Gary Rubinstein, the most thoughtful of Teach for America’s critical alums, plans to attend the 25th anniversary of Teach for America. Gary’s blog has punctured the illusions of TFA and other corporate reformers again and again. Will he be shunned? Will anyone speak to him?
When I read Gary’s post, my first reaction was that the party would be “a conclave of losers,” considering how many of the TFA stars have faded or failed or disappeared into obscurity. Not to mention the fact that TFA has not–in its 25 years–closed the achievement gap in any district or turned any district into a paragon of excellence. “One day,” the TFA slogan (“one day all children will have an excellent education”) seems as far away as ever.
But what a meeting it will be!
Gary writes:
Of the 200 speakers listed so far, there is only one ‘reform critic’ I see, Los Angeles Board President Steve Zimmer. Then there are about 150 people I’ve never heard of, but who are mostly from different ed companies or charter schools, and then there are about 50 A and B list ‘reformers’ and charter leaders. These include Jeremy Beard (YES Prep), Karolyn Belcher (President of TNTP), RiShawn Biddle (Dropout Nation), Tim Daly (Former President of TNTP), Mike Feinberg (KIPP), Heather Harding (former VP of research at TFA, now with Gates), Kevin Huffman (former Tennessee Education commissioner and former husband of Michelle Rhee), Michael Johnston (State senator in Colorado who got a teacher evaluation law passed where 50% of the evaluation is based on value-added), John King (current acting Secretary of Education), Dave Levin (KIPP), Kira Orange Jones (New Orleans Board Member), Paymon Rouhanifard (Camden Schools Superintendent), Alexander Russo (Writer and reform cheerleader), Hannah Skandera (secretary of education for New Mexico), Preston Smith (CEO Rocketship Charter schools), John White (State Superintendent of Louisiana), Joe Williams (DFER and now Walton). Not yet on the speakers page, but listed on some of the panels are Joel Klein (Amplify and former chancellor in NYC), John Deasy (Former head of Los Angeles Schools), Jon Schnur (Architect of Race To The Top), Chris ‘Citizen’ Stewart (blogger who I’ve sparred with on Twitter), and, of course, Michelle Rhee (StudentsFirst and star of Waiting For Superman).
Many of the sessions also have a ‘reform’ slant. There’s a session called ‘Becoming an Education Influencer on Twitter’ that I think I’d be an ideal candidate to be on. But instead of me there’s ‘Dropout Nation’s’ RiShawn Biddle and Alexander Russo.
There’s one called “Alumni Trailblazers’ Perspectives on the Path to One Day in Our Lifetime.” The panelists are the queen reformer Michelle Rhee, the prince, Louisiana Education Commissioner (for now) John White, and KIPP founders Mike Feinberg, and Dave Levin.
Joel Klein is moderating a panel called ‘What Will It Take To Reach One Day?’ and on the panel are Kevin Huffman and Kira Orange Jones.
One with an intriguing title is “What should we do when the whole school fails?” It is moderated by the husband of TFA CEO Elisa Villanueva-Beard, Jeremy Beard, who has apparently left his post at Houston Independent School District leading their failed turnaround program ‘Apollo 20’ and is now the head of YES Prep Charter Schools in Houston. On this panel is Chris ‘Citizen’ Stewart, who has been known to accuse me of being a racist from time to time. This panel also has the one and only ‘reform critic’ that I know of, Steve Zimmer, who is the head of the school board in Los Angeles.
Michael Johnston is on a bunch of panels. One is called ‘What Works and What Doesn’t in Education Policy” I think he is an expert on the latter as his horrific ‘accountability’ plan in Colorado where 50% of teacher evaluation is based on value-added scores has accomplished absolutely nothing in terms of test score increases. On that panel is ‘Chief For Change’ Hannah Skandera, New Mexico Secretary of Education , and Jon Schnur, ‘architect’ of Race To The Top.
