Education for Change is an Oakland charter management organization which was started under Randy Ward, OUSD’s first Broad-trained state administrator. EFC was given two traditional public school sites to takeover: Cox Elementary in East Oakland and Hawthorn Elementary in the Fruitvale district. EFC has one school at the old Cox site (Cox Academy) and two schools at the old Hawthorn site, World Academy (K-3), and Achieve Academy (4-5).
This is the total enrollment for the three schools:
- 0405 = 879
- 0506 = 1282
- 0607 = 1317
- 0708 = 1234
- 0809 = 1222
Charter management organizations are structured much like school districts. Controlling the schools are top managers and a non-elected board of directors, with sometimes an advisory board. EFC, with only three elementary schools so far, is like a “mini-district.” The CEO holds a position similar to OUSD’s superintendent.
Salaries and benefits (from EFC's available 990s, EIN 20-2204424, from NCCS). The other expenses our tax dollars are paying for (legal fees, computer support, architects, etc.) are listed in the 990s.
CEO
- 2005 – $174,586
- 2006 – $189,437
- 2007 – $194, 850
VP/Chief Operating Officer
- 2005 – $148,398
- 2006 – $147,317
- 2007 – na
Chief Academic Officer
- 2005 – $120,000
- 2006 – $137,478
- 2007 – $140,725
Controller
- 2005 – na
- 2006 – $109,124
- 2007 – $128,981
Site Director
- 2005 – $110,000
- 2006 – $124,487
- 2007 – $127,735
Top principal (one of three)
- 2005 – $107,198
- 2006 – $110,956
- 2007 – $113,663
In lieu of an elected school board, like OUSD's current Directors Yee, Dobbins, London, Kakishiba, Gallo, Spearman, & Hodge), Education for Change has a Board of Directors. Here are the four members:
1. Desten Broach, President of the Board, a group product manager at Sun Microsystems. He is responsible for the complete life cycle and business success of several Sun software products. Prior to joining Sun, he held similar positions at America Online, Netscape Communications, and Intuit, Inc.
2. Joanne Weiss, Vice President of the Board, Partner and Chief Operating Officer at NewSchools Venture Fund, where she oversees the organization's operations, as well as investment strategy and management assistance for many of NewSchools' ventures nationally and on the West Coast. As part of this work, she serves on the boards. Prior to joining NewSchools Venture Fund, Joanne was CEO of Claria Corporation, an e-services recruiting firm that helped emerging-growth companies build their teams quickly and well.
Of course, last May Arne Duncan appointed Joanne Weiss as Director of Race To The Top so she may be on a hiatus from her position at EFC.
3. Jonathan Garfinkel, member, Vice President at Texas Pacific Group, a private investment fund with $15 billion under management. Prior to joining Texas Pacific Group, he worked as a financial analyst at Newbridge Latin America and at Lehman Brothers. Mr. Garfinkel has also worked at NewSchools Venture Fund.
4. Harold Jones, member, the Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Port of Oakland. Prior to his appointment, he served as Manager of Government Affairs for the Port.
Below is EFC’s current management team. Keep in mind that this is the district level administration which oversees only three schools (= 1222 students). What a piece of cake!
1. Kevin Wooldridge, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, was most recently an Executive Director in the Oakland Unified School District supervising 13 elementary schools. He has been a bilingual educator for 26 years, working in three Bay Area school districts at school sites, including 12 years as a site administrator and several years as a senior central office administrator
2. Jessica Evans, Chief Academic Officer, was formerly the Director of Elementary Education for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).
3. Fabiola Harvey, Director of Finance & Operations, came to EFC after serving as the Area Financial Manager for the Las Vegas Cluster of Edison Schools. She led start-up and business operations for 7 schools with over 6000 students and 500 employees in Clark County School District. This was the first time that the district awarded a cluster of schools to be managed by one Charter Management Organization.
NOTE: EFC's former COO is James Willcox. Willcox is now the Chief Executive Officer of Aspire Public Schools (headquarters are in Oakland with schools in the Bay Area, Central Valley, and LA region). Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr. Willcox was Aspire’s Chief Operating Officer. Willcox follows Founder Don Shalvey as Aspire’s second Chief Executive Officer. When Shalvey went to work for the Gates Foundation last spring, the Foundation gave Aspire $2.9 million.
"Mr. Willcox has also served as a Principal at NewSchools Venture Fund, where his work focused on the evaluation of investment opportunities, the on-going support of management teams within the investment portfolio, and the design and implementation of NewSchools’ charter school facility investment strategy. Prior to NewSchools Mr. Willcox was a nonprofit consultant with the Bridgespan Group, and served as a U.S. Army officer for over seven years."
As you can see, all of the players are in a very cozy and connected group.
FYI, this is a typical profile of the CMO/EMO model which is busy establishing charter schools that are steadily squeezing out the traditional American public schools (those overseen by public school districts and elected school boards), but only in the school districts in urban areas that are largely inhabited by low-income, brown-skinned kids. Also, none of the teachers, classified staff, or service workers of the replacing charter schools are members of unions.
