Phillips plows ahead with corporate Republican-type proposals, despite broken promises to Portland families, inequity, segregation, lack of planning, concern of board members, parents etc.

This was accomplished with the influence and assistance of gazillionaires like Gates and Broad, along with local corporate folks, select politicians, Portland Business Alliance, Portland Schools Foundation, Stand For Children, CPPS, Portland Schools Alliance, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon etc. These local organizations have majority representation on the district's hand-selected "citizen advisory committee" who (surprise surprise) recommended going forward with all the proposals NOW, despite overwhelming citizen support for slowing down this process.

It was preordained and documented back in 2005 in the PSF/PPS Gates grant that these SPECIFIC organizations would back up the superintendent's reforms, well before they were even made public.

To quote the Gates grant, "marshalling" the civic will for Phillips' reforms will require PPS to "assemble an alliance with the POWER and INFLUENCE to succesfully lead the change. This requires both an "inside strategy" led by Vicki Phillips and the School Board and an "outside strategy" led jointly by community, business, parent and elected leaders" with the "key constituencies necessary to achieve" the "transformation" (organizations listed above). Gates grant, pp. 4-5, 8, 10.

What disingenuous, disrespectful treatment of our children and families. The organizations above and the four board members who have signed on to this charade are directly responsible and accountable for any future ill will, broken trust, division, exodus of families and decline of neighborhoods within our city as a result of these dishonest actions.

Interesting article below:

Personal comments in italics

Courting businesses pays off for Phillips
Portland schools - As a closure vote looms, critics worry that the alliance could be detrimental to students
Monday, May 01, 2006
SCOTT LEARN and PAIGE PARKER

Some of the strongest support for Portland school chief Vicki Phillips' plan to close six schools and restructure Oregon's largest district is coming from an odd quarter in this famously liberal town: business leaders and Republicans.

While Phillips dodges slings and arrows from critics and from parents at the schools she wants to shutter, the Portland Business Alliance has remained perhaps her most unequivocal backer (The Portland Business Alliance was specifically named back in the 2005 PPS/Portland Schools Foundation Gates grant as positioned to create and push the "civic will" for Phillips' "reforms").  "We talked for a long time in this city about how we wanted a strong superintendent," said Sandra McDonough, the alliance's president. "We got one."

Patrick Donaldson, a leader in the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations, likes the superintendent's civil, no-excuses style. "I think she has set a new tone," said Donaldson, who headed the 2004 Bush campaign in Multnomah County.

That support extends to the Legislature. Rep. Scott Bruun, R-West Linn, co-introduced a bill in the Oregon House during last month's special session that allows Portland to collect $15 million in extra property taxes for three years (Portland families will pay the $15 million.)  That bill passed after dying in the 2005 session.

"From where I sit as a nonexpert, she's made harder decisions in her short tenure than I've seen from most of her predecessors," Bruun said.

Phillips' wooing of business has paid other dividends. The district's tougher fiscal line helped city schools get $9 million in city business tax support for next school year, McDonough said.

Phillips could also use business support -- cold cash and otherwise -- to run an expected campaign for a local option property tax in November designed to put the district on stable financial ground for five years. And she'd like the Legislature, including the Republican-controlled House, to help pay for the district's high-cost special education students, among other issues.

But as the district's board prepares to vote tonight on some of the school closures and its $388 million budget for next school year, some parents, teachers union leaders and political observers wonder whether business is getting its nose too far under the tent.

Skeptics include activists eyeing the corporate kicker and corporate tax breaks as part of the school-funding problem (many of our largest corporations pay only $10.00 per year in taxes).

They also include parent and pollster Lisa Grove, who has worked closely with the Democrats and the Portland Schools Foundation. In a March memo to the Foundation, Grove warned that quickly pursuing closures could hurt the district's chances in November.

"No successful business doesn't listen to its customers, and the business community should understand that," Grove said. "The customers are the parents and the kids. Not the people who may or may not write checks to a tax campaign."

Cultivating partnerships

Bobbie Regan, the school board's co-chairwoman, said the same business leaders who agreed to extend a city tax surcharge for schools have a voice in district decisions. "If we're asking them to step up, we need to be responsive to what they're asking for," she said. (In addition to the $15 million Portland families will pay, they are being asked to "step up" to pay additional taxes in November; therefore, the board needs to be responsive to what they're asking for as well.)

But Regan and Phillips say the district's relationship with business leaders is one of many partnerships they're trying to develop. It's better to bring potential critics inside when they have expertise to add, Phillips says, than have them lobbing grenades from the outside.

