This letter came from an anonymous source in San Francisco whom I know to be trustworthy. Why the anonymity? The usual reason: fear of being fired for blowing the whistle. It raises the question of why some people teach under difficult circumstances when they could hang up a shingle with a snappy name and get funded for big ideas that have never been tried.
He writes:
Tom Vander Ark’s Ed Week column ran a guest commentary by Sandy Speicher, an executive of the San Francisco design firm IDEO, which appears to lay the groundwork for IDEO to become involved in education “reform” projects.
The column touts an IDEO project in San Francisco brainstorming the use of “design thinking” to improve the “school food experience” in San Francisco public schools, and strongly implies that IDEO’s ideas have been implemented. That’s false; none of the ideas has been implemented in any SFUSD school. This is an important point for observers to be aware of if IDEO continues to hype the project, given the fact that Speicher’s column made it appear that IDEO’s ideas had been implemented and had an impact.
IDEO’s work on the “design phase” of this project was funded by the Sara and Evan Williams Foundation; Evan Williams is a founder of Twitter. The foundation “has committed to providing ongoing support as the school district begins to bring these design ideas to life,” according to IDEO (though in reality, it remains to be seen if the school district will ever be able to use any of the ideas at all).
Here are some points about the IDEO school food proposals in San Francisco schools.
The project deliberately focuses on improving the “experience” but not the actual food.
Again, none of the recommendations — not one — has been implemented in any San Francisco school at any time. The Speicher commentary implies that they have, but that’s inaccurate.
None of the recommendations has even been tested in a real-life San Francisco school setting. Some have been tested on a very small scale, but not in a real-life setting. There was one test in a school cafeteria during the summer with student volunteers who were compensated for their time, not actual populations of students during the school day. There was ample time — no lunchtime rush — and there were plenty of adults, far more than are present in an operating cafeteria during a real school day. And there was no attention paid to the ironclad National School Lunch Program regulations for school meals.
The project actually makes a recommendation that’s likely to lower the quality of the food: increasing the use of government commodity products, which are widely criticized for their inferior quality.
The project’s recommendations for middle and high schools would result in eliminating the use of items from Revolution Foods, a vendor whose products have improved the quality of SFUSD school meals.
The recommendations were made largely without awareness or consideration of the National School Lunch Program regulations for school meals, meaning some or many would be impossible to implement.
The recommendation that has won most acclaim (communal meals at small tables with an adult at each) would require vastly more adults than currently staff SFUSD cafeterias — either depending heavily on volunteers or at greatly increased staffing cost.
The amount that the Williams Foundation has provided is not publicly known. Estimates are that $1 million has been paid to IDEO and $400,000 to SFUSD.
Despite the issues detailed above, SFUSD officials and school board members have given high praise to the IDEO project. Observers speculate that that’s in the hope of securing more funding from the Williams Foundation for school food programs.
For more background, here’s a San Francisco Chronicle feature written by an IDEO insider on the project:
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Giving-public-school-kids-a-seat-at-S-F-s-tables-4968466.php
Here’s a critique by San Francisco parent volunteer Dana Woldow, an expert and frequent commentator on school food issues:
Is IDEO’s Vision Harming San Francisco’s School Lunch Program?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This letter should be titled…..let no good deed go unpunished!
I did not read any claim or illusion to the program being implemented…why would you emphasize that it had?
Ideo is a world famous design firm and if you looked at their long list of products you probably have several in your home.
Why would you not want to see if they can help students eat heathier? Their services don’t take anything away from funding or teachers.
Stop criticizing everything that isn’t your idea
Which side of the bed did you get up from this morning, Gipper?
“where students would dine at small tables with adults supervising and guiding conversations about nutrition” fun,fun,fun
“Out to Lunch”
— by Some DAM Poet
Let them eat with grown ups
That should be “some fun”
Especially when the thrown-ups
Have grown ups on the run
larry,
You have risen to new heights. Thanks again;^)
At my school teachers eat at the tables with their classes. Some folks just get to have ALL the fun.
Another fabricated resume. For these guys, the ends justify the means.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2014/07/18/meet-the-latest-corporate-education-industry-charlatan/
New London deserve so much better…but then again, lots of palces do.
The same could be said about the leading charterites/privatizers—
They aim to improve the MSM-spun “experience” of education [for a handful of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN under controlled artificial conditions] but as for improving its quality for the vast majority…
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
😎
I don’t think the “baby should be thrown out with the bath water”. I do have a problem with millions of dollars to be given over to IDEO. But, I do know that IDEO is a FIRST RATE creative design organization with much proven success thanks to their “out of the box” thinking. I think the idea to have them trying to think up solutions to problems with school meals is a good one and whomever got them on board would have been thinking outside of the box if they had not added the millions of dollars in the process. Why would you not want to have innovators brainstorming. BUT, IDEO as a highly profitable firm should be willing to take on this work pro bono as a public interest project. Lawyers do… doctors do… and lord knows teachers do all the time… it has to do with something sorely lacking in these times.. the desire to use one’s skills to do good for humanity (without always thinking of personal profit). I have absolutely no issue with enabling IDEO to try to figure out the school food problem and would actually think they should speak to as many teachers, administrators, students and parents as possible. There is “ed reform” style “innovation” and then there is real possibility for innovation and the two should not be confused.
Incidentally, everyone is pushing STEM STEM STEM these days. IDEO is the Rolls Royce of STEM (and truly let us call it what it is.. STEAM – “A” being for arts)
Thank you for posting the voice of reason. And, it is possible Ideo is providing some pro bono services….we just don’t know.
You need to reread the article, it stated: “The column touts an IDEO project in San Francisco brainstorming the use of “design thinking” to improve the “school food experience” in San Francisco public schools, and strongly implies that IDEO’s ideas have been implemented. That’s false; none of the ideas has been implemented in any SFUSD school.” The author is objecting to false claims not IDEO per se.
The project appears to have been funded by the Sara and Even Williams foundation.
Did you read both articles? From the second article above, Dana Woldow’s critique:
“Unfortunately, the IDEO plan doesn’t ‘stop focusing’ on the food – it actually calls for reducing the quality of the food, by making full use of the low-cost government commodities that have traditionally given school lunch programs such a bad reputation.”
I guess there is money to be made in implementing their ideas; otherwise they would not want a proverbial “seat at the table” – pun intended.
I could care less what this foundations has to say, however, to imply that it is already implementing its ideas is misleading and one has to wonder….what is their point?
Their point is to make you think that this is a done deal, that opposition is futile. But if that were really true, they wouldn’t have to resort to this strategy, so don’t give up.