Mercedes Schneider, continuing her practice of following the money, decided to take a look at Education Post, a website that regularly sings the praises of corporate reform and hires hatchet-persons to go after critics of privatization and high-stakes testing.
Education Post was whistled into existence by billionaire Eli Broad, theoretically to introduce civil discourse into education debates but specifically and expo,icitly to defend the poor billionaires who felt they needed someone to defend them in the social media world. Poor, poor billionaires, with tender egos.
Millions flowed to Education Post, but it is hard to know whether Eli and the other billionaires got a return on their investment. As Peter Cunningham once said to me in defense of high-stakes testing, “You measure what you treasure.” I disagreed, since I could think of any way to measure my grandchildren or my other loved ones.
Peter has certainly done well, as Mer exes reports.
“Cunningham garnered a raise, from $201,950 [$190,700 plus $11,250 deferred comp.] for 7.5 months in 2014 to $368,138 [$327,844 plus $40,294] for 12 months in 2015, which reflects an overall raise of $45,018 and a raise of $22,724 in non-deferred compensation.”
But how is Eli’s ego? Are the billionaires getting their money’s worth? How is the ROI?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Making money for work is fine- I’m in favor of that- but why are paid public school advocates greedy and disreputable while paid charter school advocates are pure and above reproach?
If your belief system says that paying employees means it’s “about adults” then why doesn’t that apply to the adults in ed reform?
They’re just intrinsically better people? If ed reform is gonna divine motives based on getting paid then doesn’t that apply to everyone?
If an Ohio charter advertises or lobbies to gain students or funding and a teachers union lobbies for the same things but for public schools then why is the charter “pure” and the union icky and horrible? Maybe the charter is “about the adult jobs”- I don’t know but I’m surely not going along with the idea that one group of adults is mysteriously better and more pure based on which set of schools they work for, because that’s nonsensical.
Charters have been around so long in Ohio we have an entire set of adults who are absolutely invested in jobs- their own jobs. There are real estate development concerns and accountants and lawyers and contractors for charter goods and services. One can have a lucrative charter career in Ohio and never get near a school.
Are they “self interested”? Why or why not? This moral superiority claim these people are making doesn’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. Maybe they’re all wonderful people but being employed by ed reform is no guarantee of that and it is insufferably arrogant to claim it.
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Mosaica Education seems to employ a lot of “adults”. They’re a charter management and contracting group.
Maybe someone can explain to me why public school teachers are “self interested” and these folks aren’t- they won’t be able to explain it to me because it’s a ridiculous claim.
If your claim is that every adult who works in public education is “self interested” then you better be prepared to explain why every adult in ed reform is pure and “about the kids” because when ed reform has been around for 20 years like it has in my state there are PLENTY of paid adults making a living on this.
I have no idea why they’re more pure than public school employees other than their own inflated self-regard.
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Chiara
Great point. The only people making really money in education are deformers
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Thanks for this series of posts, Chiara. Gives us yet another angle to critique the ed-reformers/ school-choicers: how are they ‘more about the kids’ as opposed to the ‘adults’– parents & teachers I presume– & their meme is designed to place a wedge between those two groups.
All of which is an ed-reformer manipulation designed to break up “the public good” into adversary groups: taxpayers vs tax-consumers, unions vs right-to-work proponents, parents vs their kids, teachers vs their students, admin vs their teachers, trad’l publics vs charters/privates, etc.
This is all reminding me of Steve Bannon’s recent diatribes: this sort of politics is anti-social-self-mgt: it is nihilistic & anarchistic.
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“David Brennan’s White Hat Management has been the most powerful and influential of Ohio’s charter school operators since state money started flowing to the privately run public schools 15 years ago.”
David Brennan- more or less pure than a public school teacher? “Self interested” or not? Wedded to the “status quo” that employs him and his entire family or not?
They’re just a better class of lobbyists on the ed reform side? Is that it?
Ed reform knocked out the teachers associations in North Carolina. They’re now inundated with charter lobbyists. Ohio, at least, still has public school lobbyists along with charter lobbyists but this notion that one is more pure than the other is based on absolutely nothing. It’s nonsense, and worse it’s SELF AGGRANDIZING nonsense.
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Here’s the truth in Ohio. If we didn’t have teachers unions and superintendents and principals going to Columbus and lobbying for public schools then 90% of the families in this state wouldn’t have a single advocate in their own government.
So if they ARE self-interested ( as all more mortals are to a greater or lesser degree with the exception of the Saints of Ed Reform) than thank goodness for self-interest.
