Houston, we have a Problem! & his name is AJ Crabill
Listen and Subscribe on your Favorite Platforms
Welcome back to Unravelling Education. I’m Danielle Ford, former school board trustee of CCSD which includes Las Vegas, Nevada.
In today’s episode we’re going to begin with get an update on the happenings in CCSD. We could call this part the Jara saga. How many times would Jara have to be fired or resign for it to constitute as a saga? 4, right? Yeah I think we’re there.
Then we’ll jump back to where we left off with the storytime. I’ll explain the snazzy conference the board, jara and ccsd staff attended with other school boards across the country, and some of the national vendors we were introduced to. That will include the incredibly traumatic experience I had with some other board members, which I may still have some PTSD from.
Then the “Really scary” epiphany that was had at yet another conference the board and Jara went to.
You’ll learn the complete background of the mysterious stranger who was introduced in the Brainwashing at Harvard episode and whose name was revealed in the Billionaire Bought Board Member episode to be… AJ Crabill.
Through the episode, as each thread gets pulled, many more names will be revealed and I bet a few of them will ring a bell.
Finally, we’ll recap all of the names and information we’ve gathered so far to prepare for the launch of an upcoming investigation.
These episodes are made possible by the support of viewers and listeners. If you’d like to help the further production of the show, head over to UnravelingEducation.com/sponsor to make a donation. Everything helps and is greatly appreciated!
As I explained at the end of the “bought board member” episode, Jara sent in a resignation letter contingent on him getting a 500,000 payout. A board meeting was coming up where the trustees were going to consider accepting that and hiring a permanent superintendent, Jara’s deputy Brenda Larson Mitchell, who is currently being trained by the same people that trained Jara.
Well, the community showed up and packed the room. Every speaker and every written comment said do not give him a cent. And do not hire a superintendent without a hiring process.
Discussion happened and we learned that the board president Evelyn Garcia Morales took it upon herself without asking the board or the boards attorney to talk to jara and suggest he resign and let her know what would make him comfortable with doing so.
I personally don’t believe that. I think he wanted to hit 5 years here to cash in on Nevada’s retirement package, which he did, and then leave to get another superintendent job in a small Florida school district. And he wants to be able to say he resigned because he knows he will get fired before his contract ends.
So he probably went to Evelyn with this plan and she was on board. But that’s just my opinion. If Evelyn’s story is true though then discussing his employment and the possible changing of his contract with him on her own, crosses so many lines and she should be held accountable for that.
So back to the meeting. A motion was made to accept his terms and give him 500k and in a miracle, it was not approved.
Now Evelyn and Lola have never once had their motions voted down. They always have a plan, they always know what’s coming next, and they’ve always had the majority vote.
They absolutely did not know what to do once their plan was foiled so instead of just going “Oh well, next item’. Or “Oh well, Jara will have to accept no”. Instead they called an emergency closed session and went to the back leaving several hundred people to wait an hour.
They came back out and a motion to negotiate his termination was approved.
Here’s an actual reporter explaining it. Not me there in the front both starting and trying to stop fights.
Jara has again requested to resign but with a payout of only a quarter million dollars instead of half a million dollars. And there’s an item to choose an interim superintendent, so at least that’s better than permanent like the board wanted to do, except…
There are 2 options for the interim superintendent, Brenda Larson Mitchell, Jara’s deputy and Jason Goudie, Jara’s Chief Financial Officer, who is not an educator and has zero education experience. His background is in finance only, before CCSD he worked with Vegas hotels. I mentioned him in the diary of a new trustee episode, during onboarding he kept telling me trustees “approve” the budget instead of create, direct, or oversee the budget.
Anyway so they either think Jason goudie could actually run a school district or he’s the red herring, the joke option, the illusion of choice. Which is sounding a lot like that superintendent selection training from Harvard.
I’m doing these episodes on my own timeline, but has anyone else noticed how they’re lining up exactly to current events?
So that’s where we’re at with that.
So let’s do quick recap, or you know what, I might start calling these “previously ons”. Omg you know how in shows it’s always a different voice doing the previously ons? Omg so many ideas. I’m so excited.. but for now you get me.. “Previously on Unraveling Education.”
We went to Harvard for an executive education training in which many of the sessions should’ve been named “School Board Brainwashing 101”. If you’re not caught up on that episode yet, I suggest going back to it and the previous episode, Storytime: the Bought Board Member.
I feel more informed by some of the training and also information I got from trustees in other districts. But I knew something was “off”, and that was confirmed when Lola Brooks impulsively tried to change the school board’s entire Governance model, to the model used in Texas, in which Jara’s buddy, the mysterious stranger, was the creator and trainer.
That led to me researching Lola Brooks. In the Bought Board Member episode we covered that after Lola won her primary election in 2016, she scored herself a cushy job at a charter school which is in direct competition with the district and only succeeds when CCSD students fail, and received numerous large campaign donations from CEOs and tech billionaires far away from Clark County, Nevada.
Now before we move forward I want to make a quick retraction, more of an edit to something I said in that episode.
When I was naming the donors in Lola Brooks campaign reports I made 1 mistake. I’m going to replay that clip really quick…
So I said Reid Hastings but you can see in the video and the pic on the episode page that it’s actually Reid Hoffman. Reid Hoffman is the one married to Michelle Yee, Linked in founder, partner in RocketShip education yada yada.
But don’t forget the other Reid just yet. Reid Hastings is a different billionaire who also buys school board candidates so you can probably understand the mix-up.
I would say “What are the odds that there would be 2 Reid H’s buying out school board elections?!” but now knowing how many rich assholes are using their money to influence policy and contracts that determine the quality of public education for all of our children, the answer is “Pretty decent odds, actually”.
Let’s take it back to when this storytime takes place. Late 2019.
The district is in absolute chaos. That’s been CCSD’s baseline for as long as Jara has been in the district, it’s just always a new form of chaos. The major event at this point was about CCSD refusing to pay teachers raises they had earned. And now CCEA the main teachers union was threatening to strike.
This resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers showing up to a meeting where Lola Brooks was so rude to them. Then things escalated and CCSD police made us recess, at which time Lola ended up adjourning the meeting on her own. Myself and some other trustees didn’t even know that had happened until the cops started escorting us out. People were so mad, and rightfully so. Some trustees were followed home, it was a whole thing. But this became the norm with Jara in charge.
Here’s a clip because explaining it just doesn’t do it justice.
Behind the scenes, I was trying to find out why Jara hadn’t had his mid-year superintendent evaluation. It’s the president’s job to schedule it. It’s the board attorney’s job to make the president do their job, especially if it’s something that is laid out in the superintendent’s contract because at any point if the board doesn’t abide by his contract he could use it against us.
I wanted to follow his contract perfectly, so that there were no issues when his contract was set to expire 2 years later, in June of 2021.
I felt like it was purposely being ignored, so that in the future Jara would be able to say that the board didn’t evaluate him per the terms in his contract and therefore he didn’t have an opportunity to redirect or correct anything.
I was paranoid about there being some hidden trick to get him to remain superintendent, and I was right to be.
In October 2019 we went to a Council of Great City Schools conference in Louisville, Kentucky. And it was snazzy.
Keep in mind I’m from Vegas. My family members managed casinos. I’ve worked Vegas nightlife. Not much fazes me. But there were board members from lots of different states so I can imagine they would be very impressed with the VIP treatment.
It was most of the board, Jara, and some of Jara’s staff. They came on the trip to give presentations to other districts about things like setting and hitting goals and communicating with the public. I was thinking like “no offense to our staff, but why would CCSD be presenting on these things. We need to improve big time on these things. Literally nobody should take advice from us.”
Each evening consisted of something fancy, which a chartered bus would take everyone to: All of the school board members, superintendents, districts’ staff, and the reps from the vendors. The main vendor was NWEA, the Northwest Evaluation Association. Their assessments are called measures of Acedemic Progress, otherwise known as MAP. You might be familiar.
The first night was a private cocktail event at the Muhammad Ali museum. I really enjoyed being able to tour it all, by myself, that was actually awesome but everyone was drinking besides me and I was pretty bored after a while.
Another night was a private bourbon distillery tour and then dinner on the roof. I went to bartending school, I’m a certified mixologist, I bartended at a piano bar, and I would be just fine if I never had to smell bourbon again. Also I was the only sober person. So I was pretty bored.
Another night was a private reception at the Kentucky Derby museum. Again, it was really cool to be there, take the tour while it was empty, but I find small talk exhausting and having to wait for the bus to pick up everyone, and not being able to leave quickly and without explanation or goodbyes, like I usually do at events, was very stressful.
One of the evenings there was a formal banquet for the Council’s annual Green-Garner Award which I learned was very prestigious, to even be nominated was an honor. I recognized one of the nominees’ names, Ashley Paz, from the Harvard training. Her name popped because I remembered that she was friends with Lola. You’ll hear her name again later in the episode.
During the day we’d go to the breakfast hall with the same people, then sessions hosted by staff of the council and some presentations from different districts. Then another ballroom for lunch with the same people. There were vendor booths set up in the halls between all these things with reps passing out info and chatting up school board members.
John Kim, the Governance trainer from Harvard was there with the same governance lessons we received at Harvard. There was even a session called “The Harvard Experience” in which they just pitched the training at Harvard to a new group of school boards.
I went to all the sessions, I took all my notes, I was trying to find ways to entertain myself but it wasn’t enough.
It felt like this endless abyss of the same people and the same training and the same vendors and the same chartered bus and the same small talk repeating over and over.. Nothing was enlightening. There was nothing novel. It was an echo chamber.
By the 3rd day I was kind of losing my mind. I skipped lunch to introvert in my room and gain energy energy to make it through the 2nd half. I made it back down the escalator and to the right was the hallway to the ballrooms., and to the left was the lobby and exit.
Next thing I know I’m in a taxi and being asked “Where to, miss?” I say “I dunno. What’s around here?” “That way is downtown Louisville and over that bridge is Indiana”. And that is why I have been to Indiana. More specifically the Barnes and Noble and the Spencer’s gift shop inside a mall in Indiana.
A few of us had been talking about doing something the final day because the conference ended in the morning and our flights didn’t leave till later. I bring up “we should do an Escape room” and I make the argument that it’ll be a good team-building exercise… which.. I mean … I just wanted to do an escape room.
I take escape rooms very seriously. Some of my friendships have ended in escape rooms. It’s rare that I do not make it out of an escape room in time and if that happens, I usually like “reload it!” and go right back in.
So this whole thing was my fault. I’ll take responsibility. It was me, Lola brooks, Irene Cepeda, Deanna Wright, Joe Caruso, and Linda Cavazos’s husband Bob, who was the only one of this group that I would ever enter an escape room with again.
I took the lead and explained that everyone needs to have a clearly defined role, then I described the roles and everyone chose one.
There’s Joe and Irene as the clue seekers. Scan the room, find all the things that are part of a puzzle, bring all information to the central hub so it’s in one place
Then Deanna wright as the clue organizer. The Guardian of the clue hub. It’s simple: Keep the clues accessible, separate the items that have already been used as things get solved. 2 piles that’s it.
Then there’s the clue processors. Me and Bob. Look at the pile of unused clues, match things together, communicate with the clue seekers “ok we’re looking for something that would fit 3 of these blocks, looking for a lock for a small key, we have 5 out of 6 numbers, look for one more”. Then get the clues to the clue solver who puts the blocks in, unlocks the lock, enters the numbers, whatever. And then that person takes the used clues to the clue organizer who puts the clue in the discarded clue pile.
Simple.
This is where Einsteins law of relativity really hits. It’s like logically I know that it was only an hour. But just picture yourself being locked in an Area 51 themed room with this group for an hour.
With Irene Cepeda as a clue seeker basically just walking around in circles confused,
Joe Caruso like trying to read everything on the walls and focusing on random things that do not matter.
