Talk about your huge mistake. You are surrounded on both sides by folks seeking Paul Reville’s resignation (or worse), Charlotte Golar Richie put out a statement with this interesting little paragraph.
On Saturday, the Gloucester Times published an email from Secretary Reville, originally sent in February, advocating for an award of the Gloucester charter, which has served to set back recent progress.
Excuse me? It isn’t Paul Reville’s fault. Mitchell Chester did nothing more than fulfill his responsibilities as a good public official? It’s that damn newspaper that caused this mess? How disappointing.
As a 2006 Deval primary supporter, worker, and contributor, I think I am (or at least was) in his base. He’s alienated a whole bunch of progressives who have absolutely no reason to rally behind the education agenda cooked up by Reville and Chester.
Deval has a very small window to undo this damage. I think it is obvious what needs to be done, and if John from Abington or anyone else who can talk sense into our governor wants to hear my rescue strategy, I am happy to give counsel.
In the meantime, these emails from the campaign are beyond counterproductive. They are reinforcing a negative image of the Deval Patrick administration, one that can’t be allowed to set in stone this close to the next election.
Dear Friends:
Over the past few days, the media has reported on a controversy surrounding the approval of a charter grant for the Gloucester Community Arts Academy School.
Before I get into the details, I want to clearly state that one of the core values of our state and our Governor is an unrelenting desire to invest in and improve our education system. As you know, the Governor has a deep, personal understanding of the power of education because it is what transformed his own life. The Governor and his Administration remain unwavering in that commitment.
Charter grants have been quite controversial in Massachusetts and, indeed, across the nation. The Gloucester example is a particularly controversial example, and an article in today’s Boston Globe raises the question of whether the process for this school’s grant was open and sound.
I wanted to let you know that the Governor spoke to both the Secretary of Education and to the Commissioner of Elementary Education, and while he is satisfied that the process was sound, he nonetheless has asked for reconsideration because of the lack of confidence in the process within the Gloucester community.
Because the success of ventures like this depend on community acceptance and understanding, the Governor has repeatedly requested that the Board start the process anew so that, whatever the ultimate decision, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the integrity of the process. You can find more information and details below.
Sincerely,
Charlotte Golar Richie
Executive Director
Deval Patrick CommitteeThe timeline and facts:
* The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Mitchell Chester, received an application to create a new charter school in Gloucester, one of three charter applications that made it to the final review process.
* The Commissioner’s staff recommended against all three charter applications.
* Secretary of Education Paul Reville and Commissioner Chester discussed all aspects of the various charter proposals and Secretary Reville advocated for approval of the Gloucester charter school.
* Commissioner Chester independently evaluated the proposals and brought the Gloucester charter school forward to the Board for a vote.
* The Board independently considered the application and approved the Gloucester charter school.
* Local representatives and concerned citizens appealed to Commissioner Chester, Secretary Reville and, ultimately, Governor Patrick, raising concerns about the funding impacts on the district and the chartering process itself.
* Governor Patrick personally met with a group of concerned citizens and subsequently wrote the Board and Commissioner Chester asking them to reconsider their decision and start the process over.
* Following issuance of the letter, Secretary Reville met with charter and community leaders to find common ground.
* On Saturday, the Gloucester Times published an email from Secretary Reville, originally sent in February, advocating for an award of the Gloucester charter, which has served to set back recent progress.
* Governor Patrick wrote again yesterday asking that the Board and Commissioner of Elementary Education start the process anew so that there is no cloud over the decision and all members of the Gloucester community will be heard on the charter grant.
This is maybe one step up from “need to spend more time with my family” in the echelon of fool-nobody doubletalk. Maybe the “review process” will things cool down, so the announcement can be made on a December Friday afternoon ot something.
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p>What is clear, to me at least, is that there is pretty much nothing that you can do in the Deval Patrick Administration that will get you fired. At least, until the media stays on the story for days on end.
Like many of us, I received this email from Ms. Richie earlier today. I’m struck by my inability to actually learn, from this email, the answer to what is for me the most important element of the sequence.
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p>Specifically, in the “timeline” as cited, second-to-last bullet:
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p>Without being presented with dates for the prior bullets, I have no way of evaluating when — in the cited sequence — Mr. Reville’s email was sent. Can one of us who is more familiar with this than me clarify the actual timeline for me?
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p>As an aid to this clarification, I’ve done a textual transformation to replace the bullets with numbers, as follows:
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p>Now, I’d like to separate item (9) into two new events, as follows:
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p>Will someone please tell me where, in the numbered list, items “a” and “b” should be placed?
somewhere after 2 and before 4, from the wording of the last paragraph of the email it appears to be part of item 3.
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p>Item (b) belongs where item 9 is in your list.
Isn’t immediately before or after (3) a crucial distinction here?
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p>It seems to me that if it’s before, then the complaint that Mr. Reville based his advocacy on political expedience has some validity.
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p>I’m not sure anybody disputes that publishing the email “set back recent progress” — at least, if “progress” is the right word. Mr. Reville certainly presented a political argument, that much seems clear enough to me from his email.
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p>I think the Gloucester Times did the right thing.
Here’s the short version.
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p>My spies tell me that the following occurred at today’s meeting. Anyone care to confirm?
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p>Paul Reville got his clock cleaned by a bi-partisan coalition consisting of the following:
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p>1) A democratic state rep-Ann Marie Ferrante chewed out Reville and spit his sorry ass out. Ouch!
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p>2) A pissed off republican senator named Bruce Tarr made a less than subtle reference to the inspector general.
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p>3) Various Gloucester School Committee members testified, one was in tears.
