Peter Greene has a timely warning for us. Laurene Powell Jobs has lined up multiple TV channels and a star-studded cast to tell the world how she is fixing education. Her group is called the Emerson Collective. She hired Arne Duncan to advise her, despite the fact that he wasted $5 billion of federal funds (taxpayer money) on a failed effort to “reform” public schools by privatizing them, closing them, firing teachers and principals, and making standardized tests the purpose of education.
Peter notes that no working educator helped Mrs. Jobs formulate her plans. What do teachers know about education?
He writes:
“Brace yourselves. It’s time for a star-studded ed erformstravaganza.
“Another wave of PR dropped yesterday, touting a four-network, celebrity-packed, media event, proudly trumpeted everywhere from Variety to USA Today. On September 8, a huge line-up (including Tom Hanks, Yo-Yo Ma, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and (sorry) Common) will present “an hour-long live television special about reinventing American high schools….
“The XQ Institute is an offspring of the Emerson Collective, a Palo Alto-based do-gooding group founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. The organization is dedicated to removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential in order to develop and execute innovative solutions that will spur change and promote equality. They were one of the first groups to hire Arne Duncan after his Ed Secretary stint (do not miss his hardcore street pic here). Oh, and they just bought controlling interest in the Atlantic which, for reasons we’ll get to, is kind of a bummer.
“Jobs was always a philanthropic power player, and she’s logged time in the ed reform biz with NewSchools Venture Fund (We raise contributions from donors and use it to find, fund and support teams of educators and education entrepreneurs who are reimagining public education), but as the widow of Apple Empresario Steve Jobs, she has a huge mountain of money to work with. She is, in fact, the fourth richest woman in the world. And she has decided she would like to fix education.
“Jobs has said, “We want to make high schools back into the great equalizers they were meant to be.”
“To do that, she launched XQ Institute, which launched a big competition– XQ: The Super School Project.
“The Super School Project is an open call to reimagine and design the next American high school. In towns and cities far and wide, teams will unite and take on this important work of our time: rethinking and building schools that deeply prepare our students for the rigorous challenges of college, jobs, and life…
“Jobs doesn’t use many of the dog whistles or talking points of reformsters, except for one that she really loves:
“Jobs told the NYT, “The system was created for the work force we needed 100 years ago. Things are not working the way we want it to be working.”
“In USA Today: The XQ Institute aims to “rethink” American public high schools, which, it maintains, have remained virtually unchanged for a century while the world has transformed dramatically.
“Schools haven’t changed in 100 years” is the dead horse Jobs rides in on, a criticism that only makes sense if you don’t know what schools were actually like in 1917, and if you haven’t actually visited one in the last century….
“I also note that in all the publicity for the event that I’ve now read, there is no mention of other sponsors, so while I don’t have proof, I’m pushed to conclude that Laurene Powell Jobs just busted out her checkbook and bought a full hour of Friday night primetime television on four networks.
“What can we expect. Well, music and comedy and documentaries are billed. And we’re talking about a SuperSchool live, so presumably we won’t bother with any coverage of those dopey Clark Kent schlubby schools where the rest of us slog away. This special will just focus on Jobs’ own created reality.”
Don’t you wish that billionaire dilettantes would fix health care or save national parks or find some other pet hobby? When do they get tired of failing? Again and again and again…
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Don’t you wish that billionaire dilettantes would fix health care or save national parks or find some other pet hobby?”
Oh my word, no. While I fervently want them out of education, I most definitely would not inflict them on our already-suffering health care system or national parks. There’s already enough profit being made in health care, and if the billionaires get their hands on the national parks, they’ll all be luxury facilities that will cost $1,000 just to set foot in.
If they need a hobby, I recommend underwater basket weaving. Preferably without breathing apparatus. Apologies to any actual underwater basket weavers.
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I would be happy if they just gave no-strings-attached grants to public schools all over the country earmarked for free breakfasts & lunches, textbooks, paper, ink cartidges/pencils/ pens, & high-protein snacks.
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Bethree5, I would also be happy if they paid their fair share in taxes so that our public schools could be supported with appropriate resources, our poor neighborhoods cleaned up, and something meaningful could be done regarding truly doing something about poverty in this country.
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Right you are, Zorba. In that kind of rightside-up world, we plebes wouldn’t have to beg for crumbs.
