Laura Chapman noted a major promotion that is scheduled for September, when Laurence Powell Jobs tells the world how to fix public schools. What is the source of her expertise? Well, she is surrounded by alumni of the ill-fated Obama Department of Education, which managed to blow away $5 billion and accomplish nothing other than to create a teacher shortage and enrich the testing and charter industry. Arne Duncan, mastermind of the failed Race to the Top, advises Jobs. She is also extremely rich, and we know from “Fiddler on the Roof” that “When you’re rich, they think you really know.”
The Billionaires who think they have the answers to high school redesign are planning a big splash in early September.
Premise: “While technology and society have rocketed forward, high school has used the same model since 1900. We can’t prepare our nation’s students for the 21st century with this outmoded system. Let’s rethink high school.”
On September 8, 2017, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox New will be marketing the Emerson Collective’s “XQ: The Super School Project,” at 8 pm (7pm Central)
“XQ: The Super School Project was launched in September 2015 as an open call to rethink and design the next American high school. Thousands of school builders, and tens of thousands of supporters from towns and cities across all 50 states united to take on this important work. Nearly 4,000 teams of students, teachers, parents, community leaders and many more came together to conceptualize innovative models for 21st century learning. To date, XQ has pledged more than $100 million to a growing number of the most promising ideas, actively supporting these teams on their journeys to become Super Schools.” Here are some of the leaders of the project.
Laurene Powell Jobs. Chairs XQ’s board of directors, President of Emerson Collective. “Her two decades in the education field have convinced her that America is ready for a sea change to overhaul the system.” Widow of Steve Jobs.
Russlynn Ali, Chief Executive Officer. Former assistant secretary of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Also serves as managing director of education at Emerson Collective.
Alexandra Berry, Chief of Staff. Designed professional development products for teachers at Amplify, Instructional faculty and operations team at Relay Graduate School of Education. Teach for America, middle school math learning specialist at Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) in Houston, Texas.
Matt Lorin, President: Former Executive Director of Honolulu-based, The Learning Coalition. Experience in philanthropy and civic engagement in public education.
Monica Martinez. Senior School Support Strategist. Expert in school redesign, policy, and philanthropy. Senior Fellow to the Hewlett Foundation, President of New Tech Network, VP of KnowledgeWorks Foundation, an associate at the Institute for Educational Leadership.
Dr. Linda Murray, Superintendent–in–Residence. Former senior advisor to the Education Trust-West and Superintendent of Schools for the San Jose Unified School District. Advises XQ on practice work …to help all students in XQ high schools reach college and career ready goals.
Sebastian Turner, Special Projects Lead: Worked as a personnel management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, human capital consultant and talent recruiter for charter management organizations. Former elementary school teacher.
Deep collaborators ( role not clear) include:
Yo-Yo Ma, the globally accomplished musician and creator;
Marc Ecko, Chief Brand and Creative Officer of COMPLEX, youth and justice advocate;
Geoffrey Canada, education advocate, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone;
Michael Klein, global strategic and financial adviser and Managing Partner of M Klein,
Leon Wieseltier, Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution, listed as the philosopher for the Emerson Collective.
More information about the high school project go to https://xqsuperschool.org
For more about the people and projects of the Emerson Collective go to http://www.emersoncollective.com/our-team/
My generation would label many of these efforts variants of the 1960s alternative school movement with a lot more tech. I hope that someone or some group (other than the promoters) will track the longevity of these school, transformations, and what happens when the grant money and glow of publicity fades. Notice how some of the recruits to lead the project are “formers”… of TFA, of Relay (not) Graduate School of Education, the Education Trust, and active in pushing tech. ALmost forgot: Arne Duncan is a Partner in the Emerson Collective.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Louise Linton, the wife of Mnunchin (Treasury Secretary and Wall Street slime), has enormous love for herself and an ego like Laurene Powell Jobs, Melinda Gates, Priscilla Zuckerberg and Betsy DeVos.
At OurFuture.org, Richard Eskow published a letter to Linton which includes, “You were exiting an aircraft paid for and bearing the symbolic markings of the American people…You ended your hashtag string with the name of a country as if it was a personal trinket to be used for personal enrichment/glorification…” Eskow’s letter is a must read for all U.S. citizens. I hope Diane posts it.
It foretells the coming class war caused by Democratic and Republican parties who have delivered oligarchy to the American people.
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People should just recognize that these are “start up” grants and these will be publicly-funded schools. The initial funding is a “gift” but continuing costs are not.
They are designing and starting public schools without any democratic process or input from the people who will be paying for them.
So many of these initiatives just seem like a work-around to avoid getting public consent. It’s hard to get public consent but that doesn’t make it a barrier that should just be gotten around. It’s essential. This idea that people are “standing in the way” of innovation and they can be mollified with a big wad of cash really ignores the fundamental premise of “public”.