She also denies that business concerns are driving the train on school closures. Stand for Children, an advocacy group, and the district's budget committee, including several parent activists, agree the district needs to close more schools, she notes.  (Conflicts of interest exist with these groups.  Stand for Children was directly involved with the Portland Schools Foundation in seating current board members and Superintendent Phillips.  The district's budget committee is hand selected by PPS; majority members include representatives from Stand For Children, Portland Business Alliance, Portland Schools Alliance et al, ALL of whom were specifically named back in the 2005 Gates grant as positioned to create and push the "civic will" for Phillips' "reforms".)   

"Not one business leader has asked me or the board for any kind of quid pro quo," Phillips said. "The only thing people said was, 'We've watched you guys over the last 18 months start to tackle long-standing problems.' "

Since Phillips arrived in August 2004, that list has included boosting high school graduation standards, reducing health benefits costs and closing five schools last year amid declining enrollment.

Business leaders are helping to advise the district on health care and central administration (Broad Foundation personnel are currently involved with this process), and helped lobby for the $15 million special session bill.

Anne Trudeau, a leader in the anti-closure Neighborhood Schools Alliance, said she fears that business is co-opting the district for relative chump change compared with the corporate kicker and corporate tax breaks.

"The solution is fair corporate taxes, and until we have that we're going to continue to be in a crisis," Trudeau said. District leaders say their role is to show efficient spending and ask for more education dollars overall, not lobby for corporate tax hikes. (the board has no problem lobbying for resident tax hikes, however).

Changing perceptions

Phillips, 48, grew up in small-town Kentucky, earned a doctorate in England, ran a Pennsylvania school district and became that state's secretary of education before arriving in Portland. Donaldson, the Neighborhood Business Associations leader and a co-owner of a security consulting firm, said Phillips has impressed businesspeople with a respectful but determined approach.

Three months ago, Donaldson sat with his arms folded skeptically at the beginning of a Phillips presentation at the Oregon Convention Center. By the end of the talk, Phillips' "honest and forthright" recounting of the district's fiscal challenges had converted him to a cautious optimist.

"I'm not all the way there yet, but I'm starting to believe that we've got a common focus on having the very best education for our kids and on spending the money wisely," Donaldson said.

Rep. Jeff Merkley, D-Portland, the House minority leader, said he thinks the attitude toward Portland Public Schools has changed in the Legislature, too.

The raging debate over school closures and Phillips' proposal to convert 17 schools to K-8s "has conveyed a sense that PPS is very serious about operating in an efficient manner and sharing some of the restructuring change that other schools across the state have endured," said Merkley, whose district includes a small chunk of Portland Public.

Business leaders and legislators aren't the only ones hoping for efficiencies, say Phillips' supporters, who are starting to dust off the term "silent majority." Their majority would include parents who like K-8s, district supporters tired of the funding seesaw and taxpayers tired of being hit up. (many parents like K-8s, but oppose hastily planned closures and reforms, of which the Jefferson cluster is being particularly targeted/affected.)

Grove's poll in February, which torpedoed Mayor Tom Potter's plan for a city income tax for schools, showed Portland Public's normally tax friendly voters giving new local taxes a Bronx cheer. That's when closing more schools jumped on Phillips' agenda.

Critics see a hasty plan

It's true many of the district's fiercest critics are tied to school closures, past and proposed. But they say their concern has motivated them to do more digging -- and discover that the district is pursuing a hasty and thinly thought-out reorganization plan.

Business support is also well short of unanimous. Last week, Mike Roach, president of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association and a longtime school supporter, said closing nearby Rieke Elementary in Southwest would hurt the nearly 200 small-business owners in his association.

Susan Jewell, a Hillsdale resident with a law practice, said at a Southwest hearing that the business alliance doesn't speak for her: "I am not someone the Portland Business Alliance contacted," she said.

Phillips' school closure proposal has struck many teachers as top-down, said Ann Nice, president of the Portland Association of Teachers. Teachers have been among those raising the strongest objections to the details of Phillips' plans.

Nice said she recognizes that the district's declining enrollment -- which has fallen from 57,000 to 47,000 in the past 10 years -- must be addressed.

"But they seem to be very concerned about how this plays with the (business alliance) and political leaders, and somewhat less concerned with how their decisions are playing with parents, students and the teachers who implement them," Nice said. "Part of me wants to say the decisions are more political than practical." (so true)

Scott Learn: 503-294-7657; scottlearn@news.oregonian.com More Portland schools coverage: www.oregonlive.com/portlandschools/