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Board of Ed Cronyism with Conservative Think Tank Questioned

NORTH ADAMS -- With the Feb. 25 date fast approaching for the state Board of Education to rule on 11 new charter schools, opponents are raising more questions about the influence of a Boston-based conservative Republican think tank on the board, within the Department of Education and beyond.

Mayor John Barrett III has joined officials statewide in calling for more public scrutiny of the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy, which spent more than $1 million last year promoting charter schools and training teachers to found them.

Six of the 11 charter proposals, including the Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter School, were written by "fellows" of the Pioneer-funded Massachusetts Charter School Resource Center, which paid them each a $50,000 salary plus benefits. Last year, all five charter schools approved by the Board of Education originated from resource center fellows.

Stephen Adams, president and CEO of Pioneer, scoffed at Barrett's charges and called them "a smokescreen" to take attention away from the fact that North Adams schools and others across the state are "underperforming." Adams pointed out that charter schools are public schools, approved by the Legislature and supported by a wide spectrum of individuals, including Senate President Thomas Birmingham and other leading Democrats.

"Pioneer does not benefit from the success of charter schools," Adams said. "Anybody who would step back and look at the facts would see that this is a desperate attempt by the supporters of district schools to turn attention away from the performance of schools in their districts."

But Emile Rosenberg, assistant superintendent of schools in Waltham, who opposes a charter school there, has charged that some members of the Board of Education with past or present connections to Pioneer will violate state ethics law by approving charter schools developed by Pioneer fellows.

He, Barrett, state Rep. Daniel E. Bosley, D-North Adams, and Paul Dunphy, a researcher with the Boston organization Citizens for Public Schools, all have questioned Pioneer's influence not only on charter schools, but also on state education policies in general.

Peter Nessen, state secretary of education, sits on Pioneer's board of directors, as does Pioneer co-founder Charles D. Baker Jr., a member of the Board of Education. Board of Education Chairman James A. Peyser served as Pioneer's executive director from 1993 to 2001. Board of Education member Abigail M. Thernstrom is on the institute's education advisory committee.

In addition, board member Roberta R. Schaefer has contributed to Pioneer's newsletter, and board member Henry M. Thomas is founder and chairman of the board of directors of the New Leadership Charter School in Springfield. Rebecca Wolf, director of accountability for the Department of Education, is a former Pioneer staffer.

"Their influence is clear," Bar-rett said. "It's almost like they are developing their own farm system for the Department of Education."

Baker and Thernstrom last month asked the state Ethics Commission for an opinion on whether they can vote on the six Pioneer-based charter proposals and have not yet received a ruling, according Perlman. She said Thomas has already received a ruling that he can vote on charter school issues as long as they don't involve his school.

Peyser has said he can vote on the Pioneer proposals because he no longer is affiliated with the institute. He said he "recused" himself from previous votes when he was with Pioneer. However, Barrett has charged that Peyser violated ethics law when he contacted local civic leader John J. Lipa last year to try to get him to support the Berkshire charter school. Peyser has denied the charge, saying he only asked Lipa to contact school proponent Simeon Stolzberg.

Dunphy, a Williamsburg resident who unsuccessfully fought against a charter school in nearby Haydenville, first questioned Pioneer's influence in a report last July, "The Pioneer Institute, Privatizing the Common Wealth," which he co-authored with Mark Perkins of Political Research Associates.

Dunphy, who calls the relationship between Pioneer and the DOE "incestuous," noted that the institute's former co-director Steven Wilson, director of strategic planning under Weld, wrote most of the language involving charter schools in the Education Reform Act of 1993. Wilson and another Pioneer board member, William S. Edgerly, left the organization in 1996 to form Advantage Schools in Boston, a for-profit company that manages and operates charter schools.

The four for-profit companies that operate charter schools in Massachusetts, Advantage, Beacon Education Management, Edison Schools and Sabis Educational Systems, all have been major contributors to Pioneer, according to Dunphy.

He and Perkins also pointed out that Pioneer and its major contributors strongly lobbied to implement the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests as a standardized measure for public schools. Charter school proponents have consistently used districts' poor MCAS results in furthering their case, even though many charter schools have posted similar or lower scores, according to Dunphy.

While not commenting on Dunphy's report, Bosley said he believes more information about Pioneer's past and present influence is needed.

Pioneer chief Adams said he believes that the "hue and cry" over his institute and charter schools in general has been caused partly by fear among politicians and school officials over impending cuts in state aid and competition from charter schools.

Adams said Pioneer's resource center, like similar centers in other states, provides "a world-class technical assistance program" to assist potential founders of charter schools.

"This is not a political-action effort, it's a technical assistance program," he said. "I don't see the criticism. What's wrong with helping professionals become more professional in their field?"

Acknowledging that Pioneer has a "market approach to public policy," Adams said his institute does not want to dismantle district schools but to help them become better.

"We think that competition is a way to gain better district schools. Educators and administrators in district schools want their schools to be better, but the big roadblocks are union rules and bureaucracy," he said. "This hue and cry has nothing to do with public service to the commonwealth. It has everything to do with protecting the current holders of power within the school system. We care about the children, not public administrators and teachers."

But Rosenberg and other school superintendents, notably John D. Barry of the North Berkshire School Union and James J. Brosnan of C.H. McCann Technical School, have countered that Pioneer has not created innovative schools or new ways of learning, but "cookie-cutter" programs designed to receive rubber-stamp approval from the Board of Education.

"Should they vote on these proposals, they will have violated state ethics law," Rosenberg said. "There may very well be legal repercussions."



— Glenn Drohan
Think tank's links to Board of Ed. being questioned
Berkshire Eagle
Feb. 11, 2003
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101~7514~1169897,00.html

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