Our reader and tireless researcher Laura Chapman has unearthed some interesting details about the expensive habits of the U.S. Department of Education, which relies on outside pricey consultants. For what it is worth, when I worked at the Department, there was a press officer but no outside PR form. Maybe that was the secret of Duncan’s success.
Chapman writes:
“The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ work is made possible through the generous support of the following organizations:
Laura and John Arnold Foundation,
Doris and Donald Fisher Fund,
The Kern Family Foundation,
Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
William E. Simon Foundation
And ….drumroll…
The National Charter School Resource Center sponsored by the US Department of Education (USDE), complete with logo. Take a look at the website that serves as a publicity machine for the charter industry, paid for with your tax dollars and mine.
https://www.charterschoolcenter.org
“The publicity for USDE’s charter school promotions is managed by Safel Partners.
Safel Partners. Is “a management consulting firm enabling education reform nationally and locally.”
“USDE is a “client” of Safel Partners. Among Safel clients are these:
“Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Safel Partners analyzed the national financial-aid landscape to inform the foundation’s portfolio strategy.
“Laura and John Arnold Foundation: Safel Partners analyzed teacher-effectiveness investments in four urban districts.
“Education Pioneers: Safel Partners helped the organization scale by redesigning operational processes.
“George W. Bush Institute: Safel Partners created a strategic principal-training plan.
Teach for America Houston: Safel Partners developed regional a strategic plan for the organization. http://safalpartners.com/clients
“USDE has employed many PR and “consulting” firms to market policies. I do not know when that practice began but WE have paid Safal Partners, Inc. $9,644,514.78
“to obtain technical assistance for the U.S. Department of Education Charter Schools Program for a range of activities, including online assistance, meetings, reports, studies, and assistance in a variety of focus areas, that could include human capital resources, facilities, authorizing, accountability, students with disabilities, English learners, military-connected children, and others.”
“Notice that this contract seems to allow Safel Partners to subcontract in order to obtain technical assistance…meaning that is probably does not have in-house talent for the job.
“If you are interested in tracking other USDE programs and their costs, you can download this spreadsheet, and do key word searches. Many of these contracts extend beyond the end of the Obama administration. https://www2.ed.gov/…/contracts/…”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocfo/contracts/fy16activecontracts.xlsx
The current link to USDE active contacts is here.
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Laura, Thank you for the link. I did a rough addition of the current contracts and got a total of $5.2 billion. Is that possibly correct?
What an incredible waste of our tax dollars. It’s all spent on research and data collection and test design and student loan tracking and studies to see how parents are doing with the high cost of college. Not one penny is going for construction of new schools to replace dilapidated buildings or increase classroom capacity in neighborhood schools where overcrowding is an issue. Not one penny is going to build a gym in an inner city school where the cafeteria doubles as gym space. Not one penny is going to actually create more college grants or even loans at 2% or something reasonable.
I knew the USDE wasted money but I had no idea exactly how much,,, and on what kind of absurd studies.
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Correction on my earlier post: Some of the money does actually go for student loans (but not at 2%) and Pell Grants, but the majority of the money is in my humble opinion a complete waste.
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“Maybe that was the secret of Duncan’s success.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ah ah ha!! That’s a good one Diane, Duncan and success in the same sentence!
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Always more money for consultants .. yet teachers are “greedy” when they seek to be paid what they are worth as credentialed professionals.
Obama has been worse than Bush on pushing “RheePhorm.” And Hillary is promising us a “third Obama term?” Heaven help us.
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The National Alliance of Charter Schools has an internal memo or secret messaging book, complete with terminology and talking points one must use so as to best promote school privatization and charter school expansion. It included with which group to use different terms and talking points… with parents, say THIS… with policy makers say THAT… with business elites, say ANOTHER THING.
Somebody leaked this to Edushyster, who posted it here:
Click to access charter-messaging-small.pdf
It’s quite a document. It tells people to lie about charters, to avoid “a negative reaction.”
In the topsy-turvy fantasy world of school privatizers, up is down, white is black, and we go through the looking glass.