I want an advocate at the statehouse and they’re what I’ve got. They’re ALL I’ve got.
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Holy sh#%!!!
Peter Cunningham made $368,138 (!!!???) annual salary in 2015.
I’ll say that again.
Holy sh#%!!!!!!
That’s more than 1/3rd million dollars / year in 2015 alone. If he keeps earning that (or more), he’s on track to earn more than *$1 million in just a three year span.
One more time.
Holy sh#%!!!!!!!!!
I wonder if Peter’s going to follow Jeanne Allen’s lead and call people “bullies” and “predators” exposing this to the public.
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I want to know what that slob does in a 40-hour 9-to-5 week to justify that kinda cash.
Peter, if you’re reading this, fill in the blanks with just a rough idea of what you typically do:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx
MONDAY:
9 am – 12 pm – _________________________
12 – 1 pm – LUNCH
1 pm – 5 pm – _________________________
TUESDAY:
9 am – 12 pm – _________________________
12 – 1 pm – LUNCH
1 pm – 5 pm – _________________________
WEDNESDAY:
9 am – 12 pm – _________________________
12 – 1 pm – LUNCH
1 pm – 5 pm – _________________________
THURSDAY:
9 am – 12 pm – _________________________
12 – 1 pm – LUNCH
1 pm – 5 pm – _________________________
FRIDAY:
9 am – 12 pm – _________________________
12 – 1 pm – LUNCH
1 pm – 5 pm – _________________________
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Let’s just crunch the numbers a little.
Assuming Peter works 50 weeks in year (with only a 2-week annual vacation … btw, that’s not an assumption I would make. My guess is his works less than 50, but for the sake of argument, we’ll be generous and give him the 50 weeks.)
I’ll further give him a 40 hours per week. (That could be lower or higher. Peter can come on here and correct me on that if he wishes.)
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
PETER CUNNINGHAM’s PAY:
$368,138 annual salary / 50 weeks = $7,722.66 /week.
$7,722.66 weekly salary / 40 hours-week = $193.07 /hour.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Now, I want to know.
What the-ding-dong-dilly does this slob do on the job, or what the-ding-dong-dilly expertise or experience does Peter bring to his job that justifies him getting paid $193.07 /hour???!!!
Now, let’s compare that to a typical teacher, such as Mercedes Schneider, whose tenacious on-line detective work exposed Peter’s EDUCATION POST salary to the world.
(I say “tenacious” because Peter’s salary data was hidden in the 501c.3 tax forms of entirely different non-profit — RIEF — as there is no form for EDUCATION POST. Mercedes had to discover EdPost’s salaries were in fact, in RIEF’s forms by going through the non-profits funded by Eli Broad. It was a lot of work, but she pulled it off.)
I’m just guessing about Mercedes, but I would surmise, that with her years on the job, that what she makes at a Louisiana teacher’s salary is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 /year. (That’s a high-ball estimate… it’s likely lower, but I don’t know. I could be wrong.)
(Oh and she doesn’t get paid a red cent for her “Deutsch29” blog writing and blog maintenance.)
Now crunch those numbers. Like most teachers Mercedes works about 10 months/year, when you take away the summer and two weeks at Christmas, then add in summer closing/prep. We’ll call that 40/weeks in a year.
Given that she’s an English teacher with, at the very least, over 100 writing assignments to grade each week, I’d guess a low-ball estimate of her weekly hours at 70 hours / week — if you also add in class time, plus lesson planning, prep, grading tests, record keeping in a gradebook, meetings, student conferences, conferences with parents, etc.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
MERCEDES SCHNEIDER’s PAY
$50,000 annual salary / 40 weeks = $1,250.00 /week/
$1,250.00 weekly salary / 70 hours-week = $17.86 hour.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Chew on that one.
For you keeping score, that’s …
$193.07 /hour for PETER CUNNINGHAM
— versus —
$17.86 /hour for MERCEDES SCHNEIDER
Teachers such as Mercedes (and myself, for that matter) make less than 1/10th of the hourly salary that Peter makes.
Let’s get an exact percentage.
$17.86 / $193.07 = 9.25%
Mercedes and typical teachers make just 9.25% of what Peter Cunningham makes on an hourly basis, yet he has the temerity to sit in judgment of those teachers, and exert powerful influence — through his EDUCATION POST website, which has a $12 million annual budged — on how those teachers are evaluate, judged via test scores/ VAM, treated, fired, disciplined, and … yes … paid.
