The proposed $3 million exclusive contract with the National Urban Alliance (NUA) to provide professional development for SFUSD principals and teachers will get a hard look from the SFUSD Board of Ed's Budget and Business Services Committee at this evening's meeting.
Meanwhile, the sfschools discussion listserve has lit up with comments about the $436,000 salaries paid to both NUA's president and its CEO. After local parent activist Stan Goldberg posted a podcast interview with $436K/year NUA president Eric Cooper in which Cooper claimed that the NUA's website shows documented evidence of its programs' results, SFUSD parents went looking for that data and complained that they can't find it.
Even the NUA's location in Syosset, N.Y., is raising concerns, as SFUSD would have to pay the full travel costs for the consultants NUA dispatches here to provide training.
Board of Ed Commissioner Rachel Norton, who pulled the proposed expenditure from the consent calendar at last week's board meeting to question it further, also sits on the Budget and Business Services Committee, which is chaired by Jill Wynns and rounded out by Norman Yee. Wynns (who was not present at the time Norton pulled the NUA expenditure from the calendar) is similarly inclined to ask tough questions.
The expenditure previously sailed through the BOE's Curriculum and Program Committee (Fewer, Kim, Mendoza), which fell down on the job by failing to question it. Reportedly, SFUSD staff inaccurately told members that principals had signed off on the full details of the proposal.
The hints of cronyism in this episode are unmistakable.
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