Lola Brooks as a solver with a series of numbers which have to be typed correctly into a 1980s computer to get the next clue. If it’s typed wrong it freezes you out for 3 minutes. Here’s the numbers Lola, just type in the numbers Lola. Omg you do data entry for a living. It’s only 6 numbers LOLA. Omg we’re frozen out again, omg.. ok I’m going to read the numbers slowly , no don’t push enter yet, omg were frozen out for another 3 minutes. ::deep breathing exercises::
And on the floor in the center of the room is Deanna wright who was tasked with being the clue organizer, and just keeping the clues in to 2 piles, used and unused.
I’m trying to make sense of the clues in the unused pile while suggesting that Joe stop reading the fine print on every item he passed and instead look for clues and pointing out things Irene’s missing as she’s walking past and passing out locks and blocks as clues are ready to be solved and then going back to the unused pile and why are there now 5 piles? And why is Deanna just moving clues around for no reason? And.. you know what I’m going to skip past the rest of this hour of my life, it’s just I can’t go back there again. It’s too dark.
In November the board goes to Reno again for a NASB conference. This was my first experience with the new executive director Debb Oliver. I’m looking through the session options and I’ll be damned if there isn’t a session called “Silverstate Governance”.
The same governance model that Lola brought forward to the board which was voted down, the one that had her name all over the website I recorded. The one she told me on stage during a board meeting that I was confused about.
This was not just a random one-off session, it was worth half a credit of the 6 credits trustees need to continually get to keep being a trustee. The entire session is just about this model in general, what it is and that we can choose to adopt it. No actual training on how to govern. Just a sales pitch to sign up for timeshare but instead of time share it’s silverstate governance.
I’m like “You’ve gotta be shitting me right now”. Obviously I attend. I’m taking notes. They share a few slides, one which is just a quote from the mysterious stranger, AJ Crabill. Seems kind of strange. I raise my hand and ask if we can get the presentation emailed to us for future reference. Debb says No. I’m “Oh ok.” So I start taking pictures of every slide. And writing down every single word spoken. Even other people’s questions and Debb’s answers. I was actually so pissed at this point and feeling like I have to say something.
There’s at 100 school board trustees here from the 17 different nevada districts being sold this. I’m thinking, ‘I have to say that this is bad, but also I don’t really know why it’s bad yet. I just know both Jara and Lola are hell bent on the board using it, so it’s bad”.
Lola had appointed herself to the NASB committee and had been telling everyone including the new executive director how disruptive and I am and that I’m always causing trouble for no reason.
So if I say these things I want to say, I’ll be proving her right, in their eyes. But I didn’t care that much. I was ready to go down that road.
Luckily I did not have to because Chris Garvey, one of the ccsd trustees with 10 year experience, who was a bad ass on the board in the past, and who was known to be against corporate privatization and centralization, did it for me, and better than I would have.
Chris Garvey starts asking Debb Oliver questions, and I’m between them, turning back and forth, writing it down verbatim.
She asks about who will train the boards, she wants to know if the goal is to mandate, what happens if trustees don’t comply? Debb says “I’m not sure” and “Not to my knowledge”, to every question. Garvey ends with this statement:
“Now this whole thing makes sense. We get appointed a coach who gets trained by- who knows? I can only imagine the Department of Ed, or Chiefs for Change, and now that individual members and boards can get compared, by a rating system, maybe a star rating system, it will make sense to move to appointed board members. This is really scary. Frightening.
So that was concerning. I made a note to look into Chiefs for Change later.
I try to find more information about Silverstate governance but there’s not much about it online. So I look into AJ Crabill himself.
Here’s what I learn… hold onto your seats.
2008- AJ Crabil was elected as a board member in Kansas City, Missouri. His name at the time was Airick Leonard West.
2010- He begins contracting with the council of Great City schools, speaking, networking, consulting, planning governance models, and getting paid by them. I have no idea how that is not a huge conflict of interest for a sitting trustee to do.
2013- Because of his work he’s nominated for an Urban Educator Award. I wonder if Make Casserly told him “He’s one to watch. Real leadership material”
2015- in Texas, a law passes that requires any school with a low star rating for 2 years in a row to be put on a School improvement plan. If the low star score remains for 3 years after that, then that school will either be closed, chartered, or the entire district taken over – HB1842 You’re probably wondering, “What does this have to do with AJ Crabill? He’s a trustee in Kansas.” You’ll see.
Early 2016- Aerick Leonard West legally changes his name to AJ Crabill. The fact that he did this made me pay for an extensive background check on him. I’ll just say that his past paints a picture of a person who had financial hardship, and inside experience of a judicial system which unfairly criminalizes non-violent and non-substance-related misdemeanors. That’s as much as I’m going to share because I try to keep my judgments and my shit-talking specific to public education-related activities. That would explain why someone might be willing to be puppeteered and rewarded with money and status.
April, 2016- AJ Crabill does not run for re-election in Kansas. His term expires and a week later he’s appointed to the Texas Education Association. Mike Morath, Texas Commissioner of Education, in Nevada this would be the Nevada State superintendent, appoints AJ as his Deputy and the “Commissioner of Governance & Investigations”. This is a brand new role with a $180,000 salary.
October 2016- AJ sends letters to 11 school boards in Texas requiring them to undergo Lonestar Governance training, stating that if they reject the training he would send in a state-appointed board to run the district, close the schools, or remove all principals and assign outside managers to oversee the campuses.
A 2016 article by Aliyya Swaby says ‘Deputy Commissioner of Education, AJ Crabill sent letters to the 11 school boards saying they need additional governance training because their districts submitted unsatisfactory plans for turning around floundering campuses.
All 11 superintendents and boards agreed to the training with a few expressing frustration. Dallas Trustee Joyce Foreman said, “While I don’t have a problem with training, I do have a problem with a demand that I implement whatever it is we’re going to be trained on, when I don’t even know what it is.
“If Morath decides not to approve a plan, he can replace the board of trustees, replace the principal, or shut the school down completely,” Crabill said.
2018- AJ begins investigating Houston ISD, the 8th largest school district in the country, with over 200 schools and 200,000 students. He claims that the failure of some of their schools is the failure of the board, and not the superintendent. The board also has a new interim superintendent and begins the hiring process of a new one, which is expected to take a while.
