School Board Members in the Old Days

A frequent commenter to The Education Report, the Oakland Tribune's blog, recently shared his views with me about school board members. Calling himself Nextset, he has remained anonymous for years, but has revealed to readers that he is an African American lawyer who grew up in the East Bay. He's conservative, attended Catholic schools, and is probably about 60 years old.

Sharon Says:

Nextset: I’m intrigued by this comment, “The public school board members should be the town fathers (or the female equivalents) - the industrialists, the professionals, the people that hire and fire a thousand workers.”

Someone else recently mentioned to me that the profile of the school board in days-long-ago was something similar. I have no personal knowledge of those times.

So who would these people be? Are they really out there somewhere? My guess is that if they are, they don’t care much about the public schools — nor even have them on their radar — because they have never used them, not even the “better” ones in the hills. And this would perhaps be because their desire for social class self-segregation is so extreme, and it has also been that way for many years.

Give me some ideas here.

Nextset Says:

Sharon: The ruling class of a town or region traditionally were the (male) local industrialists or their nominees, the leaders of the local professional community, law enforcement, the religions. These were the same people that traditionally controlled the local draft boards, the county supervisors and the city councils.

They used their civic positions to develop the town/city for the future. They drew up the plans for the public infrastructure and public monuments and buildings. They controlled local judiciary appointments and elections. They generally saw to it that the city thrived and grew.

By operating the local school boards they made sure that the proletariat was prepared to enter industry, military and even to go on to higher education. The upper class tended to have their own schools but public schools in areas not dominated by the lower middle class were run to feed to Universities. Piedmont, for example.

You never saw on school boards the likes of what we have now. Single mothers, lower middle class politicians, non-professionals, non-university educated.

The bunch I’m describing can typically be found in Rotary Clubs - and not the ancillary smaller clubs, the big-town main clubs like Downtown Seattle Rotary. Membership was invitation only and exclusive. Blackballing was practiced.

When these people ran schools you didn’t have schools that worried about students being happy or pacified.

Things have changed. Most of the change points to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. At least it was at that point that agendas were altered.

The ruling class disidentified with public education and turned it over to the lower class - that is operators from the lower middle class. The uppers stopped taking school board seats. As a result the operation of the schools changed from future oriented and more authoritarian to female dominated/social worker thinking. So the urban schools crash and burn.

Successful societies are not matriarchal. And permissiveness doesn’t work, especially if you are trying to get upward mobility for the lower classes. You just give them all the rope to hang themselves.

Nextset Says:

Cont:

The changes in the early 1960s saw the democratic party coalition of ethnics & labor consolidate electoral power in the urban areas. The largely republican town father types retreated and democratic machine candidates took over school boards. Back then the urban school boards were stepping stones to higher office. While the boardmembers were stepping they introduced pacification to the largely ethnic constituency with lots of feel good measures that served to drive the white and republican families out of public schools and the urban areas. Eventually the disidentification with public schools were so great the town father candidates didn’t even want the school board seats and districts such as OUSD, LAUSD, Detroit School District, Cleveland School District, etc were turned over entirely to lower class & minority candidates as well as left wing/social worker types.

It may also be seen that from that time manufacturing and industrial production started moving to Taiwan and other parts east, Town Father types became disinterested in hiring public school products and politically abandoned the public schools to the social democrats.

The Rotary Crowd today run smaller businesses and are only interested in hiring University Graduates for their (smaller) law firms, banks, consultancy businesses and political offices. So they are still great movers and shakers in college boards. You no longer see the owners and operators of a local soft drink bottling plant, steel mill, factory etc at Rotary. The industrialists are just gone and the ruling class of the Brave New World no longer seem to need the public schools.

When I continue to refer to BNW I’m thinking of that state where you are born into your class, live, associate, school and date only within your class, and take occupation based on your class and social position with little upward mobility.

This is the opposite of what we had in the mid-20th Century where with public school education (and a military stint?) one could come from a farm or a trailer park and still reasonably expect to move into medicine, law practice, or senior positions in industry or civil service. Black or White.

