Peter Greene took a look at New York City’s decision to go into a public-private partnership with well-known Corporate Reform groups and asked whether the Reformers were helping out or the City was selling out.
After a fruitless pursuit of “innovation” for 20 years, Mayor DeBlasio has turned to two organizations that have no track record of success.
He writes:
Last week the de Blasio administration announced that New York City schools will be entering into a public-private partnership to create 40 schools. Twenty will be brand new, while 20 will be transformed versions of existing schools, and all will be the result of a competition of school designers in the Imagine Schools NYC Challenge.
The partners in this undertaking are not new to the education reform business. The Robin Hood Foundation will put in $5 million to set up ten new schools. The foundation was launched by hedge fund managers; Fortune called them “a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy.” Their board shares memberswith boards of charter schools in New York. The other player in this initiative is the XQ Institute, an organization co-founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. The press release calls XQ “a national leader in transformational high school design,” and the institute has certainly maintained a high profile, most notably in 2017 when it bought time on four television networks to broadcast a flashy special about education. That special boosted the Super Schools competition, a contest in which XQ looked to give away nearly $100 million to ten schools, but many of the winners encountered problems even getting their schools open. XQ has been at the business of “reinventing school” for a while, but it doesn’t have much to show for its efforts.
What are some quick takeaways from this announcement?
First, it’s awfully cheap.
The private side of this partnership has put up $15 million for a plan to open or re-imagine forty schools. XQ has previously put up $10 million per school. This is peanuts, and not nearly enough money to get a new school off the ground. The press release saysthe program will launch with $32 million (so, $17 million from the city), but that is still less than one million dollars per school.
If I were a New York taxpayer, I’d want to know where the money will be coming from once this initial funding runs out. If I were a parent, I’d be worrying about whether or not the funding will come from my child’s school.
He added:
This is a slap at public education.
“This is a big endorsement of public education in New York City,” said de Blasio, according to the New York Times. That’s hard to see. A big endorsement of public education might have been to turn to the people in public education to head up this initiative. There are thousands of public school educators and education leaders in New York, and dozens of college programs invested in the public education system. But instead of turning to any of them, the mayor has brought in some rich amateurs to help him find a big fix.
No, Mr. Mayor. Turning 40 schools overto Laurene Powell Jobs, who knows zip about education, and the Robin Hood Foundation, which has raised millions for Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain and other charter operators, is definitely not an endorsement of public education. It is a slap in the face to the city’s thousands of experienced, dedicated educators.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This initiative sounds like another corporate Trojan Horse designed to infiltrate and undermine legitimate public education. It is a form of death by infiltration, and it is particularly reckless considering Powell-Jobs’ track record. I hope the district gives students the ‘choice’ to opt out of this type of instruction. It is unethical to constantly allow poor students to be guinea pigs for the 1% and hedge funds. Considering the wealth of knowledge in the institutions of higher education in NYC, it is a pity that New York is pandering to the will of marketplace privateers. Will the schools be staffed by members of the UFT, or is this another way to attack the union?
If I recall correctly, the UFT is all in for the takeover of public schools by Laurene Powell Jobs and XQ.
“Will the schools be staffed by members of the UFT?”
All of the schools will be district public schools – I believe that means they would have to follow all the union staffing rules of other district schools unless the UFT specifically gave them a waiver.
So 40 public schools, district schools, will be handed over to billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who is not an educator and is surrounded by people like Arne Duncan (not an educator).
Why?
“So 40 public schools, district schools, will be handed over to billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs…”
It’s possible that I completely misunderstand this initiative but I see no evidence that these schools are being “handed over” to Powell Jobs.
I read Peter Greene’s interesting and excellent article that you linked to. I thought Peter Greene pointed out the POSSIBLE problems, and it is important to watch this, but I did not finish the article and come out with the certainty that this was about handing over 40 schools to Laurene Powell Jobs.
In fact, Peter Greene ended the article that you linked to this way:
“This may be a way to improve the prospects for the 1.1 million students attending the 1,800 schools in the NYC system, or it may be a flashy way to sell off a piece of that system in order to score some political points. Time will tell.”
I just agree with Peter Greene. And from reading his article, I think if you asked him, he would not say that he is certain that de Blasio is handing over 40 district schools to Powell Jobs. But if that is what he insists is happening, then my fault for bad reading comprehension and not getting that from his article.
If the schools are about educators, families and children why are they always silent and/or missing in the marketing efforts?
Why do a big marketing event all? Powell Jobs is incapable of quietly donating 10 million dollars to the charter schools she prefers?
What do they want in return for the mayor promoting their lobbying org? They want something- there’s a reason they hold these events and it isn’t “donate to charter schools” because they do plenty of that under the radar. So what is it they hope to gain from promoting yet another “public/private partnership” where the vast, vast bulk of the money will come from the public?