Perhaps the craziest session is called ‘Exploring the Role of Joel Klein as Mentor and Role Model: A Case Study.’ The CEO of TFA, Elisa Villanueva-Beard is actually the moderator on this one. Most of the people who Klein mentored are no longer in power, the most recent to be forced out was Cami Anderson in Newark. I’m hoping that John White in Louisiana will be out by then and then there will be a full turnover of the Klein mentees.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The should be a symposium on how “One Day” privatizing scab organizations like TFA will disappear in justly-deserved disgrace, and how to bring that day closer.
It seems fitting that TFA should deteriorate into cult status. After all, what they are peddling is no more valid than snake oil. Since they are backed by big money, we continue to tolerate their false assumptions, lack of credibility, fake teachers and poor results. To reference an old Tom Hanks movie, they should end their conference by having Joel Klein jumped into a volcano. Maybe then, all their dreams will come true.
I credit Gary Rubinstein with teaching Arne Duncan that graduating “100% of students remaining after attrition of 40% of the class” is not the same as graduating “100% of entering students”.
He really must be a good math teacher. Patient. I think he had to explain it 50 times on Twitter before they “got” it.
Chiara, are you sure they “got it” about 100% of students graduate after attrition of 40% before senior year?
Unless Gary R’s description of the TFA love fest is inaccurate, I think this quite neatly and accurately sums up the real—and not rheeal—attitude of the movers and shakers in the self-styled “education reform” movement towards that “civil conversation” they keep harping on.
If one is looking for any “grit” and “determination” to tackle the big issues in a self-critical and reflective way that takes into account what has actually transpired on the rheephorm watch, I’m afraid that self-correction has completely surrendered to doubling down on whatevers [to paraphrase the NJ Comm of Ed].
If truth in advertising prevailed, perhaps it could be described as “TFA: The Happy Thought Conclave—Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Creative Disruption.”
Subtitle: “Education Reform: It Works for MeMeMe!”
That’s the way I see it…
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It would be fine if they were an actual private charity but since they’re publicly funded I think they have an obligation to allow some dissenters to speak.
I love how we now have this whole category of publicly-funded private orgs who get all the upside of public funding but none of the downside. That’s a sweet deal. Can anyone get one like that, or does one have to be well-connected?
Don;t hold your breath that Steve Zimmer will be a speaker to fill “their obligation to allow a dissenter to speak.” We have learned in LA over the years that Steve can be very unpredictable, and too often did not dissent from Deasy/Broad edicts. He sees himself as the great mediator…so will probably take an intervention-like approach….full of sound and fury, signifying not too much.
Quite telling that from all of the potential speakers in the US, they chose the LAUSD BoE Prez who has done some exceedingly painful things like passing over the brave female dissenter member of his Board who broke open the LAUSD iPad ripoff, in favor of a new member who is far more conservative, to be his VP, setting this man up to be the next Prez.
Howard Dean is on the charter-TFA cheerleading team and Dean wrote this:
“I became an advocate for Teach for America and public not-for-profit charter schools in 2008. My son was teaching at a high school in the Ninth Ward New Orleans and gave me a tour of the school on a Saturday morning in the late fall. I picked up a bunch of the kids’ papers from his desk in his ninth grade classroom. Scanning through, it dawned on me that nearly every young person in his classroom was functionally illiterate.”
I would be mad if my son’s 9th grade teacher allowed his father to “scan through” my son’s work and then use it to push an agenda. There’s always this (horrible, to me) undertone in ed reform where they act as if they are the parents of these kids. I think it’s intrusive and over-reach. Who is Howard Dean to these children? Nobody. Why is he rifling thru their work?
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/02/neoliberal_corporate_education_reform_howard_dean_on_teach_for_america_teachers_unions_and_the_politics_of_false_choices/
How fitting that Dean is speaking at a conference of losers.
Maybe he’ll give them the old primordial Dean scream to kick off their love fest.
Should have said “How fitting it would be if Dean were speaking..”
Don’t know if he is or not.
Chiara: it’s simply part of a usually unspoken assumption/attitude shared almost universally among the movers and shakers of self-proclaimed “education reform”…
Can you spell “noblesse oblige”?
