The Broad Infection Continues Unabated

despite its many failures and its leaving disaster in its wake. What is tragic is that school districts are being starved of state funds, and these privatizers like Broad and Gates step in with oodles of money, but with strings attached. The same is true with the federal government. We have a "Democrat," Barack Obama, who with his Sec. of Education Arne Duncan are totally hostile to the very concept of public education--neither has ever gone to a public school and Duncan has no qualifications to be any kind of school administrator as evidenced by his disastrous tenure in Chicago--and are willing to undercut school boards, local control, teachers' rights, students' and parents' rights in order to privatize the entire system to turn it over to billionaires and hedge fund crooks. It's nothing more than a war on democracy itself.

The idea "executives" with utterly no background in education required should be running school systems is insanity. The Broad Academy is the administrator version of Teach for America. Their cohorts go through I believe only six weekends in a 10-month period to be "trained" as superintendents. Of course most of the people in the program already have education backgrounds, but even if they do, Broad has strings attached to make sure districts are run on business models.

The lesson being taught to educators by the Worcester Public Schools’ administration and our school committee is this: work hard, dedicate yourself to the betterment of others, and your reward will be a kick to the curb. That kick will come in the dead of night, in a stealthy, underhanded manner that circumvents all ethical and legal obligations.

Five school committee members voted to “retool” the job descriptions of the entire Claremont faculty, so that they may no longer fit the bill when they reapply, and very likely replace them with a younger, greener staff at much lower pay. It’s dirty pool, pure and simple; and it’s going to reverberate in the voting booth. Standing alone against a tide of naiveté and nonsense last week were committee members Brian O’Connell and Dianna Biancheria, who is currently running for State Representative. Teachers might want to remember that.