Think about that.
Someone with some time on their hands can do the above calculations for CER’s Jeanne Allen, but I warn you. Jeanne’s probably call you a “bully” and a “predator” for doing so, then compare such activity to the predations of alleged rapist and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. (Yeah, she did that. She really did.)
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Thanks for letting us know the price it costs to buy Peter Cunningham to look the other way at reprehensible practices when done by a charter network that is the favorite of the billionaires that underwrite his salary.
I have no opinion as to whether a salary between $300,000 and $400,000 is a cheap or expensive price to pay to get Peter Cunningham to pretend that a charter school’s Kindergarten class that has almost no white students would have a “violent child” rate of 20% (which is what those charters that suspend 20% of their kindergarten children claim is the only reason they have to mete out so many out of school suspensions to 5 and 6 year olds – their “violent” actions.)
I have no opinion as to whether a salary between $300,000 and $400,000 is a fair price to pay to get a white person to attack the NAACP for pointing out how racist those and other practices are. I think Peter Cunningham reads your blog, so maybe he can chime in as to whether he feels underpaid for his efforts. How much should someone be paid to ignore any facts that are inconvenient to the people that pay his salary when those facts do great harm to children?
What salary would Cunningham need to insist that 20% of the kindergarten students in a mostly white upper middle class school were acting out so violently that they needed to be suspended and it had nothing to do with the teacher and everything to do with the natural tendencies of those children?
Would be lower or higher than his price to push that lie when it comes to children who are not white and affluent?
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I am genuinely interested in open, honest dialogue about how to improve schools. I keep hoping we will get past the false choices and ugly rhetoric and figure out how to give all low-income children a great education based on high expectations, more learning time, rigorous curriculum, needed social services and parental choice–the same choices Diane Ravitch and Peter Cunningham enjoyed for our own children. Thanks again for engaging. Sorry I couldn’t make it to Oakland. Looked like a lively, spirited gathering.
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You’re a douche.
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Jack,
If PC was truly interested in learning rather than blaming, he would have been at the NPE Conference in Oakland. Also, he would be asking quesions rather than writing his MOST stupid and useless comment.
The DEMS and their DFERS don’t GET IT. The DEMS and their DFERS handed over public school students and public school teachers to the big money and getting campaign contributions. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! SICK.
The DEMS need a swift kick in their behinds. I have “HAD IT” with the DFERS and the DEMS, and I am a registered Democrat. THE DEMS are OUT OF TOUCH, and that is why we have that DUMP.
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We missed you, Peter.
As you know, our C4 will not endorse any candidate who supports charters or vouchers. We oppose the DeVos agenda. We believe that it is wrong to divert public funding from public schools to send to privately managed charters and vouchers.
The only way we can provide an excellent education for ALL schools is to fully fund our public schools in every neighborhood and to press for school desegregation in every district.
I have often wondered what would have happened if the $5 Billion for Race to the Top had been used to promote real racial integration—a Research-based way to improve student outcomes—instead of doubling doem on George W. Bush’s NCLB. That $5 Billion was wasted on testing, high-stakes, and VAM. You had the chance to change the face of American education and you blew it.
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By the way, the conference was GREAT, the best ever.
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Peter Cunningham,
Did you really use those tired buzzwords “high expectations”? That’s what your favorite charter chain (the one that endorsed Betsy DeVos whose high suspension and attrition rates you pretend not to see) always claims. Peter, you seem to love it when charters say “We have high expectations and can we help it that some unworthy 5 year olds and their unworthy parents can’t meet them?”
And saying that your child “ENJOYED” choice? I think you mean your child was acceptable to the people to whom you paid a lot of money for them to admit your child to their school.
Who did the choosing in the school that you sent your child to? You or the school?
Your use of buzzwords reminds me of Trump and the Republican Party. Like you they claim that tossing Obamacare and Medicare will give Americans more “choice” in their healthcare.
Guess who gets the “choice” when the Republicans use the exact same buzzwords you use, Peter? The Americans who are healthiest! Guess who gets screwed? Those that need more health care. Those who have pre-existing conditions and chronic and expensive illnesses. Guess who “wins”? The corporations who profit from insuring the healthiest Americans. Guess who also wins? PR shills who tell themselves their overpaid salary is for their good work and not because it takes a fair amount of money to get someone to sell out the sickest Americans with propaganda about how everyone is helped when you give Americans more “choice” instead of Obamacare and Medicare.
