Update on the WCPSS – WakeEdPartnership Revolving Door

Posted on February 2, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

the-walking-dead-revolving-doorLast month I wrote about the revolving door between “education non-profit” WakeEd Partnership and Wake County Schools.

In that article, I noted that I had requested the job description and salary for Ms. Crain’s position at Wake County Schools.   I  am here to report that I have received that information.

Ms. Crain will be making $85,115 as Director of “Strategy and Policy”.  For contrast, the average classroom teacher in Wake County currently makes just under $50,000.

The position is not a new one, I am told. It was previously held by Jaime Biswas.

The positions main purpose is to support the pricey WCPSS “strategic plan“.

POSITION PURPOSE:
 Serves as the system-wide leader for the creation, revision and dissemination of Wake County PublicSchool System (WCPSS) Board of Education Policies. Ensures compliance with established policycreation, revision and removal framework. Assists the Chief of Staff with directing the WCPSS strategic planning process, including working directly with the senior leadership team (SLT) to align departmentalgoals with the WCPSS strategic plan. Communicates results of the strategic planning process to keystakeholders

 

The job description is below.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Big Ed Complex, EDUCATION | Tagged | Comments Off on Update on the WCPSS – WakeEdPartnership Revolving Door

10% Pay Increase For All Teachers! – #StuffAtkinsonSays

Posted on February 2, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

Last week, Dr. Atkinson jump started her relection campaign with a speech in front of the legislature’s House Select Committee on Education.

She called for a “10% pay increase” for all North Carolina Teachers. That translates to around $580 million dollars.

Alex Grandos’ report is pretty good and has video and the materials presented, including SAS’s ‘education non-profit’, BEST NC.

Brenda Berg of BEST NC has an interesting take on the school-house organizational structure as antiquated when compared to a private company’s org chart.  I don’t necessarily disagree with that, but it’s given Atkinson the idea that schools now need “business managers”.

Really? More DPI  bureaucratic bloat in our schools. That’s gonna help?

No, Principals are supposed to be these managers.  If the final goal is to better train principals to manage their schools better, great. If it’s adding another layer of educrats to our schools, thanks, but no thanks.

Granados’ report also includes Atkinson’s teacher pay “Wedding Cake”.

Nowhere baked in said ‘Wedding cake’ is the hugely varied supplemental pay set by local districts. And, of course, Atkinson offered no way to pay for this 10%.  You know she won’t be axing any DPI jobs to make that happen.

Who does she think she’s fooling? This is politics as usual.

Follow The Money
By the way, the 2015 Semi-Annual Campaign reports were due on 1/29/16.

A look at  Atkinson’s Committee, JUNE ATKINSON COMM [STA-843358-C-001], shows she filed her report on 1/28/16 and shows a beginning balance of $11,206.83 and ending balance of $0.

Total receipts were $42,382.29, of which $3,100 were from PACS, $39,022 from individuals and another $260 or in aggregated individual donations.

There were many top educrats at DPI among the donors.

Also were donations from two of the Moral Monday candidates that made it onto the Wake Board of Commissioners – Sig Hutchinson and Jessica Holmes. Holmes is also an NCAE attorney. SAS’s Gale Adcock, who unseated Tom Murry for this House seat, is also on board.

The biggest donations were two $5,100 donations. One from a former NEA employee, John I. Wilson, and another from a nurse named Bonnie S. Lyle who lives in Virginia.

Runners up were:

  • Malbert Smith, President MetaMetrics – $2,600
  • Timothy J Klasson, COO MetaMetrics – $2,500
  • Alfred J Stenner IV – $2,500
  • Cowell For Treasurer – $2,500
  • Alisa Smith, House Wife – $2,500
  • Robert A Wicker, Attorney General Parts International, Inc. – $2,500
  • Michael Priddy – $1,000

Of special note, MetaMetrics is a recipient of multiple contracts from DPI over the years. Tim Klasson or Malbert Smith have been a primary contacts for them.  MetaMetrics are involved in the scoring of the state EOG’s, which are Common Core aligned.

  • 2007 – $150,000 Federal
  • 2010 – Total Cost:  $300,000.00 Federal/ $135,000.00 State
  • 2012 – Total Cost $510,000.00 Federal / $8,010.00 State
Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), ELECTIONS, June Atkinson | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

#WBOC Prioritizes Transit Over Kids

Posted on February 1, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

Dispatches from the 100% Democrat held Wake County Board of Commissioners:

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Wait, didn’t the newly elected WBOC members RUN on education funding being the top priority?

Yes, they did.

Now they’re saying a $2.3 BILLION dollar Transit plan comes first?

Yes, they are.

Buses over Kids. Nice.

New WBOC member John Burns, jumped in to spin the WBOC’s about face as “a new strategy for smoothing debt”.

013116 JohnBurns Response to N&O on Transit over Schools

Yeah, right.
Mr. Burns’ “Smoothing”,  translated: Cutting voters out of the loop on how you hike their taxes and spend their money.

Don’t forget, Mr. Burns telegraphed this flip-flop last June in a rather long-winded and condescending Facebook post.

Related Reading

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Dispatches From The Big Ed Complex: Per Pupil Spending Narrative Returns

Posted on February 1, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

In the most recent NC Public School Forum (NCPSF) newsletter was a partial reprint of an article at Washington Post about per pupil spending.

The Washington post article claims national per pupil spending dropped for the third straight year.

At the bottom of the excerpt NCPSF includes is this:

According to the report, North Carolina ranked 44th with the state’s per-pupil spending at $8,342. The data included all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. Only Texas, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah spend less per-pupil than North Carolina.