Will these schools work within existing systems, or is that just being ignored again? Schools aren’t islands. They’re part of a whole. Is there any concern with what happens to existing schools when you plunk a brand shiny new one down with lots of publicity and marketing? Because one piece of a system has effects on the whole and there’s no guarantee that “everyone wins!”
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“They are designing and starting public schools without any democratic process or input from the people who will be paying for them.”
Can you say “Taxation without representation”?
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We’ve had a lot of “Taxation without representation” for the past 20 years…it’s only become bolder and more evident to the general population over the past 3-5 yrs. I’m waiting for another Boston Tea Party when the government gets shut down again at the end of September. We no longer have a democracy.
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This is another example of seed money for a potential huge reward for her and her fellow tech giants. People need to follow the money to understand what special interest groups will benefit. Technology is not a panacea, and there is no evidence that suggests it can “save” education.
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When I read this post, Diane, all I can picture is: PUKE! Good grief, the DEFORMERS sure are like hillbillies…insular and non-thinking.
They remind me of the characters in the memoir, Hillbilly Elegy by Vance. This family in crisis is so much like the DEMs…STUCK and can’t see the forest for the trees. In this case it’s about $$$$$ and power. That’s why the deformers want to own our young…endless supply of $$$$$ and slaves.
A bit of humor….new brew for t-RUMP: IMPEACH ME beer. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/08/23/donald-trump-impeach-me-beer/amp/
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I also think we’re veering dangerously close to the idea that public schools are charitable entities- that people should pick and choose which schools they support – that it’s A-OK to have Donors Choose deciding which schools get supplies and which don’t.
What if your school isn’t fashionable or doesn’t have an effective sales pitch? You’re just out of luck?
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You are describing a major cause for the growing segregation in our city.
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I always wonder if these ed reform PR blitzes are coordinated. This one coincides with “Reinventing Schools” – written by America’s foremost privatizer.
It’s already being heavily promoted in media and on ed reform sites.
The way to “reinvent schools” is to contract the whole sector out. If you cut to the chase that’s the foundational premise of all of ed reform. It’s government contracting that they have decided to call “governance” like they invented the idea of public funds going to private entities to provide services.
No one would do this with any other public service. If you privatize your municipal water system no one would say “we invented a new form of governance!” They’d say “we hired a contractor to provide water”.
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Chiara,
T.V. news personalities lack interest and the depth to understand your points. News management and politicians (except Warren and Sanders) answer to the plutocracy.
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Warren and Sanders do answer to the plutocracy, they just talk a better political game.
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without the talk- a deep and great void.
Bernie’s talk won him 22 states in the Democratic primary.
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Hoover Institute- ” …economic opportunity and prosperity …securing and safeguarding peace…” Hoover should add clarifying statements (1) “Oligarchy is our preferred form of governance”. And, (2) Hoover rejects the research of Thomas Picketty and the 500 year history of concentrated wealth and conditions that lead to revolt.
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Ms. Jobs and her pals tried to dangle the $10M prize at Oakand Unified for one of these Super Dooper schools, and the district nearly went for it. Press all over the place before the board had even voted on the project, like it was a done deal. It was going to occupy a recently emptied building right up the street from one of the best high schools in Oakland. Miraculously, the project went away, along with our former champion and bestest buddy, Antwan Wilson.
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DC got Antwan. What miracles did he perform in Oakland?
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Well, his next trick was to hire $20M of excess administrative staff, under the not-so-watchful eye of the (Bloomberg, Walton-bought) school board, blowing a hole in this year’s school budget. Next, fire a popular principal at a struggling middle school located right near a juicy piece of real estate downtown near the lake. The miracle? That Oakland schools do as well as they do despite the disruption and chaos that Broadie superintendents have left behind…
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Blame-the-kids Blame-the-teachers Close-the schools re-gentrification tactics well learned in Denver — tactics which are now going to be devastatingly useful to him in Wash DC.
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I just joined up. I am waiting for illumination.
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The Emerson Collective is involved with “Pay for Success” social impact investing. http://www.nccdglobal.org/blog/diversifying-pay-success-providers
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It makes sense that she would look for a way to get the public to pay for her grand human experiment. With an undergrad degree in political science and an MBA from Stanford, she is an education “expert.” What could go wrong?
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Bingo!
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I just finished reading Neil Postman’s “Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.” Written 25 years ago, it is today even more persuasive than it was back then. He touches on so many of the fundamental things that are wildly awry in our increasingly dysfunctional culture. I can’t recommend the book highly enough.
