Our reader Laura Chapman has unearthed another tentacle of corporate reform, in the business of rating schools and data mining.
She writes:
“Here is another example of the problem.
“Angela Duckworth of Grit fame is on the National Advisory Boardof GreatSchools.org, funded by Gates, Walton, Robertson, Arnold Foundations and 19 others, including the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Goldman Sachs Gives.
“This nonprofit is a huge “red lining” operation with opportunities to license ads using data about schools which, coincidentally, has been gathered through other projects that are not what they seem to be on the surface, like the CORE district program in Californa reaching 11 million students, with data gathering well beyond what that state requires for accountability, including surveys of school climate and social-emotional well-being.
“I am working on some chunks of information that show how deeply this organization is involved in redlining real estate, leveraging data on schools and “choice” options, parent profiles and so on.
“GreatSchools.org offers licenses and ads. These are marketed with “base” and “local” modules set up to push enrollment in specific schools. The scary part is that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devlopment and Fannie Mae have paid for a license,
“The website boasts that it has one million customer ratings, on 200,000 schools, with more in the pipeline. I discovered this operation by looking at one school evaluation in Oakland CA, one of the 10 CORE districts that have a new system of data gathering on “school quality.” When I clicked on the rating, I was sent to the GreatSchools website. None of the PR about the CORE districts disclosed this commercial data mining operation operating under the auspices of a distant non-profit, funded by foundations known to be seeking market- based education with initiatives in dominating media outlets, and surveys that pretend to be research.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This project sounds like a huge social engineering data base. Once they collect all their data, it could be misused for private gain and anti-democratic initiatives. I foresee some scary, nefarious ways to manipulate real estate markets for private gain and charter school enrollment, also for private gain. This sounds like something from “1984.” I don’t understand the Fannie Mae or U. S. Department of Housing and Development connection exactly, but it probably has something to do with the potential “red lining” of mortgages.
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Bingo! It is exactly that.
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It’s much worse than 1984. More like Soylent Green, I think.
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“Angela Duckworth of Grit fame is on the National Advisory Boardof GreatSchools.org, funded by Gates”
I believe Laura meant to write “Gritschools.org” and funded by “Grits” (aka known as “The Great Gritsby”)
“The Gritted Age”
The “Gritted Age”
Was full of grit
And “Gated Age”
Is full of it
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also known as (aka)
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I wonder if waging a bloody war that focuses only on the oligarchs is treason as defined by the U.S. Constitution. After all, the oligarchs are not the elected government. They aren’t even appointed public-sector bureaucrats.
U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
And, aren’t the oligarchs guilty of sedition making them enemies of the United States—are they not conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government?
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
For instance, FBI Arrests Nearly Every Single Elected Official In A Texas Town
“The indictment alleges that these public officials and this businessman solicited and accepted bribes in exchange for official action, such as voting to award city contracts to, waive certain tax payments by, and conduct certain inspections to give unfair advantage to those paying bribes,” …
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/07/3746990/texas-officials-indictment/
Have you seen the list of synonyms for the word bribe?
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Lloyd, they bought the country, I do not think all rights are transferable on sale.
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I don’t think they bought the country. What they are buying is government from elected school boards all the way up to the White House. Then they are using that government they own to force the rest of us to live in a world that they want: fundamentalist Christians, libertarians, neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, a return to legalized racism, submission of women as chattel, children as property that can be bought and sold, etc.
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“Grit minds think alike”
Grit minds think alike
About the Mines of Grit
What isn’t there to like?
Succe$$ is theirs to git
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I went to the website. What a bunch of nonsense. There is a section about “Using State Tests for Insights into Your Child.” A don’t get any insights from the state tests (EOG’s) in North Carolina. I get a number (1 to 5) and a percentage. What a complete waste of time. If I want some insights I talk to my children and their teachers.
The testing is counter-productive. Instead of wasting time on testing, parents could just be talking with teachers more. In some ways, the tests are driving a wedge between parent and teachers. That’s probably part of the plan.
I also noticed in the big “Who We Are” picture at the website that the people in the picture are predominantly white, and I only see one person I would confidently describe as African-American. Is this symbolic?
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Eric,
The same absence of information is on the NY test reports. A percentile ranking and numbers that tell you nothing about how to help the child improve.
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The more information they provide, the more likely it becomes that someone might be able to figure out what they are doing and challenge their results.
This is why VAMmers will not release their computer source code or even their detailed algorithms (and usually not even the raw data).
Best to provide the bare minimum: “processed’ numbers with little or no explanation (and often no error bars)
Sure signs of pseudoscience, which is rampant with education “reform”
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Glad to see some attention on this organization as a part of the corporate ed reform network. See the comment at the bottom of this EdSource article featuring Great Schools and Innovate Public Schools: http://edsource.org/2016/nonprofit-designs-school-index-for-low-income-minority-parents/94564 If these two “non-profits” are working in partnership, it appears they would be doing so to push charter reform. Innovate Public Schools is also heavily Walton funded and widely known as the marketing arm to recruit and push for new charters in Silicon Valley.
Of course nothing creates demand like [invalid] computerized tests pre-set with cut scores to guarantee failure of 70% of the students who take them. Concentrate that ‘failure’ in the most low-income districts and you get the further exploitation of our communities by tech/corporate giants [that coincidentally fund marketing for *both* the tests and the new schools]. Interestingly, GreatSchools.org was getting a whole lot of press around the the time that the [invalid] SBAC “test scores” were being released.
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See here: http://edsource.org/2015/california-smarter-balanced-math-english-results-common-core-faq/86181
“IF MY CHILD’S SCORE SHOWS HE OR SHE DIDN’T “MEET THE STANDARD” ON THE TEST, WHAT CAN I DO?
Parents should talk with their child’s teacher about how well he or she thinks the test is assessing their child’s knowledge and abilities and what the teacher plans to do to help their child improve. Parents can discuss with the teacher what they can do to support their child’s learning at home.
Parents can also check out the http://GreatKids.org website, which has suggestions for how parents can support their children based on subject and grade level.”
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Yes, the GreatKids.org website then morphs into the GreatSchools.org website after a few clicks and if anyone wants to sign up to learn more.
Here are their supporters:
http://www.greatschools.org/about/supporters.page
And Board of Directors:
http://www.greatschools.org/about/boardOfDirectors.page
Please also investigate “http://SchoolZilla.org” as another potential arm of corporate ed reform. They provide “data visualization” maps of the [invalid] test scores, seem to be heavily TFA-Alum-run, tightly Aspire/KIPP/Greendot connected, and pitch to be “Data Champions” able to securely access, house, and analyze *all* your student data.
Here’s a direct quote from their website:
“ALL YOUR DATA IN ONE PLACE.
Yes, really, ALL your data.”
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Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
“Redlining” real estate (gee, I thought that was supposed to be illegal) and “data gathering” (read: data mining).
Great, just great. 😦
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I don’t know about measuring grit, but we can certainly measure grift, and the so-called reformers provide an endless supply
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Again, thanks, Laura.
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