, "Believe me when I tell you, a 6-year-old can inflict injury to you just as much as any other person."

Herbert notes, "Last spring a number of civil rights organizations collaborated on a study of disciplinary practices in Florida schools and concluded that many of them, 'like many districts in other states, have turned away from traditional education-based disciplinary methods -- such as counseling, after-school detention, or extra homework assignments -- and are looking to the legal system to handle even the most minor transgressions.'"

Last week, the Ohio News Network reported that her parents are mulling a lawsuit against the police department.

"The state attorney's office will decide whether to prosecute the child," the article continued. "She faces charges of disruption of a school function, battery on school employees and resisting a law enforcement officer without violence."

Excerpts from Herbert column:

#

I asked the chief if anyone had been hurt. "Yes," he said. At least one woman reported "some redness."

After 20 minutes of this "uncontrollable" behavior, the police were called in. At the sight of the two officers, Mercurio said, Desre'e "tried to take flight."

....

There was a problem, though. The handcuffs were not manufactured with kindergarten kids in mind. The chief explained: "You can't handcuff them on their wrists because their wrists are too small, so you have to handcuff them up by their biceps."

As I sat listening to Mercurio in a spotless, air-conditioned conference room at the Avon Park police headquarters, I had the feeling that I had somehow stumbled into the middle of a skit on "Saturday Night Live." The chief seemed like the most reasonable of men, but what was coming out of his mouth was madness.

TIME SELECT SUBSCRIBERS CAN READ FULL COLUMN AT THIS LINK

CEOs, Charter Schools, and Scandal - Oh My!

Lavish salaries, restraining orders, and plenty of controversy - no, this isn't from Desperate Housewives, this story comes straight from a charter school chain operating in Colorado. You might recognize the Cesar Chavez School Network for their previous scandals - serious testing concerns, the lock-out of their online school, and 6-figure salaries. The school's CEO was demoted while the CFO resigned - but will their replacements inherit the absurd paychecks?

From the Denver Post:

Chavez School Network board demotes CEO

By Karen E. Crummy and Jordan Steffen
The Denver Post

After months of altercations, the Cesar Chavez School Network board decided Friday night to demote its chief executive and accepted the resignation of its chief financial officer.

At a raucous public meeting, the board decided that CEO Lawrence Hernandez would no longer have administrative power over all the network's schools, said Alex Medler, board chairman of the state-run Charter School Institute.

Instead, Hernandez will interact only with the Pueblo campuses, and his specific role concerning those schools has yet to be defined.

"Right now we have to see what this means for the (Cesar Chavez) Network in terms of its services," Medler said.

At the end of the five-hour meeting, the board accepted the resignation of chief financial officer Jason Guerrero, Medler said.

There was also discussion of redesigning the role of chief operating officer Annette Hernandez, Lawrence Hernandez's wife.

Medler said that he is not sure how he feels about the board's decision, since Lawrence Hernandez's new role has not been solidified.

The meeting convened about 3 p.m., just hours after Pueblo Chief District Judge Dennis Maes issued temporary restraining orders against Hernandez and his wife. Both are barred from having contact with the board president or the principal of Dolores Huerta Preparatory High School, according to The Pueblo Chieftain.

Maes' decision came after he heard testimony from board president Dennis Feuerstein and Dolores Huerta principal Richard Mestas, who both alleged that the Hernandezes and members of their family had threatened and intimidated them over the past few days.

Board attorney Dolores Atencio told The Chieftain newspaper that a special exception was made to permit Lawrence Hernandez to attend the Friday meeting.

Neither Atencio nor Hernandez could be reached for comment.

The Colorado Charter School Institute decided Wednesday to look into the possibility of permanently closing Cesar Chavez Academy North in Colorado Springs and the online GOAL Academy in Denver. Together, the programs educate about 900 students. Both schools, along with others, are part of the Chavez network.

Trouble regarding the network has been brewing for months. In May, at the same time the network was trying to shutter one of its schools due to financial problems, it was first disclosed that Hernandez was earning $261,732 a year, making him the highest paid public-school superintendent in the state. His wife made $134,826, and Guerrero, the CFO, earned $247,797.

Citing the financial problems, along with allegations of recruitment improprieties and testing abuse, Pueblo's school superintendent asked for an audit, which was then ordered by the state.

Since then, the struggle between the institute and the network has exploded, culminating this week with a shutdown of the online school for three days.