March 2019- the board was at the end of the search process and set to name and hire a new superintendent the following week. A Texas state conservator announced that the state was suspending Houston’s search process because the investigation was still happening.
April 2019- Houston is in chaos. They’ve had this investigation looming with no answers. They don’t have a superintendent, everything is in limbo. AJ announces his department has determined there’s reason to conduct a “special’ investigation into Houston.
A 2019 article by Jacob Carpenter explains, ‘Crabill said state officials are still conducting a special investigation with the most severe punishment resulting in school board members resigning their powers to a state-appointed governing team. Houston will most-likely lose local control of its’ school board if any one of four chronically low campuses fails to meet state academic standards this year.”
June 2019- An email I got my hands on much later shows communication between Nancy Brune representing the Guinn Center, Jhone Ebert, the very new NV state superintendent, Superintendent Jara and AJ Crabill
The email is from Nancy to Jara and reads: Supt Jara, are you available on July 3rd to meet with Supt Ebert and AJ Crabill regarding Silverstate Governance? Thanks.”
July 2019- The Clark County School board goes to Harvard. Superintendent Jara and AJ are glued at the hip. They clearly know each other very well and communicate often.
August 2019- Silverstate governance is on the Clark County School board agenda. This is the first anyone in Nevada hears about it.
November 2019- There’s a Silverstate Governance training at NASB for all NV school districts and for actual credit. Several had been pitched to and opted in already.
I’m gonna pause here on his timeline, to stay in the story, but then I’m gonna catch you up with what AJ has been doing since, towards the end of the episode.
AJ Crabill was just a regular school board member. He wasn’t elected because he had any special skills or knowledge. He did not finish high school, did not go to college, and has zero education experience.
I’m not knocking that part because I have a similar background. While I am qualified to be a publicly elected official, by choice of the voters, I feel like if someone was like “Hey Danielle how bout you don’t run for re-election, and instead come to a different state entirely. We’re going to make you the deputy state superintendent as well as place you in a new position that we’re making up right now, and your job will be to monitor and punish all the elected school boards in that state.” I feel like first I’d say, ‘I don’t know that I’m qualified to be in that role, what makes you want me for that role? and also “Why would I want to do that to school boards? And why do you want to do that to school boards?”
Ironically I am more qualified. I have significantly more education than him. Did AJ Crabill go to beauty school for Esthetics? No. Did he do a year of community college to probably be an elementary school teacher but then quit? No. Did he go to Real estate school? No. Did he go to bartending school? No.
I have at least 4 extra random schools under my belt than he does and I would not feel comfortable showing up and exerting my authority to a ton of actual educators, so I’m not sure why he would be.
K so while I’m learning about how this dude went from a regular school board member in Kansas to punishing school boards in Texas to having a bromance with Jara at Harvard, and now coming into Nevada positioned as an education expert, and I’m like, “Ok.. I see you”.
As a person who has made it through life often unqualified, but always confident, and by unapologetically busting into rooms that I do not belong in like the koolaid man… I can spot when someone else is doing the same thing.
I have entered and risen through many industries by showing up to the party and walking in like I’m on the guest list. This guy and I have the same MO, ok. And while I respect the hustle, there’s a difference between showing up on your own, with good intentions… and showing up because you’re being puppeteered and rewarded by people who have bad intentions. Like, one of us came to party and the other came to poison the punch.
Right after this session about silverstate governance with all school boards in Nevada. I begin to notice the same quote that was on the slide that I wrote in my notes, pop up everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And it’s not even a good quote, in fact it’s pretty gaslighty. “Student outcomes won’t change until adult behaviors do.” …”oh cool yeah that doesn’t even say anything.
But I bet you have suggestions of how I could fix my behavior right? For the kids? And if I don’t adjust my behavior to your standards, then I’m harming kids. Gotcha. I’m all caught up.”
I’m finding it hard to believe that all of these people at the same time, just happened to think this nothing quote was revolutionary, inspiring, and insightful enough to blast it everywhere. Not possible. It sucks.
Yet, every time I turned around, the quote was there. Here are some examples
November it’s on a single slide in the governance presentation
It was literally Written on the white board by Debb Oliver for a board retreat. It was the only thing on the board upon arrival.
It was put front and center on NASB’s Website
A slide from a well-attended local education leadership summit
Lots of materials and websites distributed to school board members
And… Jara even had it painted on the wall of the executive conference room in the admin building, where he meets with cabinet members, and hosts committee members regularly. On. The. Wall.
And I’ve witnessed so many adults read this and respond like “Oh yeah yeah” Like what?? It’s the freakin emperor’s new clothes Ok. Don’t lie. You think it’s a stupid quote too. What I think is bad adult behavior is to charge taxpayers to take away their voices and ruin their school districts. But I digress.
Every time I saw it somewhere new, I’d get a little more pissed off because I knew exactly what it was.. You see, I’m a marketer. You can’t market to a marketer ok? This is a sales tactic used in the business industry to introduce a personal brand. This wasn’t to market a governance model, it was to market him. The name. AJ Crabill.
Here’s how this works in the online space… sometimes a person will pay to join a mastermind or network of influential people who are going to help them launch their new course or product or service or whatever. Or there’s a revenue share or affiliate commission or something. The strategy is to get this person in front of a mass audience in a short amount of time, seen many times by each individual, with something “sticky” or memorable.
And they get introduced over and over to the same audiences which overlap by leaders in an industry in the same way so that this person is imprinted in the audiences mind as the expert.
Often it’s a hot tip, or a new catchy method, or it could be something like a quote that gets shared over and over to the point that later when the person hears the name associated with the quote, they’re like “Oh yeah yeah, that person, I’ve heard of them.. yeah, that person’s legit”. But they only think that cause they’ve subconsciously absorbed the name associated with the gimmick 1000 times. It’s basically new age guerilla marketing.
So I’m seeing this and I’m like “There’s a reason this dude is being marketed to everyone in Nevada and especially Clark County”. “When is it coming?
