Melissa Steele King has excellent credentials. She is a graduate of elite Williams College in Massachusetts; she has a master’s degree in elementary education from Columbia Teachers College; and a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Now she is an associate partner at the reformy Bellwether Education Partners.
She is also the wife of Acting Secretary of Education John King.
Bellwether, co-founded by Andrew Rotherham, is a leading force in the corporate reform movement. Rotherham has been a columnist for TIME. Currently he is on the board of Campbell Brown’s THE 74.
Among its clients:
TN Achievement School District, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, NewSchools Venture Fund, Rhode Island Department of Education, Stranahan Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Stand for Children, CEE-Trust, Goodwill Education Initiatives, Harmony Public Schools (Gulen charter schools), TNTP, Rocketship Education (charter chain), KIPP, IDEA charter schools, The Mind Trust, Chiefs for Change, TeachPlus, and the Black Alliance for Education Options.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
This would be like the Postmaster General’s wife serving on the board of Federal Express, where Federal Express and other private mail delivery services are aggressively trying to take business away from the U..S Postal service, and eventually run the U.S. Post Office out of business.
In this case it’s worse. To extend the analogy, the new Postmaster General had spent the last decade telling people how horrible the U.S. Post Office is, and how there needs to be more private Post Offices opening to steal business away from the U.S. Post Office. Pursuant to that end, he spent the last decade blathering away, telling people to stop using the U.S. Post Office, and used Federal Express and private delivery services instead.
It’s pretty insane.
That’s pretty much what you had in New York City when Joel Klein was in charge of the public schools. He was going in the media, and also telling the parents via Dept. of Ed. letters, “Hey, the public schools that I’m in charge of all suck. Send your kids to charters instead.” He’d even attend Eva’s grotesque lotteries, saying stuff like, “Isn’t it great to see all these parent voting with their feet?” … and away from the schools that I’m supposed to be in charge of fixing and preserving.
Just in case you may be interested in joining together in one unified voice, here’s a petition you can sign:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/102/056/568/stop-john-kings-appointment-to-secretary-of-education/
Yes, it’s one small act. But that’s how all change begins…
Done
Would this be nepotism or just something shady?
What school(s) are their children attending in DC?
“Dr. King lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife and two children, who attend local public schools. ”
http://www2.ed.gov/news/staff/bios/king.html?src=hp
Public public with CCS, SBAC, PARCC, data mining, tracking, ranking, shaming or Montessori “public” with all the protection and luxuries?
How is it not a massive conflict of interest for the Secretary of Education’s wife to be an associate partner for a leading corporate reform organization—a group that represents The New Teacher Project, the New School Venture Fund, KIPP, IDEA charter schools, Gulen Charter Schools, and Rocketship Carters, among many others.
This is like the Secretary of the Interior’s husband working for a big lumber or oil company, or the partner of the Secretary of Health and Human Services being employed by a tobacco company.
Talk about the fox being invited in to the chicken coop…
It’s only a conflict if you do not share the reform ideology. If you’re pro reform and pro-privatization, there’s no conflict.
They all agree and market-based ed reform is just better than everything else so there’s no conflict.
Did I mention that ed reform is “bipartisan”? That means both R’s and D’s share the exact same approach, which for some reason is promoted as a “plus” in DC instead of what is equally likely, which is complete and utter capture and all of them following a bad idea off a cliff.
And we remember the recent hearing of King’s people that Diane posted. Conflict abounds.
Here is the latest on how money and power corrupt DC and our entire system.
Who paid for Scalia’s fancy Texas vacation…with the many perks that are now reported online?
The Washington Post says it was a gift, a freebie, for the Highest Court judge in the land, Scalia of SCOTUS, by a billionaire who was protecting his investments and his own cases before SCOTUS by rendering this gift. This is a true conflict of interest for Scalia to accept this expensive vacation. What else did he accept from other wealthy patrons who had cases before SCOTUS? What has he taken from the billionaires pushing the Friedrichs case?
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From Daily Kos today…..
“As an invited guest, Scalia was not charged for his stay at the luxury resort. The Washington Post notes that Scalia’s stay at the resort brings up several important questions, especially in light of the fact that Poindexter recently had business with the Supreme Court.”
