Wendy Lecker warns the people of Connecticut that the New Haven public schools have made a deal with the Relay “Graduate School of Education,” which trains robot teachers who value compliance and arrive with scripted lessons. Why contract with Relay, she asks, when there are highly reputable teacher education programs in the neighborhood?
When you consider that Connecticut is one of the highest achieving states in the nation on NAEP, you have to wonder how the charter industry captured the state’s political leadership.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The corporate charter industry grabbed Connecticut because they spent more money on getting their minion political representatives elected who then do the bidding of the arrogant and corrupt oligarchs thanks to Citizens United and the fact that the U.S. has not had election reform to make elections fair and more honest. I don’t think we can expect total honesty in elections ever but it would be good to make sure no candidate can spend more then the other side. If one candidate has only $100k, for instance, to run his/her campaign that should be the limit for the opposite candidate and no super packs and dark money.
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Better yet, publicly funded elections- everyone receives the same amount, depending upon which office the candidates are running for (I would give a bit more to candidates for national office, versus candidates for state office, versus candidates for local office).
Find a way to overturn Citizens United, get rid of PACS, and, while we’re at it, term limits for our Senators and Representaives.
Unfortunately, none of this is going to happen.
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True.
The polluting, climate change denying Koch brothers, their ALEC and Tea Party brain dead drones; the Bill Gates billionaire cabal, and the union hating, poverty wage paying Walmart Waltons will spend billions to stop honest and fair elections. And that is just the tip of the 0.1 percent spear.
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“. . . you have to wonder how the charter industry captured the state’s political leadership.”
Nah, don’t have to wonder at all. It’s called payola, scratch my back and I’ll fill your pockets with money. Quid pro quo anyone?
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Exactly, Duane. All we have to do is find out who profits from this, and there’s your answer.
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Wendy says…For instance, Lemov instructs trainees that “(a) sequence that begins with a student unwilling or unable to answer a question ends with that student giving the right answer as often as possible even if they only repeat it.” Even if they only repeat it!
Let’s call this PARROT training at public expense,
jump-started by $30 million from the Robinhood Foundation in NYC,
approved and nurtured into a scaled up version by Bill Gates starting in 2012 for $200,000 for “a strategic growth plan,”
adding $399,827 in 2013 for “planning and design of an innovative approach to teacher preparation,”
then in 2015 investing $6,872,650 for Relay Graduate School of Education to establish “teacher preparation transformation centers that will provide technical assistance, serve as a data center, and serve as a disseminator of practice.”
Then there are the grants and praise heaped on Relay from the USDE, a starter list here. http://findit.ed.gov/search?utf8=✓&affiliate=ed.gov&query=Relay+Graduate+School+of+Education
Cap this off with the approval of ESSA by the Obama and Congress authorizing the “anyone can teach anything to anyone anytime, anyway” principle in Title II with the belief that training is not different from education…
“Preparing, Training, And Recruiting High-Quality Teachers, Principals, Or Other School Leaders.
BF Skinner and his pigeons must be smiling.
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But….but….but, Laura, how else will the publishers of “educational” software, tests, curricula, the makers of hardware used in classrooms and the owners of the so-called “teacher training” programs, the charter school executives and their enablers, going to make a whole lot of money, on the backs of public school children?
And how else are we going to produce the good little worker-bees who will not be trained in critical thinking skills and will therefore not question anything they are told to do?
😦
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Don’t be surprised by this – New Haven’s superintendent, Garth Harries, came from the Broad Institute. I live here and this system is a mess. They point to New Haven’s T-val as a model of teacher evaluation so great that even the teachers love it. BULL!!! It’s a bloated document that takes a ridiculous amount of time away from the already thinly stretched time of teachers. And Arne Duncan loves it so that automatically tells you it’s nonsense. I thought here for 5 years and that was enough to make me run.
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Garth Harries is not only a Broadie but came through the Bloomberg-Klein regime.
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Just an observation, many young people who accept fellowships are pressed into graduate schools such as this. They are financially committed for about $35,000.00 dollars if they withdraw- break their signed contract. If they stay for 2 years it is $8,000.00 for this type graduate school, but they must work in what ever school they are placed in, and succeed as tasked, or they are fired and owe the full tuition – $35,000.00 It is a sophisticated business, that is often a non-profit, with high tuition and a work “scholarship”, that leaves the recipient very vulnerable. It is a well constructed trap, for the young and ulteristic. Sad! This is the part that truly needs to be exposed!
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Why does this sound so very much like indentured servitude?
😦
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A friend just told me that his small urban public school district just informed the staff of their partnership with Relay GSE. Relay must be making a play for the public school professional development dollars. There aren’t enough charter school employees to grow their model of graduate education.
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As a nation, we have prioritized test scores. We have failed to adapt our approach to education to meet to demands of a globalized and technology-driven society. We’ve allowed people who are the farthest from the children to make decisions about what is best for them.This is the root cause of the problem.
Many teacher and schools, both public and charter, are responding to what they’ve been told they need to do to survive. It’s fair and necessary to acknowledge this. Most teachers don’t want to be robot teachers. They don’t want to spend their days managing behavior and teaching test strategies. But, a lot of people in education are guilty of quietly accepting an inadequate status quo and conforming to the standard that will allow them to keep their jobs.
How might we harness the power of frustrated educators to change the national conversation about education rather than pitting charter educators against public educators?
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I’m a former special education public school teacher, and I left a few years ago to get my PhD at UConn so that I can work to train and support pre-service teachers in a college/university teacher education program. It’s hard work, and I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to be able to pursue this degree, including giving up my full time teaching salary. To say that the existence of the Relay Charter School terrifies me is an understatement. I’m afraid that it will devalue this degree that I’m working so hard to get, and as a result it will de-professionalize the teaching profession and put poorly qualified teachers in front of the most vulnerable kids. And it’s in my backyard. Geez. I think I’ll call my state representatives on this one.
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