Jonathan Pelto warns that the innocent-sounding group “Students for Education Reform” is actually a front for the hedge funders’ “Democrats for Education Reform.”Not many student-led groups have a budget in excess of $7 million. DFER is one of the richest and most insidious of the privatizers. Like all reformer groups, the name is intended to confuse the public about the purpose of the organization, which is to privatize public schools, not to reform them.
Pelto writes:
Dedicated to promoting the privatization of public education, more taxpayer funds for privately owned, but publicly funded charter schools, the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and a host of anti-teacher initiatives, Students for Education Reform, Inc. (SFER) was created in late 2009, according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.
Claiming to have over 100 chapters across the country, the “student run” advocacy group has, as of late last summer, collected more than $7.3 million since its inception to fund their “education reform” activities.
According to the organization’s most recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 reports (2014), in addition to the $5.7 million that has flowed into SFER’s coffers as of September 1, 2014, an additional $1.6 million has been collected by a closely-related company called the SFER Action Network Inc. which appears to serve as the political arm of SFER and formed in 2013.
Although Students for Education Reform is “run” by students, the self-described “grassroots” group is governed by a Board of Directors that is made up of some of the biggest corporate executives and players associated with the Corporate Education Reform Industry.
SFER’s website reports that the present Students for Education Reform Board of Directors includes;
April Chou (Chair) – The Chief Growth Officer at the KIPP Bay Area Charter School chain.
Adam Cioth (Treasurer) – The founder of Rolling Hills Capital hedge fund and a major funder of the public school privatization movement.
Christy Chin – The Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the philanthropy arm of the venture capital firm, Draper Richards. The Foundation is one of SFER’s funders.
Stuart Cobert – The Deputy General Counsel at the Unilever Corporation.
Justin Cohen – The President of Mass Insight, a major Education Reform Consulting company.
Shavar Jeffries – Recently appointed President of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Jeffries was recently the unsuccessful “education reform” candidate for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.
Nancy Poon Lue – A Partner in the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund
And Chris Stewart, Director of Outreach and External Affairs for the Gates Foundation funded Pro-Corporate Education Reform Blog called Education Post.
Until recently the SFER Board also included acclaimed education reform financier Jonathan Sackler (Whose activities include funding the Achievement First Inc. Charter School Chain, forming ConnCAN and 50CAN and serving on the Board of The New Schools Venture Fund) and Rebecca Ledley (A member of the UP Academy Charter School Company and spouse of Charles Ledley, who serves on the Board of Directors of Education Reform Now (ERN) and its affiliate, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER.)
There is more. Open the link. Think about the (hedgefunder) Wolf in (student) Sheep clothing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I trust actual student leaders enough to be aware of “Democrats For Education Reform” and not want to model their name off of that. Actual students don’t usually clamor for “education reform”. They tend to want more concrete things like “good schools” or “justice” or “equity” (or all of the above). So the name alone is a pretty good give-away about who SFER really is.
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I am a member of the chapter at the Ohio State University, but I’ve started to become unsure about them. This is just the push I needed to leave. Now I’m looking to start an organization on campus for students who want to end unfair testing practices and save public schools.
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Thank you, thughes
Remember that every group determined to privatize public schools calls itself something that confuses people into thinking they are in favor of “reform.” Don’t be fooled.
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“SFER) was created in late 2009, according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.”
Figures.
“The Fountain of Reform”
The Fountain of Reform
Is on the Princeton campus
Where Kopp is just the norm
And goal is to revamp us
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I wondered where ed reformers were getting the remediation rates, which seemed REALLY high to me and I went to a community college:
“Placement tests are weak predictors of students’ performance in college. A second CCRC study found that standardized reading and writing tests explain less than 2 percent of the variation in students’ college grades. ACT’s Compass – one of the most popular placement tests used nationally – is being taken off the market, with the test-maker directly acknowledging its limitations in assessing readiness.
By relying on these tests, community colleges underestimate the abilities of many students. This was illustrated by the Multiple Measures Assessment Project, which analyzed a large dataset from California high schools and community colleges. The researchers determined that 72 percent of incoming community college students could be placed directly into college-level English courses by using high school transcript measures instead of their scores on placement tests, and that these students would do just fine, earning an average grade of C+. In other words, nearly three-quarters of students are coming out of high school prepared for college English.”
It just never made sense to me that incoming students (supposedly) needed so much more remediation than people my age did.
http://edsource.org/2015/some-college-students-more-prepared-than-placement-tests-indicate/90418
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At Macalester, where I went to school, our SFER chapter disaffiliated from the national organization and changed their name to Students for Education Equity. The chapter leader at the time wrote about why in the school paper.
