Read the press release.

$100 million smackeroos.

https://www.macfound.org/press/press-releases/sesame-workshop-and-international-rescue-committee-awarded-100-million-early-childhood-education-syrian-refugees/

Categories International, Philanthropy

33 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Laura H. Chapman says:

December 20, 2017 at 3:14 pm

Sesame’s Muppets will model inclusion and respect, and gender equity.

I hope that Trump and friends will watch.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  December 20, 2017 at 3:16 pm
  
  Trump missed Sesame Street. He would be way different if had seen it.
  
  Reply
ponderosa says:

December 20, 2017 at 3:54 pm

I hope the curriculum is content-rich and doesn’t ape Common Core. Sounds like a lot of it will be delivered by video.

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dienne77 says:

December 20, 2017 at 4:19 pm

I have a much cheaper way to help Syrian children: stop bombing them.

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- m4potw says:
  
  December 21, 2017 at 12:07 am
  
  Thank you Dienne77
  
  I completely agree with your suggestion.
  
  Similarly, I hope that EdTech corporation or Common Core policy writer/creator will leave American Public Education ALONE.
  
  All American veteran Educators teach very well within traditional curriculum without common core or given modern computer tech.
  
  Stop bombing innocent children! Back2basic
  
  Reply
retired teacher says:

December 20, 2017 at 4:35 pm

The Syrians will benefit tremendously from this grant. They have a deep appreciation for education. The children of Syria are in so much need of any gesture of kindness. They have suffered greatly in this inhumane war and have truly been the innocent victims of madness.

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Mary Porter says:

December 20, 2017 at 8:32 pm

Sesame Street Venture Fund is investing its capital with MacArthur’s Global Impact Fund partners, to expand ed tech.
“Word on Sesame Street: Why Big Bird Gave to Reach Capital’s $53 Million Fund”
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-05-18-word-on-sesame-street-why-big-bird-gave-to-reach-capital-s-53-million-fund

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  December 20, 2017 at 8:33 pm
  
  Mary,
  
  Sesame Street is collaborating with the International Rescue Fund to help the children of Syrian refugees. Are you opposed to that?
  
  Reply
  - dienne77 says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 7:39 am
    
    That wasn’t really a fair question, Diane. It’s like when the rephormers present charter schools as the answer to the “civil rights issue of our time” and ask dissenters, what do you have against poor black kids?
    
    I think Mary’s post and link makes it clear she has nothing against helping Syrian children. The point is rather the concern that this venture is not at all about helping Syrian children.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 10:04 am
    
    Dienne,
    
    I don’t know anyone who works at the MacArthur Foundation. If Mary and her friends want to protest, they should have a demonstration in front of the foundation’s headquarters. I fight injustice and error every day. There is nothing I can do to change the policies of the MacArthur Foundation. Right now, I am working my magic on Gates, Broad, and Walton, and that’s quite enough for one 79-year-Old woman without any staff.
- Mary Porter says:
  
  December 20, 2017 at 10:09 pm
  
  What I am opposed to in the for-profit financial structure of MacArthur’s Social Impact fund. Sesame Street says they are setting up a model program, which they will “bring to scale”. At scale, Social Impact investors extract a return-on-investment out of the funds allocated for refugee assistance by governments and international aid organizations. There is a wealth of financial literature in support of these plans, and they are backed by the USDOE, but I do oppose them strongly.
  
  Brookings has a most helpful introduction (It does deal with Macarthur). As powerful financial entities like Brookings, IBM, Macarthur, Morgan Chase and many others work to shift more and more public services over to this model, in the US as well as the third world, people need to stop and study.
  
  Brookings’ team Writes:
  “Impact bonds in developing countries: Early learnings from the field”
  
  “Sep 18, 2017 – Social and development impact bonds, one form of results-based financing, have the potential to shift the focus of participants to outcomes, encourage performance … Contingent on the achievement of results, the outcome funder repays the investors their principal plus an agreed-upon return on investment.”
  https://www.brookings.edu/research/impact-bonds-in-developing-countries-early-learnings-from-the-field/
  
  Reply
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 20, 2017 at 10:12 pm
    
    I agree.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 20, 2017 at 10:12 pm
    
    I oppose for-Profit ventures in education.
  - ponderosa says:
    
    December 20, 2017 at 11:45 pm
    
    Why don’t they just augment the budgets of the state educational systems in the refugees’ host countries so that services can be extended to the refugees? Or are Arab public school teachers just as inept at education as they seem to think American teachers are? It does look like they’re beta-testing Gates’ fantasy education system on utterly helpless, stateless, impoverished refugees…and calling it philanthropy. I thought the Syrian refugees needed normal lives. No, they need “edtech tools that can scale in K-12 schools” and ultimately turn a tidy profit for the social impact bond investors. No profit in buttressing existing public institutions.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 10:12 am
    
