Politicians talk a lot about democracy, especially while referring to threats from other countries. What about the destruction of what should be the most democratic institution in this country—America’s public schools?
Many Americans of both parties seem unworried about handing public education over to the wealthy who want to privatize those schools and use them for what they want.
Some of the same individuals will argue public schools have failed, that teachers kept schools closed during Covid-19, and about Critical Race Theory (CRT), and Common Core (CC), but they seem not to notice who is defunding their schools, who wrote CC, what’s behind CRT. They don’t seem to notice how public schools are being transformed into schools that will no longer be free or theirs.
I wrote a book published in 2016 called Losing America’s Schools: The Fight to Reclaim Public Education. I’m sorry to sound negative this 4th of July; I fear this fight is a losing battle.
To illustrate, start with FutureEd, a think tank out of Georgetown University. Think about the title.
Their funders include:
- Barr Foundation
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Carnegie Corporation of New York
- The City Fund
- Joyce Foundation
- Overdeck Family Foundation
- Shah Family Foundation
- Walton Family Foundation
They recently produced Future Ed and The Churn: The Latest Moves in Education, highlighting a long list of people making job changes. Except for a few educators and public education supporters, most are working to privatize public education, and they have degrees in other areas.
Most of these folks have never worked very long, if ever with students or studied child development.
Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)
Martin West, Harvard Business School graduate and Harvard Bloomberg Chair of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is the new Dean of that school. West has held powerful positions creating education policy that isn’t favorable to public education.
He’s Editor-in-Chief of Education Next.
Sourcewatch describes EdNext as a propaganda outlet for school reform, favoring charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay, and they’re connected to the Koret Task Force and the Hoover Institute.
Ed Next isn’t keen on unions or equalized funding for public schools.
Many educators have watched the HGSE for years with raised eyebrows.
Achievement First
Richard Buery, CEO of Achievement First charter schools, promising that every child will read by the end of kindergarten (what’s concerning about that), will head the Robin Hood Foundation. He has a degree in African-American Studies and a J.D.
Achievement First is one of many no-excuses charter chains with harsh discipline.
In 2019, Sam Bell visited an Achievement School in Rhode Island.
He states:
In the classrooms, it was constant discipline. The teachers spewed a stream of punishments, and I often couldn’t even see what the students were doing wrong. The students kept losing points or getting yelled at for things like not looking attentive enough. I can’t imagine what it would be like as a child to be berated constantly, to be forced to never even think of challenging authority. It was, of course, overwhelmingly white teachers berating students of color. (The walls, of course, were plastered with slogans of racial justice.)
Robin Hood highlights data-driven solutions and promotes Achievement First charters. Here’s the board and the many who support them.
Buery originally comes from KIPP. KIPP is also considered a harsh charter school chain.
The Education Trust
Tiffany Taber moves from being a senior advisor at The Education Trust to managing writer at the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Communications and Outreach. She sets the priorities in Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s speeches.
The Education Trust, led by the former education secretary under President Obama, John B. King, Jr., is also favored by the Biden administration and figured prominently in the decision to go ahead with high-stakes standardized testing last spring.
Here’s the letter stating the testing protocol devised by the assistant secretary of education, Ian Rosenblum from EdTrust, New York. He has a master’s degree in government administration and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies.
Tiffany Jones, senior director of higher education policy at The Education Trust, is joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as deputy director of measurement, learning, and evaluation.
Terra Wallin from Teach for America, a degree in business, and chief of staff for academics at Denver Public Schools, is now associate director for accountability and special projects at The Education Trust.
Edwatch says this.
The Education Trust pushes the agenda of corporate reformers. It favors corporate charter schools, minimally trained teachers, and accountability through high-stakes testing.
The donors are too long to list. See the link.
Center for Reinventing Public Education
Bethany Gross from the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), with degrees in economics and educational policy studies, moves to WGU Labs (Western Governor School, a nonprofit online school) to study education innovation. Note that WGU refers to education as companies.
At CRPE, she focused on personalized learning (tech), public school choice and out-of-school learning, and district transformation and is an expert on systemic strategies to help families access educational opportunities, including unified enrollment and information systems.
Unified enrollment is used to facilitate school choice (Ravitch & Bailey, 15-16).
EdWatch calls CRPE creepy, operating like ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council).
In These Times reported in Meet the Latest Secret Free-Market Group That Wants to Take Over Your Public School, CRPE has been an invisible player in the free-market education reform movement.
Donors include:
- Walton Family Foundation
- U.S. Department of Education
- Nellie Mae Education
- National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
- Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
- Arnold Family Foundation
- Joyce Foundation
- Fund for Educational Excellence (Jeb Bush)
- Carnegie Corporation of New York
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
A-Street Ventures and the Walton Family Foundation
Marc Sternberg from Teach for America has a business degree and MBA and education degree from the HGSE. He was senior deputy chancellor at the New York City Department of Education. He recently worked with the Walton Family Foundation’s Systemic K-12 Education Reform Focus Area claiming to improve K-12 education and empower parents with options (choice).