“Because of the language SFER uses to frame their work, there is little room for disagreement and discussion. They have established a discourse in which you are either “for the kids” or you are on the side of injustice and an impediment to progress everywhere. When we endorse the idea that there is one kind of progress we discourage critical thought and productive disagreement. When SFER employs the phrase “for the kids,” what is often really meant is something more along the lines of “for a neoliberal model of public education reform.” While many members of the organization may hope that this approach will, in fact, be beneficial for kids, by equating this particular model of change with being a well-intentioned advocate for social change, SFER is creating an environment where students are bullied into supporting harmful policies under the guise of progressive idealism.”
http://themacweekly.com/2014/03/from-education-reform-to-educational-equity/
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Jonathan, that is excellent. Fight for justice and equity, don’t be used by others.
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Wow – their available budget has grown substantially since I looked into them last year. If what I found still holds, most of that money is going to have come from sources given huge donations. Very grassroots (sarcasm).
When I wrote about them, the SFER twitter feed demanded that I “just ask” “#realSFERvoices” including the one on my campus. Well, of course, I had spoken to my education students who had been enticed to join them — that’s how I got concerned that they were selling a giant bucket of swill that no undergraduate would have come up with on her own.
Warning to Jonathan: Since he mentioned Chris Stewart in a negative assessment of the group, if my experience is illustrative, he can be expected to be personally and publicly called out and in really nasty terms too. He takes a “nuke it from orbit” approach to a lot of things.
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This reminds me of something I posted on FB several weeks ago about the “Reaching Higher NH” educational policy group that is “dedicated to supporting public education and fostering high standards that give our student the opportunity to prepare for college, for immediate careers, and for the challenges of life in 21st century New Hampshire.” So many FB friends wondered why I was warning them of this. “It SOUNDS like a good thing,” they said…EXACTLY. Be vigilant!
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Shawn,
Beware of groups that have fine-sounding names. See who is on the board. Check out their real purposes. They may be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
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Edushyster covered this three years ago in two pieces.
First, from November, 2012 :
http://edushyster.com/tudent-for-education-reform/
“Reader, today we revisit what has become perhaps my very phavorite rephorm group: Students for Education Reform. As you are no doubt aware, students are on the march from Chile, where they are demanding equal access to higher education, to Quebec, where striking students recently brought down the government for proposing a $325 PER YEAR tuition hike.
“You’ll be happy to know that US students are demanding education reform too, but alas it is of a somewhat different variety. Students for Education reform or $FER now has more than 100 chapters on campuses across the country, all focused on enacting what can only be described as Daddy’s education agenda:
” … a mishmash of achievement gap fever, anti-union rhetoric, and edu-jargon intoxicating enough to make even an Ivy Leaguer—especially an Ivy Leaguer—swoon.
“There is nothing about $FER’s story that isn’t miraculous. Just over a year old, $FER already boasts a headquarters in a Manhattan office building, seven full-time staffers and an all-star board of rephorm titans, including the chief growth officer for KIPP, the founder of Rolling Hills Capital, and a director of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.
“If the latter seems weird and inappropriate to you, given that nothing reduces a kid’s chance of going to college faster than an accidental drug overdose, someone at $FER seems to agree; the group recently scrubbed any mention of Jonathan Sackler’s tie to Purdue, which his family owns, from their website.
“Click here …
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/jonathan-sacklers-house/view/bing/
” … to see a gratuitous image of the mansion where Mr. Sackler relaxes when he is not rephorming education.
“Anyway, enough about $FER’s improbable back story, what rephormy goodness are they up to now?
“Alas, as with any corporate entity grassroots movement, the ‘scale-up phase’ has not been without a few growing pains. As my favorite edu-blogger, Stephanie Rivera, a teacher-in-training at Rutgers documents, a growing number of $FER chapters are expressing discomfort with a new evaluation process, and a memorandum of understanding they were recently required to sign, agreeing to be ‘mission aligned.’
“Here’s a sample of said MOU that Stephanie uncovered:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
” ‘Article II- Affiliations
” ‘Section 1: SFER UNC-CH affiliates with the national chapter of Students for Education Reform, Inc. and carries out the mission of Students for Education Reform, Inc. on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
” ‘Section 2: SFER UNC-CH should strive to embody the Students for Education Reform, Inc. Statement of Principles. (See Appendix A)
” ‘Section 3: Students for Education Reform, Inc. will provide access to following to SFER UNC-CH: recruitment support, professional development for chapter leaders, financial support, brand identity, access to national contacts, and programming/alignment support.
” ‘Section 4: Students for Education Reform-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will work towards mission alignment by having senior chapter leaders sign onto the Students for Education Reform mission and Statement of Principles. (See Appendix A)’ .”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Students for Education Reform, Inc. certainly sounds grassroots-y to me. Now if they’d just put down their hacky sacks and sticky icky long enough to get some real work done. Fortunately the $FER chapters at NYU and Columbia seem to have gotten the memo. While too many students in New York are frittering away their time volunteering in areas of the city still reeling from Hurricane Sandy, members of NYU and Columbia $FER have their priorities straight.
