Educators for Excellence occasionally pops up when the privatization movement is looking for “teachers” who will speak out against hard-earned rights of teaching professionals.
Two years ago, the Boston Teachers Union compiled research on E4E to warn their members about this AstroTurf group.
It was founded by two TFA teachers in New York City who are no longer teachers. It is funded by the reactionary anti-union Walton Family Foundation, the Rightwing William E. Simon Foundation, the anti-union Bodman Foundation, and the Arnold Foundation, which wants to eliminate pensions.
It favors merit pay based on test scores, teacher evaluation based on test scores, and opposes seniority.
BTU warned its members:
“Bottom line—Beware of E4E and its tactics
“E4E is getting funded to set up a chapter here in Boston. They tend to target early career teachers and try to build their membership through coffee hours, free lunches, raffles, and happy hours. Please help spread the word about E4E so that our members are aware of their tactics! If you see them in your school, please let us know.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The people who founded this group in NYC are two colonizers from TFA, who had a cup of coffee in Bronx classrooms, while taking up The White Man’s Burden, before “going on to better things,” as TFAers like to say.
They have zero credibility among NYC teachers, and I haven’t even seen evidence of them here recently. it seems that not only are their claims to represent teachers fraudulent, but they (fortunately) seem to be a money pit for the Gates Foundation and other so-called reform malanthropies.
A number of years ago, a group of us appeared at City Hall Park to shout them down at an event where they were pushing Gates’ VAM proposals. As far as I know, they’ve been scared to appear in public ever since. That’s what I’d recommend teachers in other cities do…
Like the action taken!
MALANTHROPIES. Perfect word.
E4E requires teachers to sign a “pledge” that endorses VAM as a component of their evaluation. I do not understand why anyone would sign a pledge to any organization that billionaires fund. This is a variant of the infamous Gates Compact that called for school districts run by elected officials and with public accountability to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would allow charter schools, privately run and often by out of state franchises, to use resources they did not pay for, occupy public school buildings, avoid the full costs of a district services such as those providing food and transportation. The charters were supposed to share their “best practices” with the district. The E4E pledge and the Gates compact are duping teachers and leaders of district in the same way…with contract-like arrangements totally out of bounds of professional work ing education.
Imagine a hospital or medical practice that signed a ledge or a “compact” to prescribe only the drugs/treatments that a billionaire donor wanted, and under conditions where those drugs/treatments were known to be toxic for parents and the medical personnel.
I am reminded of the pledge that I had to sign to be employed in Florida, mid-century last. The document asked if I had every been a member of the Communist Party or a member of one of the groups labelled “communist sympathizers”–with the list on legal paper, both sides, two pages two columns.
I think the E4E pledge is intended to function much like a loyalty oath, but now it is one aspect of market-based thinking. It also draws on the actual and implied threats in a non-compete clause in some employment contracts.
There is probably nothing that E4E can do to legally enforce compliance with the terms of the pledge–a pledge of loyalty to an agenda set by the billionaires. The whole point is to use teachers as marketers for the bad ideas of E4E and make them accomplices in their own demise.
If you sign the pledge, you confirm that you are easy prey. Do not be duped or used.
Diane –
Thank you for this post! I had no idea of their background.
We were under the impression that they were trying to push for teachers having more voice for school improvement issues.
YES – they have already come into our school 2 years in a row & provided free lunch for teachers.
Thanks again for all the information you disseminate and advocacy you provide for teachers & public education in general. R. Reynolds
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 9:00 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Educators for Excellence occasionally pops up when > the privatization movement is looking for “teachers” who will speak out > against hard-earned rights of teaching professionals. Two years ago, the > Boston Teachers Union compiled research on E4E to w” >
Here’s my reaction to Timothy Egan’s column: https://wp.me/p25b7q-20a
Like you, I usually nod in agreement with him… and his books are wonderful!
They’re very underhanded – very much present themselves as pro-teacher and even keeled. Before I left Stuy, a colleague of mine had arranged for them to talk as part of a school wide PD. This was announced at a faculty meeting. I immediately told the faculty (and my colleague) just where E4E is from and what they were about.
Obviously at that point they were no longer welcome.
My colleague, a long time union guy, later told me that he had absolutely no idea – they basically BS’d him to get in the door.