Additionally, after network officials were warned Wednesday by the Colorado Education Commission not to destroy records, the officials said some employees had unwittingly already done so.

The day before, Hernandez allegedly told staff members they should sign loyalty oaths to the network and give their computer user names and passwords by the end of the day or risk being fired.

My Big Break to Become a CGO and Rocketeer!

In what can only be described as the cruelest joke ever pulled on a corporate headhunter, someone gave my name to Monisha Dozier of Bellwether Education Partners (the high-rolling charter advocacy outfit where crook, Andy Rotherham, labors as thought leader) my name, yes, someone gave Bellwether my name, as a possible candidate for the Chief Growth Officer of a chain of corporate charter chain gangs known as Rocketship Education.  ha ha ha ha ha, whew, ha ha ha.

Monisha must have thought she was onto something big, for she neatly sent along the Rocketeers' business plan with the job description AND the Rocketeeer strategy outlined for fund-raising, buying politicians, rooting into  communities, and eliminating public schools, which the Rocketeers euphemistically refer to as "eliminating the achievement gap in each city."

But, first, Monisha's letter, which I truly must frame:

Hello Jim,

We don’t know one another but I’m an executive recruiter who focuses entirely on senior level searches in the urban education reform community.  I work for a nonprofit organization which I helped to found called Bellwether Education Partners which you can check out here if some additional context would help.  

I’m writing to you out of the blue because your name has been surfaced by someone I respect in the context of a search I’m currently conducting.  My client is Rocketship Education which, as you may know, is a California-based charter management organization which is doing incredible work with underserved students, getting results, and attracting significant national attention for these things and its blended learning model.  Rocketship’s growth plans are ambitious – and national – and so they’re seeking to fill several positions right now with people of exceptional talent across the US.   You’ve ended up on a target list of prospects specifically related to the search for their first ever Chief Growth Officer.   As you can see from the attached job description, the role contains politics, communications, and development and is ultimately responsible for getting Rocketship into new cities and expanding once they are there.  This is a very senior and critical role there;  as such it will be highly compensated and can be in any city.  They are looking for someone who is excellent on strategy and campaigns, and can be a great salesperson for the brand which is very hot at the moment. 

If you’d like to talk more about this, please let me know.   You can explore this with me, and them, quietly and we hope you’ll consider doing so.

Best,  

Monisha   

Monisha G. Lozier

Partner, Talent Services

BeLLWeTHeR EDUCATION PARTNERS

w: 312-451-2984

I wrote back and asked about salary and who referred her to me, but I got an out-of-office reply.  Too bad.  And I could not wait to share the news.  "Hello Jim," it say.  "Senior and critical role . . . highly compensated."  What would you guess?  500K?

If only I were a whore!

So here we have the Eduwank's vulture-enabling scam, Bellwether, fronting as a consultancy while recruiting for an outfit with all the Palo Alto Mafia onboard, including New Schools Venture Fund, the Broadies, Reed Hastings with his Dreambox, TFA, Facebook, and sundry other corporate leeches and buzzards of the online biz.  Quite a family affair.

• Tim Ranzetta and Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Partner at Accel Partners
• Bill Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital
• Dave Goldberg, CEO SurveyMonkey
• Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook
• Jason Stinson and Aileen Lee, Partner Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Jennifer Carolan and Shawn Carolan, General Partner Menlo Ventures
• Reed Hastings, CEO Netflix
• Dave Peery, Peery Foundation
• Toni Rembe Rock and Arthur Rock, Venture Capitalist
• Jonathan Chadwick, CFO Skype
• Franklin McKinley School District

To become involved as a board member or partner, contact info@rsed.org for more information.

Yes, do become involved, for if you don't, they will involve you, anyway.  This outfit plans to come to your city or a city near you, no doubt about it.  In one swoop, they were able just days ago to make an incredible feast of the poor in San Jose, thanks to Mayor Chuck Reed and Congresswoman (D) Zoe Lofgren.  28 schools.  Right now they have a dozen cities targeted.  See plan below.  They have a plan to corral and brainwash every poor urban child unclaimed by the KIPPsters and their acolytes, while creating an industry for the glassy-eyed, autocratic zombies who graduate from TFA.  Once a Corps member, always a Corps member! 

And they haven't left out the parents, either.  After all, if they are going to be able to pull the trigger to eliminate urban public schools, they are going to need to train parents to push for the now infamous "parent trigger."

