Cuomo Appoints Geoffrey Canada To Smart School Initiative Commission That Looks To Upgrade Classrooms For Online Testing

Another day, another Cuomo commission - this one a commission to make recommendations for what to do with $2 billion in "Smart School Initiative" bond money Cuomo hopes to get the public to pass in order to provide "smart classrooms" (i.e., classrooms wired for online testing) in schools:

Though voters are yet to consider a $2 billion bond act for education infrastructure and technology upgrades at New York schools, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday named a commission that would provide recommendations on how best to spend the money.

Included on the commission is Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman and former CEO of Google, a company that is best known for its search engine, but has also entered the laptop and tablet computer market in recent years.

In addition, Cuomo is also turning to Harlem Children’s Zone President and CEO Geoffrey Canada and Constance Evelyn, Superintendent of the Auburn School District in Cayuga County.

“It is a simple fact that disparity remains in our education system, with some schools providing tablets in the first grade and others where the most sophisticated piece of electronic equipment is the metal detector that students walk through on the way to the classroom,” Cuomo said in a statement. “In the State of the State, we called for a $2 billion Smart Schools Initiative to transform our classrooms from the classrooms of yesterday to the classrooms of tomorrow. This panel will help guide this bold initiative and reimagine our classrooms to provide New York’s students with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century economy.”

The $2 billion borrowing proposal still has to be approved by voters, who are due to consider the ballot referendum this fall.

Cuomo proposed the bond act in January as way to improve technology in the classroom as well as potentially build more space for pre-Kindergarten programs.

Gotta love that Cuomo thinks it's a big plus that some districts are giving tablets to first graders - that tells you everything you need to know about how Cuomo is looking to have this bond money spent.

Strike one.

That he stuck Canada on the commission is strike two and the Google CEO is strike three for me.

I am opposing the Smart Schools Initiative because it's clear Cuomo plans to use the money as a boondoggle for his tech buddies, not to build new schools or provide more classroom space for smaller class sizes.

You know what smart classrooms are?

They're ones where students have the adequate resources to learn, including computer and Internet technology when appropriate, but also enjoy small class sizes and personalized contact with their teachers.

This is not what Cuomo plans to use the money for, however.

Rather, he seems to envision this:

Greedy Geoffrey Canada: Privatize Education AND Social Security Too!

Geoffrey Canada has been going around the country with some Wall Street criminals to talk to the youth of America about how they're getting screwed by old people.

It started earlier this year (as announced in this Wall Street Journal opinion piece co-written by Canada), but WNYC just picked up the story and Gotham Charter Schools ran with it last night on their "Remainders" list.

The gist is this:

Canada says rich people do not need Social Security and that money should be used for other things:

The country's existing entitlement programs are not just unaffordable, they are also profoundly unfair to those who are taking their first steps in search of opportunity. Social Security is one example. According to Social Security actuaries, the generational theft runs deep. Young people now entering the workforce will actually lose 4.2% of their total lifetime wages because of their participation in Social Security. A typical third-grader will get back (in present value terms) only 75 cents for every dollar he contributes to Social Security over his lifetime. Meanwhile, many seniors with greater means nearing retirement age will pocket a handsome profit. Health-care spending through Medicare represents an even less equitable story.

The government has an obligation, of course, to support needy seniors. But this pension system is ripe for common-sense reforms, including changing eligibility ages and benefit structures for those with greater means, ridding the Social Security disability program of pervasive fraud, and removing disincentives for those who would rather work in their later years.

Powerful, vested interests portray reformers as avowed enemies of seniors. But, the status quo is, in fact, tantamount to saddling school-age children with more debt, weaker economic growth, and fewer opportunities for jobs and advancement.

Canada calls his Social Security reforms "common sense reforms."

As soon as you hear the words "common sense" in anything a politician or a political hack like Canada says, you know you should hold your wallet because they're coming for it.

In this case, that's exactly what Canada is doing - by adding a means test to the program and by raising eligibility, he is looking to undercut the universality of Social Security and turn it into another poverty program like welfare or food stamps, one that many Americans will not feel any investment in because they won't be receiving any of the benefits from it.

That so-called common sense reform is actually a seed of destruction meant to rid of us of Social Security, not a "common sense reform" meant to help young people.

More than anything, young people these days are going to need Social Security when they get older because very few of them are going to have pensions or be able to save money for their own retirements.

Here is what two commenters say about Canada's scheme:

Very troubling that WNYC aired this opinion without asking the obvious question - why not make a simple adjustment of the social security tax upper limit? The only way Mr. Canada's logic makes any sense is with the false ssumption that taxes on the wealthy must always continue to go down, until they are contributing almost nothing to the society which supplies their luxuries.

Means testing of these programs is a poison pill. If social security and medicare are not part of the financial goods of the wealthy and the upper middle class, they become welfare programs. It is easy to to take away from the powerless - look at the recent efforts to gut the food stamp program, for example.

And:

Did I miss the part where Canada demands that the uber rich and corporations pay reasonable taxes to fund quality public services? Oops--forgot that he gets all his funding from "charity" of said same 1%, so makes more sense to demand that the 99% give up what little they have to fund his priorities.

If Geoffrey Canada wants older, rich people to help the younger generation, he can start by calling for a return to the tax rates of the Reagan Era on rich people or, better yet, he can call for a return to the tax rates of the Eisenhower Era on rich people.

Then that money can be used to fund college education, job programs, universal pre-K, etc. - all those things Canada says he's worried about.

The reality is, greedy Geoffrey Canada doesn't care one whit about young people or poor people.

He is simply doing the bidding of his billionaire benefactors, the same ones who fund his privatized charter schools and his real estate ventures.

As the commenter at the NYC story mentions, it's a shame that the public radio station gives this criminal air time to sell his poison pills.

But these days, the "public" radio station is being funded by the same Wall Street criminals that fund Canada and his charter operations, so it all makes sense.

Nothing more than free marketeer propaganda.

Corporate Education Reformers Looking To Churn Out Obedient Workers And Compliant Consumers

This Alternet article on the connection between behavioralism and consumerism resonates in the day and age of corporate education reform:

Those who rise to power in the corporatocracy are control freaks, addicted to the buzz of power over other human beings, and so it is natural for such authorities to have become excited by behavior modification.

Alfie Kohn, in Punished by Rewards (1993), documents with copious research how behavior modification works best on dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people. And so for authorities who get a buzz from controlling others, this creates a terrifying incentive to construct a society that creates dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people.
Many of the most successful applications of behavior modification have involved laboratory animals, children, or institutionalized adults. According to management theorists Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham in Work Redesign (1980), “Individuals in each of these groups are necessarily dependent on powerful others for many of the things they most want and need, and their behavior usually can be shaped with relative ease.”

...

Behavior modification is fundamentally a means of controlling people and thus for Kohn, “by its nature inimical to democracy, critical questioning, and the free exchange of ideas among equal participants.”

For Skinner, all behavior is externally controlled, and we don’t truly have freedom and choice. Behaviorists see freedom, choice, and intrinsic motivations as illusory, or what Skinner called “phantoms.” Back in the 1970s, Noam Chomsky exposed Skinner’s unscientific view of science, specifically Skinner’s view that science should be prohibited from examining internal states and intrinsic forces.

In democracy, citizens are free to think for themselves and explore, and are motivated by very real—not phantom—intrinsic forces, including curiosity and a desire for justice, community, and solidarity.

What is also scary about behaviorists is that their external controls can destroy intrinsic forces of our humanity that are necessary for a democratic society. Researcher Mark Lepper was able to diminish young children’s intrinsic joy of drawing with Magic Markers by awarding them personalized certificates for coloring with a Magic Marker. Even a single, one-time reward for doing something enjoyable can kill interest in it for weeks.