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I wish she would fix my ipad.
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What’s the educational version of dramamine?
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Diane The problem is that, though some will surely benefit, it’s the children who ultimately will “pay.”
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This bashing of the real public schools and charter cheerleading has become a regular ritual especially intensified at the beginning of the school year. It’s always the same: public schools bad, charter schools and school privatization good, miraculous. It is definitely nauseating. Labor Day is coming up, will the main stream media have articles and programs celebrating labor unions and unionized workers? Ha, ha, ha, never going to happen. Teacher unions are always portrayed as the enemy of the kids and education.
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Right on … NAUSEATING.
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“When do they get tired of failing? Again and again and again…”
Never? Don’t they make money even when they fail?
I am thoroughly sick of this. A child has one chance to be in kindergarten. One chance to be in 9th grade. What will be the fallout of this greed and deception?
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To all conscientious educators, parents and students:
There are two important keys to show GREED in business people:
1) The implication of “wasted $5 billion of federal funds (taxpayer money) ” is equalized to “LOOTED $5 billion of federal funds (taxpayer money)”into their own bank accounts.
2) She’s logged time in the ed reform biz with NewSchools Venture Fund = she co-operates with CROOKS to CHEAT all gullible and greedy investors or hedge fund managers.
Also there is too much sound bite on greedy or gullible ears, such as:
1) The rigorous challenges of college, jobs, and life… (= minimum wages without benefits)
2) Spur change and promote equality (= techie chaos and mental illness)
In short, I hope that all conscientious educators, parents and students unify to demand to have health care and national parks to be public FREE accessibility from a FAIR corporate tax system.
Please remember that corporate trashes our environment to pollute air, water and land. Also, corporate bullies workforce through wages below the living cost. As a result of corporate greed and negligence, people suffer stresses from mental illness (work long hours but cannot meet the living cost) to environmental illnesses (more buildings, housing, and factories without forest, without respect for safety code to prevent flood)…Back2basic
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Sorry, I mean to write “unite to be unified” in a sentence:
“In short, I hope that all conscientious educators, parents and students unite to be unified to demand…”
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May,
You are more than 100% correct in what you say here. Thoroughly agree with what you point out. So many, so blind, refuse to look and understand what you have stated as long as their own skin is not affected.
Thanks!
Duane
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Thank you señor Swacker:
I appreciate your approval and your agreement with my analysis.
I am just an average person with a conscience and a logical mindset about the implication of each personality that relates to EACH specific profession.
In all people, regardless of being educated or illiterate, rich or poor, noble or savage, we need to watch out for their PERSONAL INTEREST AND INCENTIVE in FAME, FORTUNE, LUST or EGO. As a result, we can predict very well the outcome of their strategies or plans. Most of all, their abilities (inner talents or skills) and their capacities (external supports from God Father of wealth and political power, and people power) will strengthen or deduct their strategies or plans.
In short, lions or tigers cannot overcome an organized group of wolves or bison. We, 99.99% of commoners, need to unite with being unified as one soul in BEING HUMANITY in order to win over 0.1% group of corporate wealth. May.
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There is no surprise that Powell Jobs will reach into her mountain of cash to finance a prime time TV show that will promote learning through technology. These billionaires have the distinct advantage of being able to buy political influence and pay for marketing on prime time TV replete with genuine A list celebrities as shills. The hubris of these billionaires is almost as large as their pocketbooks. So get the barf bags ready as they try to portray regular high schools as relics from the horse and buggy days. It is time for the tech privateers to make a move to make more money for themselves through their LLCs. Make no mistake; this is not charity, and Powell Jobs is no Mother Teresa. She has a BS and BA from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and political science. She has an MBA from Stanford where she had the good fortune to meet and marry Jobs. She is using her TV special as a launching pad through which she plans to “disrupt and “reinvent” high school.
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What kind of education did her children have? Did they take a lot of standardized tests starting very early in their education? Does she know that when kids from all different kinds of backgrounds are educated together, it’s better for everyone? Does she know that schools are awesome places to learn when teachers can just TEACH and not TEST?
I have other thoughts, but just questions for today.
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She was a hedge fund manager.
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“Don’t you wish that billionaire dilettantes would fix health care or save national parks or find some other pet hobby? ”
NO
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No kidding. I agree with you and dienne77.