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p>4) and a host of other opponents to the charter school spoke
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p>NO ONE from the charter community spoke. NO ONE!!!
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p>Reville and Chester restated their support for the Gloucester Charter.
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p>There was a decision made at the request of the Chair to meet in Gloucester with all parties and determine if a resolution can be found. Odd decision given the statutory issues that govern how these things are approved.
So what could possibly come from such a meeting? Verga is right. Irreconcilable differences!!
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p>The kumbia crap has Deval’s fingerprints all over it. Deval, make a f***ing decision and tell Reville and Chester that life is going to suck if you don’t listen. Instead the can keeps getting kicked again and again and no one wins. Instead Deval issues a “full confidence in Reville” press release this afternoon. Even the Globe thinks this guy screwed up. What more do you need to know.
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p>Man this election cycle cannot come fast enough.
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p>Senator Tarr, bring on the Inspector General.
We’ve already had plenty of freaking meetings. One was the original public hearing they chose not to attend and then cut short with people lined out the door to speak in opposition.
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p>The board’s approval hearing was cut short because someone had to catch a plane (seriously)
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p>Then they had the legislative oversight hearing on June 8 when Chester assured us that there was no predetermined outcome to the approval process. At one point his trousers burst into flame. I suppose we should have taken that as a bad sign.
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p>We had the meeting this morning in Malden
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p>Now…let’s have another meeting!
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p>How about actually doing some shiznit during the meetings we’ve had? How about actually listening? How about doing your jobs and not lying to try and cover your a**es?
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p>Side note- people are ok with Chartergate? I like it, it sort of rolls off the tounge.
From today’s worcester telegram:
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of the several who are getting themselves worked into a lather over a six month old email who isn’t a
“dyed in the wool” charter school opponent? I’m just asking because it doesn’t seem like this story has legs outside the “anti charter schools” community.
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p>Promoting the development of charter schools is goal of our Governor. His Secretary of Education has been trying to move this agenda. You usually don’t get fired for pushing the boss’s agenda.
The Pioneer Institute, the Boston Herald, and the Charter School association are singing the same song.
While I am now more well informed about charter school advocates who also decry the politicization of the process (and, therefore, I acknowledge that the flap may have “more legs” than I thought) I still want to note that the flame fanners here appear to be charter opponents at all costs.
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p>Frankly, charter schools is such a hot button issue, I don’t know how one “de-politicizes” it. I guess leaked emails don’t help.
Dear Murph:
I am presumably someone you believe is a “flamethrower.” I support charter schools if the application makes sense, I prefer to see them in the “achievement gap” communities, and I believe Paul Reville should be fired for politicizing and mismanaging the Gloucester charter process. I’ve come to feel the same way about Mitch Chester although he gets points for having enough brains to adhere to the “don’t write when you can speak” rule. No secrets!
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…as long as they play by the same rules as public schools. That is what Deval is claiming his Readiness Schools do. If that’s the truth I’m all for them. If charter advocates get upset that people like me point out all the breaks they get in return for comparable test scores, I can’t help them.
It’s a Deval issue. Reville is politicizing something (in 2005 resulting in fewer charters, in 2009 resulting in more). Furthermore, even though we have a “smoking gun” if you will, Deval continues to fully support Reville. Short of an ongoing media campaign of investigation, there is simply no way that Deval Patrick will admit that his subordinates have faulted.
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p>(Though in all honesty, I think it is telling that the charter applications this time around are of such poor quality that the only way they can approach approval is through blatant politicization.)
JML — There are charter proponents and opponents in the mix of those opposing the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School. The objections aren’t about charters in general (though I personally have serious issues with the funding mechanisms).
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p>This has been about the quality of the application, the process of the approval and the devastating impact on funding that will jeopardize this district. It has not been a conversation on the pros/cons of charters in general.
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p>This application purports to want to bring innovation that has been “shunned” by the existing school district yet fails to acknowledge that the vast majority of their “innovations” are already being utilized in the Gloucester school district. There is nothing particularly innovative about their approach.
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p>Additionally, there are many examples of mischaracterizations and misrepresentations within the document that raise substantial concerns and were never addressed by any of those responsible for approving this charter — despite being given significant examples via written and oral testimony. There is no evidence that suggests that any of the concerns over the substance of the application were ever dealt with once brought to light.
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p>The process and the problems that have arisen have been well articulated in previous posts — but suffice it to say that process and procedure took some interesting twists in getting to a “yes” vote — public hearings not properly attended, retroactive waivers based on flimsy if not outright false premises, recommendations ignored by the Commissioner and not relayed to the board itself. Reville’s email and the subsequent efforts to minimize its import.
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p>If the charter movement wants credibility, THEY would push for a revocation of this charter because frankly it stinks to high heaven and every charter that comes after it is going to have the whiff of this debacle clinging to it.
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p>I don’t think any new charter should be approved before they completely review and rebuild the application process and funding strategies now in place. Communities the size of Gloucester – on the razor’s edge for eligibility – can’t afford to subsidize a charter school and simultaneously not jeopardize the education of the remaining children in the district schools.
Commissioner Chester is now asserting that he had already decided to support the GCACS application weeks before Reville’s Feb 5th midnight email – based of course on the “merits” of the application. If this were the case, why would Reville feel compelled to pen such an email pushing his view once again? Seems to me that if Chester was committed to voting for the charter, Reville would have know by then and the email would never have been necessary.
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p>Either Chester is attempting to provide cover for Reville’s gaffe, or Chester made his determination before the recommendations from the CSO office were finalized. Neither is acceptable.