Behavior modification can also destroy our intrinsic desire for compassion, which is necessary for a democratic society. Kohn offers several studies showing “children whose parents believe in using rewards to motivate them are less cooperative and generous [children] than their peers.” Children of mothers who relied on tangible rewards were less likely than other children to care and share at home. 

And that, of course, is the ultimate objective of the corporate education reform movement - to develop obedient, compliant, easily manipulated children who will acquiesce as adults to the capitalist punishment/rewards system they have been taught as children in public schools run by authoritarian control freaks like Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Eva Moskowitz, Geoffrey Canada, et al.

Evil - truly evil.

Geoffrey Canada Wages War On Traditional Public Schools

In case you missed this, charter school operator and real estate magnate Geoffrey Canada declared war on traditional public schools yesterday.

The quote comes from a Times story about Michaelle Rhee's education reform group starting a New York chapter called StudentsFirstNY with plans to raise $50 million dollars to help close down schools, fire teachers and promote standardized testing.

The article notes that many parents and students actually don't want the policies promoted by this group, but Geoffrey says that's just too bad because this is war and his side intends to win:

“Folks are genuinely looking for opportunities to make peace and not war,” Mr. Canada said. “And I think that’s terrific. But someone has to make war.”

Of course Geoffrey Canada and the millionaire education reformers backed by the Billionaire Boys club intend to win - they've got the money, the press, the resources, and the political access and power.

Even though parents and students (let alone teachers) don't want what they're pushing, as shown by a poll of Swing State voters released by the College Board yesterday:

•A majority of the voters surveyed—55 percent—would actually be willing to pony up an additional $200 a year in taxes to improve education systems. And 78 percent of the voters surveyed say that increased funding for education is necessary, while just 21 percent say it's not necessary.

•So where should the funding go? Voters' top priority is making sure schools can provide arts, music, and physical education classes to all students. In fact, 59 percent say that's extremely important. College affordability is another biggie. Voters want to see any extra money go to holding down tuition at state colleges, universities, and community colleges, with 56 percent of respondents saying that's extremely important.

•Voters don't necessarily place a priority on the issues that the Obama administration has steered money to. Just 31 percent want to see funding go to expand school options, such as charters. And just 24 percent place a priority on merit-pay bonuses for teachers. School choice doesn't seem to register much either—just 17 percent of voters want to see money for vouchers to help low-income parents pay for private schools.

So at the very least, voters in Swing States don't want the school closures, merit pay, teacher firing policies being promoted by the education reform movement and the Obama administration and happily touted by a shill like Geoffrey Canada when he goes on NBC's Education Nation or helps Mayor Bloomberg overturn term limits to run for a third term

Given the battles we have had in New York City over Bloomberg's policies of school closures, charter co-locations and Endless Testing and the high unpopularity of those policies in poll after poll, you can be sure New York parents and students don't want what the corporate education reformers are selling either.

But that won't stop these billionaire-backed corporate education reformers from trying to get their way on EVERYTHING.

As Mr. Canada said, this is war and they intend to win with their scorched earth policy.

So far, it's worked.

But clearly they're worried that once Bloomberg goes, they wont win every battle anymore.

Not to fear - with the corporate media, the corporate politicians and a governor with a suitcase full of hedge fundie/education reformer cash, I suspect not much will change come 2014.

Parents and students STILL won't want the policies these people are promoting - but they will be getting them anyway.

But that won't matter - you see, in 21st Century America, it's one billionaire, all the votes.

And that's one other policy these reformers are selling - a vision of America where the rich, the powerful and the connected make all the decisions and if you don't like it, it's just too damned bad.

You see, this is war.

Corporate Education Reformers Look To Buy The Next Mayor

The corporate education reform movement in New York has gotten pretty much everything they have wanted when it comes to "reforms."

In the last four years, they have gotten a lifting of the charter cap, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and a new teacher evaluation system that essentially undercuts both seniority and tenure as all it takes to get fired these days is to come up "ineffective" on your test-based, error-riddled value-added measurement two years in a row.

They have pushed to have many public schools closed and reopened as privately-managed charter schools and have gotten reassurance at that project from both federal and city officials.

They have gotten space for their privately-managed charter schools in traditional public schools buildings, stealing both resources and students from public schools and pitting people in the community against each other

Politicians at every level - from President Obama to Governor Cuomo to Mayor Bloomberg - slam teachers as THE problem in public education and call for ways to make it easier to fire "bad teachers."

Films come out, heavily financed by computer monopolists and right wing think tanks, that suggest firing teachers can put the United States back on top as the world's #1 Superpower. The rest of the corporate media follows suit, with NBC giving over a week every year to teacher bashing (and financing that week off the money from a for-profit college) and Oprah bringing noted teacher bashers onto her show to call for mass teacher firings around the country.

And of course they have pushed through an untested new national curriculum that will be tied to dozens of new standardized tests that students across the country will take all every year.

These have been very heady days for the corporation education reformers both in New York and in the country at large.

And yet, they are worried that once Mayor Bloomberg leaves office in 2014 that the New York City public school system will not be "pro-reform" enough.

You see, having closed three hundred schools, opened hundreds of new small schools, lifted the charter cap, sent thousands of teachers to the ATR pool, redone the curriculum so that we now have a standardized national curriculum with standardized national tests, redone evaluations so that test scores make up 40% of a teacher's evaluation, undone tenure and seniority rights, and spent hundreds of millions every year to label teachers as "bad"and "failing," has NOT been enough.

They're afraid that the next NYC mayor might not be pro-reform enough to give them everything they want in 2014 and on.

And so they plan on buying the next NYC mayor:

Leaders of a national education reform movement, including Joel I. Klein and Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellors in New York and Washington, have formed a statewide political group in New York with an eye toward being a counterweight to the powerful teachers’ union in the 2013 mayoral election.

The group, called StudentsFirstNY, is an arm of a national advocacy organization that Ms. Rhee founded in 2010. Like the national group, the state branch will promote the expansion of charter schools and the firing of ineffective schoolteachers, while opposing tenure.

Led by Micah Lasher, who is leaving his job next week as the director of state legislative affairs for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the campaign is beginning while advocates of reform have an ally in the mayor. But their eyes are focused on 2014, when a new mayor — most likely one who is more sympathetic to the teachers’ union than Mr. Bloomberg has been — enters office.

Members of the group worry that without a significant marshaling of forces, their achievements could be dismantled. Their aim is to raise $10 million annually for five years, hoping to make an imprint throughout the next mayor’s first term.

“This organization is really going to represent a redoubling of efforts, new energy and serious resources, invested in making our schools great in a climate that may not be as favorable post-Jan. 1, 2014,” Mr. Lasher said. He has been the mayor’s point person in Albany, and was involved in negotiating the recent deal creating a new teacher evaluation system.

The NY Times reports that in addition to the involvement of Rhee and Klein, Eva Moskowitz, Geoffrey Canada and Ed Koch sit on the board of StudentsFirstNY. And what's their plan?

Simple - pressure the next mayor to continue their pro-reform, pro-testing, anti-student, anti-teacher policies:

The new group is not supporting a particular candidate, nor will it necessarily endorse one, Mr. Lasher said. But he indicated that between now and the Democratic primary, the group would pressure mayoral candidates to declare their positions on education; those who have so far expressed interest in running have been silent on some elements of the reform agenda. Most of the politicians considering a run, including Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate; and Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, have been more cordial with Mr. Mulgrew than Mayor Bloomberg has.

Establishing where the next mayor stands on education is crucial for advocates, because a number of unresolved issues will fall to Mr. Bloomberg’s successor. The city’s contract with the teachers’ union, which expired in 2009, remains to be negotiated, raising questions about whether the next mayor will support the granting of individual performance bonuses for teachers — the union prefers schoolwide bonuses — or will call for teachers to be laid off if their positions are cut and they cannot find new ones.

Under Mr. Bloomberg, charter schools have been given free space in underused public school buildings, a policy that has led to disagreements across the city as parents argue with other parents over classrooms and closets.

