By T. Ultican 8/29/2019
In 2002, the billionaire, Eli Broad, established his own education leadership training program. Although he is the only person ever to create two Fortune 500 companies, Broad, who attended public school, has no other experience or training in education. However he is so rich, he can just institute his opinions such as his belief that education knowledge is not needed to run large urban school systems; consultants can be hired for that knowledge.
Peter Greene, the author of the popular blog Curmudgucation, framed this absurdity in his own snarky fashion:
“But Broad does not believe that schools have an education problem; he believes they have a management problem. School leadership does not need an infusion of educational leadership– they need business guys, leadership guys. And so Broad launched the Superintendent’s Academy by ignoring completely the usual requirements for Superintendent certification or program accreditation. The Board Superintendent Academy exists by its own force of will. It’s kind of awesome– there is no external governing or certifying board of any sort declaring that the Broad Superintendent’s Academy is a legitimate thing, and yet, it exists and thrives.
“I myself plan to soon open the Curmudgucation Academy of Brain Surgery, or maybe a School Of Fine Art Production. I have everything I need to make these highly successful, with the possible exception of enough power and money to get people to listen to me whether I know what the hell I’m talking about or not.”
In Pasi Sahlberg’s and William Doyle’s new book Let the Children Play, there are many anecdotes that demonstrate the fallacy of Broad’s education opinions. They describe the growing crisis developing especially in the lower grades and pre-school caused by a lack of play. School leaders frequently have no training in early childhood development leading one teacher to comment, “So often the people who have the most power to affect your teaching have no idea what appropriate, best practice looks like.” Another teacher reported sitting on the floor in a circle and singing “The Farmer in the Dell,” with a group of kindergarteners when the superintendent walked by and said, “You are going to stop singing and start teaching, right?”
School is a much more complex endeavor than running a business. A CEO at Honeywell can successfully transition to running House Hold Finance, but would find running Houston ISD beyond their scope. They wouldn’t even be aware of what they didn’t know.
Broad (rhymes with toad) is one of the billionaires driving a neoliberal agenda focused first and foremost on privatizing public education. Hastings, Arnold, Bloomberg, Walton, Rock, Fisher and Broad are all spending huge money for the cause. In the last LA School Board election, just this group spent more than $5,000,000 to capture the board. They all lavishly support both Teach for America and charter schools.
The Broad Fellowships for Education
The Fellowships for education were established in 2002 and has had 568 Fellows participate, including the 64 in the 2018-2020 cohort. The Broad Center states, “Broad Residents attend eight in-person sessions over two years, taught by practitioners who know firsthand about the issues faced by urban school systems.” Residents will study among other topics:
- “Theories of action”
- “Budget and finance”
- “Accountability, transparency and data-driven decision making”
- “Labor-management relations”
- “Innovative school models”
The following table lists the present Broad Fellowship trainers.
Every “Broad Fellowship for Education Leader” is a member of an organization working to privatize public education. Joan Sullivan who served Antonio Villaraigosa as LA’s Deputy Mayor for Education is not a neutral voice. In 2007, after failing to gain control of LA’s schools, Mayor Villaraigosa was able to arrange for about a dozen schools to be moved from LAUSD into a newly created non-profit Partnership for LA. The elected school board no-longer had jurisdiction over Partnership schools. When Marshal Tuck resigned as leader of Partnership, Villaraigosa appointed Joan Sullivan to replace him. Joan is also credited with the 2003 founding of a Bronx charter school before she moved to LA.
One of the highest profile Broad Fellows is Neerav Kingsland from the Broad Residency Class of 2009-2011. Last year, Kingsland was named Managing Partner of The City Fund. This new fund was founded when Billionaires Jon Arnold and Reed Hastings each pledged $100 million to promote the portfolio model of public school privatization. Before going to work at the Arnold Foundation in 2015, Neerav and two other law students formed the Hurricane Katrina Legal Clinic, which assisted in the creation of the privatizing organization New Schools for New Orleans. Kingsland became its chief executive officer. He is joined at the City Fund by Chris Barbic, first failed Superintendent of the Tennessee Achievement School District, Founder of YES Prep charter schools and alumni of Broad Superintendents Academy 2011.
