Earlier, I published a post about Students for Education Reform, linking to a post by EduShyster.
SFER is a junior version of Democrats for Education Reform, the group formed by Wall Street hedge fund managers to promote privatization and high-stakes testing.
EduShyster here says that the credit for investigative reporting goes to Stephanie Rivera, a student at Rutgers, who plans to be a teacher and often engages in dialogue with her peers at SFER and TFA. Her website is called Teacher Under Construction.
EduShyster writes:
Actually all of the credit for “digging” goes to Stephanie Rivera, a student at Rutgers. She posts regular updates about SFER on her blog, Teacher Under Construction, and has done an amazing job of reaching out to SFER members and getting them to talk openly about things that don’t seem quite right about a student group.
SFER has been under the radar so far but that’s only because they haven’t done much.
That will soon change though. Students from SFER’s chapter at Whitworth University in Washington state, a private, virtually all white school, lobbied ardently for the state’s new charter law, including going door to door. I suspect that here in Massachusetts, where the charter lobby will file a bill in the coming months to eliminate the cap on charters in our poorest cities, it will be students from Smith and Harvard who provide the ground troops…
I can’t help but admire the evil genius that came up with this concept. Students across the country, who are utterly sincere in their passion and zeal, are being lined up behind the privatizers’ policy agenda. Ask questions and you’re accused of “attacking students.” Yet the students who make up the bulk of SFER’s membership don’t seem to know anything about their national organization’s funders, its positions or of the implications of those positions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And if they are in these fine colleges, I bet they had a great high school experience. Teachers need to contact their former students and inform them of the facts.
Hi Carol,
Myself and many other students are working very hard to do this. If you have time, I highly suggest you read one of my recent blog posts where I share what a certain SFER member shared with me. This member is sensing that corporate donors are starting to have a bigger role:
http://teacherunderconstruction.com/2012/11/05/an-sfer-chapter-that-gives-me-hope/
SFER should be exposed to the public, and not least–to its own members. They need to know that they are being exploited. How can the truth about who is behind this organization be disseminated?
One of the most disturbing elements about the gross errors at best, and insidious ends at worst, of the educational “reform” movement is the lack of awareness about these matters among the general public. They are not mentioned in mainstream news outlets.
Presumably the President of the United States, his Secretary of Education, and our government representatives are deluded (at best) about what is going on, despite the barrage of letters from distraught educators. They have all jumped on the bogus bandwagon, and are racing to somewhere that certainly is not going to be the top.
Re: “Our advocacy work and chapter activities are guided by our student-written statement of principles …”
Anyone want to run some plagiarism software on those student-written SOPs?
Thank you again, Diane! A few other students\future teachers and myself are working on something very large to help students interested in promoting better education for all have something to work with other than SFER. I will keep you and everyone posted when everything is finalized.
I think you’re being a bit too generous to SFER members. As Harvard, etc. students, they are by and large the sons and daughters of the 1% – the very people who are pushing edukation rheeform in the first place. Just like Obama, I’ll bet they know exactly what they’re doing.
I think people need to review the Rise and Fail of the TEA Party if they want a clue where SFER is heading.
As a Smith alumna, I’m wondering whether you have information about SFER activity on the Smith campus, or whether that was coming from a general impression about the school.
Stephanie Rivera has been in touch with SFER members on different campuses.
Her blog is called Teacher Under Construction. You should ask her.
I would not be surprised to find SFER on every Ivy League campus. Students are idealistic, and it’s easy to be hoodwinked when you are young. Who could be against “education reform?”