Greg Windle, a journalist at The Notebook, has drawn together the many strands of the tangled web of Reformer groups in Philadelphia, as seen through the lens of a contract awarded to The New Teacher Project for principal training. TNTP, Michelle Rhee’s creation, was designed to hire new teachers. When did it develop an expertise in training principals? Were there no veteran educators, no one in the Philadelphia School System, capable of training new principals? Or were they recruiting principals who had been a teacher for a year or two?
As Windle gets deeper into the story of a contract dispute about hiring TNTP to train principals, a familiar cast of money-hungry Reform groups washes up on the beach.
“Marjorie Neff, a former School Reform Commission chair who voted against the TNTP contract to recruit and screen teachers, said that in her experience such national education vendors use an approach that is “formulaic” and doesn’t tailor well to the needs of an individual teacher or the “context” of teaching in Philadelphia, where a teacher’s needs are different than in the suburbs. Neff is a former principal at Samuel Powel Elementary and J.R. Masterman who earned a master’s degree in education from Temple University.
“They’re selling a product. From that perspective, their formula is their vested interest,” Neff said. “Their bottom line is profitability, and we need to take that into account. Is it the most effective way to do this, or is it the most profitable? I don’t think those necessarily have to be in conflict, but sometimes they are.”
“In 2017, TNTP reported that its expenses were $20 million higher than revenue. In 2016, its revenue was nearly $21 million higher than expenses, but this was entirely due to the $41 million it brought in from “all other contributions, gifts, grants” (excluding government grants). That pot includes grants from outside philanthropies, such as foundations, but also investments from venture capital firms. In 2015, the nonprofit lost $6.1 million, despite millions in outside funding.
“Shifting funding, but consistent ideology
“Bain Capital’s consulting firm has two members on the board of TNTP. Since 2009, Bain’s consulting arm has partnered with Teach for America to develop “high-impact leaders in education” by placing TFA alumni in “leadership” positions in public education. Together, TFA and Bain designed “a series of programs to inspire, prepare, match and support Teach for America alums on the path to leadership.” Bain aimed to bring leadership development practices from the private sector into public education.
“In 2012, the two organizations got together to “expand the scope of work” of their partnership — the same year that Teach for America founded School Systems Leaders to train TFA alumni to “serve at the highest levels of leadership in public school systems.”
“Matt Glickman, an employee of the Bain consulting firm and board member of TNTP, has also served on the board of the NewSchools Venture Fund. That fund has invested in free-market education reforms since 1998. The Sackler family – whose fortune is based on profits from Purdue Pharma, developer of OxyContin – decided to invest heavily in the fund.”
When will education be returned to educators?
Anyone advocating for edupreneurs should be fired. As Neff said quite well, these national vendors are in it for the money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts and someone occasionally mentioned as a Democratic candidate for President in 2020, is a managing director at Bain.
Readers should keep that in mind should he choose to run.
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This is a crooked endless spiral of profiteering and waste of public funds. Bain Capital are hedge fund vulture capitalists that want to feed on the bones of public money intended for public education. Hedge funds are exactly the type of people we should keep away from public money! By the way what exactly do they expect public schools to learn from private schools? The research is telling us that public schools outperform private schools. How to lie, cheat and steal and avoid jail time is what public schools can learn from Bain Capital. We have to be prepared for more waste and fraud as more for profits release their ESSA plans.
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Posted link to the article itself. https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-New-Teacher-Project-T-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Corruption_Education_Educational-Crisis_School-Reform-180831-53.html#comment712071
with this comment’
“Principals are the managers. How can the run a school, if they know little about HOW LEARNING OCCURS, which is the core for teachers who study ‘education’ for their professional degrees.
THE ploy IN THE PLOT TO END PUBLIC EDUCATION and create an ignorant citizenry, is to remove all the experienced teacher-practitioners (who know WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, and how to enable the learning of real skills.
TFA and other novices replace experienced, educated professional and will follow the mandates of these business managers.
Of course the schools will fail, and then Gates,Pearson Walton and the rest of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX caEDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdfn dictate a curricula that dumbs people down and changes what they know about history and science.
Thus the demolition of public education is CRUCIAL! Rdding the schools of the genuine professional teacher-practitoner — WHO KNOW WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE. allows the oligarchs to dumb the people down, . not to mention ending income equality, which depends on our people learning real skills”along with real history!
TFA and other novices replace experienced, educated professional and will follow the mandates of these business managers.
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“When will education be returned to educators?”
Not while Charles Koch is alive. His twin David is dying of pancreatic cancer but Charles is the mastermind behind the subversion of the US Constitutional Republic. Hopefully, when Charles is gone, there will be no one equally skilled at organizing the mass brainwashing and manipulation of people as he is.
Not while ALEC is allowed to exist as a fake non-profit or any similar Alt-Right organization.
Not while the GOP controls any states and has a majority in even one of the three branches of the federal government.
Not while FOX news is still in business supporting the real deep state with its endless lies designed to spew hate and distrust.
Not while Putin is powerful. The best thing that could happen for the US is for a revolution to break out in Russia that ends with Putin and his lieutenants hanging from trees and lamp posts … expired.
Not while the US Alt-Right wealthy is allowed to donate unlimited amounts of money to elections and in most states keep that flow of money in the dark.
Not until the majority of the states and all three branches of the federal government is controlled by “real” progressives.
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“Hopefully, when Charles is gone, there will be no one equally skilled at organizing the mass brainwashing and manipulation of people as he is.” AND HOPEFULLY when Charles and his brother are both gone there will be no one so psychologically dedicated to their father’s devastating goals.
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“There’s a school improvement model that has gotten consistent results in large schools, small schools, high-performing ones, low-performing ones, those with large achievement gaps, diverse schools, homogenous ones, and schools that are rural, urban and suburban. An impressive track record of hard evidence has made it the only program to earn three levels of competitive grant funding from the federal government since 2010.
But you’ve probably never heard of it.
The Building Assets, Reducing Risks program, known as BARR, was started by a Minneapolis school counselor in 1999, and remained in relative obscurity for a decade. Since 2010, its creator, Angela Jerabek, has sought research support to test the BARR program in other schools. The BARR mantra – “Same Students. Same Teachers. Better Results.” – has led Jerabek to aggressively seek out schools in different regions, with different demographics, to test her theory. So far, it holds up.”
Odd that she has to “seek research support” on such a promising program when we pour billions into research on various ed reform schemes.
Maybe she should pitch it to Gates or the Waltons. They run US education. See if they’ll throw her a few dollars. Doesn’t involve charters or vouchers, so probably not.
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Lots of successful schools are using these eight common sense ideas with students already, and they are getting good results. The feds and many states are not really interested in helping public schools. They work for the charter lobby and big money. That is the sad place where we currently find ourselves.
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Enron’s poster child, John Arnold, gave more than $8 mil. to the New Teacher Project since 2011. John Arnold’s allotment for New Schools Venture Fund is $8 mil. from 2016-2019. NSVF’s founder said the goal was “to develop different brands on a large scale” (Philanthropy Roundtable).
Bain Capital’s co-partner is on the board of the Center for American Progress. The former education policy V.P for the group hailed from TFA. With friends like that Randi’s union doesn’t need enemies.
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