Valerie Strauss posts an analysis of who wins recognition as a leader of the “30 under 30” award by Forbes magazine.
It turns out that the winners of this competition are not the best classroom teachers but the people who are part of the judges’ social network. Who are the judges? You will not be surprised to learn that they are part of the TFA-Charter-DeVos privatization network.
Winning depends on connections, not your contributions to students, communities, or knowledge.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Winning depends on connections in America?
Who knew?
“Creating an echo chamber and self-congratulating cronies under the façade of prestige and the guise of productive reform”
It is an echo chamber. Here’s a list of the people an ed reform org gathered to decide whether and how (and how often) public school students should take standardized tests:
TWELVE people from charter boards or charter lobbying orgs or charter think tanks and ZERO representatives from public schools.
Charles Barone, Democrats for Education Reform
Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, DC Public Charter School Board
Chester E. Finn, Jr., Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Betheny Gross, Center on Reinventing Public Education
Jane Hannaway, American Institutes for Research
Paul Hill, Center on Reinventing Public Education
Sandy Kress, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Robin Lake, Center on Reinventing Public Education
James Liebman, Columbia Law School
James Merriman, New York City Charter School Center
Amber Northern, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Paul Pastorek, Former LA Superintendent of Education
Scott Pearson, DC Public Charter School Board
Michael Petrilli, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Morgan Polikoff, University of Southern California
Robert Pondiscio, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Van Schoales, A+ Denver
Nelson Smith, National Association of Charter School Authorizers
David Steiner, Hunter College School of Education
Joanne Weiss, Weiss Associates
Richard Wenning, BeFoundation
Judy Wurtzel, Independent Consultant
Who are the students who will be MOST affected by anything they decide? Public schools students, overwhelmingly- after all, 85% of students attend the public schools ed reform exclude from decision-making.
They deliberately exclude public schools from policy-making ABOUT public schools.
yes; the scariest thing to hit public schools has become that tighter and tighter national education “echo chamber” filled with “self-congratulating” and transparently self-promoting cronies
I don’t think a public school advocate or supporter can get a job in DC. The entire process is designed to exclude any other voices other than those of ed reformers.
At every stage in the process it selects for people who promote privatization.
Dissenters don’t get grants, they don’t get jobs, and they don’t get glowing reviews in business magazines.
If you want to hear anything from anyone who actually runs a public school you have to read local op ed pages- that’s the only place they’re published.
Chiara,
Add one other important fact. With their many organizations and their munificent funding, the Reformers have a career ladder for the smart young person who wants to get into “education policy” but not teach. Far better to work in an air conditioned office than teach 30 children for half the pay.
So little wisdom, so much chutzpah.
It’s not just public school supporters who are excluded in DC.
It is most people who don’t toe either the Democratic or Republican Party line.
Sure, there are a few outliers like Ocasio-Cortez who manage to beat all odds, but they are few and far between.
Even Bernie Sanders bows to the Democrats.
As Ocasio-Cortez said after she took part in a climate sit in in Pelosis office
“I got heat when I joined these amazing activists on Tuesday,” she wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday. “‘Go protest Republicans,’ we were told. ‘You’re being disruptive and unhelpful,’ we were admonished. ”
Of course she got heat. Many of the old guard Dems don’t think she should even be there.
Valerie Strauss has another in a long line of columns dealing with the faux experts in education. The US News ratings may drive sales and bring benefits to the individuals and groups that make “the cut” but they have no underlying credibility. The researchers have done a great job in exposing the values,connections, and purposes of this rating scheme.
Yep….try telling that to the parents in my district! Where I live, US News ratings rule. You can have high test scores OR an education, but you can’t have both. The parents here just DON’T GET IT. I live in a DC suburb. Valerie Strauss keeps putting the truth out there but just reading the comments let’s me know that the parents around here have partaken of the “wrong colored Kool Aid”.
English translation of ‘preneur’
preneur
[pʀənœʀ ]
masculine noun
taker
être preneur to be willing to buy,
trouver preneur to find a taker ⧫ to find a buyer
Collins French-English Dictionary
Very apt
Way back in the nineties I learned that the teacher was the last one who would be consulted about what LEARNING LOOKED LIKE in the classroom. I watched as the principal cuddled up to those who would praise him, and assist him on His goals which had nothing to do with the needs of the teachers.
I watched as the district management, withers corrupt superintendent, married to the corrupt chancellor, did their own thing. I witnessed the utter destruction of the work of the experienced professional in the classroom, and the assault on tenure, os the ‘reform’ could end NYC, the largest district in the 15,880 which were awaiting demolition, so they could be turned over to the charlatans with their magic elixirs. I wrote this essay 15 years ago: Article: Magic Elixir: No Evidence required! | OpEdNews
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
This fine documentary, which was produced a decade ago, shows the result of handing the reins over to those who profit from demolishing public education. Valerie is telling the result of the war on teachers…for the truth is, when the professional teacher -practitioner was removed from the practice, the result is what we see. The same would happen if our health care system was appropriated by the privateers. Uh OH… exactly.
GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN
What you say is very true, but I think our health Care system has already been appropriated to the privateers.
That’s why we see things like the opiate crisis that has largely been facilitated by licensed doctors, bought and paid for by Big Pharma.
That’s also why we saw the insurance companies and big pharma essentially writing the Obama care law, with anyone who even mentioned things like single payer and federal negotiation of drug prices completely excluded from the discussion.
I’ve learned if I’m finding favor with an admin, I’m probably doing something wrong.
It’s actually bizarre that you would give awards in the education category to people under 30.
It takes a long time to become an expert in anything, but that is particular true in education.
The idea that someone who just got out of college a few years ago and then spent a couple years in TFA or even a few years as a legitimate teacher is an expert on education is just laughable.
I suspect that most of the real experts on education are actually retirees, but of course, we just put them in a home for the aged and tell them to keep their opinions to themselves.
My father, long since retired, is a REAL expert in the area of adult education, but no one ever even asks for his opinion.
The only people who get asked are the fake experts like Michelle Rhee, David Coleman, Jason Zimba and Raj “Statics? What’s that” Chetty
Raj “Statistics? What’s that?” Chetty
Exactly right. Like choosing the best doctors under 30. They just finished medical school a few years ago.
“Edupreneur leaders” under 30 are simply elitist non-educators with a pedigree and no desire to make a direct difference in the lives of young people. Without any background in education, they are going to change education, probably for the worse. If so much money were not being dumped into trying to destroy public education, these ivy league slackers would have to go out and get an honest job.
Ivy league slackers
With ivy league stickers
With hedge funds as backers
Are Wall Street boot lickers
I spun the “crack the code” wheel and the clicker landed in the
“national shock by deception” slot.
SHOCKED, to realize their comparative political impotence.
Decisions, disguised as “democracy”, rarely result in outcomes that
represent the public interest.
There should be no “debate” on who controls public schools.
The mere fact that there is a debate means
the public has accepted the framing of governance (democracy)
issued by the government.