When will he show up already positioned as the expert, promising the secret sauce to something, like a snake oil salesman, and everyone will eat it up, because they’ve been conditioned for years now to think he’s somebody important, I mean he has his own quote, so he must also have the answers.
I was actually predicting he would get hired by the dept of ed to investigate the school boards and run the same play that he did in Texas, and I still think that might be what’s coming down the line.
I start telling anybody I can. Reporters I’d made connections with, teachers, admin, people in Jara’s cabinet that he would die from shock if he knew that they talk to me.
I knew I sounded a little nutty. There wasn’t any proof to show anyone. I’m like “look.. 20 bucks says this guy will soon be known by everybody and just accepted as like a super important person in education in nevada. And then he’s going to get his hands in our governance. Bet.”
A lot of those people are following the podcast and you know who you are. And you owe me $20. Except, many of you have sponsored the show for more than $20 dollars, so why don’t we can just call it even?
I go back to my note-to-self: research Chiefs for Change. And oh my god, here we go… I’m just gonna get right to it.
Chiefs for Change is an organization that selects ambitious school leaders and grooms them to be superintendent. I didn’t say experienced school leaders, I said ambitious school leaders.
The potential superintendent or what they call a “future chief” is taught a set of ideals, and then introduced to a network of other Chiefs for Change trainees and graduates, as well as consultants and CEOs of national education companies, like textbook, testing, software companies, like the same exact companies that were vendors and trainers at the CGCS conference. Then their name and payment is given to a superintendent search firm to place their chiefs and future chiefs in large districts.
How do they ensure their chiefs get placed?
By funding the campaigns of school board members and suggesting they hire a certain search firm. The firm that delivered Jara to CCSD is called Ray and Associates, and is located in Iowa.
Chiefs for Change folks also have EMO’s, educational management organizations, which is code for “chains of charter schools”.
I learn that Jara is a “future chief’. I also learn that former state superintendent Steve Cannavaro is on the chiefs for change executive board.
Ok.. I look through all the chiefs and I see William Hite from Philadelphia. But wait, he graduated from the Broad academy. I learned that from Matt Damon.
Did he attend and graduate from both? I look up Broad academy graduates. Can’t find anything online, but right after this documentary came out which put a target on the Broad academy’s back, it fizzled out. At that same time Chiefs for Change appeared, with a full roster of alumni.
All the chiefs used to be broad academy graduates, including the superintendent from the Harvard story. You know that office meme where Pam is pointing to 2 different pictures but saying “It’s the same picture”. It’s that.
I run a search for Broad Academy through the CCSD board meeting minutes and learn that the board began contracting with them for training in 2000.
I think… was Jara the first one? I research every superintendent CCSD has had in 20 years, going back to 2000, I put em in a timeline. when I was a student in CCSD, and I learn that they all have been graduates of Broad Academy, except for 2, both of which were short lived.
I discover that all the superintendents hired except 2, which were both short-lived, were graduates from Broad Academy/Chiefs for Change. So for nearly 20 years, CCSD has been led by a superintendent from Jara’s supt group, and that because we keep getting served these superintendents in a box, we haven’t even had a fighting chance at improving the school district, not once since I was a CCSD student myself.
Next I learn that Chiefs for Change is operated by an organization called the Foundation for Excellence. The Foundation for Excellence is owned by Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, brother to former president George Bush, who was responsible for many of the failed educational reforms which have caused major damage like no child left behind, common core, tying teacher evaluations to standardized test scores…we’re not even there yet, but… holy shit.
I do not think it’s that far of a jump to say that our superintendent, might as well be Jeb Bush, as well as all of the superintendents that Jeb Bush has trained and placed across the country.
Then I think back to the timeshare sales pitch that said SSG was created by Chiefs for Change, CGCS, and TEA.
So now I know chiefs for change is Jeb bush. OK what about the council?
In concept its the superintendents and board members on the executive committee at the time that operate the council, make policy decisions, choose vendors, etc but many of the board members have been bought, and many of the superintendents have been put through grooming programs.
Districts pay dues to the council which i imagine covers staffing and operations. But like who is renting out the Muhammad Ali museum, and paying for the ballrooms and award ceremonies? It wasn’t too hard to find that answer.
A quick google search revealed that the person that’s predominately funded the CGCS for decades is Bill Gates. He’s spent billions with the council of great city schools. So ok.. Cool cool cool.
What about the TEA? Well AJ crabill is essentially a nobody who was plucked from Kansas and given a job running a state department. Same with his boss Mike Morath. A trustee plucked to run the Texas Education Association. Ok who plucked him? Texas Governor greg Abbott. So unless someone else is puppeteering him, then him.
So since the Clark County School Board did recently adopt this governance model, I also think it’s safe to say that the CCSD board is essentially being directed by Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, and Greg Abbott.
And then all their big tech friends fund school board campaigns and then introduce them to their canned curriculum, standardized testing companies, and teacher recruitment firms at fancy conferences and provide them with training so that they don’t question anything when the superintendent contracts with that company soon after, to the tune of millions of dollars a year, while ignoring the competitive bidding process and damaging the local economy by sending all the taxpayer money out of Nevada to other states, usually Florida, where both Jara and Jeb Bush happen to be from.
So like… oh my god.
Quick side tangent- I’m not done explaining this stuff yet, but for everyone talking about CCSD being a disaster, and it is, here’s how your conversations should start… like you’re talking to your friend or coworker or person at the grocery store…
Hey friend… Do uh, do we believe that the entire Clark County School district had been led for decades by a handful of tech billionaires? Yes or no?
If the answer is yes, and it is, the next question is: do we agree with their ideologies? You know like the cutting of recess and obsession with standardized testing? The prioritization of collecting your kids data over things like art, music, athletics, life skills? If yes, great! You should support the billionaires and their superintendent academies and all of their Jaras and the trustees that support their Jaras.
But if the answer is no, then the next question should be, “Well, what can we do about it?” Further conversation and ideas should spur from there.
This entire conversation could be a flow chart. Note to self: make a flow chart.