Rocketship also provides parents with the organization and training to advocate for change for all schools. 

So here, just below, is the job description for the Chief Growth Officer.  Enjoy reading, and if you have hiring suggestions for Monisha, give her a call (w312-451-2984).  I was going to nominate Jeff Skilling, but someone told me he has ongoing pinochle game he can't get out of.  How about one of the Milken Boys?  They are both out of jail, I hear. 

Rocketship Education

Position Description: Chief Growth Officer

Organizational Overview

Founded in 2006, Rocketship Education (www.rsed.org) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation whose mission is to eliminate the achievement gap in public education by operating a network of high-performing, urban, college preparatory, K‐5 elementary charter schools in high‐need neighborhoods.  Rocketship’s growth plans are aggressive and underway; we intend to expand our network to ten cities over the next five years and to 50 major cities in the United States over the next fifteen years.  Each Rocketship school has a clear and simple goal: students achieve grade‐level proficiency by the time they graduate from elementary school and have the skills and focus they need to put them on a path towards college.

Rocketship operates five schools in San Jose, California, serving 2,500 students and plans to open two additional schools in San Jose in 2012. Among 2,000 low-income elementary schools in California, these first three Rocketship schools are all in the top 5% statewide and are the top performing low-income elementary schools in San Jose and Santa Clara County.  Rocketship schools have results rivaling wealthy school districts (such as Palo Alto) while serving 80%+ low-income students and 70%+ English Language Learners.  In 2013, Rocketship will open its first school outside of California in a city to be announced in March, 2012. 

The Rocketship School Model

The Rocketship School Model combines outstanding classroom teaching with individualized instruction in our Learning Lab and uses tutors and technology to meet the specific needs of each and every student.  Specifically, the Rocketship model comprises four key pillars:  

First, Rocketship empowers parents to help their children through a culture of high expectations and deep parent engagement, including annual home visits, monthly community meetings, and frequent family activities.  Rocketship also provides parents with the organization and training to advocate for change for all schools.  

Second, Rocketship develops talent – recruiting and training excellent teachers and developing our teachers into outstanding school leaders.  Rocketship has a deep relationship with Teach for America to bring both talented corps members and alumni to Rocketship.   We attract the best talent by paying teacher salaries that are 20% higher than those in surrounding districts.  Our Academic Deans on each campus work full-time to develop teachers into outstanding professionals.  Our Leadership Development team operates a three-year program to develop our teachers into capable school leaders.

Third, the innovative Rocketship model delivers outstanding academic results for students through individualized learning and excellent classroom teaching.  In Rocketship’s Learning Lab, every student receives two hours of daily instruction individualized to them, focused on exactly their developmental level through tutors and online instruction.  This focus on students’ individual strengths and areas for improvement accelerates learning for all students by quickly adapting to their needs and providing instruction where each student needs it most.  As Learning Lab delivers more of a student’s basic skills learning, our teachers are able to focus on what they do best in the classroom and maximize that time for teaching critical thinking skills, social-emotional learning and project-based learning. The emphasis on individualized learning and extension of knowledge in the classroom ensures that every child succeeds and that Rocketship students emerge with the skills and characteristics necessary to succeed in college and life and to actively compete nationally and globally.

Finally, in addition to the academic and teacher quality benefits described above, the Rocketship School Model scales.  Our approach delivers significant advantages in terms of each school’s quality but also allows us to grow.  Learning Lab is staffed with non-certified paraprofessionals instead of certificated teachers, saving $500,000 per school per year.  Rocketship reinvests these savings to improve school quality by increasing teacher pay, teacher support and development, leadership development, and providing enrichment programs such as art, music and physical education.  The model’s efficiency also allows Rocketship to open new schools in new facilities without philanthropy.  This, combined with a human capital approach to develop school leaders from among the ranks of teachers, allows Rocketship to not only scale, but to improve the quality of each new school as leader selection draws from a larger and larger pool of teachers.  Philanthropy is applied only toward national efforts to develop the infrastructure necessary to open and support more schools and not toward day-to-day school operations.  This makes Rocketship the first scalable charter school network.

