Ponder This: Privately-Paid Advisors Embedded in NYS Dept of Ed.....

[Smarmie Doofus]

...literally *sitting* in public agencies. Their job, in essence: to tell State Ed Commissioner and his on-paper boss, NYS Bd of Regents, what to do.( The Bd of Regents is selected by the NYS assembly , btw. Do a google search of "corruption"+ "NYS Assembly". Yes, it's THAT BAD.)

Is this what its come down to? Could Marx and Engels have come up with a *better* example with which to illustrate the sham represented by "representative democracy"?

What, on Earth, is going on here? How is this different than just turning over an entire state public school system to billionaires? Because their agents are paid thru "foundations"?


>>>Albany

A team of two dozen well-paid analysts embedded in the State Education Department is having a dramatic impact on a reform agenda that's causing controversy throughout New York.

None are public servants.

Supported with $19 million in donations from some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropists, the Regents Research Fund team makes up a little-known think tank within the education agency. It is helping drive reforms that affect the state's 3.1 million public school students and employees of almost 700 school districts.

The three-year-old operation, which now comprises 27 full-time staffers and a half-time intern, is unique in public education systems nationwide.

The group is an institute charged with helping the state Board of Regents and Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. find ways to improve student performance and ensure graduates are ready for college or careers.

Barely heard of outside education circles and a mystery even within them, the "Regent fellows" are paid from entities such as the Gates Foundation and some salaries approach $200,000 a year. The arrangement is stirring concern in some quarters that deep-pocketed pedagogues are forcing their reform philosophies on an unwitting populace, and making an end run around government officers.>>>>>>>
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Wealth-backs-reform-team-5006670.php?t=5abf8544d7

[Squinch]

1. Kick. And I'm sure New York isn't the only place this is happening.

And Teacher's college and Teach for America are closely tied to Pearson, which is closely tied to Gates and which is funding the Stamford development of the teacher assessments, and all of these are aimed at the vilification of unionized teachers and the privatization of schools, and...and...and...

... which all ends up putting all the money formerly spent on educating our students into the hands of a few of those self same "nation's wealthiest philanthropists."

It's nauseating.

[knitter4democracy]

2. Education coach: good gig if you can get it.

They're mandated under NCLB, and they get paid big bucks. At my old school, closed due to budget deficit, we paid each one of our coaches $60K a year, all three of them. The year before that, we had five from the same company. That's just at the high school/middle school. Hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted, and these were the idiots who thought up closing our high school which is now having deleterious effects trickling down through the rest of the system.

[roody]

3. How many of them have ever

managed and taught a roomful of kids all day?

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. I think you *know* the answer to that one. n/t