The new frontier for so-called reformers: monetizing public education. That is, making a profit from the classrooms, skimming off money that should go to children, to reducing class size, to the arts.
Reader Chiara describes the latest reformer plan:
“Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs, is the lead investor who funded the buyout of News Corp’s money losing digital education business Amplify earlier this year.
A representative for Powell Jobs’ organization, the Emerson Collective, confirmed the investment in Amplify but would not specify how much of the company Powell Jobs would own or the amount paid for it.
The company’s top management, including its new Chief Executive Larry Berger, picked up a minority position in the Brooklyn-based company as part of the deal.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp said Sept. 30 that it had sold Amplify to a management team backed by a group of private investors for an undisclosed sum. The identity of the investors was not revealed at the time.”
So is this something that should be revealed when Jobs new ed org travels the country promoting “transformed” high schools? Is there already a model in mind for US high schools, one that involves extensive use of technology and online learning?
This is really cozy, these private sector/public sector relationships:
“Ms. Powell Jobs has assembled a team of advisers led by Russlynn H. Ali, who worked in the Obama administration’s Education Department as the assistant secretary for civil rights. Ms. Ali, who for the last several years has overseen education grants at Emerson, will serve as the primary public face of the campaign. Michelle Cahill, who has spent more than three decades in education, including as a senior adviser to Joel I. Klein when he was the New York City schools chancellor, has culled much of the research used on the website. ”
How much lobbying of former colleagues goes on between the private sector ed reformers and the public sector ed reformers based on this revolving door? Does this influence have anything to do with the fact that we’re seeing a huge marketing push for online learning among ed reformers in punditry and the government?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/laurene-powell-jobs-backs-amplify-230518326.html
One of the Daily Show correspondents, Jessica Williams, has been hawking this “transformation” scheme in ads run during the show. We should call on Trevor Noah and the producers of the Daily Show, through social media, to disassociate itself from this latest corporate exploitation of public schools.
For a very brief period of time in history, IT empowered individual people — home hobbyists, programmers, students, teachers — now it just amplifies the power of corporations.
There is absolutely an emerging new model for high schools involving extensive use of technology and online learning. it’s happening in my high school in a nice upper middle class town. And that’s not all – it is being accompanied by moves to get students out of the building, to internships and volunteer programs. But what you claim as a move by financial interests to monetize public education is not exactly true. It’s a way to pay for the major drivers in every school budget these days.The local taxpayer base can’t handle the property tax increases that would be necessary to keep a strong regular education program. Special education eats up nearly 24% of our operating budget. Our new contracts (teachers/staff) will cost over $700K a year and they are only at 2.5%/3 years. Class sizes are rising and the high school curriculum is being narrowed as I write. So technology, online learning, and literally getting students out of the building for credit are being pushed as a means to keep some semblance of a decent regular ed program. If you wanted to make yourself more useful, Diane, you would be all over the absurd spending going on for so-called Special Ed and the unsustainable union pay structure of COLA’s, steps, columns and stipends. The center isn’t holding in the burbs, Diane. That is very very serious. When monetization stumbles, watch for suburban school district bankruptcies to pop up where you may not expect. Then tell if it was the fault of the corporate raiders. It won’t be.
Eiffel, Congress promised to pay 40% of the cost off special education. Thefedshavenever paid even 15%. Focus on that.
eiffel58,
This is a good summary of things as they are and more to come. I am amazed that you have the guts to write this in this blog space.
Thank you
Wow! Really?
Among many other things one could say in response to your post:
If you starve something, do you then blame it for dying for lack of food?
Teachers should work for free, right? For altruistic reasons? Teaching is the only job I know of, and school psychologists too, where a college degree, certification(s), licensing, experience, isn’t worth the education to get there. For crissakes, PLUMBERS earn more than lowly teachers. Some hairdressers earn more. AND, both of them are more respected professions to the reformers. Teachers are the scourge of the earth, right?
Perhaps the future, and the cost savings to municipalities/the funneling of taxpayer dollars to tech, online, and OUT OF CLASSROOMS as you wrote, is the future. Out of classrooms, however, seems more focused on that “personalized learning” that happens at dining room tables, Starbucks while drinking coffees, and “home schooling” the masses, wherever they can plug in, more so than getting kids out of the building for credit. That last bit…do you mean work programs? Internships? Apprenticeships? Or literally freeing up building space for a real estate grab by charters? Cuz after all, when a charter closes, it owns everything!!!!!!!!!! Kiss those tax-paid for “things” goodbye. Its shameful.
Its hard enough now for college-educated twenty somethings to find jobs. If self-teaching is the future, if we don’t invest in our children, and give them human guidance, things are bleak indeed. Investing in for-profit charters and blended learning and sitting kids at computer screens and leaving them to their own devices (while tech companies and testing companies reap the profits) isn’t the answer.
alice: I am pleased that you are a fan of Ionesco as well!
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
So, while not as thought-provoking as your question, the rheephorm answer is—
Yes!
This fits right in with the same sort of thinking that the difference between some of the desperately poor homeless and multibillionaires is that the former choose to sleep under bridges while the latter prefer mansions.
Choice! Ya gotta love it!
😎
Well then why don’t they say that, then? If it’s about cutting costs then politicians should say that, instead of promoting it as “personalized learning”
You’re angry that Diane isn’t talking about the “real” reason but these sophisticated marketing efforts aren’t either.
Is the push to online learning about cutting costs? You say it is. Why aren’t the people pushing it saying that? Then we could have a debate instead of an advertising blitz.
“He (she) buys it because it promises to cut costs, they sell it because they expect it to yield profits”. Economics. Never mind whether it does the job better, or even at all. Only time will tell, and it will!
I just posted this on Facebook. Will teachers, students and parents be involved in this plan? What monetary gain is in it for the donors?
If they get the kids out of the building, they can justify closing the building. Opening a charter? Converting the building into condos? Once the charter opens, it owns everything. Once it closes, it owns everything you, the tax payer, paid for, and it walks away with the whole kit and caboodle.
Marian Cruz and Donna: one of the last verses of PRETTY BOY FLOY (Woody Guthrie) came to mind as I read your comments:
“Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.”
This is the rheephorm spin on the old adage “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
$tudent $ucce$$! Ain’t it grand?!?!?
😎
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.