Just before I posted last week on the continued crumbling of SOS under the non-leadership of the Catatpult Learning Vice President, Bob George, I talked with a former Board member who told me there was a rumor afloat that Bob George was retiring from Catapult. Could Corporate Bob's intentional mismanaging and steering of SOS into the ditch be so important as to end his day job with a company that gets fat on federal cash intended for poor kids?
Two days ago I emailed another current Board member who had recently spoken out against the patronizing chauvinism of NEA's man onBoard at SOS, Mike Klonsky, who obviously provides the man muscle during meetings to keep the group away from adopting a position against the next high-stakes test delivery system, Common Core. The real work at SOS has always been done by women, primarily, whose field organizing was responsible for bring thousands of teachers to DC in 2011.
The Board member told me that Bob George had, indeed, retired from Catapult. Knowing Bob to lie with impunity, as he did with Steven Sawchuck two weeks ago, I checked with Catapult Learning, whose home office is in Camden, New Jersey. I talked with a receptionist there who gave me Bob's company number in Chicago. I talked with another at the 800 number in Philadelphia, who gave me the same information. If Bob George is not employed by Catapult Learning, he has only shared that information with those he seeks to deceive, rather than the front desk at Catapult.
When I shared this information with the SOS Board member, she wrote back she had clarified that
"he [Bob] is acting as a consultant to transition replacement - will be for the next few months, but he is officially on retirement."
So Corporate Bob will obviously have his cake it, too, acting as paid consultant with Catapult as they roll out their new Common Core product lines, while at the same time corralling and containing SOS so as to keep the organization from challenging corporate ed's gravy train worth billions.
There are a number of organizations that you may join to fight the good fight against corporate ed reform. SOS is not one of them, and it not be one of them as long as the corporate bosses, union bosses, and "communications consultants" have the organization making bulletin boards, rather than fighting in the trenches for real education, real learning, real children, real schools.
You are so off base - don't know why you developed a vendetta against Bob George. I suppose the rest of us on the SOS Steering Committee should be expecting the same sort of "scrutiny." It's no longer amazing to me that even someone who purports to be "an advocate of the democratic purposes of schools. . . " would spend so much time with vitriole against those of us who have dedicated our time, money and spirits to actively participate in it.
ReplyDeleteYour outsider attacks on the organization and those of us working hard to make a difference are cowardly as is the person you claim informs you.
I am trying to help save your organization before the few people who still support it withdraw entirely. Unfortunately, you and many other leaders of the "people's convention" view any question regarding conflict of interest by Senior VP of Catapult as an attack on the hundreds of mostly women who have worked their guts out to make SOS make a difference. Meanwhile, you and those of your ilk have turned this SOS into SBG. If you can't see that, I am sorry. Very sorry.
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