The Broad Superintendents Academy
Austin Beutner with the Broad Academy Cohort 2019-2020 – (Tineye.com no result)
Not sure where the picture above originated. However, the people shown all do appear to be in the new 2019-2020 Broad Academy cohort with the exception of Austin Beutner. There is one correction. Caprice Young, the founder of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), is no longer a mouthpiece for Fethullah Gülen. In 2018, she became the National Superintendent for the Learn4Life, cyber school (home schooling) organization that is lucrative for operators but has terrible academic results. This summer a San Diego Judge closed three Learn4Life centers because they were not authorized to be where they were operating.
There was a shift in focus at the Broad academy around 2012. When the operation first started in 2002 an attempt was made to bring new leadership into education including recruiting retired military flag officers. From 2002-2010, 21 retired military members attended the academy. From 2011-2019 there was one. During this later period, people working in the charter industry became dominate in academy cohorts. There have now been 243 people in the Broad Superintendents academy. Recently pro-privatization leaders like Tom Torkelson founder of IDEA Charters (2015-2016 cohort), Diane Tavenner founder Summit Charters (2015-2016 cohort), and Cristina de Jesus President of Green Dot Charters (2016-2017 cohort) feel it is important to participate in the Broad Academy. This year Sonar Tarim, founder of Harmony Charters, and Caprice Young, founder of CCSA, have continued the trend.
In 2012, the Washington Post reported about a leaked Broad Center memo that outlined a new “invitation-only group that will collaborate to address some of the most pressing challenges facing the education sector, help shape policy agendas, influence public opinion, coalesce political forces, and advance bold reforms on the ground.” The group would meet twice a year in Washington DC and “would accelerate the pace of reform.” The memo stated the following list of deliverables:
- “It will create a powerful group of the most transformational and proven leaders.”
- “It will become the go-to group for reform leaders to engage and move the most cutting edge work forward.”
- “It will help create a more supportive environment and change the national landscape to make it easier for superintendents to define policy agendas, influence public opinion, coalesce political forces, and advance bold reforms on the ground.”
- “The participants’ personal reform agendas and peer pressure from their colleagues will solidify their commitment to do whatever it takes to drive their systems and the education reform movement forward.”
When it comes to placing academy graduates, sometimes Eli Broad gets directly involved. In January 2009, Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan turned to what was then a little-used state law, Public Act 72, to appoint an “emergency financial manager” charged with addressing Detroit Public School’s ongoing financial troubles. She chose Robert Bobb, a 2005 Broad Academy alumni. No doubt influencing the decision was the fact that Broad and the Kellogg Foundation agreed to pay $145,000 a year toward Bobb’s $425,000 a year salary.
Bobb’s history of failure in Detroit is well documented.
John Covington is a 2008 Broad Academy alumni. He became Superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) in 2009. During his first year, Covington claimed that diplomas from KCPS “aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.” His solution for this situation and a looming budget deficit was to close 29 schools and layoff 285 teachers. This was in exact accord with the new Broad Academy School Closure guide whose first line reads, “While school closures can be an important component of any right-sizing plan to address a budget shortfall, properly executed closures require time, leadership attention, and money.”
Covington suddenly and mysteriously resigned from Kansas City in August of 2011. Local elites were stunned and blamed a school board member for hounding him out of town. It was years later before people there learned what happened. A contact at the Broad Center told Covington to be on the alert for a call from Eli Broad who happened to be in Spain at the time. When the call came Broad said, “John, I need you to go to Detroit.” Two days later, on Aug. 26, 2011, Covington was introduced as the first superintendent of Michigan’s new Education Achievement Authority.
Covington’s reputation was so harmed by his time in Michigan that he never got hired again to lead a school system.
Broad trained Superintendents have a history of bloated staffs leading to financial problems like John Deasy in Los Angeles (Ipad fiasco) or Antwan Wilson in Oakland. They also are notorious for top down management that alienates teachers and parents. Jean-Claude Brizard was given a 98% no confidence vote in Rochester, New York before Rahm Emanuel brought him to Chicago where the teachers union ran him out of town. Maria Goodloe-Johnsonbecame Seattle’s superintendent in 2007. She was soon seen as a disruptive demon by teachers and parents. There was great glee when a financial mismanagement issue brought her down.
Conclusion
No school district trying to improve and provide high quality education should even consider hiring a candidate with Broad training on their resume. Neither the Residency nor the academy are legitimate institutions working to improve public education. Their primary agenda has always been privatizing schools and ending democratic control by local communities. That is why the founding billionaire, Eli Broad, is one of America’s most prolific financers of Charter Schools and organizations like Teach For America. He believes in markets and thinks schools should be privately run businesses.
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