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What a great country we have that allows bribery at the highest levels !!!!!
sure seems like a conflict of interest!
“Rhode Island Department of Education”
Poor Rhode Island. I bet those public school parents have some exciting reforms in store for them, and state-wide and all at once! Before they know it they will be a test case in the ed reform lab and I bet they didn’t even know they volunteered!
This is one reason why I’m glad Obama at least decided to officially appoint him, instead of going the back-door “acting” route for the remainder of his term. Possibly, just maybe, this will come to light?
Why would it, though? There’s no real opposition or questioning of any of this in Congress. Democrats get some token amount for “pre k” or “community schools” and Republicans get some air time to pretend they oppose the Common Core and promote vouchers, and they all agree on the rest. They’re quibbling over details at this point, unless they’re putting lofty points on the board pro and anti “federalism”.
I share that fear, Chiara. But I’m hoping, maybe, that the R’s will simply try to score political points by taking down Obama’s guy just for sheer cussedness. I mean, they rant and rave about Obamacare, which was their policy to begin with. Maybe we can hope for something similar here?
Conflicts of interest are abundant inside of the beltway.
Consider EdCounsel. The senior Partner at EdCounsel is none other than Senator Richard Riley, the person most responsible for negotiations on ESSA. Moreover, only four days after the formal passage of ESSA, the managing partner of EdCounsel, Scott Palmer, said that the “most immediate next steps in ESSA include USED promulgating regulations and guidance with regard to key ESSA provisions – further defining (in law) what they mean, might mean, and may not.
These “finishing regulations” to ESSA must be in place within the next year, before prior to the end of the Obama Administration. “This creates significant opportunity to translate ESSA into action.” http://educationcounsel.com/essa-opportunities-risks/
EdCounsel expects to play a major role in framing those “finishing regulations” needed by USDE, along with the CCSSO, Achieve, and Chiefs for Change. All are pushing for “finishing regulations” that will favor “student agency,” personalized learning, performance-based learning, anytime/anywhere opportunities (not ever mentioned non-stop data gathering that goes with that).
This bill of goods will be framed as “permitting” states to “test new and innovative ways of meeting student needs, with support from their state education agencies.” http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/2/26/meet-the-funders-behind-the-innovation-lab-network.html
I wonder how Senator Alexander defines conflict of interest. This strategy was clearly in the works while Senator Alexander was wrangling ESSA through the Congressional hearings. I wonder how Senator Alexander defines conflict of interest.
– See more at: http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Digital_Resources/Innovation_in_Action_State_Pathways_for_Advancing_Student-Centered_Learning.html#sthash.3eBYPFoF.dpuf
Indeed Laura, conflicts of interest are de riguer in DC. Here is Obama’s appointment to head the FDA, a corporate shill for Big Pharma. He takes the place of the Monsanto VP who shilled for that devastating corporation as head of the FDA., Monsanto which has poisoned the world’s water tables with RoundUP, used Hillary as a lawyer and member of their Board. Dems are indeed as destructive as Repubs.
Ellen
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Cary Wedler
October 16, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) President Obama’s recent nominee to chair the Food and Drug Administration has drawn harsh criticism for his ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The disapproval grew more justified this week as it was revealed that until this year, nominee Dr. Robert Califf was a board member and consultant for a company whose sole purpose is to help pharmaceutical companies evade and manipulate FDA regulations. He currently serves as the FDA’s deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco and awaits Senate confirmation to become Deputy Commissioner of the agency.
Faculty Connection, LLC, where Califf served from 2006 to 2015, claims the company “brings together physicians and researchers from leading academic institutions with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device clients.”
As the Intercept reported, Faculty Connection, LLC “boasts that its team of ‘practicing university-based physicians and researchers’ provides ‘regulatory consulting,’ including expertise in FDA briefing reviews and other regulatory submissions to the agency.”
Further, an official corporate video notes the company has “served over 175 different pharma, biotech medical device firms,” claiming to help faculty — researchers, doctors, and academics — work side-by-side with the pharmaceutical industry.
For example, Dr. Mona Fiuzat’s, a consultant for Facult Connection, LLC, “participated in the preparation for Cardio-renal Advisory Committee presentations to the FDA on behalf of drug sponsors,” according to her biography on the company’s website.
