Friday, January 23, 2015

Instability in school leadership

Anonymous wrote:


"New post please
PG censorship. The PG keeps removing comment from article
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2015/01/23/Stability-of-leadership-is-a-key-factor-in-Pittsburgh-and-other-school-districts/stories/201501230071

keeps removing comment below since last night

You are correct, but instability is the GOAL of the Gates and Eli Broad style of reform that PPS succumbed to! Our superintendent, many of the central office staff, and consultants are Broad school graduates as was Mark Roosevelt. Without a doubt, a Broad trained person is being groomed right now to take Linda Lane's place if we don't wake up and do something about it.

The goal of this reform is to create instability and disruptive change. As evidenced by the decline and demise of PPS, this is an awful strategy for school reform. The Broad's academy actually pays to place its trainees in urban schools to create a charter market.

For financially struggling school districts, the Broad Foundation’s offer of trained personnel or services for a free or reduced cost is extremely appealing, and creates a “pipeline” of individuals with the same ideology who can be installed in central office positions.

Eli Broads, Bill Gates, and their foundations believe that public schools should be run like a business. One of the tenets of this philosophy is to produce system change by “investing in a disruptive force.” Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or “churn” is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.

Does this sound like a good way to run a school? But go ahead and try to fight it. The union, the mayor, A+ school and others sold the public and the children down the river for this "generous" Gates money.
Now central office is overrun with Broad trained staff who will do anything to preserve their six figure jobs. They continue to surround and protect themselves by hiring more like minded Broad's graduates, while the continuous change and restructuring in our schools weakens the ability of parents and teachers to unite and resist their disastrous "reform" agenda.

Many cities involved with the Gates money have figured this out already and some have gotten rid of Broad trained superintendents and staff or refused Gates money. Pittsburgh is catching on, hopefully before it is too late. This is what the money bought us. It never touched the kids."

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all PPS needs to understand the meaning of
LEADERSHIP . which makes bad decisions wrong direction and failed destiny for our STUDENTS maybe PPS need to attend a Leaderdhip Training Program facilitated by University of Pgh School of Education after Pitt is a EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM or we can keep attending the University of Broad and Gates to the bridge of nowhere thought I put that out there

Anonymous said...

Why is PG censoring and deleting comments that do not violate their policies. That is a BIG problem!

Anonymous said...

i am stumped by the PG action. i have always had such respect for the PG jumping right in with right-to-know petitions to get the public the answers we deserve.

Anonymous said...

4:57

I keep reposting it on PG and within minutes it's gone. I just posted it again 1 minute ago. We'll see how long it lasts. They have done this before in response to stories about PPS.

Questioner said...

They can't be that on top of it, especially after hours on a Friday; sounds like a technical glitch but let's have someone else give it a try please.

Anonymous said...

Okay, it was gone in less than 2 minutes this time, will someone else try commenting on the article to see if it is just me or my comment? I just don't get it. Thanks.

JB said...

My comment was posted.

Anonymous said...

Probably someone at the board has a job to watch comments and flag them. Probably a $1000/hour consultant! From out of state! Lol

JB said...

My comment just disappeared and all it said was "Is the PG posting all comments about this article?" Something wrong with their system.

Anonymous said...

Thanks JB!

Anonymous said...

Oddly it is the ONLY article today that seems to have a problem adding comments??

Anonymous said...

One only has to look at PPS' MONTHLY board minutes and the Human Resources' personnel report. Every single month without fail, there are a multitude of personnel changes - additions, deletions, closed positions, new openings. This speaks volumes about the LACK of stability in PPS across the board. No company/organization should have this much personnel change on a monthly basis. Obviously there is a problem within.

Anonymous said...


9:04
Does anyone have the courage to put this information into a 'Letter to the Editor' or an Op-Ed piece and summit it to the PG ?

Anonymous said...

Don't forget that PPS Director of Human Resources is married to a Post Gazette front office person!

That would seem to be why the PG is less than objective in what is reported about PPS-----and especially anything about personnel.

All of this is being OVERSEEN by Broad/Gates! PPS confers with them on a REGULAR basis!

Anonymous said...

An 'opinion' piece citing the evidence would be powerful...but again a signature is required. Anonymity validates nothing. Courage is needed here.

Anonymous said...

My comment posted.

Anonymous said...

11:14

It's gone. Everything you post to it disappears.

Anonymous said...

@11:14.... It is gone now

Questioner said...

The best thing to do would be to contact the letters page (E-mail: letters@post-gazette.com) and let them know about the problem.

Anonymous said...

Curious postgazette yet report when a PPS STUDENT(S) fight,beat up teacher or principal any VIOLENT they always say stop the PRESS HOT NEWS ARTICLE happen at PPS this situation would never happen at any other major cities now have the BROAD/Gates GAZETTE
PAPER that is amazing article keep disappearing we should BOYCOTT the Post Gazette

Anonymous said...