In 2009 the Obama administration gave him a year-long post with the U.S. Department of Education.
Now he’s starting A-Street Ventures with $200 million from the Waltons for K12 innovations.
They want to lift the teaching profession with the human-centered work of facilitating learning. Facilitators are not qualified teachers but assistants who’ll help students with their online work.
They talk about leveraging digital-forward tools to accelerate learning and platforms that can transform at long last the Industrial Age classroom and into the modern learning hub.
Education Week’s Market Brief congratulates Sternberg, noting that $16 billion has been poured into technology in schools.
They frame the discussion around new paradigms for student assessment, transforming high-stakes standardized testing to online curriculum embedded and digital-first assessment.
This is a sample. See the list for more connections.
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On this celebration of Independence Day, think about public schools and America’s loss. Vow to examine the problems facing school districts.
Talk to teachers, understand the problems they face in their schools, work with the PTA, and volunteer to help in your local schools. Get involved and ask the right questions, not condemning but seeking fair and just solutions for all students.
Look for ways to save the democratic public institutions we all own.
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Stay safe and well this 4th of July and this summer! Get vaccinated so our youngest learners will be able to return to their classrooms this fall safely.
References
Ravitch, D. & Bailey, N.E. EdSpeak and Doubletalk: A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling. (2020). New York, New York: Teachers College Press.
Bradley, B. (2021). Walton Foundation Executive Leaves to Launch New K-12 Investment Fund. Edweek Market Brief. https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/walton-foundation-executive-leaves-launch-new-k-12-investment-fund/
There are many days when I share your pessimism about the future of our public schools. The problem lies within the financial sector, driven by Goldman Sachs, McKinsey Consulting, et al, Social Impact Bonds, and an array of unregulated forms of chicanery to transfer public wealth to 21st Century robber barons. Even when they showed us who they were (https://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12932/bankruptcy-huge-opportunity-privatize-schools-says-edbuild), we continued to allow them to control the narrative, hoodwinked by agenda-driven data intended to bring about the ruin of public school districts. That is why privatization goes forward even when majorities of voters reject it.
Our only hope if to defy their rallying cry of TINA – There Is No Alternative. This is a good day to re-commit to restoring the concept of a Public Sector, including a robust and inclusive network of public schools to educate the future citizens of our democracy. If you don’t like the idea of financing your child’s education, advocate against the use of dark money in school board elections. Keep an eye on your school district for unscrutinized outsourcing of core academic functions. Scream bloody murder when the state legislates to allow land grabs. Mostly, don’t let the corruption pass unnoticed.
Happy Independence Day!
Thank you, Laurie. Excellent points! You reminded me of this post by Mercedes Schneider.
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/studentsfirsts-rebecca-sibilia-and-her-charters-little-helper-edbuild/
I read this article on Rebecca Sibilia, and–as a 20-year teacher in Title One schools and parent of three–I am familiar with and concerned about privatization.
However, what really struck me was the mention of one charter school bringing a dental clinic into the community and another opening the school gym to the public after hours.. Why did the school district NOT open the gym LONG ago? Maybe readers have heard the same lame excuses I’ve heard over the years: “We can’t afford it”, “It’s too hard to find volunteers,” “They can go to the park”, “There are insurance issues”. etc etc ad nauseam.
With policies like this, schools have been opening the door to privatization for years! Here’s a quote from the business world: “If you meet your customers needs, they won’t have to go somewhere else.”
The Schneider post included so many red flags about Sibilia and her now-defunct organization but you focus on the examples of a few charter schools that have incorporated some features of “community school” into their operations. Community schools – with wraparound social services – are very popular with the public and they exist in both traditional public schools as well as charters. There may be funding for such ventures available through Social Impact Bonds, which nearly always provide outsized returns for the companies that invest in them.
That does not change the fact that privatizers are primarily interested in making a profit and public schools are dedicated to the education of a community’s children. Public school districts should focus on the academic mission, not try to compete with multi=billion dollar industries with massive marketing resources. The K12 Ed Reform sector is enormously profitable for hedge funds, private equity, and banks. That’s why it is so hard to shake.
The video that was embedded in a link in my original comment included Sibilia rapturously describing the real benefit of bankrupting a school district, i.e., no more worries about liabilities like teacher pensions, etc. As a 20-year teaching veteran, that might give you pause.
Another article describes more about her operation. You can download a pdf here: https://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/article/view/835/425 See especially the section entitled “Discursive Deception”.
If ECOT hadn’t gained power through the Republican Party, Ohio’s opportunity to aid communities would be much greater and, more students would have received quality educations..
Who do you work for, Mark?
Mark’s a hoot- as if ALEC and Walton heirs would be in favor of dental clinics in the schools serving the 1 out of 5 American children living in poverty. The goal of privatization is for-profit schools-in-a- box sold from Walmart’s shelves (20% ROI for Zuck and Gates) Maybe the state will give students a few bucks to buy the boxes but, not if the governor is GOP, unless plutocrats sweeten his/her pot.