In 2015, mayoral control of schools will come up for renewal in Albany, reviving questions about checks and balances and parents’ ability to influence school policy.

Throughout the coming negotiations, Ms. Rhee expected that her organization would push for change, however uncomfortable it might be for the city’s mayor.

The clearest indication these corporate reformers mean business comes from a quotation at the end offered by Geoffrey Canada:

Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein have a confrontational history with teachers’ unions. But some charter school leaders and other advocates have spoken of the need to lower the temperature of the debate and have turned their focus inward on improving their own schools.

“Folks are genuinely looking for opportunities to make peace and not war,” Mr. Canada said. “And I think that’s terrific. But someone has to make war.”

That's a classy statement by Mr. Canada there - a declaration of war against traditional public schools, teachers and students.

But that's exactly what this movement is - a well-funded, well-organized, Astroturf movement that is waging war against the public, public education, students, parents and teachers.

Here in NYC, the public is overwhelmingly opposed to Bloomberg's corporate education reform policies and yet they get pushed through year after year.

StudentsFirstNY will try and continue this tradition.

And given the money they will have - money from Bill Gates, money from Rupert Murdoch, money from the Koch Brothers - and given the press they will garner from the corporate medi,, they will probably be very successful at just that.

Corporate education reformers met with Andrew Cuomo in a hotel room when Governor 1% was running for his current office and gave him a suitcase full of cash to promote a corporate education reform platform.

Which Cuomo has dutifully done.

You can be sure that StudentsFirstNY - some of whom met with Cuomo before he was elected - will look to do the same with the next NYC mayor.

As Mr. Canada said, this is war and the corporate education reformers mean to finish off the traditional public school system and create their all-privatized, all-charterized, non-unionized neo-liberal dream.

Bill Gates, His Own Kids, And Class Size

A Seattle columnist has a proposition for Bill "Class Size Doesn't Matter" Gates:

At Lakeside, Seattle's premier school, they say the graduates know better than anyone what makes the place so special.

"Ask any alumnus what the best thing about Lakeside is," the school's brochure urges. "And they will likely mention an environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students through small class sizes."

Any alumnus? Because one in particular is now going around saying the opposite.

Bill Gates lately has been arguing that smaller-sized classes are among the biggest wastes of money in all of education.

"Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets — and one of the most unchallenged — is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement," Gates said last week to a gathering of governors.

Smaller classes just haven't worked, he said.

"U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960," he said. "Yet achievement is roughly the same."

Gates called for an end to state caps on how many kids can be in each classroom.

Now let me clarify: Gates is suggesting larger classes in public schools. Not private schools such as Lakeside or the ones his own kids attend today.

Public-school classes already are growing, due to the recession. Add in someone as influential as Gates saying it can be the right thing to do, under the right circumstances, and look out.

So — is he right? Can we improve education by increasing class size?

Well, as with everything in education, there's no easy answer. Gates' argument is hardly reassuring to those of us whose kids are the ones about to be experimented on.

For starters, that the U.S. has added teachers in the past 50 years and yet seen only moderate gains on tests doesn't prove smaller classes are a waste. There are countless other variables at work, from more non-English speaking students to the rise of special ed to major family and societal changes.

Research has shown small classes are most crucial when kids are young, but less so as kids grow up. That's why the focus in this state has been on driving classes down to about 17 kids for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Most remain far more crowded than that. So one could just as easily argue it hasn't worked because it hasn't been tried yet.

Gates put up a slide in his speech showing that a third of all school employees today don't work in classrooms. In the search for savings, I'd start there.

But Gates didn't. Instead, he proposed adding six students to the classes taught by the best teachers, then using the money saved to pay those teachers more. He said Gates Foundation research has found that teachers would be happy to have more students for more pay.

I looked up that study, done at the UW in 2008, and what it actually says is teachers prefer a $5,000 pay boost to having two fewer students. They weren't ever asked about more students.

We're lucky to have Gates — he both means well and uses his means well — so I don't want to get too personal here. I bet he senses deep down as a parent that pushing more kids into classes isn't what's best for students. His kids' private-sector grade school has 17 kids in each room. His daughter's high school has 15. These intimate settings are the selling point, the chief reason tuition is $25,000 a year — more than double what Seattle schools spends per student.

Bill, here's an experiment. You and I both have an 8-year-old. Let's take your school and double its class sizes, from 16 to 32. We'll use the extra money generated by that — a whopping $400,000 more per year per classroom — to halve the class sizes, from 32 to 16, at my public high school, Garfield.

In 2020, when our kids are graduating, we'll compare what effect it all had. On student achievement. On teaching quality. On morale. Or that best thing of all, the "environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students."

Deal? Probably not. Nobody would take that trade. Which says more than all the studies ever will.

It is so telling that the people who decry the importance of class size the most - Gates, Duncan, Geoffrey Canada - either send their own kids to schools with low class sizes or run their own schools with low class sizes.

But class size doesn't matter, right guys?

Canada Defends Black In Daily News

The intrigue in the Black/Canada/Bloomberg story grows:

Controversial incoming schools Chancellor Cathie Black has one big fan: the educator reported to have been Mayor Bloomberg's first choice for the job.

"I'm in the minority, but I think it's a tremendous appointment," Harlem Children's Zone leader Geoffrey Canada told the Daily News yesterday.

"Going with a traditional educator at this point in time that does not have outside connections would have been a mistake," he said. "If we're going to improve education in the short term, we need to go outside the traditional education hierarchy."

Canada, whose network of charter schools has attracted international acclaim, would not comment on reports that he was Bloomberg's top pick. But he said the mayor knows what he's doing.

"The mayor has an impeccable talent for picking top-notch leaders," Canada said. "He has faith that Cathie Black is the right person, and I'm going to follow his lead."

So late last week, Canada or somebody close to Canada seemed to be leaking the story that Bloomberg approached Canada first about being chancellor, thus publicly undercutting Cathie Black.

Now Canada, who coyly won't say in this News article if Bloomberg DID ask him to be chancellor, says he backs Bloomberg's choice of Black.

Dunno what to think anymore about this except for one thing - the only thing For Profit Geoffrey Canada likes to do more in this world than talk is talk about himself.

Hey, Geoffrey, why don'tcha give it a rest for a news cycle or so?

Cathie Black Says She Was Bloomberg's First Choice For Chancellor

A day after the NY Times reported that Mayor Moneybags offered the chancellor job to Harlem Children's Zone real estate magnate Geoffrey Canada, NYC Schools Chancellor Cathie Black pushes back:

Cathleen P. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, on Friday rebuffed reports suggesting that she was not Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s first choice to be schools chancellor, saying the mayor told her personally that he had not offered the job to anyone else.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr. Bloomberg had originally tried but failed to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the Harlem education leader, to take the job.

Ms. Black suggested the report did not jibe with what Mr. Bloomberg had told her in October, when he invited Ms. Black to the offices of his foundation to offer her the chancellor’s position.

“What he said to me is, ‘You’re the first person I’ve offered this job to,’ ” Ms. Black said on Fox 5’s “Good Day New York.”

Intriguing.

So who leaked the Canada/Rhee story yesterday?

It sounded like it came from Canada or someone close to Canada.

And it sounded like Bloomberg wanted the story out there so he could make it seem like he didn't pull this choice of Black out of his rich arrogant ass.

But if that's the strategy on the one hand, he's undercutting Black on the other by making her look bad.

Not that making her look bad is hard thing to do.

Every time she opens her mouth and says something about NYC schools, she looks bad.

See here for that.

Still, this story/legend/tall tale about Geoffrey Canada and perhaps Michelle Rhee asked to be schools chancellor before Black weakens an already severely weakened woman.

Maybe Cathie Black can add herself to the layoff list?