That’s not accurate.  North Carolina’s per pupil spending has increased yearly since 2011 and was at an all-time high in 2015.  In fact, the majority of NC Districts spent close to $9,200 per kid in 2015, as Dr. Stoops noted:

When you include state ($5,638), federal ($1,005), local ($2,133), and 5-year average capital ($406) dollars, the state’s per-pupil expenditure totaled $9,182 last year.

In addition, 85 of North Carolina’s 115 school districts spent more than $9,000/student on operating and capital expenses.  No district spent less than $7,300 per student

History has proven that spending more money does not translate to more success. Spending money smarter does.

Posted in Big Ed Complex, EDUCATION | Tagged , | Comments Off on Dispatches From The Big Ed Complex: Per Pupil Spending Narrative Returns

For $40K a Year, You Too Can Professional Protest For Education

Posted on January 31, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

For $4oK a year, you too can protest the republican legislature.. err, I mean protest for “education” and recruit others to help you.

 

So grassrootsy.

Just a reminder, AIM HIGHER is one of Progress NC’s education protest astroturf groups.

AIM HIGHER is a project of NC Citizens Protecting Our Schools, of which  is another “education” group formed by Progress NC’s attorney, Michael Weisel, who sits on their board.

Details via “Jobs that are LEFT“:

Aim Higher Now is seeking highly motivated candidates to serve as Field Organizers in Wake (Raleigh), Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Pitt (Greenville) and Cumberland (Fayetteville) Counties. Field Organizers will focus on voter registration and issue advocacy campaigns and will also work to build and strengthen the long-term progressive infrastructure in the state.

Field Organizers will report to their respective Regional Field Directors and will focus on day-to-day field operations in their region. Field Organizers will be responsible for implementing a portion of the field plan, recruiting, training and managing fellows, interns and volunteers, and will be held accountable to quantitative and qualitative field metrics. Ideal candidates must be able to complete tasks on tight deadlines.

Duties will include, but are not limited to:

  • Recruiting, training, and managing volunteers who will participate in voter registration, phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, and community events such as house parties and town hall meetings.
  • Engaging in direct voter contact through canvasses, voter registration, phone banks and events.
  • Developing and conducting leadership and activist trainings. 
  • Generating public awareness and support through grassroots outreach.
  • Assisting Regional Field Director in developing relationships with key community leaders, opinion leaders, and allied organizations and coalitions to build a base of support within the region.

Qualifications:

  • Candidates must have a knowledge of and strong commitment to progressive causes.
  • Candidates must have strong interpersonal skills, experience meeting deadlines, and the ability to manage many tasks simultaneously.
  • Candidates must have strong oral and written communication skills.
  • Candidates must have an understanding of targeting and metrics and experience with database management, including the VAN and/or VoteBuilder.
  • Experience managing volunteers and holding others responsible to quantitative and qualitative goals is a plus.
  • Experience in North Carolina politics and government is a plus.
  • Ability to travel and access to a vehicle is required.
  • Willingness to work long hours, including nights and weekends, as necessary is required.

Compensation

Salary is $40,000 a year. Benefits include paid vacation and sick leave, health, dental, vision insurance coverage and 401K.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Big Ed Complex, BlueprintNC | Tagged , | Comments Off on For $40K a Year, You Too Can Professional Protest For Education

Shocker. Mostly Political Jobs at TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity

Posted on January 30, 2016 by A.P. Dillon

TFA capitol memeIn the past, I’ve touched on Teach for America (TFA) and it’s offshoot, Leadership For Educational Equity (LEE).

I recently reported on them when I found LEE money and Bloomberg money in the NC Superintendent race — for a Republican.

I just want to re-state what TFA and LEE are: Politically motivate recruiting groups, masquerading as subpar and taxpayer subsidized teacher training schools, whose main purpose is to seat it’s acolytes in places of political influence in order to further their specific ‘educational’ agendas.  Those ‘educational’  agendas are often skewed a particular way and it’s not to the center or right.

I just want to lay it out clearly here. It’s not just my personal opinion that these groups are more politically directed than education directed. It’s fact.  Follow the tweets.

The emphasis in LEE is on the “Equity” part.

Congress or K street. Take your pick. 

And LEE is not just political, both LEE and TFA  have an activist flavor.

TFA actually has employees organizing a large swath of the Black Lives Matter protests – including Durham. They are professional agitators and are partly taxpayer-funded and approved of from upon high.

That activism is well-funded.

And neither LEE nor TFA are’Right leaning’.

Browse LEE’s twitter feed yourself.

Follow the Money

TFA’s EIN is 13-3541913.
View the TFA IRS 990 Forms via Propublica.

Their 2014 filing shows gross receipts of $524,829,910.

The stated purpose is to “eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nations most powerful leaders in that mission”. They do that by putting their recruits into political positions, as I said at the start.

In addition to LEE, TFA also has another offshoot called Teach For All (EIN 26-2122566).
It is at 501(c)3 and  is also a multi-million dollar operation.

Wendy Kopp is their chairperson and she is paid over $180k for that role.

TFA has two CEO’s. The male Co-CEO, Matthew Cramer,  makes $412,285. The female Co-CEO, Elisa Bear, makes quite a bit less at $369,250.

Wow, paying a woman less than a man. Isn’t that a big no-no these days? Ironic. TFA can’t even ‘eliminate inequity’  in their own leadership.

LEE’s EIN is 20-8848357
View LEE’s IRS 990 Forms at Citizen Audit.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Big Ed Complex, EDUCATION, Government | Tagged , | Comments Off on Shocker. Mostly Political Jobs at TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity