As you read recently, the Gates Foundation is investing $92 Million into the creation of “networks.” For the Gates Foundation, this is chump change. After all, it spent as much as $2 Billion on the Common Core, and $575 Million on trials of teacher evaluation by test scores (both failed to make any difference). So what is this tiny series of grants for? The education director of Gates is Robert Hughes, a lawyer who previously led New Visions for Public Schools in New York City. New Visions received the second largest grant.
Laura Chapman explains these grants, which promise remarkable results, results that have eluded Gates again and again.
She writes:
” It is still not clear what the $92 Million will do, although it’s likely to add a new layer of administrators.” Most of the Gates grants for “Networks for School Improvement” go to nongovernmental “intermediaries” and a theory of action (sort of) intended to induce targeted schools into some version of continuous improvement sharply focussed on improved test scores in math, plus college/career readiness.
I looked at the Gates Foundation press release and fact sheet about their current “portfolio of investments” in nineteen Networks for School Improvement. Almost all focus on improving test scores in math, middle school and 9th grade. Why? These test scores are viewed as “on-track indicators” for postsecondary enrollment.
Most of these grants require participating schools to adopt a continual improvement process (or continuous improvement process) determined by outside groups and “change experts.” The “science of school improvement” is a new slogan from reformers who wish to conduct experiments on students, teachers, and schools, while masking the corporate and science lab contexts from which the processes have been adapted. The Gates grants offer incentives for different versions of improvement science, some of these seeking incremental improvements, others seeking breakthrough improvements from “rapid” experimental cycles. All of these grants assume major deficiencies in the staff working in schools that that serve low income and mostly Black and Latino students, especially teachers of math.
In the following, I have edited the press release leaving in place only some of the jargon attached to justifications for each grant. Only one grant sends money to a public school district. Allmost all grants go to an intermediary organization structured to prevent direct oversight from elected school boards and supported by private dollars from foundations and corporations.
ACHIEVE ATLANTA: $532,000, 24 Months. Achieve Atlanta will help to develop a tool to support the successful matching of high school students to good-fit colleges and support students in selecting, applying to, and enrolling in good-fit postsecondary institutions. Aims: Create a matchmaking “tool” to aid students in selecting a postsecondary institution. Develop the “match and fit tool” as a predictive indicator for student success.
BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: $11,160,000, 48 Months. BCPS will hire onsite literacy coaches trained to use “high quality, standards-aligned materials and continuous improvement strategies” to support teachers and accelerate literacy in 12-15 middle schools selected as Literacy Intensive Sites. Aim: Improve “8th and 9th Grade On-Track outcomes.”
BANK STREET COLLEGE: $700,000, 16 Months (Yonkers, NY) Bank Street will organize, train, and support school-based math teams and team leaders in 10 Yonkers Public Schools. Teams will analyze data to track student improvement. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who successfully complete 8th grade math. Support Bank Street’s own data collection and analysis capacity in addition to the skills of teams and team leaders.
ED PARTNERS: $12,000,000, 61 Months (CA). California Education Partners (Ed Partners) will launch a network that will manage up to 50 secondary schools across 18 small and middle-size districts. Aims: Improve outcomes for Black, Latino and low-income students. Build the capacity of Ed Partners and these schools to improve outcomes (design, deliver, measure, learn from, and evaluate interventions).
CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY (CLEE): $560,000, 20 Months (RI) The Center will create a network that serves ten high schools in Rhode Island. CLEE will train teams of school and district leaders to be receptive to “a culture of change, identify equity gaps in 9th grade course completion, study root causes, and test interventions.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who complete a 9th grade college-prep math course. Induce school and district leaders to accept prescriptions and methods for change from CLEE.
CITY YEAR: $520,000, 18 Months (MILWAUKEE, WI). City Year and the “Everyone Graduates Center” at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education will organize and train teams from 10 middle schools serving predominantly Black, Latino, and low-income students to embrace “continuous improvement by utilizing Early Warning Indicators” and leveraging “innovative human capital, including AmeriCorps members.” Aims: Enable all students to complete 8th grade “on-track to high school graduation.” Induce teams to accept and practice the “continuous improvement” methods from City Year and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education.
COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF TEXAS: $503,000, 15 Months (NORTH TX ) EducateTexas will lead the regional Texas Network for School Improvement (TXNSI) Collaborative. The Collaborative will also be supported by Learning Forward (expertise in continuous improvement) and The Charles A. Dana Center (subject matter expertise in math education). Aims: Increase the math proficiency of Black, Latino and low- income students 8th grade students in 10 North Texas schools. Train leaders in those schools to ”adopt continuous improvement processes,” accelerate change, and increase outcomes.
COMMUNITY CENTER FOR EDUCATION RESULTS (CCER): $515,000, 24 Months (South King County, WA). CCER and the Puget Sound College & Career Network, will expand the College & Career Leadership Institute’s work on “systems improvements” congruent with the Gates funded “Road Map Project for South Seattle and South King County high schools. Aims: Provide support for more low-income students to have a meaningful, high-quality plan for college and career. Long term, “Eliminate opportunity gaps by race and income, and for 70 percent of the region’s students to earn a college degree or career credential by 2030.”
CORE: $16,000,000, 61 Months (CA) CORE stands for the non-governmental California Office to Reform Education, since 2013 active in steering accountability measures for large, urban districts in Fresno, Garden Grove, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Ana. CORE Districts participate in a system of “data-driven continuous improvement.” Aims: Sustain the CORE-PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) research partnership and publicize findings. Enhance the use of CORE’s data and improvement management systems to improve “9th grade on-track rates.”
HIGH TECH HIGH: $10,300,000, 60 Months (Southern California). The High Tech High Graduate School of Education will lead a College Access and Enrollment Network of 30 (high) schools. Focus is on financial access, college application process, bonding and belonging, reducing failure to enroll after admission. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who apply, enroll, and ultimately go to a four-year college. (The High Tech High Graduate School of Education offers teacher certification and a master’s program. https://hthgse.edu/programs/teacher-residency-program/).
INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING: $7,400,000, 60 Months (Dallas, TX). Leaders from two University of Pittsburg programs will train participants from 12 secondary schools in the Dallas Independent School District in continuous improvement efforts. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, English learners, and low-income students who are proficient in English Language Arts and on track at the end of 9th grade for high school graduation. Induce teams of school and district leaders to lead continuous improvement efforts. (The University of Pittsburg programs are: The Institute for Learning an outreach program of the Learning Research and Development Center and Center for Urban Education).
KIPP FOUNDATION: $499,000, 23 Months, (Multiple states). Convene and support KIPP’s college counselors in 31 charter high schools in 16 states, improving and refining how they help young people matriculate to and graduate from college. Aims: Accelerate the development of practices, tools, and approaches that predict and increase college success for their students. Keep high-achieving students from “under-matching” to colleges that are less rigorous than they are qualified to attend.
NETWORK FOR COLLEGE SUCCESS (NCS): $11,700,000, 60 Months, (Chicago, IL) NCS will train participants in 15-20 Chicago high schools to “engage in cycles of continuous improvement—testing which student, teacher, and school interventions create the school conditions that build upon the abilities, intelligence, and creativity of Chicago’s youth.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who are on-track to high school graduation and earning a 3.0 GPA or better at the end of 9th grade. Induce participating high schools to seek “continuous improvement” by using NCS methods.
NEW VISIONS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS (NVPS): $13,900,000, 60 Months (New York, NY. NVPS will work train teams in up to 67 New York City high schools (over five years) to “use data and continuous improvement strategies (design, implement, test) to help more students maintain competitive GPAs, succeed in advanced coursework, and achieve college-ready scores on state Regents exams.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and/or low-income students who graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college. Induce participating high schools to seek “continuous improvement” by using NVPS methods.
NORTHWEST REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICE DISTRICT: $586,000, 24 Months (OR) This Service District (NWRESD) is the largest of in Oregon, serving 20 school districts. NWRESD’s Deeper Learning and Equity Network will train participants in 32 regional high schools a use a continuous improvement process focused on “deeper learning and culturally sustaining pedagogies.” Aims: Increase the number of students who are on track by the end of 9th grade to graduate. Induce participants to use the network’s method of continuous improvement.