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Beyond this paper rifling…Howard Dean was the liberal hope for the Dems when he ran for Prez, until he brayed himself out of the race. If a Left leaner is pro TFA and pro Charter, what does Hillary who is Right of Center really believe about charters and TFA?
The detail that they waived the $100 registration fee and subsidized his hotel room for $250 because Gary is a teacher really got me. It’s true that most teachers are underpaid and attending a conference is an expense not all can afford. However, this is made possible by my and your tax dollars which go to support the love fest that TFA is throwing in its own honor.
Also, I can’t help but feel that were it not for TFA’s hiring and promoting of its best and most beautiful, that NONE of its luminaries would ever have seen the light of day. I mean, most of them are dismal failures in all their various fields of endeavor. Aside from a coterie of grifters who worship at the TFA altar, who believes in them except for members of the cult?
Christine Langhoff: Is “cult” too strong a word? Hmmm…
Why does the jobs program for adults that pad their resumes as TFAs [TeachForAwhiles] on the way to their “real” careers find Gary R lacking the ‘right corps member mindset’? [See the excerpt from the linked piece below.]
From his blog, 2-22-2014, “Guest Post Series. Part One: How Interning for TFA Convinced me of its Injustice.”
[start excerpt]
Leaving TFA was like leaving a cult. Even after my manager received my resignation email I would get occasional emails asking me to do something for their initiative on campus “as a favor.” TFA does not like you to leave their inner circle. You can unsubscribe from their general newsletters, but it’s harder to unsubscribe from someone you once exchanged holiday presents with. I was shaken for weeks after resigning from TFA. I was relieved and better-rested and happier, but I was also afraid–of what, exactly, I am still not sure. I felt that I just barely escaped Teach for America’s dream cycle–indeed, TFA’s indoctrination. I was introduced to TFA as a college freshman, I interned for them for two years, and, had they had it “their way,” I would have interned for them for another year before teaching for two years and then being hired as a recruitment manager. The cycle from recruited to recruiter would be complete. I do feel that I was briefly inducted into a cult, and escaped to tell the tale, which is more than I can say for any other CCC I have ever met.
It is now my senior year of college. The woman who had been my manager has moved to another department within TFA, and on August 1st I got my first recruiting email from my Bryn Mawr’s new lead recruiter. She has sent me some of the most worrisome and disturbing emails I have ever received. TFA has responded to the valid, well-articulated articles by former corps members critiquing TFA that went viral several months ago by telling me their words aren’t valid because they weren’t in the right “corps member mindset.” TFA has tried to convince me to support their efforts by buying a shirt from J. Crew. TFA has tried to convince me to apply to the program by bribing me with a holiday gift. I have not responded to these emails.
[end excerpt]
Link: http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2014/02/22/guest-post-series-part-one-how-interning-for-tfa-convinced-me-of-its-injustice/
Maybe “cult” isn’t an inappropriate term…
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Ed reformers have finally noticed that their awesome advocacy for public school students has resulted in less funding for public schools all over the country:
https://www.the74million.org/article/what-economic-recovery-analysis-proves-some-states-spending-far-less-on-education-than-before-recession
Good work! Public schools are in worse financial shape than they were without all these paid advocates and orgs and our schools have many, many more unfunded mandates.
Ed reform = less funding, more mandates. That’s a real recipe for success. With all their love of “data” there seems to be one number set they carefully avoid- money.
“After all, what they are peddling is no more valid than snake oil…”
Self congratulatory tribalism, AKA identity politics, is all they have to offer to keep
the “demons” at bay. Ask a “TFA” if they can “teach” a politician the “right” way.
It may “jog” their self-infused blindness, stupefaction, or narcotised blitheness.
Can the universe survive having so many illustrious illuminators of impaired imaginations, so many creative cocksure champions of contorted control in such a confined space and time? Will the world as we know it come to an abrupt end?
Sounds like a turd fest of who is who. I hope they all get a tough of food poisoning, except for Gary, with a few days of explosive diarrhea.
That “ED” will be emanating from their pie holes during that three day summit!
Joel Klein speaking/writing on Joel Klein is a riot…I laughed our load at this one. Sounds like a great skit for SNL.