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"These Broad bottom feeders are supported
by a bevy of Cartel-related consultants
whom they reward handsomely with grants,
speaking fees, and contracts after they
ascend to the superintendent’s office."
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The
most effective Cartel surrogates, in facilitating public school
privatization, have been the Broad-trained and influenced
superintendents (hereafter referred to as Broadies). Strategically
placed throughout the nation, they have enriched the Cartel, and many
have, and are, supplementing their substantial salaries with income
derived from nefarious financial schemes. In the truest sense of the
word, they are bottom feeders who have preyed on the most vulnerable
school districts and children in public education.
Although
they are majority and minority, Broadies of color are at the point of
the spear of the Broad strategy to privatize public schools, turn
them into corporate charters, run them like a business, and staff
them with non-union oriented teachers trained by Teach for America
(TFA). These Broad bottom feeders are supported by a bevy of
Cartel-related consultants whom they reward handsomely with grants,
speaking fees, and contracts after they ascend to the
superintendent’s office. Several of these consultants profited
from Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million grant to the Newark Public
Schools in 2010 headed by a Broadie. (Dale Russakoff discusses them
in her recent book, The
Prize, 2015.)
Broad
Superintendents of Color as “Bottom Feeders”
As
noted in an earlier column, Dr. Barbara Byrd-Bennett is the most
notorious Broadie in the group. Serving as superintendent of the
Cleveland, Ohio Public Schools, as chief academic auditor of the
Detroit Education Authority, and finally as senior education advisor
and CEO of the Chicago Public Schools where she had one of her
biggest scores, setting up a ten percent kickback from $25 million of
sole source contracts she awarded to her friends and co-conspirators.
Referred to by a Chicago columnist as the female Nino Brown, after
the Wesley Snipes drug kingpin character in the movie, New Jack City,
Byrd-Bennett began a criminal enterprise of bribes and other illegal
acts in Cleveland, moved her operation to Detroit, and then on to
Chicago. She was aided by her handpicked, two-person crew that
started with her in Cleveland and traveled the circuit - covering her
back - until they all crashed and burned in the windy city.
But
most disturbing about the Byrd-Bennett saga is the damage she has
done to low-income students of color as a superintendent or
high-level school district administrator. Her actions paralleled
those of her close colleagues, the late Dr. Arlene Ackerman, former
superintendent of the Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and
Philadelphia Public Schools, and the late Dr. Beverly Hall, former
superintendent of the Newark and Atlanta Public Schools. The three of
them also wielded considerable power and influence in the National
Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE), the nation’s
largest organization of professional African American educators,
where they worked diligently to entice NABSE members to join them in
their efforts. NABSE has also become a recruiting ground for the
Cartel and major book and testing companies for black superintendents
who are deployed to market their wares.
These
three Broadies, who served more than a combined forty years at the
helm of major school districts, gave billions of dollars in software,
computer, and training contracts to Cartel allies while peeling off
significant dollars for themselves. These bottom feeders claimed to
have improved students’ academic outcomes in the districts they
led, but after their departures, it was revealed that those
declarations were exaggerated at best and fraudulent at worst. During
their years at the helm of some of America’s largest school
districts, their records indicated that they closed, renewed, and/or
repurposed more than 1,000 schools which often served as community
hubs, replacing them with charter schools that performed no better
than the traditional public schools they replaced. They also
developed mentees to spread the Broad agenda to other districts by
facilitating their placement in leadership roles.
For
example, Arlene Ackerman assisted two of her Broad mentees in
Philadelphia in taking over the Trenton, New Jersey Public Schools in
2012. Dr. Francisco Duran was appointed superintendent and brought in
his Philadelphia colleague, Lucy Feria, as assistant superintendent.
Both had worked with Ackerman to close large numbers of
Philadelphia’s traditional public schools, rapidly expand
corporate charter schools, and to downsize the teaching staff.
During
his first Trenton town hall meeting, Duran announced that he embraced
charter schools and had worked well with them. This was surprising to
many in the audience as most felt that Trenton was already being
overrun by charters. However, Duran’s charter enthusiasm was
tamped down by the local teachers’ union president who was
connected to parents, the local community, and the Mayor who
appointed the school board. Duran distributed tens of millions of
dollars in contracts to Cartel allies, but he was stymied in his
charter initiatives. Nonetheless, he was successful in reducing the
salaries and benefits of para-professionals which was unexpected
since he started his career as a para-professional and regularly
boasted of that fact to community groups, which initially endeared
him to the district’s support staff.
After
a frustrating two years in office and being checked by the union
president on most of his privatization plans, Duran applied to be
superintendent of the Ann Arundel County, Maryland Public Schools in
2014, a school system ten times larger than Trenton’s. He made
it to the final three candidates, and Trenton’s education and
community leaders were preparing a going away for a celebration. When
the Ann Arundel school board and local and political leaders became
aware that Duran was a Broadie, he was the first finalist to be
dismissed. Severely disappointed, he doubled down on applying for
jobs to get out of Trenton before the district’s fiscal
problems collapsed on him and undermined his marketability. Finally,
in the fall of this year, he secured a third-level appointment as
chief academic officer in the Fairfax, Virginia Public Schools.
His
Philadelphia sidekick, Lucy Feria, has succeeded him as interim
superintendent and is actively campaigning for the job. However, her
aggressive pro-charter initiatives in Philadelphia, which resulted in
hundreds of teachers losing their jobs, are barriers to her
appointment to the permanent position.
Dr.
Ackerman is still having a Broad impact from the grave. Sadly, these
Broad superintendents of color have collectively undermined the
education of more than six million, low-income children of color
during their tenures. Like William Ellison, a wealthy South Carolina
free black plantation owner during the Civil War, who voluntarily
grew food to feed a Confederate army that rejected his sons as
soldiers, they willingly carry out the Cartel’s privatization
program. Selected for their cultural, racial, and ethnic affinity
with the student populations and parents of Cartel-targeted urban
districts, these bottom feeders have no difficulty in exploiting
their own for professional and personal gain. Next is an examination
of other Cartel superintendents and the spokespersons for the Cartel
agenda.
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BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, MSPH, is a Fellow of
the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of
Colorado-Boulder and has written widely on vouchers, charter schools,
and public school privatization. He has appeared on the Today Show with
Matt Lauer and National Public Radio’s The Connection to discuss public
school privatization, and he has lectured to parent, teacher, and union
groups throughout the nation. Contact Dr. Farrell.
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 is published every Thursday |
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD |
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield, MBA |
Publisher:
Peter Gamble |
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