Califf previously came under fire for helping to establish the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which is funded primarily by pharmaceutical companies. According to a 2014 “Conflict of Interest Disclosure,” Califf admitted his close connection to the industry. As TIME summarized, his income is “contractually underwritten in part by several large pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Novartis. He also receives as much as $100,000 a year in consulting fees from some of those companies, and from others.” The FDA insists Califf donates his private income to nonprofits.
Even so, Califf’s appointment is hardly surprising. Michael Taylor, the current Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA — also appointed by Barack Obama — used to be Monsanto’s vice president for public policy.
Collusion between corporations and the FDA is widely documented. This influence has presumably contributed to many questionable decisions, such as the FDA’s approval of oxycontin for children or the ongoing approval of countless dangerous drugs that are later recalled.
Califf, however, put a positive spin on his conflict of interest. Earlier this year — when he was a only a potential nominee — he told TIME he was a valuable candidate because it would be “useful to have someone [leading the FDA] who understands how companies operate because you’re interacting with them all the time.”
In spite of Califf’s rhetoric, sordid ties like his continually prove the depths of corruption and the state’s lack of concern for the people it is tasked with protecting. In the United States, 70% of Americans consume pharmaceutical pills — a figure that, perhaps, reveals the consequences of placing corporate puppet masters in charge.
Does that make John the bellwether?
“The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight.”
Isn’t there something about a Judas goat leading the lambs to slaughter?
All this in house appointments is not in the best interest of the majority!
Here’s an article on Barcroft Elementary in Arlington County Virginia.
http://tinyurl.com/jmhvteh
One of the Bellwether founder’s kids attend Barcroft. If you read up on the school at its website, you will find class size limited to 20 with two college educated adults in each classroom.
It is not like the Roxbury Prep school that Mr King was involved with.
Interesting what the Professional Education Reform Crowd get for their kids and what they give to others.
Barcroft is a Title I school. According to the link you provided many of the parents don’t speak English. The principal was fired for low test scores.
“Sixty-one percent of Barcroft’s 481 students are from low-income families. Fifty-two percent are Hispanic, 23 percent white, 10 percent black and 9 percent Asian.”
Hard to argue with those who think the Kings are part of system that many claim to be fighting against…to me, the only thing this guy has going for him are some influential friends. In no way has he ever earned any of his lofty positions. Tell Obama that this is what so many Americans are fed up with, and why so many will vote for Trump or Cruz. Even many of the teachers I work with are jumping ship and will vote Republican in this election. Incredibly disappointing…
John King became Deputy Commissioner of Education in New York and then State Commissioner because he and Merryl Tisch (the chair of the New York Board of Regents) were in the same cohort at Teachers College in a speeded-up doctoral program. Lucky John!
And here is who is running for BoE in Texas…who fits right in with all the crazed candidates. So you might have second thoughts about voting Repub., Station 17. I’ll send you Ted Cruz info too which supports her views.
And Mary Lou is a teacher. Whackos come in all shapes and sizes and genders and political believers.
Ellen
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“It’s Mary Lou! She believes Obama was a homosexual prostitute & she’s running for TX Board of Ed
By Walter Einenkel
Wednesday Feb 17, 2016 · 10:48 AM PST
REBLOGGED BY
Daily Kos Social
Mary Lou Bruner is a retired teacher who lives in northern Texas. She’s running for the State Board of Education in northeast Texas.
“We need concerned parents, grandparents, local businessmen and educators to guide our education system. We do not need paid lobbyists in elected offices who profit from inside information and use their influence to help their clients.”
Sounds like a pretty canned Republican/Tea Party style quote to run on. Here’s something from about a month or two before Bruner’s announcement that she would run for the state Board of Ed. It’s from her now secured up Facebook page.
Screen_Shot_2016-02-17_at_10.36.02_AM.png attribution: Screengrab/Facebook
Holy sxxxxxs that’s some crazy made-up type of stuff. She spoke with the San Antonio Current, and in true Yosemite Sam form, she had this to say:
“I’m not ashamed of anything that I have ever said,” Bruner said. “If I’m on the State Board of Education, I’m going to speak up for the things that I believe because I have a First Amendment right.”