Geoffrey Canada Claims Bloomberg Offered Him Chancellor Job

Odd that this is coming out now, but the Times reports that Bloomberg offered the chancellor position to Harlem Children's Zone founder Geoffrey Canada and may have offered the job to Michelle Rhee as well.

In defending his selection for schools chancellor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has called Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with no education experience, “exactly the right person for the job” and suggested that her skills as a manager were unrivaled.

Ms. Black, however, was not the first person the mayor asked to take the position. Mr. Bloomberg tried to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the prominent Harlem education leader and a friend of the mayor, to be chancellor, but Mr. Canada turned it down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions.

The two people did not want to be identified because Mr. Bloomberg has sought to keep the process private.

Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly declined to offer details about whom he consulted during the search process, or how he ultimately settled on Ms. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines.

But the revelation suggests that Mr. Bloomberg conducted a wider search than previously thought, and that he may have been seeking a more traditional candidate in hopes of avoiding the withering criticism that has accompanied Ms. Black’s appointment.

Ms. Black’s opponents have seized on her lack of familiarity with the public education system and the fact that during a 40-year career, she has rarely gone outside the publishing world. She attended parochial schools, sent her own children to private boarding schools and holds no graduate degrees.

Mr. Canada, by contrast, has gained international notice as the leader of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a network of charter schools renowned for its cradle-to-college approach. He grew up in the South Bronx and holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

...

In a brief interview, Mr. Canada did not dispute the suggestion that he had been offered the job but declined to comment about it. He said Mr. Bloomberg had solicited his advice about a month before the mayor announced the selection of Ms. Black in early November.

...

Since Mr. Bloomberg announced his selection of Ms. Black, her candidacy has come under attack, and he has faced criticism for conducting a highly secretive search process.

In response, the mayor has emphasized Ms. Black’s time as a leader of a large corporation, saying the school system needed a nimble cost-cutter. Mr. Canada, by contrast, has spent much of his life working at the helm of community organizations.

It is unclear how many people Mr. Bloomberg consulted about the chancellorship, or whether he offered the job to anyone else. His aides have said that he spoke with many people about the position.

One of those individuals was another prominent education leader: Michelle A. Rhee, the tough-talking former chief of the Washington school system. In an interview, Ms. Rhee declined to elaborate on her conversations with the mayor, and she refused to say whether she had been offered the job.

Mr. Bloomberg’s choice of Mr. Canada suggests he was looking, at least initially, for a tough-minded reformer who could claim success in the education arena. While Mr. Canada’s program is considered a national model, some say the results should be more pronounced, given that he vastly outspends traditional public schools.

I don't believe that Bloomberg offered the job to Rhee.

Here's why:

Yes, it's true that she is a national figure and a card-carrying member of the ed deform movement.

But Bloomberg is looking to soften his image with women before he runs for president in 2012.

It is true that according to pre-D.C. mayoral election polls, Rhee was quite popular with white women.

But women of color, particularly black women, positively despised her.

She had a 28% approval rating among black women.

She wouldn't do for Bloomberg what he needs done - continue the BloomKlein reform agenda, but put a happier face on the school closures, the firings, the layoffs etc.

And Rhee wouldn't take this job either. She wants to cash in on her service and notoriety. Three years in NYC battling the union on seniority, tenure, school closures, teacher data reports and the like would leave her pretty beaten up. The press is a LOT tougher here than in D.C. Yes, it's true that the Post would carry her water, as would the newspaper editorial writers, but the news sections wouldn't.

I guarantee you that we would have learned more about the sexual scandals surrounding her fiance Kevin Johnson, the charter school teachers who alleged improper contact from KJ, and the story that Rhee tried to bribe the women to go away quietly.

Think the Daily News wouldn't like to publish a bombshell story about that?

You know they would.

Also, it would be hard for Rhee to cash in on her ed deform notoriety and make appearances on Oprah after having been revealed as an enabler of her fiance's sexual harassments and/or assaults.

No, she knows it was best she heads to wingnutwelfareland now and starts cashing in with the Broad/Gates Foundation money.

As for Canada, it's possible that Bloomberg could have offered him the job, but there is no way that For-Profit Geoffrey would have taken it.

First of all, it would have meant a huge cut in pay.

Second, it would have meant a lot more scrutiny of his business dealings and his relationship to his hedge fund criminal friends.

Geoffrey likes the spotlight, yes, but he doesn't like the spotlight too close.

A few months ago when the NY Times published a negative story about his HCZ, he was up at the Daily News op-ed pages in hours with a pushback editorial.

But that negative story in the Times would be nothing compared to the spotlight that would be put on the HCZ if he took the chancellor's job.

Can you imagine him trying to claim class size doesn't matter as chancellor when the class sizes at the HCZ are 15 and he refuses to raise them?

Can you imagine him claiming school facility conditions don't matter when he takes $25 million from Goldman Sachs to build new schools?

There is a lot more hypocrisy from For-Profit Geoffrey, but you get the point.

I think this story is Bloomberg asking his pal Geoffrey to leak the story not-so-secretly (two people with direct knowledge of the conversation are the source for the story - that sounds like Bloomberg AND Canada) to take the heat off the Cathie Black appointment.

Black has been a disaster so far, saying the stupidest shit you have ever heard, though you can read some of it here, here, here, here, and here.

But as for the reality of the story - that Canada or Rhee could have been chancellor - yeah, right.

Use Of Wiretaps In Insider Trading Investigation Of Hedge Funds Widens

This could get really, really good:

WASHINGTON — Secret, court-approved wiretaps put in place more than two years ago are now being used by prosecutors in a widening inquiry of securities fraud and insider trading involving hedge funds and consultants that provide industry research, according to court documents and interviews with people close to the investigations.

The wiretaps were originally part of an insider trading investigation of the New York hedge fund Galleon Group. Those wiretaps, which involved the phones of at least seven individuals, potentially provided prosecutors with a vast array of new evidence for use in the latest investigations. Only four of the seven wiretap targets have been identified in court papers that have been made public so far in the Galleon case.

The expanded use of the secret wiretaps in the new inquiries was revealed last week by the United States attorney in Manhattan when the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Don Ching Trang Chu, a consultant at Primary Global Research, on securities fraud and conspiracy charges.

Expert networking firms, like Primary Global, which seek to link corporate executives or industry insiders with investment managers, have grown rapidly in recent years as securities regulators have cracked down on the ways that company managers can tell Wall Street stock analysts about corporate developments.

The case involving Mr. Chu relied on information gathered in one of the seven wiretaps set up in the Galleon investigation, according to court documents. The Galleon case, which began after insider-trading charges were filed against its founder, Raj Rajaratnam, in October 2009, was the first insider trading case to rely on wiretaps. It has so far resulted in criminal charges against 23 people and more than a dozen guilty pleas.

A federal judge allowed the use of the wiretapped conversations in the Galleon prosecutions last week. As a result, the secret wiretaps are likely to be used to bring more cases related to the expert-network firms, say people close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still unfolding. The trove of wiretap recordings include conversations involving at least 550 people.

Those wiretaps are in addition to recordings made by several targets of the Galleon insider trading investigations who agreed to cooperate with law enforcement by wearing recording devices after prosecutors confronted them with allegations of their participation in the insider trading schemes.

In the new investigation, three hedge funds were raided by the F.B.I. last week and several other money management companies received subpoenas or requests for information. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said last week that the investigation was continuing.

These hedge fund guys think they're untouchable - the new Al Capones.

It will be fantastic to see some of them go to jail for their crimes.

And if one or two of these wiretap investigations puts an ed deformer or two behind bars, so much the better.

Better look out, Geoffrey!

You're guy might be going down with those wiretaps.

WSJ: Insider Trading Investigation Focuses On Bankers, Hedge Fundies

This I like:

Federal authorities, capping a three-year investigation, are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation, according to people familiar with the matter.