    Giving money to the Syrian Government to educate Syrian children would be like giving money to the Hitler regime to educate displaced Jewish children in 1939.
  - retired teacher says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 8:37 am
    
    I agree, but I still hope the children benefit. The mantra of these free market privateers is “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” When tragedy strikes, they look for opportunity. Puerto Rico is on their radar.
  - ponderosa says:
    
    December 22, 2017 at 10:11 am
    
    Diane, my understanding is that most of the refugees are in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. I agree that Assad’s evil regime should not be assisted in anyway. The whole civil war started as reaction to his thugs’ torturing of teenagers who dared to protest.
wrenchinthegears says:

December 20, 2017 at 9:24 pm

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center of Sesame Workshop has been pushing digital learning on very young children. They are also partnered with IBM Watson to build “personalized” AI cognitive learning systems for at risk children. It is predatory and designed to create data streams for impact investing that will be used to profile children as well. http://joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiatives/
https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/06/sesame-workshop-and-ibm-watson-to-launch-platform-to-help-kids-learn/

As you well know MacArthur is involved in social impact investing and social impact bonds. Many SIBs are directed at early childhood education. They will pilot and refine these programs on refugee populations because they are vulnerable. Just as they are doing now with biometric retinal scan payment systems. I am horrified.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  December 20, 2017 at 9:31 pm
  
  That’s terrible. You should take it up with the MacArthur Foundation. I don’t know anyone there.
  
  Reply
wrenchinthegears says:

December 20, 2017 at 9:37 pm

Didn’t you review proposals for this prize?

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  December 20, 2017 at 10:07 pm
  
  There were hundreds of proposals. I reviewed four of them. I did not review the winning proposal.
  
  Reply
  - wrenchinthegears says:
    
    December 20, 2017 at 10:21 pm
    
    I think you should reach out to your contact there are share your views. What they are doing will cause extreme harm to those children. You are a public figure, and given that you have promoted their efforts in your blog, I believe it your moral obligation to speak up publicly now that you know.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 20, 2017 at 10:22 pm
    
    I have no contacts at the MacArthur Foundation.
  - wrenchinthegears says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 7:29 am
    
    Diane, you wrote a whole column to the effect that this prize is what good philanthropy looks like. You misled many people. Now that you open acknowledge the truth, you owe it to your readers to do a follow up and explain that you were wrong about MacArthur, not just because of the role they are playing in the next phase of ed reform, but because of what they plan to do to these children.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 10:06 am
    
    My readers are smart. They read your comments. I am under no obligation to attack the Foundation.
Karen Wolfe says:

December 20, 2017 at 10:08 pm

How about some posts about money that is going to support the grassroots efforts to fight corporate reform in our school districts? Oh, there is none.

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wrenchinthegears says:

December 20, 2017 at 10:34 pm

MacArthur Foundation is one of the primary forces pushing this new phase of education reform, playlist education via digital media and and learning ecosystems.

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Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

December 20, 2017 at 10:56 pm

All I can say is, “Sigh. Cui bono?”

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InService says:

December 20, 2017 at 11:21 pm

Gotta admit, edu-profiteers love a human disaster so they can swoop in and take advantage of people at their most vulnerable. They’re also very slick at selling it as philanthropy. Seems to be a theme today, what with this, and growth mindsets, and “the teacher next door”, and prizewinning, and all: who can you trust not to be part of the Billionaire Boys team? We few.

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- Mary Porter says:
  
  December 21, 2017 at 1:10 pm
  
  God knows there is a worldwide oversupply of refugees with no power to defend themselves, available to be turned into profit sources.
  
  Reply
Mary Porter says:

December 21, 2017 at 12:49 pm

Although diane declines to personally make a statement regarding the quality of MacArthus’s philanthropy at this time, she agrees with me that her readers are astute.

People can judge for themselves. Here is MacArthur’s own statement regarding risk and return (profit) in its charitable effort.

“Impact investors have expanded their assets under management at a compounded rate of 18 percent over the past several years, according to a report by the Global Impact Investing Network, a MacArthur grantee. Based primarily on data from the Network’s annual investor survey, the report highlights industry concern about the “lack of appropriate capital across the risk/return spectrum” and the “shortage of high-quality investment opportunities with track record.” MacArthur’s impact investing strategy, which aims to address structural gaps that hold back enhanced participation of new and existing investors, focuses on these and related challenges.”
https://www.macfound.org/press/publications/growth-and-concerns-impact-investors/

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  December 21, 2017 at 1:11 pm
  
  Mary,
  
  Thank you for your observations. If I knew anyone at MacArthur, I would forward them. The contest was conducted by an outside firm hired for that purpose.
  
  Reply
  - Mary Porter says:
    
    December 21, 2017 at 2:22 pm
    
    Please clear my other link from moderation, Diane. People do have a right and a duty to judge this enormously powerful financial project.