Walton’s HQ is in Arkansas. Reviewing poverty rankings, where does the state of Arkansas languish? Who is one of the biggest promoters of school choice in Arkansas? Answer- UNC’s Walter Hussman who we’ve all read about in the story of Hannah-Jones.
I am always glad to know that you’ve written your thoughts down, published works, tried hard to explain reality. It is a difficult job to be the prophet, but evolution cannot happen without that effort.
Thanks, Ciedie.
Agree with ciedie.
Thanks to Nancy for her vigilance. If there was a Ms. Bailey in every community and if states had legislators who cared more about their constituents than their campaign funders, the distant billionaires wouldn’t have an audience..
Thank you, Linda.
And I would like to add that if we’ve learned one thing from teaching online for an entire school year, it is that learning via tech is the worst modality in elementary school.
After teaching just 16 days in person during summer school last month, we have been so much more productive—and happy to be able to interact again. So much better!
Thank you, Debra. I worry that parents are not aware of how much time their students might spend on devices in school. Perhaps they see it as different when the teacher is in the same room. I think I would check.
Co-opting the role of public education by charters and other choice options was made too easy when the K to 8 role was reduced to improving test scores in just two subjects, both of which were narrowed down to a handful of CC standards. Salvaging public education may be possible if we can move far, far, far beyond just math and ELA testing. Time and energy is not on our side.
I definitely agree! Students deserve so much more than language arts and math.
At least two state Catholic Conference directors publicly take credit for the school choice legislation in their states. The connection between the Conferences and the political machines in some state capitols is very strong, School choice rallies in some states are co-hosted by the Koch’s AFP and the state Conference.
“Ed reform” voices are welcomed at conservative religious media sites where they spread their message against public schools..
Many Catholics are strong advocates for vouchers. I’ve noticed that too. Thanks for sharing, Linda.
There are almost 50 state Catholic Conferences. They are the political arm of the bishops. In my research, I haven’t found one state Catholic Conference that doesn’t promote school choice. The Conferences publicly post what they do to achieve their goals and, the staff’s bio’s show how politically connected many of them are.
Bishop Hebda told his priests that they couldn’t vote in the 2020 Democratic primary. He quoted his state’s Catholic Conference as providing the legal advice backing his prohibition.
My thanks to Diane Ravitch!
https://dianeravitch.net/2021/07/05/nancy-bailey-can-we-save-our-democratic-public-schools/
Sadly, our nation has been on this course with disaster for quite awhile. The “progressive” (or semi-progressive) era & policies which came to our schools, and nation, in the early 20th Century resulted in a backlash from the right–from corporate interests–people to whom money is every thing. And the cultural Right, which fears the future and abhors reality. We were told by Robert McNamara, “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” Wrong! (Love, art, music, for e.g. are not really measurable, but they’re fairly important). Rickover, of nuclear submarine fame, told us our schools were “failing’ in the fifties. Etc. “Nation at Risk,” and Clinton’s collaborating with Bush I on educational “goals” set us in this disastrous direction, from which we need to turn back. But this is a huge ship, and won’t easily–dare I say likely–be turned around.
I suggest that the only thing that can rescue our nation from the capitalistic death squeeze of our schools is the thing that made them progressive in the first place–activism, including teacher strikes, boycotts, etc. That’s how we created the Progressive Era and functional teachers’ unions in the ’60’s-’80’s. That’s how we desegregated staff and students. It’s how we secured rights for women teachers and girls. Lawsuits might help and should be pursued, but the Supreme Ct. is not likely to be on our side, in most cases. God bless you all for trying. I’d love to see this turn around in my lifetime, but I’m 84, so I’m not expecting that.
Interesting points. Thanks, Jack. The Red for Ed Movement gained traction even in right-to-work states before Covid. It will be interesting to see if teachers have the energy to come back to the fight.
Martin West is a member of the MA Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. There are three other board members with Walton connections as well: Amanda Fernández, Latinos for Education; Paymon Rouhnifard, Propel America; and Secretary of Ed, Jim Peyser, a venture capitalist who has been on the board for Achievement First and is a writer at EdNext. Peyser was also executive director at The Pioneer Institute, which is funded by the Waltons. The board is appointed by Governor Charlie Baker, whose donors are the Kochs and The Waltons.
HGSE has been destroying public education in Boston’s schools for a long time; our eyebrows have been raised so high they’ve shot off our faces. As to the Shah Foundation, they are owners of Wayfair Furniture, the online home goods store. Their fauxlanthropy has most definitely made an impact on our schools.
Isn’t is odd that Massachusetts retains an aura of progressivism and high standards in public education while these are the folks pulling the strings behind the scenes?
Yes, it is odd. Those connections are incredible.
I quit looking at Wayfair’s merchandise years ago. So many corporations are connected to school reform now that I’ve saved a lot of $. Ha. There’s a group around every corner.
I met some HGSE students years ago at a Save Our Schools meeting. They were nice, but I could not tell exactly where they were coming from.
I appreciate your voice, Christine. No one understands that area better than you. Thank you for your comment.