The criminal and civil probes, which authorities say could eclipse the impact on the financial industry of any previous such investigation, are examining whether multiple insider-trading rings reaped illegal profits totaling tens of millions of dollars, the people say. Some charges could be brought before year-end, they say.

The investigations, if they bear fruit, have the potential to expose a culture of pervasive insider trading in U.S. financial markets, including new ways non-public information is passed to traders through experts tied to specific industries or companies, federal authorities say.

One focus of the criminal investigation is examining whether nonpublic information was passed along by independent analysts and consultants who work for companies that provide "expert network" services to hedge funds and mutual funds. These companies set up meetings and calls with current and former managers from hundreds of companies for traders seeking an investing edge.

Among the expert networks whose consultants are being examined, the people say, is Primary Global Research LLC, a Mountain View, Calif., firm that connects experts with investors seeking information in the technology, health-care and other industries. "I have no comment on that," said Phani Kumar Saripella, Primary Global's chief operating officer. Primary's chief executive and chief operating officers previously worked at Intel Corp., according to its website.

In another aspect of the probes, prosecutors and regulators are examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers leaked information about transactions, including health-care mergers, in ways that benefited certain investors, the people say. Goldman declined to comment.

Any time I see the words "Goldman Sachs," "investigation," and "criminal charges" in the same sentence, I smile.

The only thing that would make me happier is to see the words "Geoffrey" and "Canada" added to that sentence.

Mr. Canada, of course, has made a career of taking money from these crooks to use for his "charity" work.

If you take money from crooks knowing they're crooks, does that make you a crook too?

If Class Size Doesn't Matter...

...than I guess Geoffrey Canada will be raising class sizes at his Harlem Children's Zone schools from 15 to 38?

Just saying.

Melinda Gates Steps Down From Washington Post/Kaplan University Board

I guess the NY Times expose on the fraud that is the Washington Post/Kaplan company got to Ms. Gates.

Here is how the Washington Post covered her resignation:

Melinda French Gates, philanthropist and wife of billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has resigned from the Washington Post Co. board of directors, the company announced Friday.

Gates, a former Microsoft manager who runs the multibillion-dollar Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband, had joined the board in 2004.

She did not give a reason for stepping down. A family spokesman said she was spending more time than before working and traveling for the foundation.

The Post board's chairman, Donald E. Graham, said it is "sad at losing her."

The Post's Kaplan education unit has come under harsh scrutiny in news reports quoting former Kaplan employees who said that they had been instructed to use the Gates name to persuade students to take classes at the company.

Gates said in a statement released by The Post that she has "been impressed with The Washington Post Company's work with Kaplan, whose new approaches to education are allowing students opportunities that would otherwise not be possible."

She also said the "mission" of The Post "remains as vital today as at any time in its history."

Gates and her husband are close to Warren E. Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway company owns about 24 percent of the Post Co. Buffett has pledged to donate much of his fortune to the Gates Foundation.

The Post's board, which includes Buffett, now has 11 members.

It's a shame Gates wasn't honest about the reason she was stepping down.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the Times expose was the reason.

She could have done the education reform movement some good by actually criticizing the Post/Kaplan Company for their fraudulent activities stealing money from students and taxpayers.

But to be honest, it would probably be difficult for Gates to do that.

The nexus between for-profit education companies and the education reform movement has never been more apparent than when Chancellor Klein jumped ship at the NYCDOE to head up Rupert Murdoch's new online for-profit education company this week.

Geoffrey Canada at the Harlem Children's Zone has his own connections to for-profit education companies, having taken $25 million in cash payments from Goldman Sachs, part owner the Art Institutes.

There is a lot of money to be made from the suckers out there and people like Gates, Klein, Canada, Buffet, et al. all know that.

That's why they don't do anything about the kind of fraudulent activity that the Post/Kaplan Company engages in.

In fact, not only don't they do anything about the fraudulent activity, they're not even willing to publicly criticize it.

But I guess it's hard to do that when they're making money off of it themselves.

Geoffrey Canada Says Bloomberg Reached Out To Him On Chancellor Search

Buried in this morning's NY Times article about potential conflicts of interest Cathie with an "i" Black will have from sitting on various corporate boards and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year is this piece of information:

Aside from Ms. Black’s background, Mr. Bloomberg’s selection of her was also surprising for the secrecy surrounding it. Many of the mayor’s senior aides did not know about it until just before he announced it.

The mayor’s office has declined to reveal any details of the search process, but one respected educator has said he was consulted: Geoffrey Canada, the chief executive officer of the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Mr. Canada, in an interview on Friday, said Mr. Bloomberg had met with him about three months ago, around the time Mr. Klein told the mayor he was planning to resign.

Mr. Bloomberg “asked for my advice on what would make a great chancellor, and I gave it,” Mr. Canada said. He would not elaborate on what his advice was and did not say whether Ms. Black’s name came up. But he said he was “thrilled” with the choice, citing her extensive management experience.

Mr. Canada declined to comment on whether he was offered the job. Mr. Bloomberg had called him the “most important living New Yorker” in a recent New York Magazine survey.

Is Canada just covering for Bloomberg or is he telling the truth?

With Geoffrey, it's to tell.

He has such a desperate pathological need for publicity that you never know if he's inserting himself into the conversation just to see his name in the papers or if he really was consulted by Bloomberg.

But let's say we take Canada at his word and believe that he was consulted by Bloomberg about the job.

Why won't he say what he told Bloomberg?

Did he give Bloomberg some candid talk that he doesn't want revealed to the general public (e.g., "Mike, you need to get rid of Klein because people hate him, but you need to replace him with as big a union-busting, school-closing corporate whore as Klein is, just with a nicer public persona...")?

Did Bloomberg offer him the job? And if so, why didn't he take it? And why won't he say whether he was offered the job?

It's all very mysterious and the Times makes clear in another article that other cities make their chancellor searches much more public and much less mysterious and it all works out for the better:

experts who have studied other chancellor searches, and some superintendents in other cities who have been through them, said that while the mayor made some valid points, a more public process, especially in the final stages, brought transparency and accountability to the school system that could give credibility to a new leader.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see how the candidates size up in their performance in the public limelight,” said Thomas Payzant, a professor at the graduate school of education at Harvard who was superintendent of the Boston schools from 1995 until 2006.

“You get to see a side of them that you might not otherwise see,” he said. “And it’s a two-way learning experience. You’re learning a lot about the leaders in the community and what the issues are in that day and a half, and getting a lot broader view than if you just read a lot of things on paper.”

Mr. Payzant himself went through a trial by fire before being appointed superintendent. As one of three finalists for the Boston job in 1995, he was asked to spend a day and a half meeting with parents, teachers, union leaders and community members, to participate in a public forum and even to write an editorial for The Boston Globe addressing school issues. At the time, he was an assistant secretary in the federal Education Department.

Gee - can you imagine Bloomberg asking potential chancellor candidates to spend a day and a half meeting with parents, teachers, union leaders and community members, participating in a public forum on education, and writing an editorial for the papers addressing school issues before he decided which candidate got the job?

I can't.

Hell, he doesn't even want actual chancellors with the actual job to do any of that.

Which is why he and Joel "Sorry, I'm on my Blackberry" Klein were so perfect for each other these past eight years.

So after nearly a week of trying to learn more about how Bloomberg conducted his chancellor search and why he chose the person he did for the job, we don't know much more than we did at the beginning.

All we know is that the search was Bloombergian to its core - secretive, dismissive of the community, and conducted with the usual corporate bias that educators are idiots but business people are geniuses.

I'm sure it will all work out great - for Bloomberg.

UPDATE: The Daily News reports that Bloomberg never reached out to NYSED commissioner David Steiner about the pick. The News also reports that the state ed department says the city has not submitted an official waiver request for non-educator Cathie Black to take the job of the top city education official, as is needed by law.

Interesting.