The fact of the matter is that Right now, it doesn’t matter what your opinion is, what political party you belong to, what kind of credentials you have, or if you have great ideas or solutions for the district. Unless you agree with the ideologies of a few billionaires and their indoctrinated minions, then you’re not going to be satisfied with public education as long as they’re controlling it.
They’re able to get away with this because they purposely create chaos as a distraction technique to cause everyone to fight each other, so they can slip all their shit through uncontested.
They’re making governance and policy changes that take away the people’s rights, give away the board’s power, steal billions of dollars a year of all of our tax dollars, terrorize our educators until they quit, and deliver subpar standardized education consisting of their canned curriculum and non-stop assessment of all of our children, because they can make money off of it.
Meanwhile, everyone is pissed off about everything except for that. Except for the thing everyone should be mad about.
I’m not saying stop fighting each other forever. I have very strong opinions, and I’m an ENTP. I would be like “Let’s go!” if fighting each other about our opinions made a difference.
Right now the the only move is for all of us to fight them, instead of each other. And we don’t have to hold hands while we do it. Fight them separately. From all directions. Get creative. They are parasites. Get them the fuck out. Not just out of CCSD. They need to get the fuck out of the state of Nevada .
After that we can all resume fighting each other, if we so wish. End sidebar tangent.
So at this point in the story, I’m like taking it all in::pointing around squinting like geometry meme:: Jeb Bush, Florida, Steve Cannavaro, Aj Crabill, Lola Brooks, Jesus Jara, Houston school district, philadelphia, the cryptic warning from that superintendent, follow the money…
I start researching more because this is clearly happening but why? What’s the point? What the end goal? Watching documentaries about corporate takeovers and privatization of school districts. Names and companies from my research are matching the people and vendors I’ve met. I’m Connecting dots. Learning about the pattern that happens to districts before they get completely ruined, closed, or privatized.
When this happens, the student outcomes are even worse, than before the parasites arrived. But they start changing rules and manipulating data in that district as these reforms come in to sell the community on things being successful. And they have friends at the local news stations. I’m realizing that literally all of those things are happening here in Clark County, right now.
Here’s the privatization and school takeover agenda in a nut shell: there are basically 2 camps of opinions around education. There’s a group that follows a strict educational belief system. They call themselves “educational reformers”, but what they are and what the other group has named them are the disruptors. Those fighting the disruptors are known as “The Resistance”.
Nothing to do with political parties. It’s some rich democrats and some rich republicans and some rich non-partisans all getting richer from our tax dollars.
Here’s a quick insight into the privatization agenda from Diane Ravitch’s book “Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools”, which I highly suggest everyone reads.
Diane writes: “The ideology of the disruption movement in the education world relies on two dogmas: first, the benefits of standardization, and second, the power of markets, at scale, to drive innovation and results.
Their blind adherence to these principles has been disastrous in education. These principles don’t work for the same reasons they don’t work for families, churches, and other institutions that function primarily on the basis of human interactions, not profits and losses.
Disruptive leaders, like those trained by Eli Broad’s unaccredited Broad Academy, are trained to be top-down managers who crack down on teachers, reduce their autonomy, and require them to organize their classrooms and lessons according to prescribed protocols.”
If you happen to be thinking “Well, these people are successful, would it be the worst thing to take their advice and subscribe to their ideologies?” That answer is “Yes.” Because this belief system and the goals they have for public schools across the country do not apply to their own children. Their children go to very expensive specialty private schools, which focus on things like creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Their kids aren’t using the same curriculum and taking the same standardized tests that they’ve determined are best for everyone else’s kids and that they profit from.
In most school districts the community fights back, often led by the teachers unions and joined by the local business community. But Clark County’s teacher’s union only gets involved in fights regarding teachers pay and recruitment efforts, they do not speak out against no-bid contracts or the over-testing, or the non-stop canned curriculum. And the Vegas business community, for the most part, is pro these reforms because our business community are the hotel moguls and many are part of this group of billionaires.
I’m gonna be straight with you ok. Once I started realizing all this and thinking back to getting a write-up my first month in and being praised by the council of great city schools. The thought did cross my mind that I could turn this around if I wanted. There’s lots of opportunity here.
Do I want to ask for a high-paying job with the casino industry or a marketing job with one of the vendors we contract with, or to be a consultant or speaker just like AJ did, just like at least 3 of the current CCSD trustees have done?
I realize that I could absolutely kill it. I can turn the charm on when I want to. I could probably take AJ Crabill’s job if I wanted to.
But that thought was quickly drowned out by my anger towards these assholes trying to ruin public education as a whole which is intended to give every human a fair playing field, in which the people agreed to as a way to improve society. Like they are cheating society. I do not like cheaters.
On top of that, I’m taking it very personally that they’re targeting my school district. The school district I grew up in, that my kids are in, that my 21 nieces and nephews are either in or going into, that many of my high school friends work in, and many of the new friends I’ve made since getting elected work in.
So I doubled down by putting everything on the record and social media. Later on, I tripled down by filing ethics complaints and open meeting law violations. And this podcast is basically me quadrupling down.
I mentioned that before I ran I was in local business circles, attended chamber events, was spotlighted in magazines, won some awards…
I think it’s safe to say they won’t be giving me any awards any time soon.
I keep researching and the more I learn the more I’m like, “Why isn’t someone writing about this? Why isn’t CCSD in this list of districts being researched? Why isn’t there a documentary crew here right now?
Where is Diane Ravitch??
Where is Matt Damon?”
Now back to AJ Crabill’s timeline. We left off at the end of 2019 where we are in the story. Our mysterious stranger has been very busy since then, let’s learn what he’s been up to the whole time and what he’s currently working on…
2020- He was appointed as conservator of the Desoto independent school district. Basically managing the board to get them into compliance. This was during covid and shutdowns and distance learning and reopening and knowing the stress as a school board member at that time, I can’t even imagine also having this guy trying to get the board into compliance.
