In part one, we learn how Arne Duncan's change in the requirements for a federal grant application precipitated the firings:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/118In part two, we examine the timeline of events:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7832036In part three, we learn about the interesting background of Deborah Gist, Rhode Island's Education Commissioner, & the similarly interesting background of some of her co-educators:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7840084So, can we form any hypotheses about what happened in Central Falls, & why?
1. Duncan's rules change was made purposefully to force schools to close, charterize, fire staff, & marketize staff ("pay for performance" & the like).
This is almost surely the case, as a Dept. of Ed. slideshow explicitly links the changes to this goal.
2. Duncan's rules change targets poor schools.
This is absolutely certain: it's a Title 1 (low-income) grant that was changed.
3. Deborah Gist probably had foreknowledge of the rules change.
She completed the pre-grant requirements in record time, apparently working over Christmas/New Years' break.
She was "one of the first, if not the first" (in fact, she was the first) state education head to complete the required identification of targeted schools & narrative as to how she would comply with the grant requirements -- even before the Feds published all the documentation for the process.
This suggests that she had prior knowledge of the rules change and the requirements, or was assisted by someone at the federal level.
4. Deborah Gist is an operative for monied interests that have spent billions of dollars attacking public education & establishing a parallel, quasi-privatized system of schools, school authorizing institutions, teacher credentialling institutions, administrator development institutions, & other parallel education infrastructure.
Deb Gist is a Broad Superintendent grad with a history of related affiliations.
4. Superintendent Gallo probably had foreknowledge that her school would be targeted.
Superintendent Gallo first went public with her plan to fire all the teachers less than three weeks after Gist identified targeted schools, after three talks with the union.
5. Superintendent Gallo made a minimal show of negotiating with the union.
Three weeks, three meetings before the threat to fire equals one meeting for each side to present their initial positions & one meeting to "negotiate" before Gallo took her plan to fire everyone public.
6. Media repetion of particular uncontextualized talking points is indicative of collusion.
For example, *every* media report mentioned the "high" "average" salaries of the teachers & the low average income in Central Falls.
They did not mention the high salaries of Gallo & Gist:
Gist = over $200K + benefits with less than one year served.
Gallo = $140K + benefits in 2007 with less than two years served.
Every teacher than made anything over $70K had ten years or more in.
They did not mention that the citizens of Central Falls weren't paying the teachers' salaries: the Central Falls School District had been taken over by the state years ago when the city went bankrupt (not surprisingly, as it's only 1 mile square & populated mostly by poor hispanic renters (70%) living in substandard overcrowded absentee-owned apartments.)
Similarly, nearly *every* account noted the school's poor scores, without mentioning it had recently received an excellent evaluation for improving those scores for two years' running.
Nor did the media think to compare CF scores with other schools' scores -- such as the EVEN LOWER scores, with LESS IMPROVEMENT over two years -- OF THE SCHOOL OBAMA PRAISED. Which happened to be a Bill Gates project.
7. The Eli Broad training programs for administrators are involved with the military at a high level.
29% of the 2010 class of Broad Superintendents is high-level military.
The present superintendent of the Providence schools (15 minutes' from Central Falls) = 25-year career Army, former commander of Ft. Belvoir, headquarters of the US INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY COMMAND (INSCOM). And a 2004 Broad graduate.
8. Eli Broad is not a nice person who cares about children.
Check out his history in business; most recently, his involvement in the AIG mess. (He's chairman of SunAmerica, a financial services corp that specializes in retirement savings. Its parent company is AIG: & Broad's on the board of AIG).
Check out his public statements demonstrating contempt for democratic processes & the people he steps on in his obsession with making larger & large piles of money, his right-wing associations, his anti-union stance --
He's reportedly the second-biggest "philanthropist" after Gates. And like Gates, he's investing heavily in genetic engineering.
9. Eli Broad, like Bill Gates, is a big Democratic donor.
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Broad&fname=Eli10. Arne Duncan led Chicago's "Renaissance 2010" -- a charter school initiative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_2010I don't know about you, but my conclusion is:
Central Falls was a planned, coordinated "test case" to see how the public would react to the arbitrary firing of public employees en masse.
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