Goeffrey Canada gets consulted by Bloomberg on the choice (or at least he says he does), the state education commissioner doesn't.

Really puts a spotlight on Bloomberg's education values, doesn't it?

And of course he figures he can just buy shill Steiner off without a problem.

Bob Braun Takes Aim At "This Season's Education Reform"

From my favorite writer in the Newark Star Ledger:

This season’s version of education reform has hit some speed bumps, what with the resignation of the Washington, D.C., schools chief and the report that students in the City of Oz version of school — the Harlem Children’s Zone — did not do as well as expected on state tests.
0Share
1 Comments

"Superman and Wonder Woman Meet Kryptonite" was the headline to these stories suggested by Paul Tractenberg, the Rutgers Law School professor who has, for decades, championed education reform done the hard way — by paying for, and persistently pursuing, it.

He refers to the superhero status given to Michelle Rhee, an advocate of merit pay and soon to be ex-superintendent, and Geoffrey Canada, the well-paid CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone charter schools, by the movie "Waiting for Superman" and Oprah Winfrey.

Winfrey urged Gov. Chris Christie to hire Rhee as Newark’s superintendent and dubbed Canada "superman" of education. That was all on the same show that billionaire Mark Zuckerberg — a graduate of a prep school that charges $40,000 annually — pledged $100 million in Facebook stock over five years to reform Newark schools that cost nearly $1 billion a year to run.

How that reform will occur, we don’t yet know, but responsibility will be given to Cory Booker, called the "rock star mayor of Newark" by Winfrey. Booker, once details are settled, will be an informal educational adviser to the governor, a sort of Robin to Christie’s Batman.

One development is certain, according to someone studying school reform for decades: This latest wave of hyped reform won’t be the last. Joseph DePierro, the dean of Seton Hall’s College of Education and Human Services, says the nation witnesses highly touted, New Dawn, we’re-finally-going-to-fix-it-now demands for change every generation.

"The question is what good they do, or how much harm," says DePierro.

The university dean is concerned because, he says, this one is accompanied by an unprecedented attack on public schools and their employees and is at least as motivated by reducing spending as it is by improving education.

"It’s very different from past reform efforts,’’ he says. He cites calls for change that followed "A Nation at Risk," a presidential report that warned the damage done to schools by neglect and underfunding was like an "act of war" committed against us by a foreign country.

"That report recommended raising teacher salaries, improving their benefits, enhancing their security, all with the aim of attracting bright young people to the profession," says DePierro, who started his own career as a public school teacher.

"We did that, but now we’re taking it all away — at a time when the state and the nation need to hire those young bright people. We’re also showing public scorn for teachers by emphasizing the idea many should be replaced, or just dismissed."

One of the planks of the governor’s education reform platform is a plan to dismiss poor-performing teachers and use the savings to fund merit pay. He also wants to expand charter schools.

DiPierro’s theory might explain why, in every generation, education smashes into a crisis, real or manufactured, and the crisis is wrestled to the floor by the latest great plan for reform.

A generation before "A Nation at Risk," schools endured the Sputnik scare after the Soviet Union put a beeping, metal basketball in orbit that, according to some, threatened our nation. It led to enhanced spending for math and science education.

Fueled by fear of Reds and willing to spend the bucks, the United States — little more than a decade later — landed the first man on the moon; unfortunately, Neil Armstrong blew his lines stepping onto the lunar dust.

Ideology and economic circumstances play roles in shaping cyclical reform. The "A Nation at Risk" era was the flush, spare-no-expense years of Ronald Reagan’s "Morning in America." A Republican governor, Thomas Kean — not the New Jersey Education Association — led the fight for increasing teacher’ salaries here and sent public school costs skyrocketing.

But spending money on teachers is just so yesterday. Now, politics and economic circumstances call for cutting public spending, weakening unions, privatizing as much of government as can be sold to profit-making enterprises.

DePierro says he worries about the long-term impact of this newest round of reform.

"I don’t think it will kill public education," he says. "But it already has maimed it."

That must be the rebuttal to all the "manifestos" Klein and Company publish in the papers or spew on TV.

This education reform movement isn't about improving education.

It's about reducing spending, especially for teacher salaries and infrastructure.

Klein himself has told us that.

He envisions a future where one teacher in Sri Lanka teaches 100 students here in NYC, perhaps home on their computers, perhaps in some "education center" somewhere with a para-professional or two to watch over them while they "do their work."

That's what "online education" is all about - saving money on salaries and buildings.

That is what this latest education reform movement is about.

Sure Obama has increased education spending since he took over - but little to none of that money goes to classroom use.

Certainly it doesn't go to teacher salaries (even as he says he has helped raise teacher salaries.)

Rather the money goes to no-bid contracts for standardized tests, it goes to build "data systems" to track the scores from those tests, and it goes to central administration "accountability experts" to fire people based on the scores they're tracking.

That's not spending more on education.

That's spending more on administration.

Meanwhile teachers are threatened with layoffs here in NYC, many teachers have been let go across the country and many more may get pink slips before the year is out.

But take a look at how many charter schools are hiring - especially for management and administration.

Somebody's getting the money that used to go to education.

But it certainly isn't public school children or public school teachers.

Goldman Sachs, Dirty Money and the Harlem Children's Zone

Goldman Sachs gave a $20 million grant to the Harlem Children's Zone through it's charity wing, Goldman Sachs Gives.

According to Geoffrey Canada, founder of the HCZ, that money will enable the organization to build a new school, among other things.

Isn't that wonderful!

But how much of that money Canada and the HCZ is receiving from Goldman Sachs was made from human misery and/or criminal activity?

In April, Goldman Sachs was charged by the S.E.C. with fraud in the structuring and marketing of a CDO (collateralized debt obligation) tied to subprime mortgages.

Goldman settled that case in July, agreeing to pay $550 million dollars in the settlement. Goldman did not admit wrongdoing, but did agree to pay the fine for "marketing materials for Abacus 2007-AC1 that contained 'incomplete information.'"

In other words, they lied to the people they were selling their financial product to. They made believe the product had some value when they knew that it was essentially worthless (full of mortgages that were in danger of default.) In fact, Goldman even made side bets AGAINST Abacus 2007-AC1.

Here is how Bloomberg News described the transactions:

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- From July 2004 through April 2007, as credit markets boomed, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. created 23 financial transactions called Abacus, the word for a relatively crude counting tool involving the shuffling of beads.

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued the bank for securities fraud in what would be the penultimate offering in the series, according to Bloomberg data.

The bank used the deals to off-load the risk of mostly subprime home loans and commercial mortgages to investors, either as hedges for similar positions or to bet against securities itself. While the data show New York-based Goldman Sachs issued at least $7.8 billion of Abacus notes, the risk passed to investors was multiples higher.

The Abacus transactions are so-called synthetic collateralized debt obligations, which marry two financial innovations that contributed to the worst collapse in financial markets since the Great Depression.

The financial tools, often called technologies, are credit- default swaps, used to transfer the risk of losses on debt, and securitization, used to slice the risk in a pool of assets into various new securities.

Abacus deals were filled with default swaps that offered payouts to Goldman Sachs if certain mortgage bonds didn’t pay as promised, in return for regular premiums from the bank.

Some of the cash needed for the potential payouts to Goldman Sachs would be raised upfront, and essentially placed in escrow, from sales of Abacus CDO notes with varying ratings. The grades were tied to how many of the underlying securities needed to default before the CDO classes would.

Such securitization enabled debt with the lowest investment-grade ratings to be transformed, in part, into AAA securities that turned out to not be as safe as that ranking suggested. At least $5 billion of Abacus slices now carry junk ratings, below BBB-, from Standard & Poor’s, or have defaulted, Bloomberg data show.

The SEC said that Goldman Sachs created and sold Abacus 2007-AC1 without disclosing that hedge fund Paulson & Co. helped pick the underlying securities and also bet the CDO would default. Paulson was proved correct, and his hedge fund eventually turned a $1 billion profit and CDO investors lost a similar amount, according to the SEC.