Many of the highest civil servants in the East Bay from the previous era - Black and White individuals - came from poor families in rural areas of the USA, relocated here for WWII jobs. I am thinking of specific Superior Court Judges and Police Chiefs. That kind of social mobility is what we are destroying with schools such as OUSD. By the time a lower middle class student at OUSD reaches 18 they are so far behind in education, training, and Deportment (most important) that such students for the most part are unable to survive the cut-throat competition from the private school (professional class) students and may not even want to compete because they find the new experience of competition unpleasant. I saw this at UC Berkeley and at Law School where the black public school students seemed to be shell shocked at the way things were and just fell away. (The UC Berkeley black drop rate is pretty notorious. The black bar pass rate is published every 6 months on the state bar website.)

I believe the mortality rates of these kids are worse because they weren’t stressed enough previously.

I want OUSD to run a tougher school, and that takes a far tougher school board than we have here.

Sharon Says:

So this would explain the tremendous drive by the venture philanthropists to wipe out local control (i.e. publicly elected school boards), but ONLY in communities with school districts that that are majority low-income, and thus with less educated parents.

The school districts in middle-class, more affluent communities are considered capable of managing themselves, so they won’t be challenged by the “reformers” in the same way.

Someone I read described this new method of school reform as an upcoming American apartheid system of education. Someone else who personally experienced Africa in the late 1950’s told me the direction we are heading reeks to him of Africa’s days under European colonialism. Of course it all is a result of our continuing desire for class, and to a lesser extent, racial segregation. Having actual ghettos in our cities makes this easy to do.

I know that in Chicago, mayoral control of the school district has resulted in his appointing a set of millionaires to the school board, where they work with the appointed superintendent to manage things. (http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=668)

In NYC, billionaire Bloomberg took control of the school district, appointed Joel Klein, a former US prosecutor, to be the schools chancellor and has given him complete authority to do what he pleased. There is some sort of fake community panel that was created; it has no teeth and goes along with whatever he says. The general public voice is pretty much totally ignored.

In DC, Mayor Fenty has done the same thing as in NY; he appointed Michelle Rhee to run the district.

In each of the cases above, there is a set of behind-the-scenes high-level operatives, people like billionaire Eli Broad, and others. Some are local, but many are not.

From what I’ve been told, the stealth group here in Oakland was led by Gary Rogers, father of Brian Rogers. I know of at least one instance of his group meeting with Ward early on to give their two-cent’s worth for how things should go. This is all going on under the public’s radar, and this is how these people want it to be. They won’t like this post.

I suppose there’s always been someone managing the “ignint” masses, but it seems like it is getting to be more and more. I definitely think these elites are going about this public school reform-business wrong in two very important ways.

First of all, they are too alienated from the local community and therefore, can’t be trusted. Good leaders need to be in touch with the masses and consider their needs and views, otherwise it is simply strong-arm imposed fascism. As far as I know, we are still a democracy and people — even poor, uneducated people — should be able to have a say.

Everyone wants a good school in their neighborhood, and no family wants to see a school they are fond of and has a history and connections with, be labeled as “failing” and then get “disappeared.” The ram-it-down-their-throats method used by this current group creates a lot of hostility and is going to backfire once people catch on.

The second problem is the way that all these business people, and the people they hire to do their bidding, are products of a specific, relatively newly emerged MBA culture (just since the 1980’s). This group believes that anyone with an Ivy League MBA can manage anything, even though they have no “domain knowledge.” Learn more about this mentality by listening to http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/03/bbg_20090329.mp3.

I’ve written more about it @ http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-time-to-drive-these-people-out.html.

This is the same mentality that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown. It is well-described by Malcolm Gladwell @ http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm

At the end of this article, Gladwell cites the success of Southwest Airlines, who uses a different management model. That company’s “secrets for success” are described @ http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/news/2008/07/portfolio_0708.

It seems to me we here in Oakland could learn something here. Shouldn’t we be having some sort of city-wide task force or forum?

Why Not a Charter System for Police Departments?

April 20, 2025

Part One: The Crisis in Law Enforcement

In the early part of the twenty-first century, the United States experienced a crisis in law enforcement. Urban crime rates were high, and it was clear to the nation that police officers were failing to do the most basic job.* Huge numbers of lazy and incompetent police officers were kept on staff, year after year, because they were backed by a powerful police union. Urban police departments had a monopoly on providing law enforcement to the citizens, but they were clearly unable to provide that simple public service. It was time for massive reform.

