Googling (and then some) Burnley

My google searches last week for Michael Flanagan suggested to me someone who is a potentially interesting EMU presidential candidate. On the one hand, he has lots of administrative experience and he certainly has connections with state government; on the other hand, his experience is pretty K-12 centered, and he doesn’t hold a PhD. So we’ll see.

A bit of research on Ken Burnley suggests a more, um, problematic candidate.

More after the break, but the recent Detroit News article announcing the EMU candidates kind of sums up Burnley:

Among the most controversial of the finalists is Burnley, who led Michigan’s largest school district for five years beginning in 2000. After his departure, an independent report blamed Burnley and staff for Detroit schools’ financial crisis in 2006 that left the district a $200 million deficit. Burnley countered that the financial mess was due to student losses, higher benefit costs and less state aid.

Burnley was hired in Detroit when Freman Hendrix, now EMU’s chief government relations officer, chaired the Detroit school board.

And I assume the Hendrix connection is at least part of the reason why Burnley is in the mix.

Some of the information here was forwarded to me in an email from someone who may (or may not? let me know if not) want to remain anonymous, but all of it is stuff “out there” on that system of tubes we call the Internets.

• Burnley’s tenure as the superintendent of the Colorado Springs School District sounds like it went poorly. Here’s a May 25, 200 article on the Colorado Springs Independent web site that notes that Burnley faced a no confidence vote from the district’s teachers and scrutiny from various business groups, oversaw a district that ran heavily into the red, and that was unable to pass a mil levy under his leadership. Though, to be fair, here’s a link to an abstract to an article that Burnley published in 1997 claiming the school district was sound financially when he left.
• Burnley’s “solution” for raising money back in Colorado was to do some pretty questionable things such as selling advertising and making Coca-Cola as available to the district’s students as possible. See this link to a MS Word doc and to this very slow-loading and oddly formatted web site.
• “Keeping up with Ken Burnley” is an article (also from Colorado Springs) that speaks about some of the weird financial things that have gone on in the Detroit School District under Burnley. I don’t know if you can blame Burnley for this stuff specifically, but given that his “right-hand woman” was accused of financing at least part of a Vegas trip with a Detroit School District credit card, it does raise some questions about the choices he makes in co-workers/supporters.
• WDIV Detroit has a story about a fishy deal with a company called Aramark Educational Services that is accused of pocketing $1.6 million “by purchasing products for the Detroit Public Schools and keeping the leftover money.” It was on his watch that Detroit made the deal with Aramark. Interestingly enough, Burnley was named the 1993 National Superintendent of the Year, “a joint public/private sector award given by the American Association of School Administrators and the Service Master Corporation (Aramark).”
• Burnley was in charge when the Detroit District lost an arbitration case involving the Organization of School Administrators and Supervisors. I don’t completely understand all the details, but basically, Burnley’s (et al, of course) loss meant a lot of reinstated administrators and back pay.
• I can’t get access to the article (at least easily), but Crain’s Detroit Business ran an August 2005 article with the suggestive headline “Burnley failed the parents of Detroit.”

Now, I am sure there are good articles out there on Burnley too, and by all means, please pass them along so I can post them. But I have to say that when it is this easy to find less than flattering pieces on Burnley, I have to wonder how he ended up on as one of the final four candidates.