That’s exactly the problem. You don’t know things and what you believe is made up of lies and fears and anger and probably something from a Cheesecake Factory. Here are some other things that Mary Lou believes:
Bruner, in fact, has written about the extinction of dinosaurs. “When the flood waters subsided and rushed into the oceans there was no vegetation on the earth because the earth had been covered with water. . . . The dinosaurs on [Noah’s ark] may have been babies and not able to reproduce. . . . After the flood, the few remaining Behemoths and Leviathans may have become extinct because there was not enough vegetation on earth for them to survive to reproductive age.”
Meanwhile, “Climate change has nothing to do with weather or climate, it’s all about system change from capitalism (free enterprise) to Socialism-Communism. The Climate Change HOAX was Karl Marx’s idea. It took time to ‘condition’ the people so they would believe such a HOAX!”
[bold is the sound BOING]
Needless to say she probably taught a variety of classes to a very high percentage of Republican Party officials.”
But why Trump or Cruz? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! Why not Bernie? And if he’s not available in the general, then Jill Stein.
Now you have a model of what type of Supreme Court nominee would be acceptable to the Republican Senate.
A minority who reliably carries out Republican policy can get a hearing and commitment for a vote from the Senate Committee Chairman, Can get a hearing scheduled within days of Obamas announcement to appoint, without a whimper to appearances of improper influence or without concern over internal mismanagement.
Let the voters decide!
Shady and disgusting to say the least.
It’s like playing the six degrees of separation reformer game. With all the partnerships and mutual hand washing, they all attend the same events featuring misinformation and hype, and they are definitely going to cross paths.
On more important matters.
Those who want the Republican candidate to win the White House should vote for Clinton in the primary
See latest Quinnipiac poll.
Imagine the smug teacher-bashing conversations they have over dinner every night. I wonder if either of them knows a public school teacher.
Oops –meant to put this at the bottom of the thread.
That moron actually spend probably over $150K at Columbia and Harvard to get a degree in education!? Wow…she is obviously one of the most astoundingly stupid humans on the face of the planet. An educator can be great with an education degree from a state school for 1/5th the price. What a dunce!
Those schools provide way more than diplomas – they provide connections. Had she attended SUNY Plattsburg or UMass she would not be married to the Secretary of Education nor would she be hired by Bellwether. I’m not defending her husband or her inexcusable rejection of the public schools for her own children, but her diplomas and career path does not reflect the achievements of a moron.
I called several departments at Teachers College, asking about their faculty senate. The term was literally foreign to the people I spoke with. I’ve never seen a respected independent college, without a webpage for faculty governance.
The Teachers College President was the subject of George Joseph’s 2013 article, “Students Ask President to Cut Ties with Pearson.” The President founded the Gates, Pearson, Goldman Sachs…-funded Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
“When I thought about different jobs in education, I just assumed it would be teaching by default”. The guy who said that, reported he is a recent graduate of Teachers College. He continued his explanation (for publication by a Gates-funded organization),
” (I) didn’t have the ideal skillset to be a successful classroom teacher”.
IMO, Columbia Teachers College, from the reimaging of its purpose, to its current incarnation, with its graduates like John King and his wife, is far from exemplary.
Has she ever taught actual children?
Linda,
If you read Diane’s history of American education, “Left Back”, you’ll see that Teachers College has a century-long record of giving its prestigious imprimatur to dubious ideas that spread like viruses through American schools. It is seen as THE authority, but, to me it seldom seems to merit that respect.
Thanks Ponderosa.
I’ve drawn a conclusion about the University of Pennsylvania, based on its membership in CPRE and, its webpage.
Please help me act surprised.
If anyone is so naive as to think there is a patch of purity left in education, well, don’t look to me to ruin your virginal view of a sad reality..
This sort of incest has been a companion of this reform since Day One. If it’s not unqualified Bill Gates allowing his extra-unqualified wife to involve herself in this reform and even help set educational policy, it’s a grinning Randi Weingarten singing the praises of Teach for America, or education giant Pearson jetting NY state education officials to London, Helsinki, Finland, Singapore, and Rio de Janeiro.