PARTNERS IN SCHOOL INNOVATION: $499,000, 15 Months (Philadelphia, PA). Partners will convene and help middle school math teachers, instructional coaches, and principals in 10 schools to improve math performance for selected students. Aims: Help students who begin the year below grade level in math to rapidly catch up to their high-performing peers. Increase the capacity of Partners to connect schools in virtual communities and to use classroom-level data in the continuous improvement process.
SEEDING SUCCESS: $560,000, 24 Months (Memphis, TN). Seeding Success (part of the StriveTogether national network of cradle-to-career collective impact organizations) will enlist 15 Shelby County Schools (middle school feeders into high schools) for a 24-month “rapid improvement cycle process” of identifying “8th grade and 9th grade on-track outcomes, root causes of students who fall off track, and testing aligned interventions. Aims: Help more students stay on track toward college and career readiness. Induce the participating schools to engage in “rapid improvement cycles” based on Seeding Success methods.
SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD (SREB): $3,300,000, 36 Months. SREB will enlist 10 secondary schools in Birmingham, AL (Jefferson County) to increasing the proficiency rates of Black, Latino, and low-income students on 8th grade math and 9th grade Algebra 1. Aims: Improve scores indicating “math proficiency” in grade 8 and in Algebra I. Promote “improvement science and cycles” in two national networks: High Schools That Work and Making Middle Grades Work.
TEACH PLUS: $619,000, 23 Months (Chicago, IL & Los Angeles, CA). Teach Plus will use an “evidence-based Change Management Framework” from the Boston-based Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy (has deep connections to Teach Plus) to develop continuous improvement skills among the teacher leaders and principals in ten middle schools located in two cities. Aims: Increase the number of African American, Latino, and low-income students achieving proficiency in 8th grade math. Promote use of the Change Management Framework from the Rennie Center https://www.renniecenter.org/change-management
I hope this post is of use in understanding how the $92 dollars will be used to extract compliance with the Gates-favored methods of intervening in schools. It is not obvious how much of the money will actually reach schools, teachers and students. It is not yet obvious how much collatoral damage will be done by these ventures. Gates is a sucker for anything that looks like a short-term fix or formula for public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The underlying notion of this approach to spending for public purposes has not changed much since Andrew Carnegie articulated it in his famous essay, The Gospel of Wealth, in the late 1880s. Basically Andy argued that if the wealthiest American businessmen did not take on philanthropic activities (Carnegie Libraries in towns around the country for instance), then the people’s government–ie., Congress–would tax their wealth and decide how it ought to be used. He also noted that if this type of philanthropy was not forthcoming, then wealthy people deserved to be taxed. He argued that he and his fellow millionaires (those were the days when a million dollars was real money) were “trustees” of the nation’s wealth (not Congress, not elected governments at any level) and had a duty to use it for the betterment of the nation. But they would retain the authority over how the money should be spent. Having to rely on Gates for resources reduces citizens to supplicants. Public education becomes Carnegie education, or Gates education. They ain’t the same thing.
I think the ed reform funders deny their “gatekeeper” function which is just really dishonest.
The fact is they do drive policy. God knows DC listens to them.
They get a special seat at the table and they get that because they buy it.
They DO control the debate. They decide who has a voice.
There’s a culling process going on here, where some ideas are funded and promoted and others are not. They tell us not to worry about that because they assure us they are wholly scientific and objective but of course they’re not- they have a definite, specific agenda.
If your state legislator told you “I fund programs I agree with and don’t fund programs I don’t agree with but that has NO BEARING on anything” you would laugh- it’s so clearly BS.
But that’s the claim the foundations make. It’s nonsense. They direct policy when they make the funding decisions.
Gates’s planned agenda will force middle class and poor students into one of two tracks, those deemed worthy can become 2nd class citizens at legacy admission schools and, the others can be exploited into buying schools-in-a-box. (Gates and Zuckerberg are investors in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box.)
Carnegie didn’t set up the situation for the destruction of a common good. Nor did he have a product in the wings from which he planned to take profits.
Carnegie didn’t spend money to defeat judges who rendered decisions that thwarted villainthropy.
Gates, Arnold, Hastings, Waltons, Kochs, set a new standard for the worst scumbag business leeches in American history.
But he did run off to Scotland while Frick destroyed the steel and ironworkers union!