An alternative system was proposed – the creation of “charter beats.” Independently operated providers, mostly private individuals who claimed that they could provide a superior service, were granted charters by a number of cities which gave them control of individual police beats. As a part of the agreement, “charter beat” operators were permitted to have more program flexibility than the traditional police department. They could make additional demands of the citizens who lived in their beats, and of the non-union officers they employed. It was thought that these types of innovations would be good, and that the competition presented by the “charter beats” would stimulate the failing police departments to do a better job.

After the President and the US Department of Justice decreed that “charter beats” were to be the preferred method of law enforcement in urban communities, the rate of turning over neighborhood law enforcement management to various “charter beat” operators soared. Educated, English speaking residents living in more affluent communities were not included in this "charter beat" experiment.

Here’s how it played out in the City of Oakland.

At the time, Oakland was divided into 60 police beats – geographic parcels staffed with a set of specific police officers. Some beats had higher crime rates than others depending on certain factors in the geographic region, namely a high poverty level. Most law enforcement reformers staunchly believed that high poverty was no excuse for higher crime rates, and that if the police would only try harder, and smarter, those challenges would be overcome.

To get this new system underway, small portions of preexisting beats were turned over to the “charter beat” operators. A few of these operators were local community members, but most were individuals who had worked in law enforcement outside of Oakland, in various capacities for various extents of time. The organizations were managed by boards of directors, most members of whom worked in the finance or business industry. Sometimes board members referred to themselves as “law enforcement entrepreneurs.”

The law enforcement officers in the “charter beat” neighborhoods were permitted to use tactics which the regular police officers were legally barred from doing. This helped their crime stats to improve.

Just one of these tactics was the ability to pressure out "bad actors (either actual or potential) from the beat. Because there was no reciprocity in this regard, the beats staffed by the regular force were required to accept these individuals, and also weren’t allowed to transfer any of them back into the “charter beats.”

Since people have the choice to live where they like, the most astute and resourceful locals moved into those “charter beats” once they learned how “bad actors” were being aggressively cleared from those parts of town. However, as a precondition for being allowed to move into those neighborhoods, incoming residents were required to sign a commitment that they must comply with a set of behavior standards, or their residency would be terminated by the “charter beat” operator.

The “charter beats” used a force of non-unionized security officers. Many were recent top college graduates who were interested in giving two years of service to urban communities. Once they were accepted into an alternative training program, they would attend an intensive, five-week series of classes, after which they would be given a set of equipment, a patrol car, and their assignment. To compensate for the ongoing lack of experience, coaching was provided by a host of paid consultants.

As the “charter beats” increased, more and more of the traditional, preexisting beats were closed down. Police officers were laid off and the size of the regular police department shrank. It eventually disappeared, along with the police union. The city's law enforcement had been transformed into a system free of unions and of many of the previous legal restrictions.

By 2010, nearly 10% of Oakland’s population lived in neighborhoods managed by “charter beat” operators.

Part Two: How Things Played Out

Check back later for the exciting conclusion. With our head-in-the-sand, continued neglect to get to the root of the problem, razor wire and chain link fencing stock will soar.

AN IMPORTANT PS: This day (4/20 of every year) is a good time to bring your attention to the fact that this entire country has a MAJOR, MAJOR problem with substance abuse. It is a huge national threat. Drug use and sales is a billion-dollar, tax-free industry. It is a highly functioning underground economy in symbiotic relationship with another underground industry, gun sales and use. It is all connected with crime, family breakdown, and the big problems in urban public schools. This country needs a stay at rehab.

If you don’t know the significance of 4/20, look it up. And watch out for stoned drivers if you’re on the road from 4:20 on today.

*My apologies to police officers. This piece is just a fable and an analogy.

In Mourning…

Dear Readers,

It is a very difficult time for those of us who live in Oakland. Yesterday afternoon, five of our experienced police officers were shot by an armed parolee, about four-and-a-half miles from my house. The shooter had a violent history and used an assault weapon in his attack. He was ultimately killed in the firefight.

Our valiant public servants had no chance to escape the viscous weapon in the hands of this man’s rage.

Three of the officers died yesterday, and a fourth was declared brain dead today. The fifth received only a minor injury and is physically okay. The faces of their fellow officers were covered with tears.

I was working at the computer in my dining room when all of this went down. I knew something serious had happened, because I could hear the sirens wailing, and wailing, and wailing. I had no idea it would be this bad.