It has invaded the political world where educational vagabonds like former NY Education Commissioner John King and current Commissioner Carly Fiorina, and Rhode Island’s education bigwig, Ken Wagner, are routinely recycled among various governmental agencies like pricey free agents.
The incest seeps into business deals of all sorts …. for school technology, textbooks, curriculum designs, and testing instruments. Many states should share a new motto of “Quid Pro Quo” because so many of them have been wormed by businesses of all sorts who vie for their piece of the reform pie.
The rise of John King’s wife isn’t much of a surprise at all. The new Know-It-All class is fond of making room for colleagues that will cement their control and spin more of a strong web of control.
Big, Banks, Big Pharma, and Big Oil have had their day … their moment to slurp out vast amounts of money and enjoy overwhelming influence in this country. Today … Big Education is the new Wild West of exorbitant profits and influence peddling.
Hold on to your horse … it’s gonna be one helluva ride.
Denis Ian
Your description, Denis, presents America as the oligarchy, it has become.
The memo never reached msm.
I’m glad Bernie is talking about it.
Did Michelle King coin the term, “human capital pipeline”, for Bellwether?
I’m struggling to understand the COI issue. I am familiar with COI bc I have been on a congressionally mandated committee and had to go thru annual trainings and turn over every last detail of my professional life and that of my immediate family in order to be on the committee. And 2 points to consider:
1. A woman, one with an EdD from Harvard, should not have to give up or sacrifice her career for her husband.
2. I looked at the list of Bellwether’s funders and they are among a minority of education firms in town that do not receive direct funding of the US Dept of Ed.
I am scratching my head over this post.
COI: the issue is not the funders. don’t many of the clients of Bellwether receive federal funding? Ever hear of the smell test?
The Gates Foundation webpage shows almost $2,000,000 to Bellwether Education Partners in 2013.
Aren’t the U.S. Dept. of Education and Gates, one and the same?
Harvard and Columbia are two of the 7 members of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education. CPRE is funded by Gates, Pearson, Goldman Sachs, etc.. Columbia Teachers College President, Fuhrman, who founded CPRE, was the subject of a 2013, “In These Times” article, by George Joseph, titled, “Students Urge President to Cut Ties with Pearson” . The article has a quote from Fuhrman defending her paid position with Pearson. Her shares of Pearson stock were also mentioned in the article. Pearson and Microsoft announced a deal to develop products for Common Core in the summer of 2014.
The “reformers” are literally in bed together. Remember Connecticut’s Senator Murphy’s amendment to the “Every Child Achieves Act”? It would have continued or strengthened the test and punish climate of NCLB.
I happened to come across an article in the Hartford Courant which mentioned that Senator Murphy’s wife works for an educational advocacy group in Washington, D.C. Well, any time you read “educational advocacy”, you know it’s code for destruction of public schools.
A little Google search brought me to EducationCounsel, “a mission-based education consulting firm that combines experience in policy, strategy, law, and advocacy to drive significant improvements in the U.S. education system.”
Now, I don’t know much about this organization, but I have my doubts about it and Senator Murphy’s ability to advocate for public schools.
Lehrer,
Sadly, both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders voted for the Murohy Amendment to ESSA. That would have preserved the federal punishments for not making AYP.
I know. I really want to “feel the Bern” and I do think public education has its best shot with Sanders, but I wish someone could educate him on how these accountability measures do not strengthen schools, but rather destroy them.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/say-no-to-john-king-as-us-secretary-of-education?source=direct_link&referrer=badass-teachers-association
#NoKing4SecEd
President Obama is a great orator, sounds good on any stage, but in his heart of hearts I believe he’s a New Dem, a Third Way Dem, who is completely against real public school reform and just keeps putting in the advocacy clones for charter schools (meaning profit for those at the top) and curriculum designed by them without accountability to anyone except themselves. We know what Gates/Pearson/Broad/Bloomberg/Koch, etal are about. They’re about the downfall of an excellent public education for all our children. They’re all about the profit motive by Washington Beltway insiders. While kids in public schools that have accepted the idiotic Common Core are held accountable and are taught to the test most of the day, those in the charter schools are accountable to no one while they receive tax money we supposedly don’t have.
Reblogged this on patthaleblog and commented:
The corporate, neo-reformers have the best seat at the education table. Every night with Sec. King.