So Goldman made money both coming and going - they sold a worthless financial product that was guaranteed to go belly up to their customers without telling them it was worthless, then made MORE money by betting against that very product themselves.

Ingenious - no wonder they call these guys Masters of the Universe!

But that's not the only fraudulent way Goldman Sachs makes money.

Goldman Sachs also owns Litton Loan Servicing - a company that has been sued numerous times for all kinds of fraudulent business practices.

Back in 2005, customers of Litton Loan charged the company with fraud in a class action lawsuit:

The Nationwide Class alleged claims based on violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ("RESPA") relating to Litton's improper actions in imposing late fees or treating payments as late during the 60-day grace period following the effective date of loan transfer if a borrower sends a payment to his or her old servicer on time. The California Subclass alleged claims based on violations of California law relating to Litton's unfair business acts and practices with respect to the servicing of loans.

Litton Loan settled that case in 2009, but since the court found that the plaintiffs had not "established the elements needed to determine predominance or superiority on their claim for actual damages," statutory damages were capped at $500,000 for the entire Class.

This class action lawsuit was far from the only complaints against Litton Loan Servicing. Here is a whole host of complaints at Consumercomplaints.com (66 pages of them!) against Litton.

Here is one complaint about Litton from that site:

PATRICIA of CHICAGO, IL September 20, 2009

In December 2005/January 2006, without our knowledge or consent, our mortgage was sold to Litton Loan. Before we knew what hit us, our home was foreclosed. In January 2007, we read in the daily newspaper that our house was being "sold" and actually went to the "foreclosure sale." We were directed to the offices of Pierce & Associates -- the equally atrocious bulldogs who are rubber-stamping case-after-case amassing exorbitant attorney fees and court costs in the Foreclosure Court on behalf of Litton Loan. Finally, an agent of Litton sent a fax through Pierce with a Forbearance Agreement; and DESPERATE to keep our home, we made lump sum and monthly payments over the next 10 months in excess of 47,000.00 (I have copies of the cashiers checks). During this time, we attempted to contact Litton Loan hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times. Either the voicemail box was full and we couldn't leave a message, or the voicemail indicated the agent was helping another customer and would return our call in 72 HOURS. On occasion, we were fortunate enough to connect to a "live" person, they were clueless as to our situation, some became rude and condescending, and more often they said we needed to speak to a supervisor because according to their records, our home was foreclosed. EVERY TIME IT WAS A DIFFERENT AGENT, WITH THE NAME OF A "NEW" SUPERVISOR. Guaranteed they have a HUGE EMPLOYEE TURNAROUND!

To date, we have no evidence that our OVER 47,000.00 was ever applied to our mortgage loan. In January 2007, we retained a foreclosure firm who called off the dogs and ATTEMPTED but FAILED to negotiate with any one Litton officer. They would come to terms, and Litton was penalized on more than one occasion, but then the Litton player would change, and we were right back to square one. Well, the Sheriff's Officers came to the door with battering rams to evict us. They gave us ten (10) days. A week later, a Notice of Eviction was served on THE WRONG PARTY! They didn't even have our names on the complaint. We looked like fools in the eviction court, and refused to be under the jurisdiction of the Court. Simultaneous, we hired an attorney to file a complaint in the Foreclosure Court, and on October 14, 2008, the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois ordered: This cause coming to be heard on Defendant's Motion to Quash Service of Summons, upon due notice, and the Court being fully advised: It Is Hereby Ordered: That the Defendants having met their burden of proof, the Motion to Quash Service of Summons is granted, and all orders and the issued deed are void ab initio.

THEREAFTER, WE CONTACTED LITTON A HUNDRED MORE TIMES, EACH TIME WE WERE TOLD OUR HOME WAS SOLD! WE TRIED TO SECURE A MORTGAGE FROM SEVERAL OTHER LENDERS, BUT WERE TOLD OUR CREDIT HAD THE FORECLOSURE AND THEY EITHER COULD NOT NEGOTIATE WITH LITTON BECAUSE THEY WERE NO LONGER THE LENDER, OR LITTON DID NOT RETURN THEIR CALLS. Last month, the attorney that handled the motion to quash service sent a letter stating that ONE WEEK following the hearing, Litton claims to have served us with foreclosure papers; and the house was again foreclosed! LITTON NEVER GAVE US A CHANCE TO SECURE A MORTGAGE FROM THEM OR ANY OTHER LENDER AFTER WE PREVAILED IN THE FORECLOSURE COURT. The attorney wants another 3,600.00 to go through the same process in Court and reverse the foreclosure. WE WERE NEVER SERVED ON OCT 27 2008. Not only do we want to sue the process server, LITTON LOAN, and their agents, but more importantly we WANT TO SECURE A REVERSE MORTGAGE FROM A LENDER!!! PLEASE HELP US!

There are lots of other outrageous complaints against Litton there, many as heartbreaking as the one above. Litton Loan Servicing is creating lots of misery in the world, much of it because they just don't seem to care about details, circumstances, ethics or even the law when it comes to dealing with their customers.

And unfortunately the way Wall Street works these days, you can become a Litton Loan customer without intending to if your original mortgage company sells your mortgage to them, as has happened to hundreds of thousands of people.

Also as we can see from this NY Times article on October 13, 2010, Litton Loan Servicing isn't exactly hiring "professionals" to do its business either:

At Litton Loan Servicing, an arm of Goldman Sachs, employees processed foreclosure documents so quickly that they barely had time to see what they were signing.

“I don’t know the ins and outs of the loan,” a Litton employee said in a deposition last year. “I’m not a loan officer.”

And yet this employee was doing loan officer work.

So Litton is using amateurs to process its foreclosures, throwing tons of people out of there homes without cause, charging fees they shouldn't be charging for loan payments that weren't actually late, and claiming people are in default on their mortgages even when they aren't.

And they're getting away with this, as is the company that owns them, Goldman Sachs.

Goldman also owns a substantial part of for-profit education company Art Institute which according to Bloomberg News peddles degrees for up to $100,000 that students later find are "worthless."

So here is this company that has sold toxic financial products that it knew was worthless to customers without telling them while shorting those very same products, owns a loan servicer that is scamming hundreds of thousands of people all across this country and owns a 38% stake in a for-profit education company that offers worthless degrees for as much as six figures that leave students in debt up to their eyeballs but without gainful employment.

Let me ask the question again, how much of the $20 million that Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone received from Goldman Sachs was made from human misery and/or criminal activity?

How much of that money came from somebody who fraudulently lost their house to Litton Loan or had to pay late fees for mortgage payments that weren't actually late?

How much of that money came from students who paid for a worthless degree from Art Institute and are working as strippers or grocery clerks to pay off their loans?

How much of that money came from investors who bought into a Goldman financial product that Goldman knew was worthless and who lost their shirts in the Housing Bubble collapse?

And what does it say about both Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone that they're happy to take the money made from shady foreclosures, fraudulent mortgage fees, garbage college degrees at diploma mill universities, and worthless collateralized debt obligations that were hawked to naive investors as something of value?

The old saying goes that you are what you eat.

The same can be said for non-profit organizations that claim to be doing good in the world.

They are where they raise their funds from.

Given how Goldman Sachs makes its money, Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone ought to be ashamed that they have taken even one cent from Goldman and should give back the entire grant.

Sure Canada can build a new school with that money.

But how many people have had their lives destroyed by Goldman Sachs, lost their homes or their savings to these crooks, in order for Mr. Canada and the HCZ to build that school?

Geoffrey Canada and the For-Profit Colleges

Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, is the darling of the education "reform" movement.

I will leave the skepticism about Canada's "Harlem miracle" to others for now (see here and here for that) and focus on something else about Harlem Children's Zone that concerns me.