The Position

This is an exciting time for Rocketship Education.  Having captured national attention for its school model, student results, and rapid expansion, Rocketship must navigate political forces which do not always desire to partner with organizations like Rocketship to bring great schools to their community.  As one of three leaders reporting directly to the CEO, the Chief Growth Officer (CGO) will augment an already exceptional team and will play a critical role in building the next high-performing national network of charter schools.  The Chief Growth Officer will act as the chief political strategist and chief salesperson for the organization.

Specifically, the CGO will be tasked with creating conditions at the local, state and federal level to allow Rocketship to meet its growth goals.  Rocketship has three phases of development in each new city – Engage, Empower, and Eliminate.  To Engage, Rocketship works with cities which have the right political conditions to approve up-front a cluster of eight Rocketship schools and mobilize citizen groups within those cities to reach approval.  Today, there are currently one dozen cities where this is a possibility.  In order to expand the Engage pipeline, we must work at the state and local level across the country and help national advocacy groups create more favorable conditions.  Additionally, we must advocate to align federal and state policies to allow for high-growth charter networks.   For example, in a growing number of states, high quality networks have agreements directly with the state to open as many schools as they have the internal capacity to deliver.  However, California has not been effective at opening up its charter law to provide ease-of-expansion for the best operators, causing significant wasted time in the chartering process each year.  It will be the CGO’s job to prioritize areas where state or federal changes are needed to allow Rocketship to meet its growth plan.

Approximately half-way through the build-out of the first cluster of schools in any city, we must create the conditions for significant expansion.  For example, in San Jose, there are currently 90 low-income elementary schools not currently bringing their students to proficient or above.  Rocketship currently has ten charters granted and is seeking 20 additional charters to open schools over the next five years.  The Empower stage requires broad community awareness of the achievement gap, specific data analysis on the magnitude of the problem, specifically identified failing schools, and a short timeline (typically five to ten years) for the problem to be fixed.  Rocketship was successful in creating this awareness in San Jose through SJ2020, which was co-championed by the mayor and superintendent of county schools.  We believe this type of awareness-building with community leaders will be necessary in all future regions and will require significant community organizing and advocacy to accomplish. 

Finally, as Rocketship accomplishes its initial expansion goals, we focus on completely eliminating the achievement gap in each city.  It is very likely that there will be additional schools to restart in order to do this and we expect that the Eliminate phase to be the most contentious given that the financial impact on school districts will be substantial.  As the first scalable charter network, it is crucial to remove politics as a barrier to serving children by working with communities to create the will for lasting change. 

Clearly, the political process will be significant in each market we enter.  Therefore, the CGO will lead a Growth division within Rocketship that will include at least three Vice President-level professionals managing National Expansion, Communications, and Philanthropy as well as a substantial budget for changing the policy environment for charters in the United States.

The CGO will:

●      Possess the core characteristics required of every Rocketeer – mission-driven, innovative, disciplined thinker, collaborative, and personally responsible;

●      Build and lead the mission-critical Growth team whose strategy and results will shape and drive the next era of Rocketship expansion, develop and manage the performance of the team, and institute strong accountability systems and professional development plans and support for its members;

●      Serve as a senior-level contributor to Rocketship’s leadership team and help to maintain collective focus on overall performance of the organization;

●      Drive the expansion of Rocketship into ten cities by 2016;

●      Prepare Rocketship to enter 50 major cities in the United States over the next fifteen years by focusing on cities currently lacking the  political will to enable them to partner with Rocketship and, subsequently, supporting regional Growth staff to generate political will during the Engage and Eliminate stages of expansion through framing, organizing, and advocacy;

●      Fundraise in each new city ($3M per city) as part of Rocketship’s initial package to Engage;

●      Influence state policy initiatives to advocate for Rocketship to operate in states with current legislative restrictions on new school models;

●      Influence federal regulations to align them with the evolving charter school market to ensure that Rocketship and other high-performing school networks are funded appropriately; and

●      Drive awareness of Rocketship through outstanding communications among national, education and local thought-leaders and media outlets as the proven leader of successful, scalable reforms in public education in the United States.

Required Qualifications

This is an outstanding opportunity to play a significant role in public education reform across the country.  Therefore, first and foremost, the CGO must believe that no student’s life is subject to the destiny of demographics.  Further, this is a hands-on, senior-level role as a leader in a small but rapidly growing entrepreneurial organization so the CGO must bring top-level senior management experience as well as a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude and work ethic. 