PAY ATTENTION PPS BOARD, SUPERINTENDENT, and DEPUTY!!! and TAKE HEED!!!

“Walk through a typical public school and you see students sitting in rows of identical desks listening to teachers talk. Unless the teacher is particularly inspiring, half of the students are zoning out. This isn’t just a problem for teachers, half of whom leave the profession within their first five years. It’s also a problem for their pupils: Disengaged teenagers do not make the best students.” by David Osborne


http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2015/01/25/Let-teachers-run-the-schools-they-engage-the-students-and-show-results/stories/201501250070

Questioner said...

A year or two later when they get to college or a job and they zone out it will be their problem. It is the rare college professor or employer who will feel they need to be more entertaining than a video game or a soccer coach (that's why work is work- it can be fun sometimes, but it's never going to be play).

Anonymous said...

The straight-forward honesty of Anonymous' opening comment posted 1st by Questioner is refreshing!

BROAD, as well as Gates, are a problem that is much deeper and more serious than anyone imagines.

What, specifically, gives the poster hope that PPS is beginning to recognize the problem; and, it is a Pittsburgh problem that the BROAD infiltration is it seems subliminally undermining all efforts to restore this District to one that serves ALL children better than charters--- and even private schools in times past. However, those times are clearly the PAST and there does not seem to be a united effort from the outside (of PPS) to set education right for Pittsburgh kids.

Anonymous said...

Outside ( of PPS ):
There is seemingly no lone voice in the wilderness...not even a faint drum beat for change from two or more persons...not alone a united Pittsburgh to set education right for all the children. Other than this Blog there has not been anyone or group of persons, willing to make the case in any meaningful way for public consumption and debate.

Anonymous said...


Take the 'struggle' out of the communities that struggle to exist and you take from them the very thing that will motivate change. Broad, Gates, The Promise , free community colleges , the sheer excess of money flowing has tainted any hope of 'pure' reform. If there are leaders out there....they will emerge from the 'struggle'...or not.

Anonymous said...


In "The Sons of Liberty" ( relevant curricula across all content areas in this Blog ) Samuel Adams, John Hancock and their like were' willing to lose their moneys and positions of power and life itself ' for the right to decide their own path____free from the British Empire.

Anonymous said...


Leaders are born not trained. They emerge when needed. When they emerge the followship/fellowship will appear and form the frontlines.

Anonymous said...

6:39 - Not sure where you are coming from, but whether you know it or not, there are folks, lots of folks, engaged in the struggle, with lots of voices, and lots of actions. As has been repeated here many times, the PG is not likely to cover any of this because the PG is a part of the PPS PR machine that is so generously funded by Gates & Broad.

Where is your voice, 6:39? Sorry, it here! Right?

Anonymous said...

Hope that you are right 11:30. It's hard to believe that no one has emerged over the last 10 years.

Leaders have been needed for the last 15 years. Why have they not emerged? Are YOU saying they were NOT NEEDED?

Hmmm???. "Learders . . . .emerge when needed" ?????? l

Anonymous said...


Lots of folks, lots of voices, lots of actions haven't amounted to any significant, substantive , meaningful opposition to the agenda at hand. Period.

It will be another 15 years and more.

Anonymous said...

9:24, no one is disagreeing with you, not at all, but WHY? Where are you? What are you doing? And don't come with a problem, or complaint, or dire prediction . . . .COME WITH A SOLUTION!

Or get on board with someone else's solution?

The lack of energy, ideas, beliefs, commitment, action are counterproductive. Get out of the words on this blog and DO SOMETHING! Don't be part of the problem!

Questioner said...

9:24 may well be taking action in addition to sharing thoughts and information on the blog, just as 11:07 is presumably doing.

Anonymous said...


Thank you 11:26 for being unassuming.

11:07___ As long as there is an 'unwritten' playbook that silences the folks that can best speak for the under-served children it will be what it is.

Solution: Throw out the playbook. Exclamation point.

Anonymous said...

Whose "playbook" must be "thrown out"?

If you are not PPS, you can't throw out the PPS playbook?

Same is true of any other group with a playbook!

When those who have a "playbook" that benefits them (not their constituents) they will not throw it out.

It can only be thrown out if it yours to throw out!

Anonymous said...


Obviously there is a problem within the Black community 12:08 and until they are able to raise there voices publicly to address the failure of PPS to educate the under-served children, their silence will be deafening to all. The courage to move beyond blood ties is the stuff of Leaders.

Anonymous said...


Would there be A Samuel Adams or a John Hancock, within the small black community, willing to put there names in signature to a"Declaration for Education" detailing PPS's failure to do so for the last 15 years. Question mark.

Anonymous said...


11:07

And your energy,ideas, beliefs, commitment and actions have produced what exactly ?

Criticism is often times advocacy if one is receptive.