News Update: Finch cuts Bridgeport School budget ; Claims it won’t reduce funding for schools (oh, okay) - Wait, What?

News Update: Finch cuts Bridgeport School budget ; Claims it won’t reduce funding for schools (oh, okay) - Wait, What?:

One Adam-12, One Adam-12, we have a COI in progress

by jonpelto

COI as in Conflict of Interest…

(Written by Jonathan Pelto and Wendy Lecker)

Yesterday, the Connecticut State Department of Education held an eight-hour training session for elected officials, administrators and parents associated with the “turnaround” schools that make up the Commissioner’s Network.

Among various education reformers, the “training event” featured none other than the Jumoke Academy’s CEO Michael Sharpe and COO Andrea Comer.  They explained the theory and practice behind the corporate education reform’s successful privatization movement.  Not only does Jumoke Academy collect millions of taxpayer dollars as a result of their Hartford-based charter school, but they are now collecting a state-funded management fee of $345,000 a year to run “The Jumoke Academy at Milner,” the forme

News Update: Finch cuts Bridgeport School budget ; Claims it won’t reduce funding for schools (oh, okay)

by jonpelto

With only three months left in the school year, yesterday started with the news that Mayor Bill Finch was reneging on his promise and cutting the Bridgeport school budget by $4.4 million dollars.  By the end of the day, the size of the cut was reduced to $1.1 million.

And according to a report in the CT Post, after the dust settled from all the meetings, Bridgeport’s $234,000, part-time, Acting Superintendent of Schools, Paul Vallas, “told the Board of Education that, he is not upset because his main concern is the bottom line and the city’s deal makes the district “whole.”

The CT Post further reports that; “City officials, meanwhile, said Monday they were not shortchanging the district at all.”

“As the mayor had promised, we are absolutely continuing the $5 million in support to