Alliance for What?
An organization called Alliance for Quality Public Schools was formed in Colorado Springs after the 2003 elections. Two of the founders of this left-wing organization were Delia Busby and Elizabeth Palmer. The Alliance was formed to protect the public against itself, as the public voted for 4 candidates who promised to bring reform to D11. This had never happened before in this district, so the founders felt that there must have been a terrible mistake.
Busby was a former D11 Board member. Out of 11 candidates in 2003, Busby came in dead last. This incumbent was only able to muster just over 5,000 votes (compared to 18,000+ for the winner). D11 Board minutes during Busby's 4 years on the Board show that she missed votes on a regular basis. She was also known for reading the newspaper and sleeping during Board meetings. Prior to her Board service, Busby was a principal at Mitchell High School. Busby was fired from her job and subsequently sued D11. She was able to get D11 to give her a 6-figure settlement.
Palmer is the liberal activist who sent a threatening letter to the owners of the North End Diner because the owners were supporting pro-parent candidates in the 2005 elections. This letter can be found in an earlier post.
One of the goals of the Alliance is supposedly to keep public education dollars from going to private providers. Both Busby and Palmer are vehemently anti-parental choice when it comes to education. Other members of this group feel the same. Two of these "other" members happen to be Albert Gonzales and Jan Tanner, who are both vying for spots on the D11 Board through the recall process.
Apparently, the members of the Alliance are very selective in their objection to allowing public dollars to fund private businesses. Busby runs a company which she calls Adventures in Learning K-12 (AIL). The purpose of this company is supposed to be for tutoring and dropout services. On June 23rd, 2004, the D11 Board gave the administration permission to enter into contract negotiations with Busby's company. As of that date, D11 had never paid attention to its dropout problem. As a board member, Busby had never brought attention to the dropout problem. The motion by the Board was to enter into negotiations with Busby for a 1-year contract. Conditions would be applied to this contract to ensure that AIL was actually doing something productive with its public funds. Yes - public funds. Busby, who is opposed to public money going to private firms, was asking D11 for a contract for public funds. Remember, Busby had already made quite a healthy amount of money off of her lawsuit against her own district. The Board initially approved a funds transfer of $48,000 for this contract. The administration subsequently requested $70,000 for the contract, and this was approved. According to the contract terms, AIL was to provide quarterly updates to the district to verify performance. The Board never saw any of these updates.
At the end of the first contract year (2005) , I asked for the total payments to AIL from that preceding year. The administration provided me with those payment amounts, as well as an administrative review of AIL's performance. The amounts are below:
From: KEY, DEB
To: Craig Cox'
Cc: David Linebaugh (E-mail) ; Eric Christen (E-mail) ; Karen Teja (E-mail) ; Mary Wierman (E-mail) ; Sandra Shakes (E-mail) ; Sandy Shakes (E-mail) ; Willie Breazell (E-mail) ; THOMAS, SHARON A. ; THURMAN, MARY E. ; BISHOP, TERRY ; GUSTAFSON, GLENN ; GIDDENS, GWENDOLYN B. ; CAPPS, MARK T ; STRUCK, CHARLES
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:20 AM
Subject: RE: Delia Busby - info
Director Cox,
Below is the information you had requested.
REQUEST: Could I please get the financial information on how much Delia Busby and/or her organization (by whatever names she used for it) was paid by D11 from 1 July 2004 through 1 July 2005? Thanks.
RESPONSE
Name Scheduled to Pay Amount
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 8/16/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 8/31/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 10/11/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/4/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/10/2004 3,765.80
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/22/2004 3,416.52
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 12/8/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/5/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/5/2005 3,850.24
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/21/2005 3,371.12
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 2/4/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 2/24/2005 4,829.56
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 3/8/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 3/15/2005 5,005.41
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 4/4/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 4/25/2005 4,796.34
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 5/5/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 5/18/2005 6,081.25
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 6/16/2005 3,503.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 6/30/2005 4,800.00
Total: 91,419.24
Busby was paid $91,419.24 on what had begun as a $48,000 contract. Her company must have performed in an outstanding manner to receive this chunk of public money, correct? The following document is the final page of AIL's 04-05 contract.
Notice the box at the bottom of the page. The proposed budget was $48,000. The contract called for 100 enrollees K-12 MINIMUM. The Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Office(AERO) in D11 performed an analysis of AIL for the first contract year.
On page 1 of the report, part II, it states:
Approximately 100 students were served by the AIL program. 88 of these are documented in the office of instruction, 48 of them are documented in Zangle.
From this administration report, it appears that 88 equates to "almost 100" students. The true facts appear on page 2, section IV:
It should be noted that the students served by Adventures in Learning represent a highly mobile population. As a result only 48 students had both pre and post tests in order to look a a full year's growth.
