Some very smart public school parents in Tennessee who calls themselves Momma Bears have figured out the game plan of the education industry.
Here is their plain and simple 10-step plan about how to cash in on the public school marketplace and get stinking rich.
These are the first three steps (read the post to learn about the other seven steps that will make you a millionaire):
Times are tough, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a buck in education right now. No qualifications or experience? No problem! In fact, it is actually works better if you have zero classroom experience (so you won’t have any compassion for the hardworking teachers and innocent students you’ll be profiting from).
You could pay $1,395 to attend a workshop (like this one) to learn how to get rich in the education industry, but Momma Bears already did the homework and figured it all out. And Momma Bears is all about sharing knowledge with other concerned folks. So, save your money and read about the easy 10-step program to getting rich with other people’s money through America’s public school system…
You could pay $1,395 to attend a workshop (like this one) to learn how to get rich in the education industry, but Momma Bears already did the homework and figured it all out. And Momma Bears is all about sharing knowledge with other concerned folks. So, save your money and read about the easy 10-step program to getting rich with other people’s money through America’s public school system…
10 steps to hitting the jackpot in education:
Step #1: Start a consulting business or organization. It doesn’t really matter if it is profit or non-profit. Non-profit organizations will seem more trustworthy and innocent to the public (but don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you won’t get a nice paycheck.)Step #2: Create a catchy name for your organization. Acronyms work especially well. Don’t forget a logo. You cannot go wrong with an apple logo, they are very much in style right now.
Step #3: Make a website with pretty pie charts and lots of catchy buzz-words like these:
- achievement gap
- data driven benchmarks
- human capital
- Common Core aligned
- education strategies
- global citizen
- rigorous, relevant, and robust
Keep reading, and you too will hit the jackpot.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The educational consulting industry is not new — look at ASCD’s web site and you can see how school personnel fall victim to the program or technique of the day. Each year school administrators pull a new one out of the catalogue and then present it at the opening institute day—learning communities became data driven schools became standards based schools became common core standards. Unfortunately staff development in too many districts consists solely of delivering boxes to classrooms and hoping for the best. I make the case in my book, Becoming A Strong Instructional Leader: Saying No to Business As Usual (Teachers College Press) for school leaders to develop a personal and then public instructional worldview that is a coherent response to the five fundamental questions of schooling: How do children learn? What knowledge if os most worth? How should knowledge be organized? How should we assess what students understand? and How should we teach? Formulating that worldview would provide the foundation for a coherent approach to staff development, curriculum development. teacher evaluation, and a process fo continually improving a school’s signature pedagogy. The problem, as I point out in the book, is that most administrators and their training programs do not focus on instruction, but budgets, boilers, and boosters (public relations), What we have in most schools are instructional managers who are good at passing out boxes, but not very good at establishing and implementing an instructional purpose.
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This kind of behavior is as old as the hills. It does not make it right, simply that it has been going on for a long time and is an indicator of how tough it is to manage a school system. This is especially true in large school systems that have become bureaucracies and where rules and their mindless application have replaced critical thinking, personal accountability and personal oversight, viz., iPads and LAUSD..
Today this story showed up in my local newspaper:
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/12/after_school_rewards
Much of this is small change, but it is the pervasiveness that is troubling as it is indicative of a culture or mind-set. In my company, I tried to get people to ask themselves – if it was your own money would you be spending it this way. I saw a lot of red faces. It was a constant battle.
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Thanks for the link, Bernie. None of it is small change to me.
State law only requires a bid on purchases over $25G? That seems way to high to me. When I worked purchasing pharmaceuticals for the Mizzou hospital anything over $500 had to be bid. I’m not sure if that has changed, but I doubt it’s anywhere near $25G.
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Recently I read an article in our local paper that our elementary school district was going to petition the county to raise taxes 3.6%. I am a fervent supporter of public education but quite frankly, I’m tapped out right now and can’t afford my home as a result. Our property taxes pay for public education in my state. I’m not sure what the answer is. Certainly I’m not giving up my support for public education. Though I must say this situation whereby non-profit and/or profit organizations are taking advantage of tax dollars really makes me angry considering I’m doing my level best as a citizen to help keep the schools open and effective.
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Wow!
This should go viral.
These “mama bears” nailed it!
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I love the apple graphic. Recently, I attended a high school fair in NYC. While we were waiting to enter, someone was passing out postcards for a consultant who promised to help your child get into the high school of his/her choice. I’m sure a fee was involved. For how to get into public school. Because for some reason you need to pay someone to help you with this. So if you can’t afford this you must be out of luck I guess.
As soon as I saw what was on the postcard I handed it back to him. I also learned about a public school parent who was starting a consulting business for the same thing. She wanted me to share my experiences with her when my son was applying for middle school so she could charge other public school parents for this information. I declined. I told her that if parents held a meeting to talk and share information, I would be happy to talk with them for no charge.
Parents need to work together to share information and not put things behind a paywall, exacerbating the difference between the Haves and Have Nots.
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Wonderful, Momma Bears! Keep it up!
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Correct on all counts!
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Go, Momma Bears, GO!
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