Last night, I was obligated to work at the high school my daughter attends. Students are performing “West Side Story” and I am the Performing Arts Committee chair. I manage the lobby activities and coordinate the parent volunteers.

When I came home and watched the news, I cried for at least an hour. This morning when I looked at the headline on my Sunday paper, I cried all over again.

There are reports that some people in Oakland are celebrating, but I know it is just a few. The perpetrator's grandmother looked so heartbroken before the cameras today as she gave her sad apology.

I spoke with two experienced Oakland public high school teachers who are certain that some of the highly stressed and grieving, soon to become very angry, police will now retaliate on residents who live in the community. Unfortunately, my good sense tells me to believe that they might be right.

This is all so difficult and twisted, and it just goes on and on...

This incident is just one more blemish on my city, for which outsiders will once again ridicule us with their contempt. Please everyone – read “The Code of the Street,” and try to understand.

Join me as I honor the fallen for their service and their sacrifice. My heart is with their families, coworkers and friends.

• Sargeant Erv Romans, 43 years old
• Sargeant Mark Dunakin, 40 years old
• Sargeant Dan Sakai, 35 years old
• Officer John Hege, 41 years old

I love you, and I’m so sorry we have lost you.

May you rest in peace.

If I Was a Billionaire

Yesterday I calculated the growth of charter school enrollment for middle schools in Oakland. Currently, charter school enrollment is 21.74% of our district's total middle school enrollment, and 18% district-wide. At this current rate, charter middle school enrollment in OUSD will hit 30% in 2011-12. It will hit 55% in 2020-21, and 100% in 2036-37. Of course, the entire district is headed on that path.

Of course, what this means is that the education of Oakland's children will be overseen by individuals who have NO connection to our city. The school boards we have elected for the last 100 years or so will become obsolete. Boards of directors of charter school organizations will take their place, the vast majority being outsiders who know nothing about our city, its history, and its complicated dynamics, nor do they care.

Beyond the unending back and forth about charters, this fight is about the loss of autonomy for Oakland's citizens. I always thought self-determination was something our democracy was supposed to provide for us. The entrepreneurs are engineering something different, and our political leaders are letting it happen.

I don't know where any of you live, and if you are public school parents, or not. This storm is upon Oakland, DC, NYC, LA, and many other cities. Has it landed in the community where you send your kids? What is the percentage of charter schools there?

If it hasn't yet arrived, then please tell me how you would respond if people who didn't even live in your town, and had never used your local public schools, were using their Money and Might to completely destabilize your school district? What is going on here reeks of their contempt for me, my family, and my neighbors.

Oaklanders never voted for this major change to their public school system after discussion and debate, if we had I would feel different. No, this situation was thrust upon us in a particularly devious way, and had to do with backroom deals and paybacks for campaign contributions.

There is no question that a handful of players are targeting other communities in the U.S. using the exact same technique, and feeding those communities with a lot of propaganda.

I worry about my fellow Oakland residents. With the elimination of our public schools comes a loss of protected jobs, since many of the district's employees are Oakland residents. Of course, I can already hear the anti-union sentiment portion of the pro-charter mantra out there...

It's funny; no one bashed our firemen (unionized) when the Oakland Firestorm killed 25 people and destroyed nearly 4,000 homes. Bill Gates doesn't go around the country blaming our understaffed police force (unionized) for every single data point of our crime. But urban teachers, like those in Oakland, are constantly getting broadly reamed - though ONLY by those same people who have never experienced, and know absolutely nothing, about our schools.

For those of us who live in an area where the majority of students who attend public schools are poor, a different variation of a two-tiered educational system has emerged. Poorer communities will soon have no say in how their public schools are run, but of course, wealthier communities will.

If I was a billionaire who wanted to bring about public education change, my approach would have been very different. It would have been a nurturing, rather than a destructive, one.

I would have provided information, encouragement and support to the people in struggling school communities. I would have spent some of my money on programs that would draw parents of low-achieving kids into the conversation, and give them the set of tools and skills which would have empowered them to help both their children, and their local schools. I would have provided lots of enrichment to deprived students and classrooms. To help the teachers teach better, I would have tackled the problem of low morale.

If I was one of the billionaires, my educational reform life's work would have been to find the ways that would strengthen things that were weak, instead of trying so very, very hard to break everything, and everyone, down.