The successful candidate will have the following skills and experience:

●      The ability to position Rocketship in the policy arena as an agent for positive change through strong communication and strategic skills;

●      Five or more years in the education field, a significant portion of which should be in policy resulting in a sophisticated understanding of local and state education politics;

●      Five or more years as a senior-level manager, including a demonstrable track record of assembling  effective teams, strategic planning, communicating a vision and setting priorities, managing team execution, delegating, mentoring others and developing emerging leaders;

●      A personal story, philosophy and track record of building strong, trusting relationships through excellent communication and listening skills with diverse parent and community groups to empower them to change current policy;

●      A significant network of federal, state, and district education officials to aid in Rocketship’s expansion; and

●      A bachelor’s degree. 

The ideal candidate will also possess some combination of the following:

●      In-depth experience running political campaigns for individuals and/or issues; 

●      Superintendent, executive-team, or board-level experience inside an urban, public school district;

●      Experience as a state or federal legislator;

●      A results-oriented, goal-driven, team approach to work;

●      Confidence and persuasiveness compelling enough to bring divergent groups together;

●      A background in fundraising and track record of raising funds from significant donors;

●      A communications background, having been responsible for outbound communications for a significant organization;

●      Experience working in a high-growth (100% annual growth) start-up environment;

●      A sense of urgency; and

●      An advanced degree, preferably in Education or Public Policy.

Location

Rocketship supports top executives working throughout the country, and requires the leadership team to travel to Palo Alto, California at least four days per month to meet with the senior team in addition to other travel requirements.  Remote employees must be able to demonstrate past experience in being a productive team leader from a remote location.

Compensation commensurate with experience, reflecting the importance of Growth to Rocketship and direct reporting relationship to the CEO.

Ideal start date

January 2012.

 

Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share

After Rupert hired NYC's former chancellor and education profiteer, Joel Klein, News Corps spent a billion dollars to promote Amplify's digital education solution, which amounts to cheap laptops loaded with an endless supply digital worksheets for schoolchildren of the poor.  

This week Murdoch fired Klein and sold what remains of a busted company, taking a beating in the process. That's what I call a serious feedback issue.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Max Mason
Published: October 1, 2015 - 4:02PM

News Corporation has sold its digital education play Amplify for an undisclosed sum after the loss-making business laid off 500 employees, or about 50 per cent of its workforce.

The sale was flagged at News Corp's financial results in August, where Amplify was the driving force behind the media conglomerate's $US149 million full-year loss, thanks to a $US371 million write-down in the digital education business.

News Corp said Amplify had been sold to a management team supported by a group of private investors.

Amplify was born from the purchase of Wireless Generation for around $US390 million in 2010.

News Corp originally bought Wireless Generation, expanded and relaunched the business as Amplify with the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, Joel Klein, as chief executive.

Larry Berger, the co-founder of Wireless Generation, who was president of Amplify Learning, will reportedly become chief executive of Amplify.

Mr Klein will remain on the board of News Corp.

Deutsche Bank estimated that Amplify would have made a $US117 million loss in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the 2016 financial year, with a valuation of negative $US235 million, or negative US42¢ per share.

News Corp has invested more than $US1 billion in Amplify and chief financial officer Bedi Singh told investors at the briefing in August that results had been disappointing. At the time, News Corp said it had stopping selling products to new customers and was in the final phase of talks to sell Amplify.

The majority of the 500 job cuts, a mix of full- and part-time employees, took place on Tuesday, US time, with the remainder of affected staff staying through the transition period.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said the company was extremely proud of Amplify's work.

"It is tragic that so many children are digitally literate but functionally illiterate, and it has been the cherished vision of all at Amplify to ensure that students, regardless of their background, have access to a contemporary curriculum delivered on a contemporary platform," Mr Thomson said.

"There is no doubt that the foundations laid by the creative team at Amplify will be profoundly influential in coming years as both curriculum and classroom evolve. All who have been involved in the Amplify business at News Corp should be conscious of their contribution to education in the US and beyond."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/news-corp-exits-digital-education-business-amplify-20151001-gjyp19.html

Getting to Know KnowledgeWorks, Part 1

Soon after Ted Strickland (D) was elected Governor of Ohio in 2006, he announced that he would rely on the expertise of the KnowledgeWorks foundation to "help shape his administration's education agenda."  Really not surprising, since the CEO for KnowledgeWorks, Chad Wick, served as transition team leader following Strickland's election.  What does Wick, an investment banker, know about education?  Nothing, but his patron, Bill Gates has a whole stable of Princeton and Yale grads who pretend to know everything.