I teach in NYC and my seniors who belong to an after school program run by the HCZ all talk about wanting to go to Berkeley College (not the the California university, the for-profit one.)

Many of these are students in need of remediation, many of whom will be the first in their families to attend a post-secondary school. So they are desperately in need of good guidance and counseling.

I suggest either CUNY or SUNY schools, which are much cheaper than Berkeley College (Berkeley costs nearly $30,000, CUNY $4,000, tuition at SUNY is just over $5,000) and where the quality of education is so much better.

In fact, Berkeley College is barely a college. It's really more of a diploma mill - the kind where they brag about job placement rates rather than graduation rates because so many of their students drop out of school and never complete their degrees.

And while those students may not complete their degrees at Berkeley College, they do have to complete paying for the loans Berkeley loads them up with per year. Proponents of for-profit schools argue that drop-out rates at for-profit schools are no worse than at public 2-year and 4-year schools, and while that may be true in some cases, most public universities are not charging the kind of money Berkeley College is charging per quarter.

For example, a student who attends York College, a CUNY school, who drops out has paid a little less than $4,400 a year for the school. Even if that student was not eligible for a Pell grant, a TAP grant or any other free aid, the amount of loan debt the student would have from the CUNY school would be pretty minimal compared to the almost $30,000 he/she might incur at Berkeley College per year.

Now I suppose there are worse post-graduation choices a student could make than attending Berkeley College and paying $60,000 for an Associate's Degree in criminal justice or $120,000 for a Bachelor's Degree in the same field, but there are certainly many better choices he or she could make - like attending John Jay and receiving an Associate's Degree in criminal justice for $8,800 or a Bachelor's Degree in the same field for just under $17,000

So why is the Harlem Children's Zone, a program that purports to pride itself on academic excellence and high standards, pushing low-income kids to an expensive diploma mill like Berkeley College where an education will cost between $60,000 and $120,000 when more reasonable and more reputable colleges in the SUNY or CUNY system are available?

When I called HCZ, I was told that they have a "business arrangement" with Berkeley College, which is why they suggest students attend there.

I have tried to get more information from HCZ about this "business arrangement" but have been rebuffed since.

So, let's get this out there on the blogosphere. Does anyone know what kind of "business arrangement" Harlem Children's Zone has with Berkeley College that has them pushing kids toward this for-profit school when cheaper and better public universities are available?

Rubber Room For Corrupt Politicians: Bloomberg, Malcolm Smith Edition

It's good to be connected.

The NY Daily News reports this morning that three charter schools with connections to Mayor Bloomberg or State Senate President Malcolm Smith are receiving a nice financial hug and kiss this post-Valentine's day:

Three politically connected charter schools are expected to receive millions in city money for new buildings, an Education Department plan shows.

In the city's capital plan, two charter schools with ties to Mayor Bloomberg - Brooklyn's PAVE Academy and Harlem Promise Academy - are slated to receive a total of $72 million for new buildings, about a third of the city money available for charter construction.

Peninsula Preparatory Academy in Queens, which state Senate President Malcolm Smith helped found, will also receive funds, though an exact amount has not been settled on.

Critics say with limited resources for school construction, the city should build public schools where they're most needed - not where elected officials have pet schools.

"It pays to have friends," said Community Education Council 15 Co-President Jim Devor, criticizing the choice to spend public dollars on a new school for Red Hook, Brooklyn, which doesn't have an overcrowding problem.

"You have a neighborhood whose school facilities are underutilized. You gratuitously add a school building where none is needed."

The Promise Academy school is run by education reform "hero" Geoffrey Canada and may constitute a quid pro quo bribe between Bloomberg and Canada.

Canada loudly supported Bloomberg's efforts to maintain mayoral control of the New York City public school system last summer when the law was up for renewal.

Now he's receiving a new school building courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg and city taxpayers at the expense of school children and parents in other areas of the city that suffer from school overcrowding.

City Controller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill De Blasio need to look into just how it is that Geoffrey Canada's school, along with the other politically connected charters, got NYCDOE largesse at a time when funds for school construction are so limited.

As for Malcolm Smith, the Daily News reported last month that he steered $100,000 dollars of state aid to the charter school he helped found, Peninsula Preparatory Academy.

While steering the money toward the charter school he founded is not illegal, it does raise questions of a conflict of interest for Smith. What may be illegal are the political donations Smith received from the for-profit company, Victory Schools Inc., that runs the charter.

The owner of Victory Schools Inc., Steven Klinsky, denied there was any quid pro quo arrangement between his company and Smith and said the donations were simply to reward Smith for supporting raising the charter school cap, but the deal certainly smells bad on the face of it.

Adding to Smith's woes, the NY Times reports this morning that Smith and some of his aides are being investigated by federal prosecutors in both Manhattan and Brooklyn for money transfers between Smith and non-profits he has ties to:

Four current or former officials of a Queens nonprofit group or a related charity founded by State Senator Malcolm A. Smith and Congressman Gregory W. Meeks — a group to which Mr. Smith has directed some $56,000 in state funds — have spent some time on the Senate payroll working for Mr. Smith, and two were among his highest paid staff members, public records show.

Federal prosecutors are investigating the nonprofit group, the New Direction Local Development Corporation, and a related charity set up to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, and they issued a subpoena at the beginning of February for records from Mr. Smith’s Senate office that show all the money he had directed to community groups over the past decade, a person with knowledge of the subpoena said last week.

But while the prosecutors who issued the subpoena, from the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, wrote it broadly, the person said that investigators made clear that they were focused on New Direction, which was incorporated in 2000 and says in its tax filings that it was created to encourage local development in Southeast Queens.

...

It is unclear whether the investigation by Manhattan prosecutors, which is in its earliest stages, or another apparently associated inquiry by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, are related in any way to the activities of the four people who spent time over the years on Mr. Smith’s legislative payroll. No charges have been filed, and the United States attorneys’ offices in both Manhattan and Brooklyn declined to comment on Sunday.

But three of the four people who either are or were on Mr. Smith’s payroll appear to have played major roles in the nonprofit group over several years, according to its tax filings and Web site, and two hold posts that suggest they are or were close to Senator Smith or are deeply involved in his political affairs.

Connections between the lawmakers who make grants and the nonprofit groups that get them have come under growing scrutiny from prosecutors in recent years, especially in connection with the State Legislature and New York City Council, which together give out tens of millions of dollars in local awards each year.

There is no law prohibiting a state legislator from directing a grant to a charity that employs or has on its board a friend, family member or staff member of the legislator’s. But under an agreement with Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo in 2007, the recipient of any grant, often known as an earmark, must disclose such connections in a signed statement, under penalty of perjury.

Smith's mentor, Reverend Floyd Flake, is also embroiled in a quid pro quo scandal involving the awarding of a gambling contract to a company connected to him by the state. After Flake's company won the bid, Flake pulled back from his public support of Andrew Cuomo in this year's Democratic primary for governor and says he may now support David Paterson, the man who helped his company win the gambling contract.

Finally the Daily News reports that Mayor Bloomberg bought a political crony a house in Forest Hills Garden for helping Bloomberg win his third term as mayor.

The scandals involving New York City and New York State political figures - from Bloomberg to Smith to Flake to Paterson - are coming fast and furious.

It is clear these people think state and city coffers are their own and any taxpayer funds they steer toward their own non-profits or the non-profits run by their supporters or to companies run by supporters are just the spoils of office.

It is also clear that quid pro quo deals are daily occurrences at City Hall, at Tweed, and in Albany.

Maybe there needs to be a rubber room for corrupt politicians where Bloomberg, Paterson, and Smith can languish for months on end while prosecutors investigate their cases.

And maybe there needs to be a rubber room for non-profit operators and charter school management company operators like Geoffrey Canada and Steven Klinsky of Victory Schools, Inc. involved on the other end of quid pro quo dealings