For example, top down control and management of a school by a private, unaccountable board where no parent or teacher is allowed even to attend their board meetings to provide input (i.e. The Truth)
… magically becomes …
“A partnership between parents, teachers, and students” that “create an environment in which parents can be more involved, teachers are given the freedom to innovate, and students are provided the structure they need to learn.” (The Lie) from page 4 of the Secret Messaging Book.
In an attempt to deny the ruthless business underpinnings of corporate ed. reform, they even have a two-column chart of terms…
what you should say (“Say This”) … VS. what you should not say, (“Not This”) on page 8 of the Secret Messaging Book:
SAY THIS ………………………………………. NOT THIS
“Charter School Çommunity” ……………..”Charter School Sector”
“Application” …………………………………… “Enrollment form”
“network” ………………………………………..”EMO/CMO or managment organization”
“schools” ……………………………………….. “businesses/companies”
“teachers/school leaders”………………….. “staff”
“Responses to student needs” ……………”experiments”
“Student share”……………………………….. “market share”
“school leaders” ………………………………..”operators”
“accountabilty” ………………………………….”reform”
“innovation”………………………………………. “competetion / experimentation”
“flexibility”………………………………………… “autonomy”
“families” ………………………………………….”consumers”
Now in this docuemnt, the National Alliance of Charter Schools points out that most adults and voters in the U.S. want to preserve the current public school system that has served us for over 230 years. Citizens vehemently oppose turning all our public schools over to private interests…
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK: “… most people still care strongly for these (existing public) schools and want these schools to be fixed, not done away with … the public have (sic) have a strong attachment to the idea of traditional public schools. Therefore, many are opposed to closing even the worst performing schools.”
So what are you supposed to do, or to be more specific, SAY if you’re a school privatization operative?
Why lie, of course, about your corporate masters’ true intentions and effects!
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK: “This doesn’t mean we should change our approach to closing schools (and replacing them with privately managed charters). It just means we shouldn’t highlight this in our public messaging. … (the public’s) views have consequences for how we describe charter school accountability. We often highlight a positive feature of charter schools is that they can be closed if they don’t perform well. This isn’t a good message to use with the general public. People want to see schools fixed, not closed.”
Then there’s the issue of corporations and foundation pumping tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for control of schools, and in the process, replacing the current democratic control of public schools that now exists with elected school boards.
Well, make sure to lie about this, too… er… I mean … “do not highlight” this in “messaging” to the general public:
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK:
“PARTNERSHIPS WITH BUSINESSES AND FOUNDATIONS THAT PROVIDE ADDITIONAL FUNDING:
“These arrangements are viewed (by the general public) through a cynical lens because many assumes that it (sic) opens (sic) the door for donors to push their particular agenda for schools.” … from page 5
Again, what’s one to do about all that? Lie.
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK: “This doesn’t mean charters shouldn’t accept charitable donations. It just means we shouldn’t highlight this in our public messaging.”
And of course, hit and hit again the point that charter schools are also “public schools”
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK: “Charter schools offer parents another public school option. … charter schools don’t drain resources from the public schools because they too are public … ”
However, when parents — even charter school parents — bring up concerns about charter expansion harming existing schools, you’re supposed to counter with “stay focused on the students” … not the fate of the existing schools, and the teachers and students who remain there, and don’t choose to transfer to charters..
SECRET MESSAGING BOOK: “The number one concern that voters have with charters is the impact on neighborhood schools. Please explain, without any prompting, that having a better school to (sic) the community will make people want to leave their district school. And they worry about what will happen to the teachers and students who stay in the district school. Even though they want charters, they worry about district schools. So we must be sensitive to that concern.”
“The best response that we have to this concern at this time is to stay focused on the students.” …from page 10
Read it all for yourself here:
Click to access charter-messaging-small.pdf
Peter “CURMUDGUCATION” Greene does a much better job of dissecting the secret messaging book here. When you yourself feel duty bound to tell the truth, Greene wonders, how do you fight against people who “are not bound by reality”… i.e. lie indiscriminately all the ding-dong day?
