Tom Ultican, retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics in California, doesn’t like Amplify.
He doesn’t like its focus on profit and he doesn’t like its pedagogy.
He traces its provenance from Joel Klein to Rupert Murdoch to Laurene Powell Jobs.
it started with high promise and claims that it would transform American education but the business went south when its first big client complained of melting chargers and cracked screens.
Murdoch lost the faith and bailed out. Jobs bought it.
As he writes, she has a low opinion of classroom teachers.
He concludes:
The reason schools are buying these terrible education technology frauds is that professional educators are no longer making curricular decisions. All large modern businesses including schools require a significant digital infrastructure. This means that there must be an information technology group headed by an expert. That expert who loves technology and has no pedagogical expertise becomes the leading voice concerning the purchase of digital equipment. That explains in part why school districts in financial difficulty are still purchasing pricey education technology software and hardware. Board members believe they have no choice and that they are implementing professional advice.
Amplify Education, Inc. is another modern snake oil salesman. The only reason they did not disappear in 2003 is that the federal government and investors like Rupert Murdoch have poured billions of dollars into this company. It is past time for the fraudulent STEM ideology, education testing scam and the sale of low quality education technology products to be stopped. Taxpayers are being fleeced, schools are being bankrupted and children are being harmed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“All large modern businesses including schools require a significant digital infrastructure. This means that there must be an information technology group headed by an expert. That expert who loves technology and has no pedagogical expertise becomes the leading voice concerning the purchase of digital equipment. That explains in part why school districts in financial difficulty are still purchasing pricey education technology software and hardware.”
This is anecdotal but I’ve seen real pushback from individual teachers in my district, and despite the nonsense about “digital natives” it isn’t older teachers who are resisting the advertising and promotion. They’re young enough to have grown up with this. These teachers are much younger than the ed reformers who promote constant use of devices. My son now has 2 out of 5 “core classes” where the teacher collects devices at the door and returns them after the class. I was pleased to see they’re using their own judgment and questioning this.
I had a youngish, to me, man exclaim in surprise when I pulled out my paper calendar to write down a meeting date. I explained that I remember things better when I write them down. Keying them into a digital platform just doesn’t do it. A woman sitting next to me of similar age to the man agreed that she found recording on paper increased her ability to recall dates as well. It is too easy to type in and dismiss what has taken no effort to record.
“Joel Klein to Rupert Murdoch to Laurene Powell Jobs”
I just love how the people who actually make money off selling this stuff to schools were immediately designated “the experts” without any questions at all 🙂
I mean, seriously- it’s like putting agribusiness in charge of school lunches. It’s NUTS. There’s nothing wrong with selling products but you don’t put the salespeople in charge of BUYING. We’re all shocked their advice was “buy more of this stuff”? It’s what they do for a living.
My favorite is Facebook. Put the world’s leading disinformation company in charge of education. Sure, okay.
The oligarchs also launch a disinformation campaign on social media and elsewhere to attempt to justify the purchase of their products. If you look up the “science of reading,” you will find several new articles promoting stand alone “systematic phonics” instruction. This is exactly what Amplify does. What will not be mentioned is that there is an entire body of legitimate research showing that students can learn to read using different approaches to reading. Students definitely need to use the sound system in order to read efficiently and effectively, but there is more than one way to accomplish this objective which I know from experience. We have to know when we are reading propaganda by spin doctors and marketeers designed to sell products instead of scholars.
Gates-funded SETDA (State Education Technology Directors Association) is public employees sponsoring pitch fests for digital products and promoting public-private partnerships. The association forms partnerships with “gold, silver, strategic and event” private partners. SETDA offers sessions for product sellers in how to scale-up products. A former SETDA director said the group lobbies government.
Every state has representatives from ed departments who are SETDA.
School districts continue to buy awful programs because educators are no longer in charge of buying curricular materials. The influence of big money in education has worked to distance teachers from the very task in which they are trained to do.
I wondered why there has been renewed interest in the “science of reading,” AKA, phonics. I also was confused why balanced literacy which now bears the name comprehensive literacy, a method I had used very successfully with students, was criticized by conservative think tanks. Real reading, writing and thinking had not only taught my students to read, it taught them to enjoy and appreciate reading. Then, I read one of Nancy Bailey’s recent posts, and the attacks all started to make sense. As i expected, it has everything to do with money. The title of Bailey’s post explains, “The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen.” The real motive of the non-peer reviewed research is to further undermine effective instruction and replace it with a computer that will make lots of money for the “right” people. Many of the those behind the bashing are those like Amplify that seek to impose more top down purchasing of unvetted cyber materials that replace human instruction. https://nancyebailey.com/2020/02/05/the-science-of-reading-plot-to-replace-reading-teachers-with-phonics-on-a-screen/
Page 241 of Slaying Goliath describes corporate news media’s promotion of Amplify (TIME magazine).- free press and corporate owned is an oxymoron.
Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education.
Only contract I could find for Amplify:
“15-2213 15-1797 Agreement or Contract Passed 10/26/2015 11/4/2015 Approval by the Board of Education of a Memorandum of Understanding Between the District and Amplify Education, Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y., for the latter to successfully transition District middle school (grades 6-8) ELA classrooms to a fully digital/blended model through the collaborative efforts of District and Amplify and provide a framework for District to move towards digital and blended classrooms for other subject areas, such as math and science, to elementary schools, as fully delineated in the Scope of Work, incorporated herein by reference as though fully set forth, for the term September 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016 at a cost not to exceed $310,585.00, with half of the cost being credited back to the District for a total cost to the District not to exceed $155,292.00.”
Just imagine how many library books could be purchased with this money!
Yes, but what can you do with library books? (Other than read them?)
With technology, you can put on a multimedia show to impress the superintendent and politicians and even (if you are lucky,) the Secretary of Education who come visiting.
It’s all about the show, doncha know?
I agree Ultican. I hate most of the digital curricula I’ve seen. It’s bad education. I refuse to use it. But I have to confess that on days when the students are unruly, I am sometimes tempted to sit them in front of computers and let the machines do the teaching. I’ll bet I’m not alone in this. Thus weak discipline in schools (it’s getting weaker all the time here in CA) abets the proliferation of tech products. If we want humans to teach, we need to insure a humane teaching environment for teachers. That means ending the myth that kids are delicate angels and understanding that teachers, outnumbered 30:1, are the more vulnerable ones.
All the hyper-critical politicians and privatizers should walk a mile in most teachers’ shoes. They have no idea how much stamina and patience it takes! Large classes and top down policies continue to make it harder.
The web, with its pretty pictures and videos, can be used as a pacifier. So can a big bag of Jolly Ranchers candy. They both cause rot. But there is another way. I took my classes to the school library last week—still “closed” and without a librarian, but I got approval from admin to act as teacher/librarian for a bit. It was a new experience for the 7th and 8th graders. The students chose books about science, history, mathematicians, literature, art, dance, music… They took notes to plan multimedia research reports. They were enraptured. You could hear a pin drop. It was beautiful. No rot.
“SETDA private partnerships at the gold level…Amplify…”- 41/2 years ago