You do exactly the same thing when you promote a “choice” in which the children who have no learning issues have choice while the ones who need the most get tossed aside. It’s like you don’t even see those children. Are they invisible to you? After all, YOU were the one who wants to give ALL low-income children an education based on “HIGH EXPECTATIONS and a RIGOROUS CURRICULUM”.
What happens to the kids who can’t meet those high expectations and need more than a newly minted college grad with 40 hours of “training” doesn’t have a clue how to teach them?
You don’t care one bit, do you? Because if they can’t meet the high expectations with inexperienced charter-trained teachers, they aren’t worthy. You will attack and attack the public school teachers who fail to turn those children into high performing scholars and claim they don’t have “high expectations”.
But when a charter school fails with huge numbers of those students who don’t meet their “high expectations”, you simply agree that those children were unworthy and violent at age 5 and 6 and should be blamed for their own failures.
There is a charter chain that is offering just the kind of “high expectations” and “rigorous curriculum” you describe:
BASIS Charter Schools, Inc.
Your buzzwords describe them to a T. They’ve solve all the problems of public education, according to Peter Cunningham, because they have high expectations and rigor. Of course, those of us who aren’t shills for privatization can see that having “high expectations” is just another way of saying “if you can’t meet them, please leave”.
But at least BASIS is honest about it.
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Above, Peter acts all nicey-nice in this post directed at Dr. Ravitch, blathering away about being “genuinely interested in open, honest dialogue .. Looked like a lively, spirited gathering.”
However, his recent tweet slurring the NPE and its conference betrays his true feelings: (SPOILER: it doesn’t sound like someone who is *”genuinely interested in open, honest dialogue**)
https://twitter.com/PCunningham57/status/919236805421162496
Yeah, right. They’re trying to “block needed eforms.” Shame on them!
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Jack,
Brilliant catch! Peter Cunningham caught in an outright lie. Not to mention Cunningham’s nasty, nasty characterization of the NPE: “meets in Oakland to find ways to block needed reforms…”
I guess when Cunningham posted above that “I keep hoping we will get past the false choices and ugly rhetoric …” he forgot his nasty characterization about the NPE.
“I want to get past the ugly rhetoric which is why I am tweeting that your entire meeting was to find ways to block needed reforms”
Cunningham’s willingness to say and do anything regardless of whether it is truthful could not be demonstrated more clearly”.
It takes a lot of money to sell out your soul and be willing to lie if necessary. Cunningham sells himself cheap for what he does.
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Jack: good catch.
Except that, like so much else, it’s low hanging fruit that practically jumps into your—and then, with your kind help, our—hands.
😃
Consider the case of another spokesperson for the crowd that corporate education reformers run with, KellyAnne Conway. She disputes, live and being recorded, that she ever used the term “fake news”—oh, yeah, except when she’s quoting others. Of course, the internet immediately lit up with examples of her gratuitous use of the term.
Apparently a precondition for all these hired guns—like posting a comment on this blog and tweeting something that literally vitiates the spirit of said remarks—is to assume that everyone outside of their charmed circles can’t read, can’t hear, and can’t think.
🙄
Could this be Mr. Peter Cunningham’s “Bowling Green Massacre” moment? Or is there more, and worse, yet to come?
😎
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Why go to a conference when one can just “monitor” from afar and Trump civil conversation with “truthful hyperbole” and “fake news”?
After all, as is obvious to all but the most benighted haters, Kommon Kore so revolutionized education that nothing more needed, or needs, to be said or done.
😲
Link: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-cunningham/ravitch-redux_b_3768887.html
Always keeping in mind that the profit motive, properly employed in the pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$, er, I mean, quality education is the surest path to…
Now what would be a salable and catchy end to that last sentence?
😎
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That’s Peter’s review of REIGN OF ERROR, where Peter didn’t even bother to read the book, but in a Kreskin-like manner, surmised what was likely in the book.
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Good one, Jack.
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Jack: but reading is so, like, 20th century.
Sheesh!
😲
I don’t think you understand that knowing what’s best for others and imposing the solutions marketed by the corporate education crowd on them/us Trumps reality.
So get Rheeal. Not real. It’s “all about the kids!” and the “new civil rights movement of our time!” and driving out of business all those “factories of failure” aka public schools.