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-to-win-hearts-and-minds-for.html
PETER GREENE: ” … this handy guide tells you everything you need to know about launching your successful foray into the lucrative world of pretending to run schools.
” … ”
“That leads us to a last page of final advice
“Always focus on students. “Hands down, student focused messages perform better than anything else we can talk about.”
“Get your PhD in Messaging. “The more we Personalize, Humanize and Dramatize our messages, the better we do.”
“Research done by the Word Doctors, a world-renowned messaging firm (yes, that’s a thing), shows that the most absolute golden message phrase is “effective schools that challenge students and prepare them for the future.”
“Also, ‘the right of every child to receive an excellent education’ beats ‘the right of families to choose the public school that is best for their children’ 4 to 1. Yes, that’s what all of this leads to. Discussing rights not as things that people have or deserve or which conflict with each other, but as phrases that test well among voters/consumers.
“Children are our most effective spokesperson. When choosing a positive image, go with a small child.
“What can we learn here?
“People who love public schools (I mean actual public schools or traditional public charter schools, not public-when-it-comes-to-scarfing-up-tax-dolars-but-not-so-much-when-it-comes-to-accountability charters) need to see this sort of thing.
“Practically speaking, it’s useful to know the sorts of things they will claim so that we can be prepared to point out. We know to ask questions such as, ‘100% graduation rate! That’s awesome. How many of the freshmen you had four years ago were part of that graduating class?’
“And we also need to take a good hard look at what the research tells us about the concerns and cares of taxpayers, voters and parents. We don’t this kind of research often, or even ever, and we’d be fools not to take note of what is uppermost in the minds of the people we serve.
“But we also need to know about this stuff because this is one of the fronts of this battle that we are just not prepared to fight. We invest a ton of time trying to adjust, align, argue about, fight with, overcome, and otherwise cope with reality.
“Meanwhile, charters just deal with their issues by making shit up. It is one of our disabilities in this fight– we feel bound by reality, while they simply do not.
“Odd, isn’t it? One of the guiding principles of Schools These Days is data. Measurable, quantifiable facts, facts that can’t be argued away or spun or shaded. Here’s your reminder that even the reformsters know that’s not how it works. It’s not the facts. It’s not what you actually do. It’s how you talk about it.”
——————–
And last but not least, is Edushyster’s take on this (she uncovered and posted this on the internet in the first place):
http://edushyster.com/on-charter-schools-say-this-not-that/
EDUSHYSTER: “Once every four minutes, a passionate charter advocate accidentally lapses into the kind of clinical corporate speak that can leave listeners cold—not to mention kids out of the equation.
“Would that there were a way to remedy this problem once and for all… ? Great news, reader. Problem solved! A handy new guide to charter school messaging ensures that never again will you mistakenly blurt out *market share* when you mean *student share,* or *businesses* when what you really meant to mean all along was *schools.* ”
and on it goes.
The comments are great as well, such as
——————
Steven Reinke July 22, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Page 14: “Remember to use this message only with audiences who are already familiar with charters and with policymakers.”
Translation: Withhold information that may be useful to parents making decisions.
——————
Kathode Ray Tube July 22, 2014 at 4:16 pm
My favorite quote (p. 17):
“Also, as you can see, most people simply don’t understand the connection between unions and student or school outcomes, so it’s just not a battle we should fight with audiences who aren’t already extremely well-informed and invested in education reform.”
Heck, why have a debate with stakeholders? We know more than they do.
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And finally, one of mine:
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Jack Covey July 23, 2014 at 5:40 am
Jennifer,
There’s a great video of a charter school parent engaging in an impromptu debate with pro-public school parents. (Los Angeles’) Citizens of the World, the charter, was involved in a very contentious co-location battle with the parents of Stoner Avenue Elementary School, and with residents living near the Stoner Avenue public school campus that CWC had invaded.
