Who Loves Barbara Byrd-Bennett more -- the American Federation of Teachers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Harcourt School Publishers, or Jean-Claude Brizard?
Chicago schools 'Chief Executive Officer' Barbara Byrd Bennett huddled with her "Chief of Staff" Bob Boik during the October 22, 2014 meeting of the Board of Education, while Board member Deborah Quazzo, who also specializes in conflicts of interest, waited in the background. Boik had been hired by Chicago from a job in Michigan (where he was working with Byrd Bennett) at an annual salary of $165,000, plus performance bonuses, undefined. Boik was also provided with moving expenses, which continued a pattern that no Board member ever talked about. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.[Editor's Note: The following article was published by Susan Ohanian three years ago, at the time that Chicago was first hiring Barbara Byrd Bennett. There was no excuse for anyone in Chicago to miss the corruption that "BBB" would bring to Chicago -- unless that person (or those people) thought that Catalyst, which sucked up to Byrd Bennett, was a reliable source of news and analysis. Given that Chicago is now interested in the mistake Chicago made when Chicago's rulers imported Barbara Byrd Bennett to first help and then run the city's public schools, it's time to review again what's long been known about one of the most corrupt and compromised bureaucrats ever to escape indictment this side of Beverly Hall or Michelle Rhee. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance].
Susan Ohanian
If Chicago is paying Barbara Byrd "upwards of $200,000," then she's suffering quite a pay cut. In Cleveland they called her "the $300,000 wonder." And that was years ago. There, some noticed that just as interesting was her expense account and where she got extra dough: Barbara Byrd Bennett: Paid for by Corporate Club. Here's a teacher blog with more details -- from a trip to Maui where she spent $216 on food each day to a doctor's note of why she has to travel first class. Barbara Byrd-Bennett Timeline, with Annotations August 1996 -- November 1998: Supervising Superintendent of the Chancellor's District in New York City [from her resume: The Chancellor's District serves as a national model for turnaround school efforts]
November 1998 -- February 2006: As Cleveland Schools CEO, Byrd-Bennett defended the use of Compass Learning and other "drill and kill" programs, telling a Baltimore Sun reporter, "I would argue that there is very little intervention [for struggling students] that isn't rote. For some things, you just have to learn facts to build to higher-order skills." NOTE: How did attendance rates jump? from 89% in 2001 to 93.8% in 2002? Absent students were counted 'present' if they were given make-up assignment. ( District staff aimed to skew absence data, Janet Okoben, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 17, 2005)
The hiring of Robert Boik to the position of "Chief of Staff" for Jean Claude Brizard in March 2012 was recommended by Brizard. Boik also received $12,000 in relocation expenses, a perk that had begun in May 2011 when the new Board, appointed by Rahm Emanuel, began hiring most of its top executives from outside Chicago.November 2003 Secretary of Education Rod Paige announces Byrd-Bennett's appointment to NAEP governing board. See How NAEP Labels a Reader.
February 2006 - March 2009: "Superintendent-in-Residency" for Harcourt School Publishers. In her "disclosure statement to Detroit Public Schools in 2009," she describer duties as "working with school superintendents, principals, and literacy coaches of grades K-12 in 12 districts throughout the country . . . .." She resigned this position to take job with Detroit Public Schools. She gave "verbal disclosure" at time of her hiring; on advice of her attorney, on financial disclosure statement for "other income" she wrote "not applicable." See auditor's report Review of DPS Procurements with Federal Dollars, Report o. 2011-1008, July 29, 2011 for more details.
March 2006- 2009: "Superintendent Executive Coach," Broad Superintendent Academy http://www.broadprize.org/asset/TBP2007ReviewBoard.pdf
January 2006. "Executive in Residence," Cleveland State University. "As executive-in-residence, Byrd-Bennett is assisting the University in becoming a national resource and destination for undergraduate- and graduate-level education and research."� press release
October 2006 - 2009: Executive Officer New Leaders for New Schools, Washington D. C. [Take a look at the list of participants at the 2010 New Schools Summit. Everybody's there along with Byrd-Bennett, representing New Leaders for New Schools � from Arne Duncan to the Walton Family Foundation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Fisher Fund, K12 Inc, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation; with Rick Hess, Walter Isaacson, Andrew Rotherham, Howard Fuller, Claudio Sanchez, what looks like representatives from every charter outfit in the country, including 14 from KIPP (2 more than from New Leaders for New Schools), plus 9 representatives from Stand for Children along for the ride.
August 2008: "Speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Denver" [listed on her Detroit resume though not found in Google search of convention speakers]. I couldn't find Byrd-Bennett's speech but I did find these DNC Denver 2008 Podcasts, which are described as "the official podcast of the Denver 2008 Host Committee for the Democratic National Convention (August 25-28) will distribute important information to delegates, visitors, media, VIPs, international guests and Denver citizens leading up to and beyond the DNC." Ed Challenge For Change: The Faces of Change, Aug. 28, 2008.
