With billions being aimed towards turning around low-performing schools, many want to get into the game. Manny Rivera and Rudy Crew were quoted in The New York Times, “School Overhaul Draws a Crowd, but Not Necessarily a Credentialed One” (A11; 8/10/10), which looked at the array of companies with little experience in school turnaround.

Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor who has formed his own consulting company, said he was astonished to see so many untested groups peddling strategies to improve schools.
“This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans,” Dr. Crew said…

Recognizing the risks facing school districts that sign contracts with untested groups, the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit conservative policy group, issued a report last month urging that districts require performance guarantees, under which contractors failing to meet achievement targets would forfeit payments.

Global Partnership Schools has signed a contract with the Pueblo, Colo., district that is backed by a performance guarantee. It stipulates that the partnership will be paid its full fee only if it significantly raises student achievement, Dr. Rivera said. The partnership has also been awarded contracts with districts in Baltimore and Bridgeport, Conn., he said.

Dr. Rivera represented Global Partnership at the June 30 vendor fair in Ohio, tending a booth along with 50 other groups.

“It was just like you were selling pencils,” he said. “A lot of these companies don’t have a clue about how to change schools.”

Read The New York Times article here.