Apparently, no one had given him this handbook on how to talk to non-charter folks, and how to bamboozle them into thinking charter forces are nice and harmless. At one point, he lets the cat out of the bag that CWC’s goal is not to coexist peacefully with Stoner—as was professed by CWC in all its media pronouncements—but to wipe Stoner off the face of the earth.
Get this?
He compares the charter’s planned conquest to a Darwinian process in nature, a la “survival of the fittest.” You see, there’s an old tree that deserves to die and disappear (that’s Stoner, the traditional public school). A new tree (CWC Charter) enters the ecosystem, then sends out a “strangler vine” to slowly surround and choke the old tree to death so the new tree/charter school alone can flourish.
Needless to say, this bizarre biological analogy—as seen by all in the video—did not go over well with the Stoner parents or pro-public school residents nearby. After a brutal, year-long battle—and thanks to a paperwork blunder by CWC—the Stoner parents and nearby residents won, and CWC was sent packing.
Here’s a link to an anti-charter blog, run by a parent and nearby resident, that talks about this incident:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/search?q=strangler
Here’s a link to the video: (the “strangler vine” analogy kicks in about 03:34)
Here’s the top comment on YouTube:
“CWC is trying to ‘strangle’ the life out of a traditional public school that they perceive as dying? Stoner has an API of 811 (very exceptional for that demographic). The school is not dying unless you are actively trying to kill it. The arrogance of CWC and its parents is just disturbing. They think that by invading our neighborhood they are making it better. What does that say to the residents that have lived there over 30 years?”
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Why hasn’t privatization of public schools gotten any play from people like Rachel Maddow who has an extraordinary research team shedding light on so many other social injustices? They follow Chicago, Wisconsin and Michigan closely discussing teachers’ unions and even standing out with members but always circumventing charters and vouchers. How did they target JEB and leave out his destruction of Florida’s schools? How did a discussion of closing 50 schools in Chicago fail to make the link to profiteering privatization.
I assume charters would have hit their fans if it were just a Republican goal. Perhaps if Kasich had moved on in the primaries they’d have found some clues. What has to happen to make privatization of our schools newsworthy to progressive media outlets with wide national audiences? Tidbits about the treatment of children in Success Academy never come with ties to Obama and Duncan, Gates, Eli and friends who are adding so much fuel (tax dollars) to the fire engulfing us. Ohio’s charter situation alone could keep our comedians well fed with hilarious situations.
My dread is that there is some bigger picture that we’re not seeing that somehow ties our progressive media detectives in with the destructive reformers. Both Hillary and Bernie swear against privatizing prisons, social security, and Veterans’ Affairs but never mention education. Bernie likes “Public Charter Schools” (whatever he thinks they are).
I can’t thank Diane enough for keeping us informed, enraged, and active but we need to get her message to everyone else.
Living in Massachusetts where we are facing a national onslaught behind a ballot question that would essentially remove any charter cap, I’m particularly anxious to get the truth out.
Mary
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Marynwill…Maddow is working for Hillary.
Here is today’s Robert Reich column on why we who are Bernie supporters must vote for her. Mirrors Diane’s recent comments.
——————————————-
From Robert Reich….
“With the Democratic primaries grinding to a bitter end, I have suggestions for both Clinton and Sanders supporters that neither will like.
First, my advice to Clinton supporters: Don’t try to drum Bernie Sanders out of the race before Hillary Clinton officially gets the nomination (if she in fact does get it).
Some of you say Bernie should bow out because he has no chance of getting the nomination, and his continuing candidacy is harming Hillary Clinton’s chances.
It’s true that Bernie’s chances are slim, but it’s inaccurate to say he has no chance. If you consider only pledged delegates, who have been selected in caucuses and primaries, he’s not all that far behind Hillary Clinton. And the upcoming primary in California – the nation’s most populous state – could possibly alter Sanders’s and Clinton’s relative tallies.
My calculation doesn’t include so-called “superdelegates” – Democratic office holders and other insiders who haven’t been selected through primaries and caucuses. But in this year of anti-establishment fury, it would be unwise for Hillary Clinton to relay on superdelegates to get her over the finish line.