Keep them away from health care (which already has enough gazillionaires messing with it so that private insurance companies, big pharma, and large health care consortiums can make the big bucks) and from the national parks. They may well, as dienne said, want to set up luxury facilities under the guise of, well, this will make money to help save the parks. Or, as is already starting to happen, the big bucks people will get increasingly involved in downsizing the national parks and monuments so they can rape them for profit.
Yes, I said “rape,” and that’s just what they want to do to our national parks, natural resources, and anything that might help the people, the community, the country, as opposed to the wealthiest.
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Quite correct, Zorba, quite correct!
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I can’t click “like” for this one. Is there a documentary out there that shows how much the schools have changed since 1917? If not, we could film how children are treated at Eva’ Moskowitz’s Success Academies to show what it was like in 1917.
I only taught for thirty years from 1975 – 2005, and I witnessed many changes taking place on a never ending basis. Teaching does not stand still. Materials teachers use are changing all the time. Teaching Methods based on studies coming out of university K-12 lab schools were behind many of the changes.
When I started teaching, there wasn’t much technology but when I left, the high school library had a computer lab and another mobile lab with laptops on carts.
When I started teaching, we tracked the kids into groups based on their literacy levels. We had basic English, regular English and advanced English classes. I think there were more levels than those three.
That started to end in the 1980s, and kids with reading levels across the spectrum ended up in the same classes (from 2nd-grade reading literacy level to college literacy level) because the theories and evidence said low kids learned better in the same room with kids performing at higher levels.
When I retired, students were working in cooperative groups producing film projects linked to history and literature.
I could go on for a long time with all the changes that I witnessed and was part of during the thirty years I was a public school teacher.
Is there any way we can flush Mrs. Dumb-Dumb Jobs down a toilet. Sigh! If that worked, she’d just plug up the sewer pipe because she is so full of programmed reformer crap, and we’d have to call Roto Rooter.
Wait, maybe using Roto Rooter to deal with all those ignorant, arrogant billionaires isn’t a bad idea.
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Great post, Lloyd. Here are memories of the oh-so-different, certainly-not assembly-line style publ-ed my 3 got in ’90’s-00’s, plus a coda re: pubschs of ’70’s.
I remember how surprised I was to witness my eldest’s Soc Stud class in action in 1998. The 25 kids were divided into 5 5-member groups, several of which were working w/PC’s [CD-Roms of the Oregon Trail, maybe?) The initial teacher-directed lecture was maybe 10mins, then came 20-25mins teamwork, closing w/5-10mins of comparing notes & identifying issues to follow up the next day. Homework was related, summary-style, designed to catch everyone up to the same page.
That same eldest was afflicted w/mental & phys illnesses whose hospitalizations interfered significantly w/the school sched in ms & hs. Thro his IEP & constant dovetailing of SpEd & Guidance staff, he was offered everything from 1/2-day tutoring at a day-hosp to tiny self-contained classes to summer tutoring by highly-qual teachers so that he could catch up w/his cohort & go to college on sched.
Meanwhile my middle son despite strong elem-sch int in sci & soc stud began getting D’s in those subjects in early hi-sch. He found a home (2005-07) in our hisch’s ‘sch-w/in-a-sch” project-oriented “alt-hs” [founded in ’70’s], began excelling in all subjects, went on to college.
Another turn that surprised me was in 2009 when my youngest [an IEP student who also benefited from tiny self-contained classes as needed] was a jr in hs. Testing era was in full force here by then. NJ had a test-barrier to hs grad, but offered a practice version jr yr. It was apparent from youngest’s score he was in danger of failing the math portion. Even tho it was already spring, SpEd & Guidance Depts swiftly acted in tandem, & dictated that his sr yr sched would forfeit an elective in order to provide back-to-back math classes. He ended up doing fine on test & even offered a scholarship in college.
None of that history remotely resembles US schools of 1917. In fact– back in my own rural upstate-NY school district– the advances in mid-’70’s pedagogy for teaching dyslexics [for my younger sis] made such a huge difference from 7 yrs prior [for my younger bro, also severely dyslexic] that while he was tracked ‘slow’ due to reading struggles (despite hi intell & advanced soc skills– he ultimately did fine due to that & hi talent), had to repeat a grade & get a GRE– she ended up a SpEd teacher, got 2 masters’ degrees; currently an asst-princ in the same district.