The right word, supplicants, to describe modern day WE WILL DO WHAT WE ARE TOLD school funding: “Having to rely on Gates for resources reduces citizens to supplicants. “
It’s very interesting to teach my students about Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, about the philosophical underpinnings of social contracts that led to the American Revolution and the birth of modern democracy, while constantly reading about the ways wealthy barons have created during the last hundred fifty years to suppress the democratic will of citizens en masse and keep control of government for themselves. It’s both intriguing and depressing.
This all sounds like a bunch of people in a bunch of meetings with a bunch of power point presentations and graphs trying to solve a bunch of problems through a bunch of wrong approaches while wasting a whole bunch of time and money.
This is my thoughtful analysis for the day.
Or, does the opinion that it is a room filled with moderately paid slaves, selling their intellectual work product instead of their genitalia or physical labor, depict the situation with greater accuracy?
I think it’s interesting that the pro-charter ed reform orgs fund KIPP directly but feel they need an expert intermediary to guide public schools.
They’re ranking. They trust KIPP to make good decision with their money but they don’t trust public school leaders to do so. That’s a tier. Public schools are on a lower tier. Can’t be trusted to run their own operations.
There’s an anti-public school bias in ed reform that is so glaringly obvious you have to live inside the ed reform echo chamber not to see it. It comes thru in every op ed, every program, every speech.
Excellent point.
Good catch!
“All of these grants assume major deficiencies in the staff working in schools that that serve low income and mostly Black and Latino students, especially teachers of math.”
So, once again, it’s the teachers’ fault. If Gates was really interested in solving the test-taking problem, the value of which is dubious anyway, here’s what he needs to do for each child entering kindergarten: Three square meals a day; a good nights’ sleep. Secure housing; a low-stress home environment; support at home from parents/guardians/community;quality subsidized child care. His data-processor of a brain is simply incapable of thinking this way. Data and tests are his two best friends. The fact that he cannot see that test scores are a byproduct of wealth and privilege just means more experimentation and disruption for the rest of our kids.
Gates lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the nation. The poor pay a rate up to 7 times the rate that the rich do in the state of Washington. Reed Hastings (Netflix) who is in a YouTube video saying that he wants democratically elected school boards eliminated, recently admitted that his privilege had stunted him as a human being. That recognition stops neither Gates nor Hastings from targeting the most vulnerable for exploitation.
Here’s more work for Laura – if she needs it 🙂
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/09/06/chan-zuckerberg-education/
Chan-Zuckerberg funding. It will be more difficult than tracking Gates because Chan-Zuckerberg are less transparent.
Be assured though! We’re getting “personalized learning” whether we like it or not!
Chan-Zuckerberg get MUCH more access to your lawmakers than you do, and they’re so rich and smart! Who WOULDN”T follow them blindly?
Richer means better, right? Just as a given?
I don’t know if this is becoming a trend or anything, but my son has two teachers this year who have them turn over their cell phones over at the start of class. That’s up from one last year, so obviously I don’t have a lot of “data” 🙂
They’re both young teachers, too. I don’t think either of them is over 30. They want them to talk to one another. Last year my son and his friends seemed interested- like she had gotten their attention with this rule. They didn’t seem to oppose it.
I just think it’s interesting amid the big ed reform push to sell ed tech, that there are quiet dissenters out there.
I was surprised to find that at one of the premier high schools in the country, not everyone is wired to the hilt. Students actually have to carry assignment notebooks because not all of their teachers post assignments online. Teachers are not expected to be accessible to their students or their parents 24/7. Imagine that!
The only public information has been posted and very recently. You can see where the Chan-Zuckerberg money is going here.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/09/06/czi-education-donations-list/
One conclusion we can all agree on- Networks for School Improvement contributes nothing to GDP which makes them similar to the Networks’ funder in his current incarnation as a villainthropist.
The Networks will slice and dice at the educations of the kids of parents who actually work to create American GDP. They will think up things never implemented in the schools for the privileged. It’ll be like Gates-funded economist, Fryer- testing everyday for others but not rich kids.
If Hanushek and Gates’ blather was about more than profit taking, they would focus on Wall Street’s 2% drag on GDP.
I wish someone would explain what the Gates’ “Networks” will do for kids
One can’t explain something that doesn’t exist.