Sanders should stay in the race also because he has attracted a large number of young people and independents. Their passion, excitement, and enthusiasm are critically important to Hillary Clinton’s success, if she’s the nominee, as well the success of other Democrats this year, and, more fundamentally, to the future of American politics.
Finally and not the least, Sanders has been telling a basic truth about the American political economic system – that growing inequality of income and wealth has led inexorably to the increasing political power of those at the top, including big corporations and Wall Street banks. And that political power has stacked the deck in their favor, leading to still wider inequality.
Nothing important can be accomplished – reversing climate change, creating true equal opportunity, overcoming racism, rebuilding the middle class, having a sane and sensible foreign policy – until we reclaim our democracy from the moneyed interests. The longer Bernie Sanders is on stage to deliver this message, the better.
Next, my advice for Sanders supporters: Be prepared to work hard for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination.
Some of you say that refusing to fight for or even vote for Hillary will show the Democratic political establishment why it must change its ways.
But the “Democratic political establishment” is nothing but a bunch of people, many of them big donors and fundraisers occupying comfortable and privileged positions, who won’t even be aware that you’ve decided to sit it out – unless Hillary loses to Donald Trump.
Which brings me to those of you who say there’s no real difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
That’s just plain wrong. Trump has revealed himself to be a narcissistic, xenophobic, hatemonger who, if elected, would legitimize bigotry, appoint Supreme Court justices with terrible values, and have direct access to the button that could set off a nuclear war.
Hillary may not possess Bernie Sanders’s indignation about the rigging of our economy and democracy, or be willing to go as far in remedying it, but she’s shown herself a capable and responsible leader.
Some of you agree a Trump presidency would be a disaster but claim it would galvanize a forceful progressive movement in response.
That’s unlikely. Rarely if ever in history has a sharp swing to the right moved the political pendulum further back in the opposite direction. Instead, it tends to move the “center” rightward, as did Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Besides, Trump could do huge and unalterable damage to America and the world in the meantime.
Finally, some of you say even if Hillary is better than Trump, you’re tired of choosing the “lesser of two evils,” and you’re going to vote your conscience by either writing Bernie’s name in, or voting for the Green Party candidate, or not voting at all.
I can’t criticize anyone for voting their conscience, of course. But your conscience should know that a decision not to vote for Hillary, should she become the Democratic nominee, is a de facto decision to help Donald Trump.
Both of my morsels of advice may be hard to swallow. Many Hillary supporters don’t want Bernie to keep campaigning, and many Bernie supporters don’t want to root for Hillary if she gets the nomination.
But swallow it you must – not just for the good of the Democratic Party, but for the good of the nation.”
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Rumor says Maddow is a close personal friend of Eva.
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Thank Obama and the folks who got him elected and voted for him. Only possible to hoodwink the poor masses, and blacks and latinos, with one of our own kind. Shame on Obama and shame on us for trusting him because of the color of his skin and his democrat affiliation. DFER…DINO.
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AND, I want my taxes back, these funds, and all monies gifted to Wendy Kopp and TFA.
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Education Pioneers, at its website, lists its funders. The usual foundations like the Waltons are listed. Oddly, Gates is not, on the list. The Gates Foundation, itself, announced $7.6 million to Education Pioneers. And, at the EP website, this PR message, is posted, “Education Pioneers is in its 5th year of our summer consulting partnership” with Gates.
Of note, as funders, are, Goldman Sachs Gives (an oxymoron) and, the “DC Metro Area Office of the State Superintendent for Education”.
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In reference to Ohio (the 7th largest state), the National Charter School Resource Center LIES, when it says, “On the whole, charter schools achieve similar results to traditional public schools….” KnowYourCharter.com displays the truth.
The Resource Center cites the Data Disaggregation Initiative Program, which Rebecca Klein wrote about, recently, at Huffpo. It doesn’t take much deductive reasoning to see that this type of information collection, is a boon to profit-making, for Silicon Valley and, makes a saleable product for target marketing, to other firms. Beyond those purposes, IMO, the project is worthless.
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