Dec 2021- AJ mass emails all Nevada school board members about the Council of Great City Schools Governance Coach Cohorts. It reads: The council is excited to launch inaugural Board Chair and Board Coach cohorts for 2021. The CGCS Governance Coach cohort will accept seasoned board members to participate in a 12 month training to become certified Student Outcomes Focused Governance coaches who, once certified, are then positioned both to better serve in their own district and to actively support other districts throughout the council.
Umm this has Lola Brooks written all over it. This is her dream.
January 28th, 2021- The NV state board goes through Silverstate governance training. Board members Mark Newburn and Felicia Ortiz rave about the training even citing the quote exactly in tweets.
“Just completed two days of training in the new Silverstate Governance model for school boards with the rest of the State Board of Ed. Student Outcomes Don’t Change Until Adukt Behaviors Change.
2021- The CCSD board attends a NASB conference in Lake Tahoe with all other Nevada boards and now AJ Crabill is the Keynote speaker. He quickly went from unknown to anyone when Silverstate governance appeared, to his governance model being taught to us by Debb Oliver at a NASB conference in Reno, to headlining the Conference at a nASB conference in Tahoe (pic). I have the whole thing recorded. It’s not good but yet evertones like ‘Omg he has a quote”.. clapping
February 2021- AJ is Training the Salt Lake City School Board where 1 member told Fox news that “He was insulting. During our December meeting, Mr. Crabill deliberately shamed members of the SLCSD in a scheduled meeting in front of the public’
March 2021- AJ is Training the Los Angeles Unified School Board and the community starts fighting back on him and the governance model.
An Article by Carl J Peterson quotes “The charter school industry-backed members of the LAUSD have made it clear they will ram through their privatization agenda without taking input from the minority of the board that supports public education.
August 2021- AJ contracts with the seattle school board but doesn’t start implementing things until 2022, which leads to the community fighting back on him and the governance model.
A 2023 article from Robert Cruickshank titled: Seattle’s School board should move away from Student Outcomes Focused Governance explains that the district is cutting beloved programs like mock trial and jazz band. The trustees let it happen dispute the whole community coming out begging them to save the programs, because if they voted differently, the board would have been charged with micromanaging. The article reads: Following the SOFG plan, the board is also working on a “policy diet” in which the board will give control over many existing policy areas to the superintendent. Instead, the board approves “goals” for the superintendent to meet and “guardrails”. These goals and guardrails are vague and do not specify what happens if the goals aren’t met or the guardrails aren’t respected. This model resembles those used by corporate and non-profit boards and applies them to a publicly elected school board. It’s no surprise given that its backers support a corporate approach to public education and have worked to limit the power of elected school boards.
June 28, 2022- AJ working with San Francisco school board which leads to the community eventually fighting back on him and the governance model.
A 2023 article on the blog Save Seattle Schools by Melissa Westbrook shares what AJ Crabill had recently said on a webinar, explaining his vision for school board governance.
He said it’s good to limit school board members authority so that you get less single issue candidates.
He said candidates should have to complete the student outcomes governance model before they can file to run.
He said he wonders if a state law should change to where trustees would be automatically recalled if student scores drop.
He said that if a board implements SOFG, that a new board shouldn’t be able to get rid of it. The policies should “live across superintendents and boards”.
He also said that the board needs to give the superintendent “super clear guidance”.
Which reminded me of the CCSD board developed vague goals for evaluating Superintendent Jara in 2022 under Debb Oliver’s direction. We were told that Jara can’t be held accountable for anything that wasn’t clearly defined and agreed upon beforehand, and that there could only be 3-5 things we list as his expectations.
I asked, “So what if he does things like change Title 1 funding and take 5 million dollars in the middle of the year without board approval, cut all 170 deans out of nowhere with no prior discussion, try to steal all of the principals’ savings account and delete portions of emails about it before forwarding to the trustees? I
I was told No, and that if I had not clearly said, “We don’t want you to cut the deans and the board put it in the guardrails, then he could not be held responsible if he does that.
Obviously I did not appreciate that answer, and the next training with her included a surprise intervention for me. It just so happened that both my allies on the board at the time Linda Cavazos and Lisa Guzman had given notice that they were not ale to attend.
Debb Oliver, Jara, our board attorney and Jara’s 4 board members sat around in a circle and took turns explaining all the ways I was not acting appropriately, how I was personally hurting them, and how my behavior was impacting the entire school district. Some of them cried.
They spent 2 hours trying to get me to acknowledge that my adult behavior was directly harming the children in CCSD and to admit that I’m a huge part of the problem.
I spent 2 hours asking them why the hell they were saying these things to me and not Superintendent Jara and why the fuck they refuse to hold Lola Brooks accountable for editing all of our governance policies and taking away the board’s power behind our backs.
Ultimately they were all disappointed that I was refusing the support they were offering me. Umm I come from a split family with substance abuse on both sides. I’ve been running interventions since I was 10. You are not going to trick me into admitting I have a governance problem and seeking help for it, mmmkay.
This really happened. It was livestreamed. We could not have our phones and when I checked it later it was blowing up with everyone like “What did I just witness?” ‘Was that a therapy session?” Linda was like “What are they doing. I had no idea they were going to do that. You don’t have to respond to their questions.” Oh well, too late.
Back to our timeline…
March 2023, The state of Texas takes over Houston ISD, the 8th largest district in the country, consisting of 200,000 students.
The announcement by Greg Abbott’s guy Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever. The Texas Education Agency will replace the superintendent and the district’s elected board of trustees with an appointed board of managers. Morath said the board has failed to improve student outcomes while conducting “chaotic board meetings marred by infighting” and violating open meeting and procurement laws. Other big cities, including Philadelphia, in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts, and are often met with community backlash.
It’s almost like if certain people wanted schools to not perform well so that they could close them and then pass the buildings off to education management companies to be turned into charter schools, or if they wanted to take over the whole district by replacing the board and superintendent with new people appointed by the state, all they would have to do is keep the district in chaos, keep the board members fighting, have board members act in ways that violate open meeting laws, and stop the trustees from questioning any spending thus violating fair purchasing laws. After a matter of time they would be able to say these are the only solutions, the last resorts.