The Battle Begins

March 20, 2009

Dear Oakland School Board member,

Next Wednesday, you will receive petitions and proposals for two new charter schools. One is for Oakland Collegiate, a middle school, and the other is for Aspire Public Schools’ ERES Academy a K-8. I strongly, strongly urge you to decline both proposals.

And more importantly, I strongly urge you to IMMEDIATELY place a cap on the number of charter schools which OUSD will permit! For if you do not, the OUSD school board will soon be out of business.

Since 2002-03, the rate of charter enrollment for OUSD middle school students has increased an average of 2.8% per year. It currently stands at 21.74% of the total middle school enrollment of the district. I recently read in the Tribune that the district’s entire charter school enrollment is about 18%.

In 2005, we already had the state's highest percentage of students in charter schools, according to Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Association. Only Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., had a higher percentage of students in charters.

At the current rate of growth I mentioned above, charter middle school enrollment in OUSD will hit 30% in 2011-12. It will hit 55% in 2020-21, and 100% in 2036-37. Every school level in the entire district is on exactly the same course.

What this means is that, unless the OUSD school board stops approving new charter schools, the school board will become absolutely obsolete. The future management of public schools in Oakland will be by the UNELECTED boards of directors of charter management organizations. It is very likely that most of them will NOT be Oakland residents, nor ever were.

For example, here are the 10 members of board of directors for Aspire Public Schools. Aspire already runs five of the 32 OUSD charter schools.

• Walt L. Hanline: Superintendent of Ceres Unified School District.
• Bill Hughs: former CEO of Noah’s Bagels, President of AG Ferrari Foods, President of ePlast.com and his current position as President of DaVita Rx. He is also a Director of two medical technology firms, Sensurtec and Fulfillium, and is Managing Member of Silicon Valley Investment Partners.
• Beth Hunkapiller, President, San Carlos School District Board of Trustees
• Bill Huyett, Superintendent, Lodi Unified School District: (Chartering District for University Public School and River Oaks Charter Academy)
• Melvin J. Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer, Wellington Financial Group: Mel Kaplan has been a real estate investor since 1960. He is CEO of Wellington Financial Group, an entity that invests in commercial real estate nationally.
• Steven L. Merrill, Venture Capitalis, former president of BankAmerica Capital Corporation, founder of Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre (MPAE), a privately held venture capital partnership.
• Louise Muhlfeld Patterson: HR executive and trustee of college-preparatory schools. She was Vice President of Human Resources for American Express for 14 years. She implemented a Quality of Work life Survey for startup companies in Silicon Valley for Klein Associates.
• Don Shalvey, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Aspire Public Schools, formerly Superintendent of the San Carlos School District in Northern California, a district of approximately 2,600 students and six elementary schools. He is also the co-founder of Californians for Public School Excellence, the organization that sponsored the California Charter School Initiative that raised the cap on the number of charter schools. Don has been a member of State Superintendent Delaine Eastin’s Charter School Committee as well as an advisor to the California Network of Educational Charters.
• Richard C. Spalding, Founder, Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners and the ABS Ventures Healthcare investment group in January 2000, again leading the firm’s investments in life sciences. Prior to joining ABS Ventures, Dick was a Chief Financial Officer of public and private companies, an investment banker with Alex Brown, and a co-founder of the Palo Alto office of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison.
• Joanne Weiss, Partner and COO at NewSchools Venture Fund: At NewSchools, Joanne focuses on investment strategy and management assistance to a variety of the firm's portfolio ventures, and oversees the organization’s operations. As part of this work, she serves on the boards of Aspire Public Schools, Education for Change, Green Dot Public Schools, Leadership Public Schools, New Leaders for New Schools, Revolution Foods, Rocketship Education and Teachscape.

And to give you another example of people who are on the boards of directors of charter management organizations, here are the board members of Education for Change. They have three schools in Oakland.

EFC’s board of directors:

• Desten Broach, President of the Board, and 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. As an aide to US Senator David Pryor, Mr. Broach focused on education.
• Joanne Weiss, Vice President of the Board, (THIS PERSON IS ALSO ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR ASPIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS): 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.
• Jonathan Garfinkel, a Vice President at Texas Pacific Group, a private investment fund with $15 billion under management. Has also worked at NewSchools Venture Fund. He received a BA in Economics, an MA in Education, and an MBA all from Stanford University.

