Friday, April 9, 2010
Chicagoland / Media / Politics / Clout City Ben Joravsky and CPS CFO Diana Ferguson Talk School Budgets
Posted by Whet Moser on 04.09.10 at 04:56 PM
Last night on WTTW, Ben Joravsky discussed his recent cover story on the CPS budget crisis and administrative salaries. Ron Huberman's pay comes up, but the conversation didn't make it around to why the budgets for travel expenses, "non professional services," and similar items are drastically increased over the previous year.
Video after the jump.
Comments (9)
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Ron Huberman University of Chicago "ss licker of da Mayor, CTA failed leader and former beat cop. Let's see something about why CPS could tear down Ogden School when it was a "landmark" potential art deco building. How much is Daley and former CPS CEO leader Arne Duncan getting in kickback from Turner Construction
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Ron Huberman talented? by what standards? Made a mess of the CTA. Obama's Chicago connection will open the door for the teabaggers in Washington
For the last year, Ron Huberman has been the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, taking over for Arne Duncan. For a couple years prior to that, he was CEO of the CTA. For the two years previous to that, he was Chief of Staff to the Mayor, Richard M. Daley, himself. Prior to that, he was a cop for nearly a decade. That included stints as a bicycle officer and a stint in the gang team. For reasons that are still unclear, he became the youngest Assistant Deputy Superintendent.
There's absolutely nothing, outwardly at least, that can explain this man's meteoric rise from a mid level cop to the head of the city's entire school system. Since we're in Chicago, that means there's a story there that the public clearly doesn't know. Huberman, in fact, exemplifies what the term crony means in the city but the media is too afraid to call a spade a spade and too lazy to investigate how someone can go from bike cop to CEO of the school system in ten years.
It appears our media thinks that such rises simply happen based on merit in this city. So, is it any surprise that Huberman has two nice leased rides paid for him by the city. After all, that's how cronies are taken care of here.
Does anyone ever ask themselves why we need a school bureaucracy in the first place?
The moment you have a small bureaucracy, it is only matter of time before you have big one. If there is one thing public employees know how to do, it is to lobby for ever increasing numbers of public employees.
We can look to Greece, Springfield, California, and Detroit to see how that turns out.
Given that even a harsh critic of bureaucracy like me understands that some management is necessary, I make the following suggestion.
1. Cut 125 Clark to the bone. Hack like crazy. 90% cut in staffing.
2. Convert every school in Chicago to an independent charter school.
3. Create a consortium of Academia/Non-Profits to create a management model, appoint boards, and authorize charters. Use the $$ from hacked bureaucracy for the transition.
4. Allow each charter to become a 501(c)3 - watch money from private sector pour in.
5. Finish out the last CTU contract and decertify the union, as there is no need for teachers to be unionized
6. Give each school principal the sole power of hiring and firing teachers, overseen by the boards.
If you think that is radical, just ask yourself how the richest nation in the world has so badly managed the highest education spending in world. We fund buildings, bloated bureaucracies and powerful unions, with contractors, bond dealers and money launderers along for the ride, but we don't fund children.
The idea above is NOT radical. Pretending we can fix, improve, tweak, or otherwise reform this awful system we have created is what is radical - radically stupid.
Why arent the papers reporting that although Huberman is "cutting" staff the Performance Management " team of Powerpoint makers keeps growing with non-education people who don't know any of the data they are spitting out and that there is a 650 person hiring call for teachers and school personnel pretty good trick for a budget that has a 400 million hole. This croony and his CTA croonies now in charge of CPS are creating chaos, missed oportunities and the ultimate goal is union busting. Time Mayor Daley left and we need the media to help point out all this corruption.
This Diana Ferguson seems to wear out her welcome rather quickly everywhere she goes:
Diana Ferguson’s Experience
SVP & CFO
Folgers Coffee Company
(Food & Beverages industry)
April 2008 — November 2008 (8 months)
EVP & CFO
Merisant
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Consumer Goods industry)
April 2007 — April 2008 (1 year 1 month)
Senior Vice President
Sara Lee Corporation
(Public Company; Food & Beverages industry)
2001 — 2007 (6 years )
Treasurer
Fort James
(Consumer Goods industry)
2000 — 2001 (1 year )
Finance
Eaton Corporation
(Public Company; etn; Automotive industry)
1995 — 2000 (5 years )
Diana Ferguson attended elementary school at the University of Chicago, Groton for High School, Yale University, and then Northwestern for her Masters in Business Administration. She's never attended any public educational institution in her life. So, how exactly is she qualified to make decisions regarding the fate of CPS educators?
In addition, she's never been an educator and has no family. How, then, can she know what a school, or children for that matter, must have to receive an education? She's not qualified to make decisions on what line item can be deleted from her distant spreadsheet and what must be preserved if CPS is to fulfill its mission to our children.
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