The reality is that although the AIL contract called for 100 students minimum, AIL and the District could only account for 48 students. AIL was paid over $91K anyway. This to a woman who is fighting to keep public funds away from private companies. The conclusion that the AERO office arrived at, based on the academic evaluation, is found below:
The AERO office concluded that there was no statistical difference between those students who were tutored by AIL and those who were not. Yet Busby took over $91K anyway. In addition, Busby was issued an additional contract for the 05-06 school year with a contract amount of $77,000 from July 1st 2005 through December 31st 2005. She received a contract for over $140,000 for the entire year.
Like many other liberals, Busby does not appreciate having her actions exposed to the light of day. Since I dared to question AIL's performance during several Board meetings, Busby had her attorney send threats to me and the administration:
Stokes never clarified what "lies" were being told about her client or how it was being "derogatory" to question this expenditure of public funds. On the September 5th memo, Stokes complains that I claimed that Busby was paid $91,000 for tutoring services. The fact that her contract specifically calls for "tutoring services" apparently escaped Ms. Stokes.
The contract with AIL highlights the hypocrisy that the recall proponents and their status quo supporters epitomize. Their goal is to stop public funds from going to private businesses unless the private business is run by one of their own. The threats from Busby's attorney are also typical of this crowd. Busby's ex-board mate Karen Teja also filed a suit against her own district while she was a sitting board member. The goal is secrecy for their actions, which never tend to serve the public good.
As the Alliance for Quality Public Schools supports Jan Tanner and Albert Gonzales, one has to wonder what personal benefit the leaders of this group would gain by having these two idea-lacking people on the Board.
Busby was a former D11 Board member. Out of 11 candidates in 2003, Busby came in dead last. This incumbent was only able to muster just over 5,000 votes (compared to 18,000+ for the winner). D11 Board minutes during Busby's 4 years on the Board show that she missed votes on a regular basis. She was also known for reading the newspaper and sleeping during Board meetings. Prior to her Board service, Busby was a principal at Mitchell High School. Busby was fired from her job and subsequently sued D11. She was able to get D11 to give her a 6-figure settlement.
Palmer is the liberal activist who sent a threatening letter to the owners of the North End Diner because the owners were supporting pro-parent candidates in the 2005 elections. This letter can be found in an earlier post.
One of the goals of the Alliance is supposedly to keep public education dollars from going to private providers. Both Busby and Palmer are vehemently anti-parental choice when it comes to education. Other members of this group feel the same. Two of these "other" members happen to be Albert Gonzales and Jan Tanner, who are both vying for spots on the D11 Board through the recall process.
Apparently, the members of the Alliance are very selective in their objection to allowing public dollars to fund private businesses. Busby runs a company which she calls Adventures in Learning K-12 (AIL). The purpose of this company is supposed to be for tutoring and dropout services. On June 23rd, 2004, the D11 Board gave the administration permission to enter into contract negotiations with Busby's company. As of that date, D11 had never paid attention to its dropout problem. As a board member, Busby had never brought attention to the dropout problem. The motion by the Board was to enter into negotiations with Busby for a 1-year contract. Conditions would be applied to this contract to ensure that AIL was actually doing something productive with its public funds. Yes - public funds. Busby, who is opposed to public money going to private firms, was asking D11 for a contract for public funds. Remember, Busby had already made quite a healthy amount of money off of her lawsuit against her own district. The Board initially approved a funds transfer of $48,000 for this contract. The administration subsequently requested $70,000 for the contract, and this was approved. According to the contract terms, AIL was to provide quarterly updates to the district to verify performance. The Board never saw any of these updates.
At the end of the first contract year (2005) , I asked for the total payments to AIL from that preceding year. The administration provided me with those payment amounts, as well as an administrative review of AIL's performance. The amounts are below:
From: KEY, DEB
To: Craig Cox'
Cc: David Linebaugh (E-mail) ; Eric Christen (E-mail) ; Karen Teja (E-mail) ; Mary Wierman (E-mail) ; Sandra Shakes (E-mail) ; Sandy Shakes (E-mail) ; Willie Breazell (E-mail) ; THOMAS, SHARON A. ; THURMAN, MARY E. ; BISHOP, TERRY ; GUSTAFSON, GLENN ; GIDDENS, GWENDOLYN B. ; CAPPS, MARK T ; STRUCK, CHARLES
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:20 AM
Subject: RE: Delia Busby - info
Director Cox,
Below is the information you had requested.
REQUEST: Could I please get the financial information on how much Delia Busby and/or her organization (by whatever names she used for it) was paid by D11 from 1 July 2004 through 1 July 2005? Thanks.