Harold Jones, the Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Port of Oakland.

NONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ELECTED BY OAKLAND RESIDENTS, YET THEY ARE RUNNING EIGHT OF OUR CITY’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS. In the not-to-distant future, similar people with different names will be your replacements. What will their accountability to the public, and the way public money is spent, look like?

This is certainly NOT Democracy. It is definitely something else.

These people, and others like them, are the future operators of OUSD, unless charter school expansion is halted NOW. Remember, this course was not chosen by Oakland’s citizens after public debate and discussion. It was pushed on our district while our local control was blocked.

Dear OUSD Board member, before this charter school future is a fait accompli, please make sure that it is the future that the citizens of Oakland want, after being informed of the dire consequences.

You must be aware that so many of Oakland's parents do not understand the future implications of this charter school movement, and won't speak up as I am. At this point I am nearly alone, but my voice is right and strong.

Please don't hand over our district to private individuals. Please give Oakland citizens the right to decide who runs their schools.

CAP THE NUMBER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS NOW!

Most sincerely,

Sharon Higgins

Loyal OUSD parent since 1993

Is it Fiction, or Not? Not.

On September 26, 2007, the editors of the Oakland Tribune stated their opposition to AB 45 in an editorial entitled, “Oakland not ready for control over schools.” The bill, authored by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson and which proposed a gradual return to local control, was being presented before the California State legislature around this time. The Oakland Unified School District had been under state receivership since 2003.

Toward the end of the piece, the Tribune editor wrote:

“Given the past, we agree with local businessmen who have raised millions of dollars to help improve the schools and believe returning local control prematurely would be disastrous.”

Now, I am a person who has been reading the Tribune everyday for many years, particularly focusing on any article about OUSD, local schools, education, issues about children, urban issues, violence, and race. In fact, I’ve been compulsively clipping and saving these types of articles since 2001, so it particularly struck me odd that I had no idea who these “local businessmen” might be.

I had known that, since the state takeover, the school district had been run by Broad-trained people, but the Trib's description wouldn't fit them. It instantly irked me that a group of people – who the editorial would not even name – seemed to be having considerable influence on the direction of Oakland’s public schools. I posted my concern on a local community listserv.

Later that day I received a private response, and two follow-ups, from an Oakland resident who was very involved with the city at the time. Here’s the bulk of that message with all of the top secrets crossed out:

Dear S,

As a [position specified] I didn't want to have this on the yahoo group but I thought you should understand the backroom dynamics. The editorial states near the end that they agree with Oakland businessmen..... There is a group of Oakland business people led by [A, a wealthy local businessman] who are strong Eli Broad supporters, and charter school supporters and think that the downfall of the school system is the teachers and the unions.

Typically they don't invite me to their meetings but I was invited to one [several years ago]. Jerry [Brown] and [B, a specified Oakland councilmember] were there as well. It was mostly Caucasian business men with the exception of [C] and [D]. The guest speaker that day was Randy Ward who spoke about how he was trying to break the union to help the budget. There were various discussions. The businessmen expressed support for the Kipp (sic) model although they hated that you had to pay for the principal for a year of planning prior to the opening of the school. They are powerful and I'm sure want to keep their Broad educated leadership of the district which they currently have with the new "interim" administrator.

(Second message later that day)

I forgot to add that [C] and [D] tried to differ with them about the teachers being the problem but they weren't in listening mode…While I do believe there are problem teachers in the school district, I don't think that the problem with the district and our children's education is solely the fault of teachers and the union.

The whole time Randy was talking about his plan to close and reopen all the schools so that teachers have to re-apply for their jobs at lower salaries, [A] kept elbowing [B] mumbling things like "isn't he terrific" "great presentation" etc. sounding almost like Donald Trump on that ridiculous TV show that extols competition and dog eat dog business practices.

(Third message later that day)

I'm not sure I remember all the business people there. Jerry's friend [E] who is a developer… [F, another local businessman ]... [G] who I think owns [major Oakland business]. I think [H] was there who is the Jack London developer. [A] is the name of person who chairs the group as you found on the web… I don't recall who else was there - it's a blur of males in suits at the other end of the table.

Sorry, but at this time I do not feel comfortable revealing the entire content of these emails which were sent to me. Perhaps you would like to have an ice cream cone as you ponder who the players might be.