On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, many of the nation's top progressive education reform groups convened a forum in Denver to highlight the growing consensus for a bold new direction in federal education policy� and to spotlight the exciting work of a new generation of reformers who are already making change happen on the ground across America. Participants: Moderated by Jonathan Alter. Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, DC Public Schools; Michael Bennet, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools; Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High (San Diego); John King, Uncommon Schools; Don Shalvey, Aspire Public [sic] Schools; Michael Johnston, Co-Founder, New Leaders for New Schools. sponsored by Democrats for Education Reform and Gary-Williams Company.
Rocky Mountain Roundtable: 2008 Education Roundtable, Aug. 25, 2008 Roundtable Focus: American 15-year-olds are significantly below average in math and science. Out of 30 countries participating in the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment, America�s 15-year-olds ranked 25th in math and 21st in science. Meanwhile, more than 1.2 million students drop out of school every year. That�s more than 6,000 students every school day and one student every 26 seconds. At the post-secondary level, more than one in three college freshmen enroll in at least one remedial course to catch up on skills they should have learned in high school. This figure rises to 42 percent in the nation�s community colleges. Clearly, American schools must make a change. Participants: Moderated by Tom Toch. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico), Shirley Bloomfield (high tech lobbyist), Eli Broad, Dr. Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Mike Feinberg (KIPP cofounder), Chris Gabrieli (National Center on Time & Learning), Walter Isaacson (CEO Aspen Institute; board chair Teach for America), Paula Prahl (lobbyist, Best Buy, then Data Recognition Corp.), Gov. Roy Romer (chairman and lead spokesman for Strong American Schools, a nonprofit project responsible for running Ed in 08, an information and initiative campaign funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad foundation), John Schnur (New Leaders for New Schools), John Wilson (NEA director, chaired the Partnership for 21st Century Skills).
Do these Byrd-Bennett fellow-travelers need any introduction?
April 2009. Byrd-Bennett named trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project, which, according to press release was "reviewed by members of AFT." The "team of experts" advising in the development of the maps includes Antonia Cortese, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers. December 2009 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Purpose: to develop K-10 ELA curriculum aligned to the Common Core standards under development by CCSSO and NGA Amount: $550,844 (NOTE: Lynne Munson, president of the Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project, was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute 1993-2001.) Another trustee is Juan Rangel. See Jim Vail's Dec. 27, 2010 Substance article, UNO Leader's Background Pried Open a Little... A closer look at Juan Rangal
April 2009. AFT Launches AFT Innovation Fund; Byrd-Bennett chairs board
The initial $2.8 million secured for the first set of grants come from, in alphabetical order, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation *June 2009�June 2011 Chief Academic and Accountability Officer at Detroit Public Schools
According to her bio at Chicago Public Schools, [2015: Page no longer there] "As the leader of the academic reform [in Detroit], she served for two years and is credited with development of the academic reform plan, curriculum and program alignment, development of teacher and principal evaluation instruments to increase professional accountability, and improved achievements scores as measured by both the state tests and the NAEP tests." Letter to Dr. Barbara Byrd-Bennett [11.22.10] [ Letter sent today to Dr. Barbara Byrd Bennett, DPS Chief Academic and Accountability Auditor] [2015 update: Page no longer there]
Dear Dr. Byrd-Bennett: We are getting a lot of feedback from teachers concerning the overwhelming amount of testing and progress monitoring they are required to do. While each of the assessments may have merit, taken as a whole they leave too little time for instruction. Teachers throughout the district are asking "When do we have time to teach?"
In addition to the regular curriculum, students are assessed using the Star Math and Star Reading programs. They work on individualized lessons and assessments through Accelerated Math and Accelerated Reading. Three times per year students take a battery of benchmark assessments including up to five Dibels assessments, Burst, and TRC. Throw in quarterly Q tests that take two class periods per day for four days each quarter, and two to three weeks of MEAP testing, and it's no wonder teachers want more time to teach.
In between benchmarks, teachers are asked to print up to 80 pages of Burst lessons every two weeks. These lessons are to be taught to the lowest achieving four to five students in each class for a half hour per day. Some schools don't have enough toner to print these lessons, others don't have enough copiers, and nobody seems to have enough time. One teacher estimates that a quarter of her instructional time is devoted to these assessments and progress monitoring.
On a weekly basis, teachers also are asked to do time-consuming progress monitoring for Dibels and TRC. Much if this work is done with one student at a time. While our teachers are doing their best to keep the rest of the class doing meaningful work, it is not possible to properly monitor and coach the others while you are testing individuals.
Two common themes emerge from discussions with teachers throughout the district. First, these assessments all have some merit individually, but together, they are too much. Second, we as teachers can handle all this, but our students are suffering.