So to riff off of what you wrote above: “Mercedes and typical teachers make just 9.25% of what Peter Cunningham makes on an hourly basis”—
Have a heart. As the defenders of Ref Rodriguez, that paragon of “education reform” would say, what’s a measly $25,000 in campaign funds laundered through family members and employees, or for that matter $100,000 or more added onto a munificent yearly salary when the stakes involved are so much more.
Look, it’s all about values. Not those burdensome big gubmint ones like transparency and openness and democracy and honesty and integrity and fair play. They’re just so 20th century.
Now MISIS and iPads…
Capiche?
😎
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BELOW is a bizarre but emotional old post that I wrote in response to Cunningham’s review of Dr. Ravitch’s book without actually reading it. (link to that review is in the post above and also BELOW)
My post goes into a stream of consciousness parody of the old Carnac sketch on the JOHNNY CARSON TONIGHT SHOW — which I’ll first post an example to see what the hell I’m referring to:
(My littler brother and I used to sneak a small black ‘n white TV into our bedroom to watch Johnny when we were supposed to be sleeping. I have fond memories of keeping the sound low while we watched with our faces inches away from the screen, as we tried, often unsuccessfully, to understand the jokes or references.)
Here’s that post: (I must have been drunk at the time 😉 )
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
When I think of Peter Cunningham, the first thing that comes to mind the comic spectacle of his choosing to review Ravitch’s book REIGN OF ERROR … without doing her the courtesy of reading it first:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-cunningham/ravitch-redux_b_3768887.html
I’m picturing Peter at his desk dressed as Johnny Carson’s “Carnac”—in a black turtleneck, with a big, sparkling, puffed-out faux-turban on his head—holding REIGN OF ERROR to his forehead with one hand, and typing the Huffpost review with the other hand… (while talking in Carson’s nasal-ly Carnac voice.)
CUNNINGHAM (from HUFFPOST) : “I understand that Dr. Ravitch is about to publish another book attacking education reform. She will go after my good friend Arne Duncan. She will attack… she will attack… she will attack… ”
“What she will not do is… *she will not … she will not… “*
What is this guy? Nostradamus?
Hey, Peter. Here’s an idea you could look into the next time the HuffPost tasks you with reviewing a book…
1) first read the book (after you buy the book or check it out your library, of course)…
THEN
2) write your review.
Seriously, my students all do this, and it works wonders.
Sure, based on her recent writings, one can guess much of what Dr. Ravitch will write in a book about ed. issues, but still… what was the point of reviewing it without reading it? Doing it the right way allows one to cite quotations, give the page numbers of the quotations, read everything in context, discover and correct misunderstandings… and on and on…
By the way, I’m working up a Cunningham-as-Carnac routine… here’s some spitballing… (they’re not all winners, so show mercy)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: “Frosted flakes.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“Whadda ya get when you lock TFA Corps Members in a meat locker?”
ED McMAHON: ^ “Haw, haw, haw! Yes!”*
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: (Carnac voice) “A Few Good Men”
—(opens an envelope)
“How many people would it take to do all the REIGN OF ERROR research that Diane Ravitch did all by herself?”
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: “Twelve Years as a Slave.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“What does Carrie Walton-Penner desire for all her charter school teachers’ careers?”
ED McMAHON: ^ “Haw, haw, haw! You are correct, Sir!”*
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: “House of Cards.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“Upon what foundation does Value-Added Measurement theory rest?”
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: “Billions and billions.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“To date, how much has Michelle Rhee made bashing teachers?”
ED McMAHON: ^ “Haw, haw, haw! Yes!”*
— (holds an envelope to his forehead, then concentrates)
CUNNINGHAM: “Big Ben, Tom Brady, and Campbell Brown’s defense for not revealing The74’s donors.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“Name a clock, a jock, and a crock.”
CUNNINGHAM: “Criminal Minds.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“To be admitted, what must all potential Broad Academy candidates possess?”
CUNNINGHAM: “A credentialled teacher, a pair of urine-free underpants, and a Special Ed. student.”
—(opens the envelope and reads it)
“Name three things you won’t find in a class at an Eva Moskowitz’ SUCCESS ACADEMY.”
(That last one refers to Eva claiming that it’s no big deal with kids wet their pants from stress and/or not being allowed to go the restroom. Such and experience is good for them, and teaches discipline.)
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“the same choices Diane Ravitch and Peter Cunningham enjoyed for our own children”
You were right, Diane: the overused refrain of “what about the children”?!?
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The reformers like Cunningham say “what about the children” right before they explain that because of their high expectations and rigor what they really mean is “what about the children who are profitable for us to teach?”
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