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Everything you described I witnessed taking place in the high school where I taught. And more. As the Legislature and DC kept making it more difficult to teach for teachers and graduate from HS for students, the community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public school district where I worked adjusted to do all that they could afford (emphasis on the word “afford” in an era where cutting funds to public schools is one of the strategies by the reformers with vomit for brains that want to replace those public schools for ones they can profit from) to meet the needs of all students who cooperated.
Cooperated is also an important key word. It’s not easy to teach a child that doesn’t want to learn.
When the budget cuts started to happen, the union chapter where I taught even asked for a smaller pay raise than the one the district offered to make sure there was funding to keep classes sizes smaller and some of the programs open that would have been closed. I was there. I voted yes for that one – a smaller raise to save other programs that benefited our students and that was after we hadn’t had a raise in several years following one of the regular economic crashes caused by the same greed-is-great people behind the privatization movement.
Individuals that worship at the altar of avarice are destroying this country.
Back when I was still teaching, California’s legislature required students to pass a competency test to prove they were eligible to graduate. The school district where I taught partnered with the local community college and offered classes for the most at risk kids to help them learn enough to pass those minimum standards in reading, writing, and math. If the kids were willing to work, those classes were there at night and the district offered more classes during summer sessions for the same students.
In addition, after school tutoring was offered in the library five days a week with teachers and high performing students who volunteered to help.
The district where our daughter when to high school offered all the same programs and she ended up being one of those after school tutors, but she wouldn’t do the work for the other HS students who showed up for help. If they wouldn’t do it themselves to learn, she refused to help them.
I remember a meeting where all of the English teachers from several public school districts that fed students to Cal Poly Pomona worked together with that university’s English department to come up with strategies to increase the literacy levels of our students so there would be more students ready to start college after HS graduation.
That meeting was held late in the summer before the next school year started. Out of that came reading across the curriculum that included reading and writing strategies in every class including PE so our students were being exposed to reading and writing in every class at last once a week and not just in English or reading labs.
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It’s not just the billionaires who trot out the canard that schools haven’t changed. Every new fad is announced with the same rhetoric –“public schools are still using the ‘factory-model’ of education, using rote learning, etc.” Every push for a novel approach first must lay the groundwork by discrediting the status quo, and this is often done with totally inaccurate caricatures and stereotypes. In ten years we’ll hear XQ schools labeled with the same slurs –“factory model”, “skill and drill”, etc. –to clear the way for the next fad.
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When I started to teach in 1975, rote learning was already gone.
I didn’t know any teachers for the next thirt years that required their students to memorize long lists. In the 1980s due to the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading and writing we were forced — at least in California — to stop teaching even grammar.
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Will Jobs’ own children be there to talk about THEIR schools and whether they feel the schools which their mother paid tens of thousands each year for them to attend were lacking enough technology and should be changed?
I suggest Jobs and her well-paid pals be given copies of Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Fun They Had”
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I don’t think high school students watch “regular” tv anymore. None of the high school age kids who come to my house to see my son do. They play video games or watch streaming video. I can’t remember the last time I saw them watching a television show, except for sports.
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Let’s get the ed reform phrase generator ramped up- 21st century learning, personalized learning, dead end schools, government schools, failing schools, factory schools, college and career ready, data driven, and finally (and I bet Arne Duncan says this) “the jobs of the future haven’t been invented yet”.
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I forgot “public-private partnership”- plug that in somewhere.
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Well, count your blessings- I think it’s safe so say no one will suggest turning schools into Uber. They quietly dropped the Uber comparison, for obvious reasons.
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Did you guys see how the voucher lobby held Illinois public school funding hostage until they got vouchers?
The public school kids in that state are an afterthought. They were used as leverage to put in an ed reform priority. None of their alleged “representatives” could care less what happens to their schools.
Vouchers won! Oh, and public schools will open this year, but only BECAUSE vouchers won.
3% of students are dominating the entire legislative agenda for the other 97%
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“3% of students are dominating the entire legislative agenda for the other 97%”
Keep on tellin’ it, Chiara!