Dr. Chad P. Wick is a General Partner at MAYWIC Select Investments. Dr. Wick is a commercial banking executive and leader of an educational organization in the U.S. He has also built New Tech Network. Dr. Wick co-founded RISE Learning Solutions. He was the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer at KnowledgeWorks Foundation since 1998. Previously, Dr. Wick has served as the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Board member of institutions including Ameritrust, Southern Ohio Bank, and Shawnee Life Insurance Co. Previously, he served as the President at Mayerson Company. Dr. Wick serves as a Director of ACT, Inc. He serves as Trustee at KnowledgeWorks Foundation. Prior to this, Dr. Wick served as a Director of InQBate, Corp from September 3, 2002 to September 2, 2003. He also served as a Director of ChoiceCare Corp. Dr. Wick has served as a Board member on various boards including Student Loan Funding Corp. and Mount Vernon. He served as Chair of Education Transition for Ohio Governor Mr. Ted Strickland and through his role as KnowledgeWorks Chief Executive Officer, impacted Ohio’s education policy. Dr. Wick has been a Chief Executive Officer of commercial banks, large non-profit organizations, and a national foundation for the past 35 years. He has also had significant experience structuring both the buy and sell sides of large commercial transactions. Dr. Wick organized the private acquisition of Southern Ohio Bank and ultimate sale to PNC Bank. He played a key role as Director in the sale of an HMO in the Midwest to Humana and organized and managed the sale of the third largest student loan organization in the country to Sallie Mae. Dr. Wick is a Veteran of the U.S. Air Force and has participated in the Army War College’s Strategic Leadership Forum at Columbia University. He has been accorded many awards for education achievement in Ohio and nationally. Dr. Wick has received Honorary Doctorates from both the University of Cincinnati and Youngstown State University. He received an MBA with high honors from Thunderbird Graduate School and a BS degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Started in 1998, KnowledgeWorks was really "made" with $20 million from the Gates Foundation in 2002, and that handout would be the one of the first of many multi-million dollar infusions into Ohio to mold K-12 education as Bill Gates believed it should.  KnowledgeWorks functions to advise on implementing Gates-endorsed ed schemes, including curriculum, management, and technology.  Oh, don't forget student lending (more on that later).

 From looking at the 990s, Chad is doing pretty well in his new enterprise. Below are 2009 to 2011:

rely on their expertise to help shape his administration’s education agenda. - See more at: http://www.knowledgeworks.org/strickland-seeks-input-education-agenda#sthash.c6c6t5o8.dpuf

rely on their expertise to help shape his administration’s education agenda. - See more at: http://www.knowledgeworks.org/strickland-seeks-input-education-agenda#sthash.c6c6t5o8.dpuf

rely on their expertise to help shape his administration’s education agenda. - See more at: http://www.knowledgeworks.org/strickland-seeks-input-education-agenda#sthash.c6c6t5o8.dpuf

Steiner Proves To Be Just Another Bloomberg Flunkie: Accepts Broadie as Black's # 2

As I surmised, it was all Kabuki theatre, and in the end, the same fool who spouts the right-wing fantasy that Dewey recanted his lifelong work for democratic schools, offers a wave-through for Bloomberg's corporate bulldozer that will be driven by bleary-eyed party bud, Cathie Black, with the help of Klein's man in charge most recently of sheltering the big lie on NY City student test scores.

Shael Polakow-Suransky

The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2008
Deputy Chancellor for Performance and Accountability
New York City Department of Education

“Teachers and principals need to be accountable for student performance and empowered to make the critical decisions that impact their daily work to accelerate student learning.”

From the NYTimes:

The state’s education commissioner, David M. Steiner, and the Bloomberg administration have reached a deal that will allow Cathleen P. Black, a media executive, to become the next schools chief.

A top education official in the city’s schools system, Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief accountability officer, will be named the chief academic officer to serve as the No. 2 to Ms. Black, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement between the state and the city.


In return, Dr. Steiner on Monday will grant Ms. Black a waiver from the state law requiring the chancellor to have certain education credentials that Ms. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazine, lacks.

Mr. Steiner had expressed reservations about granting Ms. Black an exemption and had made the appointment of a chief academic officer a condition for considering her nomination.

The move is a major concession from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg who typically resists any intrusion into his management of city agencies.