August 2023- C4C releases a report about how superintendents are very mistreteated. Umm no. Their superintendents, because they are considering people fighting back to stop them from ruining their school district to be mistreatment. Article cites: Self-proclaimed “student outcomes evangelist” A.J. Crabill also offered advice on how to build stronger, more positive relationships with school boards.
Superintendents should also encourage their board to adopt an approach to governing that is more focused on student outcomes, he said. Crabill believes at least 50% of superintendent evaluations should focus on student outcome goals.
“They are constantly being asked to pour out their cup into others, and there is really no one in the organization who is typically making it their business to pour into the superintendent’s cup,” he said. “…So whatever school boards can put in place to help the work of the superintendent be less challenging and less fraught, less subject to burnout, accrues to the benefit of the students they serve.”
Aww poor little superintendent puppets. They’re so burnt out… With their 1,500/day salaries, unlimited amount of paid days off, and their 20 over payed cabinet members who do all their work for them, and their wellness benefits and their peletons. Here let me play my tiny violin for all the sad superintendent puppets..
November 2023- Austin Texas starts Lonestar training. Their trainer is Ashley Paz who was trained as a SOFG coach by AJ. I met Ashley at Harvard but didn’t talk to her much because she was already good friends with Lola Brooks.
A 2023 article by Brant Bingamon explains: Austin is in a tough position, forced to adopt Lonestar governance and many believe the Texas Education Agency is setting up Austin to fail. The Lonestar model teaches that trustees should focus only on student outcomes, which means how students perform on assessments or tests. Those cannot be teacher-defined or district-defined measures- the approved assessments are standardized tests like starr and MAP. He explained that Ashley Paz recently conducted a 2-day training with austin’s board and superintendent, which is mandated by the state. The author says “similar sessions have been described as uncomfortable for people in Houston where over 200 underwent the training after TEA’s takeover.
The trainers asked participants to cite examples of how their behaviors made it more difficult for children to achieve success.
“I’m still traumatized by it” said Lindsay Pollock. “It felt like we were guinea pigs in some kind of grand experiment.”
During the training Ashley Paz coached her and 2 dozen others to admit how they failed students.
“They made us go around and tell how we let children down. And you’re in the room hearing everyone repeat this self-flagellating mantra. It was the weirdest thing and it was promoted as, “This is what we do with school boards all across Texas.”
And I thought “Oh my gosh, we’re in some big trouble if this is what’s happening everywhere in Texas.” Pollock suspects that TEA’s ultimate goal in Houston is to lay groundwork for the privatization of the district’s public schools.
January 2024- SOFG is put on the Clark County School Board’s agenda and it gets approved. AJ is hired to train the CCSD Trustees. He has a stipulation that it costs the taxpayers extra if the vote is not unanimous, and it wasn’t. 2 board members voted no and because of that, AJ pocketed an extra 20k, taking his earnings into the 6-figure mark. AJ Crabill has been working closely with the board since, including advising them on how to handle the Jara saga.
To sum it up: this guy goes district to district leaving school boards completely powerless through governance changes, so that a superintendent is free to make as many purchases and cause as much damage as they want. And if the members of the board change or a superintendent is hired who won’t support that agenda, coaches are at the ready to move to replace elected board members and superintendents with appointed ones.
I don’t know about you but the best phrase that best explains my feelings on all of that is: “Truly scary… frightening..”
We haven’t even touched based yet on the spending and the companies and the no-bid contracts. We’re going into that super soon and you’ll probably be overwhelmed. And when that happens and your brain is starting to shut itself down because it’s too much to process.
I need you to know that this goes so deep into the pandemic and the companies and contracts that were birthed in response to distance learning, and safety protocols and the absolute recklessness and heartlessness that came from these corporate assholes at the most vulnerable of times.
So this is your warning that if you have any faith that the current education system is operating with the best intentions for you or your children, you should just stop following the podcast now. Just unsubscribe and don’t ever come back.
It’s like when I realized that I should’ve just turned off my TV during the last episode of Season 4 of Dexter, right after he marries Rita. I should’ve been like, “You know what, This is enough for me. I’d like to stop right here.” Click. But I didn’t. I kept going. And once you’ve gone too far, there’s no going back.
So this is your “Dexter marries Rita” moment. Proceed at your own risk of taking major damage to your idealism.
An upcoming episode will be an investigatory episode where we’ll dive deeper into the individuals and organizations mentioned so far and begin to connect the dots.
If you’re gonna keep following along as an unraveler, I suggest having a little notebook like Steve from blues clues or a journal if you’re more Harriet the spy level. I prefer loose notes and files and a visual representation which my daughter calls my “murder wall”, but you do you.
Here are some things you’ll want to have written in your notes to prepare for the upcoming investigation episode. In no particular order except when first mentioned:
From the Diary of a New Trustee episode: Carolyn Edwards, Jesus Jara (he changes the pronunciation all the time), Lola Brooks, MaryAnne Miller, Mike Casserly, Ray and Associates, Council of Great City Schools, and go ahead and throw Bill Gates in there, too
From the Brainwashing at Harvard episode: John Kim, William Hite, Pedro Martinez, Eli Broad, the Broad Foundation, the Broad Academy, PELP
From the Bought Board Member episode: Aj Crabill, Steve Canavaro, Reed Hoffman, Michelle Yee, Sheryl Sandberg, Brian Sandoval, Debb Oliver, the Guinn Center
From the Houston episode: Chiefs for Change, Lonestar Governance, Silverstate Governance, Student outcomes focused Governance, Mark Newburn, Felicia Ortiz, Ashley Paz, Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath, Greg Abbott, and Jeb Bush
Yeah, you’re gonna wanna get that tin foil hat ready…
Friends, this podcast is truly a labor of love and takes a lot to produce. Every donation helps!
Thank you to everyone who has contributed and if you’d like to support the show visit UnravelingEducation.com/sponsor
Please take a second to share this episode with your education-curious friends and subscribe so you don’t miss the next one! See you later, alligator. Unraveler, traveler!