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All areas of American life are suffering from the destructive effect of “The Billionaires’ Disease.” Too many billionaires are delusional: They have accumulated not only great wealth, but also sycophants who tell them they are geniuses. These sycophant-surrounded billionaires come to believe themselves not only to be geniuses, but that they alone are responsible for the wealth they have accumulated; they rationalize away the key and essential roles played by others in the success of their businesses. In their delusional minds they see their “genius” as being applicable to other areas, such as government and public education, notwithstanding the fact that they have no experience or expertise in these areas. So what we have today are billionaires with no governmental experience who think they know best who our elected officials should be, what government should and should not do, and billionaires who never taught a classroom full of children but who think they know exactly what “reforms” are needed in public education. And, of course, what’s needed in public schools is the charter school business model because the business model is the only thing the billionaires know even a bit about. And of course there are plenty of simpering sycophants to tell the billionaires how insightful they are about reforms and charter schools because these sycophants see an opportunity to cash in on unregulated charter schools to bleed tax money away from children and into their own pockets. If only there was a simple cure for The Billionaires’ Disease, then perhaps cured billionaires could turn their resources to combating the true root causes of problems not only in schools but throughout our nation: Poverty and racial discrimination.
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Well said!
Recently heard a ridiculously bad radio ad plugging the XQ TV event. It already smells like a flop.
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Russlyn Ali is also an alumnus of Education Trust.
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No more self-anointed reform-geniuses.
A Tale of Two Schools
“I will be returning to the highest poverty school in Spokane in less than a week. Highest Homeless. Highest Refugee. Highest ESL …
Please. Please.
Grit is NOT the answer.
Please.
Let these children experience art, music, movement, projects, building, exploration, curiosity, fun… DAILY … Not push push push … Not test test test … Not sit sit sit … Not listen listen listen … “~Raschelle Holland~
I know this lady. I know her soul.
And now you know about the hole in her heart.
And then this exquisite soul must walk out of that Twilight Zone school … and into a jolting dimension … one occupied by her very own son.
“I toured my son’s remodeled public school … It’s gorgeous … art every week in a beautiful art room … science every week in a beautiful science room … [few] qualify for free and reduced lunch. Test scores are high. It’s considered an “A” rated school by OSPI in Olympia.”
And she almost aches that her son is advantaged … and those “other” children … back in the cheap seats where she teaches … are not.
But she’s not to blame. That belongs to some far away folks … who are allergic to her reality.
The federal government has now admitted what we all knew … that this dreadful reform was a multi-billion dollar ruse. Actually … $7 billion worth of ruse.
A reform that was never real. Never genuine.
Just a concoction of cellophaned premises. Hollow promises. Gilded in educratic junk-speak. Championed by cultural-tinkerers in the Department of Education … who whizzed away billions. And forgot about the kids in the cheap seats.
Seven billion dollars that should have fixed Raschelle’s school … and spackled that hole in her heart.
But this reform was timid and spineless. Never facing up to racial or economic realities.
“The building I will walk into has 94% of children qualifying for FREE lunch … The students I work with … Will not have art consistently each week … Or science … Rather they go to a class on “Grit” and learning to push through and try harder … “
Yeah. Buck up! Your shirking 8 and 9 year olds.
Grit.
That’s a helluva reform. Find that genius who imagined that a good idea. Sit his kid in a cheap seat. And see if he blossoms on a steady diet of grit.
The most struggling schools are almost always found in inner city circumstances … and they are overwhelmingly schools of color and disadvantage.
But reformers ignored that … ’cause that would require speaking some hard, racial truths … and the race card would surely show up somewhere. And you shouldn’t shake that tree. No, no, no. That would cause discomfort. But what about the discomfort of those kids in the cheap seats? Weren’t they worth it?
Apparently not.
So, the reformers whimped. And took the easy way out.
“The scores in my school will remain low … And reform curriculums will keep coming … to ‘cure’ the academic achievement gap … And it won’t be cured. In fact, it continues to widen.”
And so will the hole in Raschelle Holland’s heart.
Here’s the sick irony.
These reforms were applied across the board. To every single school. In a grand display of meaningless equality. And it didn’t much matter if a school was successful or not. Everyone was gonna sip the same scholastic hemlock … even if it poisoned good schools and made bad schools worse.
It was a government lurch of perfect equality … it screwed everyone.
But … it didn’t have to be this way. And this teacher shouldn’t have wind whistling through her heart. And those kids shouldn’t be glued to cheap seats.
This is a mess that cannot be unmessed. It’s time to begin again … and time to get it right.
Everyone knew certain schools were short-changed. Poisoned by greasy politicians and self-serving unionists. But … instead of a cure … all we got was a $7 billion travesty.
And Raschelle Holland? She got an ugly hole in her heart.
Denis Ian
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Denis,
Are you the same person who praised Trump on Facebook? Same name as yours.
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Denis Ian
Read Gordon Lafer’s Chap. 4 of the book “The One Percent Solution: How corporations are remaking states one at a time”.
You will have a clearer understanding about the self-serving among the U.S. oligarchy.
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Ms Jobs was the lead investor in the buyout of Murdoch’s “Amplify”. She certainly expects a large scale return on that investment and is going to do all she can to make that happen.
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Amplify probably didn’t cost much. When Klein ran it, it lost $500 million, and Murdoch dumped it. Then Amplify dumped KLEIN. He now works for Jared Kushner’s brother at an online health insurance company called OSCAR.
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From education to health insurance. Gotta make a living. But what a waste of K-12 educational expertise.
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