It is also a gigantic scheme to monetize education and children. Our young people need an education that will allow them to learn and grow so they can make informed decisions as a citizen. Our young people deserve more than being guinea pigs for the 1%. They should be the priority in education, not how they can fit into rich people’s portfolio. Nobody voted for Gates or any other wealthy profit seekers. Parents and communities should resist this exploitative scheme and protect their local control. This is death by infiltration known as “the Third Way.” It’s more neoliberal garbage.
Gates is a JERK.
“Gates is a sucker for anything that looks like a short-term fix or formula for public schools.”
The real suckers are the ones who keep buying his silicon snake oil.
That would be us.
“science of school improvement”
Ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha ha !!
Duane and Threatened out West.
There are six principles of “Improvement Science in Education” being marketed by Anthony S. Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Here are several that make my skin crawl. It is also not hard to see why the Gates Foundation would swallow the whole line of seeking standardization “at scale” and measurement that produces data a panacea. Gates “school improvement networks” all have a direct link to Bryk.
“Variation in performance is the core problem to address.” The critical issue is not what works, but rather what works, for whom and under what set of conditions. Aim to advance efficacy reliably at scale.” (The word variation is an active link to a 2015 consensus document from experts on value-added measures in the Carnegie Knowledge Network. The content in the link seems too endorse valuing data even it is invalid, unreliable, and the rest. http://www.carnegieknowledgenetwork.org/briefs/concluding-recommendations/
“We cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure.” (I have removed the active link from the word “measure.” The link shows the work of teachers as bookkeepers in another carefully contrived and branded measurement system).
“Anchor practice improvement in disciplined inquiry. Engage rapid cycles of Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) to learn fast, fail fast, and improve quickly. That failures may occur is not the problem; that we fail to learn from them is.” (I have removed the active link to the PDSA system. I have an image of Skinnerian experiments—gerbils in cages designed to improve rates of running). See more if you wish. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/our-ideas/six-core-principles-improvement/
You can take this for-credit course co-taught by Anthony S. Bryk. https://www.edx.org/course/improvement-science-in-education
You can read this and some book-length references: 2014 AERA Distinguished Lecture, Accelerating How We Learn to Improve, Anthony S. Bryk First Published December 1, 2015 http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/nivlR./JY.5Y6/full
Thanks for the links, Laura!
These type of people have no clue about what the teaching and learning process is really about, eh!
Only $199 to be certified to take that Bryk course.
And as usual I can’t find where Bryk has any experience whatsoever in teaching in the K-12 public schools. You’ve got to love experts pontificating about an area they have no clue about nor experience with.
I am SO sick of this “culture of continuous improvement” crap. It’s SO anxiety-inducing, both for students and teachers. My district has sprung at least four new technology initiatives on us this year, including a new gradebook program that takes twice as long to use as the old one (and is STILL not ready, but we have to use it), a new website program, and more. My anxiety is through the roof, and my workload is doubled, all while getting a “raise” of less than the rate of inflation, and class sizes of 38.
After reading about the “seeding success” organization in the post, I went to its website. It’s pretty interesting to see the creative jobtitles there—they look good on any CV
network facilitator
continuous improvement specialist
http://seeding-success.org/who-we-are/staff-bios/
But the most interesting for me was this so called “online Informed consent form” for shelby county schools which begins as
Seeding Success requests access to information connected to a student’s identity, including a
student’s grades, test scores, progress reports, attendance records, discipline records, student
ID number, and registration and enrollment records. Seeding Success may share student
records, information, or data with education partners that can provide Seeding Success direct
support in delivering education support services to Shelby County Schools. The purpose for
accessing or sharing education records, information, or data related to your student is to better
provide education support services throughout his/her academic career.
I hope no parent will check the “consent” box.
Click to access OnlineConsent2.16.2018.pdf
Excellent CATCH! The personal data for students is not fully described. The systems will be collecting as much as possible, including biometric and biographic information on the parents/caregivers of students all justified by “supporting” students and the need to share records with unidentified entities “throughout his/her academic career” which means well beyond the grant period.
When it comes to collecting citizens’ data, I think the difference between the US and China is that In China the government collects the data, in the US, collection is done by businesses. In other words, data collection is privatized here.