RESPONSE
Name Scheduled to Pay Amount
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 8/16/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 8/31/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 10/11/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/4/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/10/2004 3,765.80
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 11/22/2004 3,416.52
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 12/8/2004 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/5/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/5/2005 3,850.24
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 1/21/2005 3,371.12
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 2/4/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 2/24/2005 4,829.56
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 3/8/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 3/15/2005 5,005.41
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 4/4/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 4/25/2005 4,796.34
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 5/5/2005 4,800.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 5/18/2005 6,081.25
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 6/16/2005 3,503.00
DELIA ARMSTRONG-BUSBY 6/30/2005 4,800.00
Total: 91,419.24
Busby was paid $91,419.24 on what had begun as a $48,000 contract. Her company must have performed in an outstanding manner to receive this chunk of public money, correct? The following document is the final page of AIL's 04-05 contract.
Notice the box at the bottom of the page. The proposed budget was $48,000. The contract called for 100 enrollees K-12 MINIMUM. The Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Office(AERO) in D11 performed an analysis of AIL for the first contract year.On page 1 of the report, part II, it states:
Approximately 100 students were served by the AIL program. 88 of these are documented in the office of instruction, 48 of them are documented in Zangle.
From this administration report, it appears that 88 equates to "almost 100" students. The true facts appear on page 2, section IV:
It should be noted that the students served by Adventures in Learning represent a highly mobile population. As a result only 48 students had both pre and post tests in order to look a a full year's growth.
The reality is that although the AIL contract called for 100 students minimum, AIL and the District could only account for 48 students. AIL was paid over $91K anyway. This to a woman who is fighting to keep public funds away from private companies. The conclusion that the AERO office arrived at, based on the academic evaluation, is found below:
The AERO office concluded that there was no statistical difference between those students who were tutored by AIL and those who were not. Yet Busby took over $91K anyway. In addition, Busby was issued an additional contract for the 05-06 school year with a contract amount of $77,000 from July 1st 2005 through December 31st 2005. She received a contract for over $140,000 for the entire year.Like many other liberals, Busby does not appreciate having her actions exposed to the light of day. Since I dared to question AIL's performance during several Board meetings, Busby had her attorney send threats to me and the administration:
Stokes never clarified what "lies" were being told about her client or how it was being "derogatory" to question this expenditure of public funds. On the September 5th memo, Stokes complains that I claimed that Busby was paid $91,000 for tutoring services. The fact that her contract specifically calls for "tutoring services" apparently escaped Ms. Stokes.
The contract with AIL highlights the hypocrisy that the recall proponents and their status quo supporters epitomize. Their goal is to stop public funds from going to private businesses unless the private business is run by one of their own. The threats from Busby's attorney are also typical of this crowd. Busby's ex-board mate Karen Teja also filed a suit against her own district while she was a sitting board member. The goal is secrecy for their actions, which never tend to serve the public good.
As the Alliance for Quality Public Schools supports Jan Tanner and Albert Gonzales, one has to wonder what personal benefit the leaders of this group would gain by having these two idea-lacking people on the Board.
posted by Craig Cox | 10:17 AM
8 Comments:
Clearly, Craig, you do not realize that the left's motto is "do as I say, not as I do."
I know - I'm trying to learn...
Delia is out to get what ever money she can to support her addictions to gambling. D-11 has been an enabler for her problem. She has a grant writer that helps with the paper work. Please get her out of the money drain.
Gonzales is running to protect his wife's high level job in D-11 which oversees "bad math". I don't know why the Gazette didn't include that very pertinent fact in their profile of Albert.
He's a pleasant man, but he's not the sharpest tool in the shed and he sure believes his wife is important to our children. I disagree - she isn't at board meetings, she doesn't speak coherently at the math town halls -she's proof that this train just keeps on rolling - cuz there's no accountability.
And he's tight with Delia - he'll defend that contract - even though there is little evidence that anything of positive worth is occuring, beyond paychecks being issued.
Enough of that junk. Get qualified math teachers instead.
Guess that is why Gudvangen didn't really plan to be "civil and respectful" once elected. He subscribes to that motto, quite obviously.
Her tutoring program is out of money for this fiscal year of 06-07. Schools are now handing out her Adventures in Learning program now that she is not excepting children. It is another dog race and the bets are on her check book and not the tutoring of the needy.
Dog,
Looks like some insider information.
So explain what is happening...pamphlets are being distributed by schools, but no tutoring is taking place?
I hope you still look at comments to old posts because I have a question. All levels of government and the country's economy are in a downward spiral right now. I am very interested if these tutoring services are still in effect and if they are costing us more money. I also find it hard to learn all the programs (direct & contracted) that D11 pays for & their effectiveness. Can you find this information for me and post it here? I'll check back because we have school board elections in Nov. Thank you.
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