The stats & info you keep posting here are a mirror for the politics of our time:
1%-er’s ‘ideology’ [= memes to sell policies counter-productive to the public good in order to plump intl profits by cutting US OH, i.e., any add-on to banana-republic wages, e.g., QOL bought by funds for union-negotiated wages, or infrastructure, or libraries, parks, postal services etc etc)
Mirrored by faux-populist themes like ‘small-govt’, ‘school choice’, et al memes designed to pit struggling middle/wkg-class folks against the poor [‘govt hand-outs].
All a giant distraction from 35+ yrs of tax-cut/ dereg policies– conservatives’ pusillanimous response to automation/ globalism [their refusal to confront change w/innovation]– creating an über-rich overclass whose mantra is “sauve qui peuve”, preferably at the expense of the underclass.
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I am sooo tired reading and hearing about the rich man/woman’s philosophy about education! What they are arrogantly in denial about is that if they did not have the wealth that they have No-One would listen to one word they had to say about education. They would be ignored, just like classroom teachers are in regards to contributing their views on what would improve our educational system.
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Their wealth buys them overweening, undemocratic influence on govt policy, thanks to our current campaign-funding laws. So why do ‘they’ [Gates, Walton, Broad, Koch/ALEC, Jobs] pick education as their issue? Well, Gates & Jobs, obviously because they’re pushing policies that will feather their corporate nests. Walton, Broad & Koch for anti-union [‘libertarian’] reasons that will ultimately feather their corporate nests as well.
So: campaign-funding laws should be the target of all who hope to return power to one-man one-vote.
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Off topic, but very much on topic .
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What a joke. Waiting for Superman was caught staging scenes and didn’t get the Oscar they expected because of it, so the one copy of that piece of propaganda is collecting dust on Guggenheim’s shelf. Won’t Back Down was a box office flop. ABC and NBC ran weekend charter puff pieces that drew low ratings. PBS put Melinda Gates on with a bunch of people pretending to be teachers and lost credibility. Now this. I didn’t know Tom Hanks needed money so bad. Now he’s in bed with Betsy DeVos on TV. Kinda sad. You’re right, Diane, the people who watch this junk are going to briefly need barf bags before they change the channel. All three of them will need barf bags.
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Ooh! I wonder if Hanks is going to wear his hair tasteless DaVinci Code style…. No I don’t.
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Huh? Schools a hundred years ago are the same as today, to get a well rounded education and learn critical thinking. The job training part? More people fixing cars and houses? I don’t exactly see Google or Apple automating those jobs. My plumbing is broken, fix it robot.
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Here’s info about the $10 million XQ project involving a public district school system in the Boston area….
“In Somerville, Sprout & Co. plans to work with Somerville Public Schools to open a new school called Somerville Powderhouse Studios, according to a presentation at Wednesday’s ceremony. Students involved in the program will go to school year-round (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), will have an art studio and other resources at their disposal, and will forgo regular classroom learning to work on a series of projects in teams. Instead of learning from teachers, they will work with project managers, curriculum developers, and social workers.
“‘Their research park model creates a space where students can dive deep into topics they love while being surrounded by the resources to support and guide their curiosity,’ said US Rep Luis Guttierez, who introduced the team from Somerville.”
“The Globe reports that two hundred eighth-grade students will take part in the program—which will be housed in an old school building—beginning either next year or the year after.”
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/09/14/somerville-wins-10-million-for-a-super-school/
“A local nonprofit working with the Somerville Public Schools came up with a proposal that might seem off the wall: a year-round high school that feels more like a research and design studio where students pursue long-term projects in areas of interest to them.
“There would be no grade levels or a set sequence of courses in math, science, and English. Instead, students would learn material in theme-based symposiums, internships, and hands-on projects that could delve into biomechanics or computational art.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/09/14/somerville-hits-jackpot-national-high-school-innovation-competition/GmbALgQgblpUSRSOGL3XAK/story.html
Hmmm… “dive deep into topics they love” sounds suspiciously personalized, eh?
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Just looked at the website for XQ. Vista HS, in California, is the closest to where I teach (Long Beach USD.) It doesn’t look or have the feel of anything different, in fact, the thing that caught my eye in the XQ presentation video was the teaching to the “bell schedule.” It seems that Vista has a bell schedule. 50 minute periods to be exact. How, then, is it different? This isn’t even like a Waldorf School, where computers/cell phones are discouraged in order to learn to find information the old fashion way so that the mind can understand what it is doing, not just “googling it.” Not impressed.
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