“They’re pressuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg to help the tens of thousands of NYC residents who are still struggling to immediately revamp the city’s teacher evaluation system so as to hold on to Race to the Top Money.
“In this outstanding article in the NYU newspaper, the goal of the $FER activists is described as ‘afflicting change in the classroom.’ I’d say that’s a pretty good description. The grassroot-sters are planning a rally for 11/29 that they hope will attract hundreds of students. They even have a groovy slogan:
“ ‘Get It Together, $300 Million, One Deal.’
“It has a certain ring to it but surely our $FER friends deserve a better slogan than that. How about:
“‘Let the might waters of education reform continue to rise,’
” … or my personal favorite:
“ ‘Pawns of Billionaires?’ ”
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Then, a month or so later, in December 2012, Edushyster wrote this:
http://edushyster.com/how-tudent-4-education-reform-jumped-the-shark/
EDUSHYSTER: ” ‘The crowd may not have been much, but as rallies go, this one was a big deal. Impassioned young people, bundled against the New York cold, risking everything for a cause they believe in, one that, if their voices are heard, could transform the lives of millions of poor Americans.’
“I’m talking, of course, about the protest by fast food workers, who gathered in front of burger joints across the city to raise a collective middle finger to an industry that pays crap wages and offers few opportunities for advancement. As for that OTHER rally in NYC this week, by students at Columbia and NYU who were demanding that teachers be evaluated on the basis of their students’ test scores, it was, well, meh…
“Truth in advertising
“The greasy eelishness that is at the heart of the $tudent$ For Economic Reform project was on vivid display this week. Watch this impassioned high school student speak at the SFER rally that followed a march on the local teachers union head quarters and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the SFER cause is more public school funding—the student thinks that’s SFER’s cause. (She certainly seems to have no idea of the toll that Reform Inc.’s mad luv 4 charters is taking on the city’s public schools).
“But the group’s actual demand, summed up in the hashtag printed on the knit hats they had specially produced for the occasion, was for teachers to hurry up already and agree to be evaluated on the basis of their students’ test scores: #300Mdeal.
“OMG teachers, like what is your problem?
“To add a final layer of special sauce to an already convoluted cause, SFER’s official position was that they had no official position on the deal—they just wanted the two sides to ‘get it together’ … for the kids, natch.
“Hot standardized mess
“Of course the reason why New York’s teachers aren’t marching behind SFER’s young activists is that the state’s new value-added model for evaluating teachers IS A DISASTER. In fact a new law requiring that 20-40% of a teacher’s evaluation be linked to test scores has proved so unpopular that it has triggered a major backlash, including this letter signed by hundreds of principals, among them, half of the principals on Long Island.
“But there’s also growing resistance to standardized testing among students, something that SFER seems weirdly oblivious to. Take off the knit hats and strip away the phony slogans and SFER is actually calling for standardized tests to count for more.
“Students United for Public Education
“I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that SFER’s days are numbered. Oh sure, the checks from big ‘reform’-minded funders will continue to arrive at SFER’s Manhattan HQ, and rich uncle Education Reform Now will still pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues. (For more on ERN’s unique funding arrangement with SFER and cousin, Students First, see page 21 of this tax document:
Click to access educationreformnow.pdf
).
There will even be more gra$$root$ rallies and marches, and don’t forget the edu-swag!
“But just as SFER funder, the Walton Family Foundation, seeks to inject some much needed competition into our failing, union-stifled public education system, competition between student groups is good too. This week marked the debut of an actual grassroots student group:
“Students United for Public Education —
http://supe.k12newsnetwork.com/
“What’s more, it has demands that actual students might actually support.
“As Education Reform, Inc. lurches further and further to the right, and ‘choice’ is increasingly revealed to be ¢hoi¢e, groups like SFER are going to have make a choice of their own. What do they really stand for???”
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For your convenience, here are the links to ALL the articles critical of S-FER which Jonathan Pelto shared:
“Astroturf Activism: Who is Behind Students for Education Reform?” (The Nation)
at
http://www.thenation.com/article/astroturf-activism-who-behind-students-education-reform/
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“$tudent$ for Education Reform” (EduShyster)
at
http://edushyster.com/tudent-for-education-reform/
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“How $tudent$ 4 Education Reform Jumped the Shark” (EduShyster)
at
http://edushyster.com/how-tudent-4-education-reform-jumped-the-shark/
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“How to spot a fake ‘grassroots’ education reform group” (Washington Post)
at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/12/how-to-spot-a-fake-grassroots-education-reform-group/
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“Students For Education Reform? Not the Change We Need” (Good Magazine)
at
http://magazine.good.is/articles/students-for-education-reform-not-the-change-we-need
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“Rethinking ‘Youth-Led’ – Students for Education Reform” (Gen Y Not)
at
http://thegenynot.com/2013/11/rethinking-youth-led-students-for-education-reform/
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