One teacher told me that for one day, she ignored Burst, Dibels, TRC, Accelerated Math and Reading, and all she did was teach. It was the best day the class had all year! The saddest thing is, this didn't happen until the third week of October, and she had to ignore directives to make it happen at all.
To bring more balance to the classroom, we suggest that the district strongly consider the following changes.
1. Eliminate the Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 benchmark tests. These tests are not aligned with the district's scope and sequence charts. Students are taking tests in November on material that won't be covered until March. As a result, there is no validity to these tests.Our teachers have seen tests designed by and for DPS every few years. From Exit Skills, to ESAT, to MIP, to Q tests, the tests come and go and you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who will claim instruction has improved as a result of any one of these.
2. Allow teachers to use their professional judgment to determine the amount of progress monitoring to do. Progress monitoring in TRC is particularly difficult, since the text in the Palm devices frequently does not match the text in the books students are reading.
3. Discontinue Burst groups. The lower achieving students can be helped in the regular classroom setting.
4. Provide additional personnel to help with assessments. Whether the district allows literacy coaches to do some of the assessments or provides classroom aides to assist with class management, more help is needed to keep all children learning.
We know that standardized testing is here to stay. To improve our scores, we need more instructional time, not more tests.
Sincerely, Mark O'Keefe, DFT Executive Vice President April 4, 2010.
April 4, 2010
Harcourt launches a partnership with Detroit Public Schools (Byrd-Bennett was superintendent in residency for Harcourt School Publishers. Then she was hired as Detroit's chief academic and accountability officer. Now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has received a contract for the largest single deal ever.) Just a coincidence.
Oct. 2010. Byrd-Bennett signs document termed "intellectually dishonest and scapegoating" by Valerie Strauss ( the document praises Race to the Top as "the catalyst for more reforms than we have seen in decades" and praised the film "Waiting for 'Superman'" as presenting �extraordinary opportunity�). (then-Rochester superintendent Brizzard and New Orleans top-gun Vallas also signed)
Jan. 2, 2011 Byrd-Bennett says she hopes Success for All will spark "a revolutionary culture change" in Detroit.
Undated: Member of Education Advisory Committee of K12 Inc.
Bonus Info: Cool Cleveland Interview: Barbara Byrd-Bennett, described as charismatic school leader. No date given. Question: The federal "No Child Left Behind Act" promises to address improvements in primary and secondary education. Can you talk about the effects of this legislation on the Cleveland Public Schools? What about the $1.5 billion the Act requires you to spend annually for summer school, day care & assessment?
Barbara Byrd-Bennett Answer: There is not one thing in this legislation that I disagree with. It�s common sense and good stuff. . . .
It's a Small World July 2007 Lisa Marie Ruda, former chief of staff to Cleveland schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett, hired as chief of staff to Michell Rhee. (She received a law degree from Case Western.)
May 24, 2012 Chicago Public Schools to hire education advisor at $21,500 a month Barbara Byrd-Bennett, former Cleveland public schools CEO, was hired Wednesday to advise Chicago school officials while they do a national search for a chief education officer. . . Most recently, Bennett served as a national education consultant. Since last fall, she had been overseeing the training of CPS middle-level managers, called network "chiefs," as part of a $380,000 leadership initiative funded by The Chicago Public Education Fund, said Tracy Dell'Angela, the Fund's director of program investments. [ The Chicago Public Education Fund describes its Venture Capital Model: "The Chicago Public Education Fund applies principles of venture capital to make systemic improvements in education, with a focus on talent and leadership in our schools. Our approach is further defining a burgeoning field of private sector investment in public education, and is being studied by America�s top business schools as a model of innovation in philanthropy."] Fund President and CEO Heather Y. Anichini came to The Fund from Teach For America, where she served as vice president for Career Leadership Initiatives.
Aug. 3, 2012. Recess Readiness Guide released by Chicago Public Schools. Here's the title page, showing the chain of command. CITY OF CHICAGO Rahm Emanuel Mayor CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION David J. Vitale President Jesse H. Ruiz Vice President Members: Dr. Henry S. Bienen Dr. Mahalia A. Hines Penny Pritzker Rodrigo A. Sierra Andrea L. Zopp CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS Jean?Claude Brizard Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd?Bennett Chief Education Advisor Jennifer Cheatham, Ed.D. Chief of Instruction
NOTE: Byrd-Bennett was hired to replace Noemi Donoso, who, less than a year previously had been paid $21,000, on top of her $195,000 salary, to relocate from Denver, where she had overseen three Charter turnarounds for less than a year. In Chicago, Donoso was also slated to create a blueprint for implementing the Common Core.
Now that you've read all of the above, read the toe-sucking coverage of Byrd-Bennett's appointment in Chicago as covered by Chicago Catalyst. � Susan Ohanian
2012-08-27