They should hold an event for NYC residents- they’re the people actually paying for Powell Jobs’ charter initiative.
important last line: Powell Jobs gets things rolling, the parents and local citizens end up on the hook for keeping her ‘initiatives’ up and running.
I mean, is a trade off? A transaction? The public is meant to be grateful and say “well, they’re paying ten million dollars so really I don’t mind that they’re buying a public entity”?
Because if it is she should have to pay much, much more. This is not a good deal.
Chiara,
You make many excellent points here. I just wanted to point out that you might consider that the reason the amount is small is because those foundations are NOT “buying a public entity”.
The grant seems to be about funding for the stakeholders themselves – DOE, teachers, administrators, parents, even students – to think about how to make a better school that works for the stakeholders. That seems to be why so much of the money is coming from the DOE to implement it.
I do note that sometimes the stakeholders can just come up with a mishmash that won’t work. But having change from the top down also doesn’t work.
This certainly bears watching closely but I don’t think this is intended to be a handover. It may fail as an idea, but then creating great schools for students who come from the most entrenched poverty and disadvantages is a very difficult task.
I hope someone comes up with a very small class size school.
We have a great deal of independent research on the outcomes from community schools. Why not fund that initiative to expand these models within the public school system?
jcgrim,
Whenever I write a post with a link it doesn’t post. So I will refer you to a Washington Post Valerie Strauss article that has an excellent overview of de Blasio’s community schools efforts that he embraced soon after he took office:
Washington Post, January 7, 2019 “New York City offers some unpleasant truths about school improvement”
^^^Here are some quotes from the article:
“While former mayor Michael Bloomberg had enthusiastically embraced the fad of closing neighborhood schools and opening charter schools, de Blasio has eschewed such shortcuts. The Renewal schools reform instead calls for greater investment in those schools suffering the worst outcomes. The money is used in ways that increase opportunities to learn, including more learning time after school and in the summer. Renewal schools also offer resources such as social and emotional supports for students that address immediate and vital needs and that improve learning outcomes.
The Renewal program — which also supports schools in the city’s larger Community Schools Initiative (CSI) — assists schools by increasing supports, training, and resources for students and teachers. The CSI increases family and community engagement and creates collaborative structures and practices, bringing together key people to plan and implement improvement strategies based on local needs.
These approaches — extended learning time, family and community engagement, collaborative leadership, and integrated student supports — are fundamental to community schools models and informed by decades of research showing that out-of-school factors have an overwhelming influence on student outcomes. In turning to this evidence-based approach, the mayor should be applauded.”……….
“In contrast, the Renewal schools approach is not a shortcut. We’re seeing some progress already in attendance and graduation rates, but test scores are a lagging indicator. This means that test score improvements will follow further down the road, once children have benefited from extended, high-quality opportunities to learn. The path to real school improvement is long and arduous, and nobody — De Blasio included — should suggest otherwise. Nor should anyone suggest that this path will single-handedly overcome the ravages of concentrated poverty and racism that affect students’ well-being and ability to learn.
We share the urgency to improve schools now — never sacrificing the futures of students to the reform du jour. That is exactly why New York City and De Blasio should remain committed to the Renewal program — a program based on decades of rigorous research and already showing meaningful benefits for underserved students — because it seriously addresses impediments to learning.
When we look across the nation and see other leaders chasing silver bullets, or ignoring educational inequity altogether, we should rejoice that New York and its mayor are engaged in the demanding yet essential work of partnering with communities to address basic needs and directly increasing opportunities to learn for all of the city’s children.”
DeBlasio abandoned Renewal.
Now he’s turning to billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and the Wall
Street-hedge Funders Robin Hood Foundation for guidance on innovation.
I thought Laurene Powell Jobs and the Robin Hood Foundation were funding an effort that is about getting the stakeholders involved.
Is my understanding correct that you believe this effort to get community engagement is all a fraud and you believe Mayor de Blasio’s real intention is to hand over 40 NYC public schools to Jobs and Robin Hood to do whatever they want in those schools?
I know we have very different perceptions of de Blasio. I certainly know he has flaws as all politicians do, but I also believe he is one of the strongest supporters of public schools in this country. I don’t even particularly love de Blasio, but I don’t understand the hate and the belief he has somehow sold out public schools. He deserves criticism when his ideas don’t work, but I don’t understand what seems to be a suspicion that he is actually working against all that he has said he stands for.
I thought that Washington Post article about Renewal was very fair to de Blasio. He abandoned Renewal because the name became a flashpoint for wasted money and despite its successes, even progressives were highly critical. de Blasio has not abandoned the Community School initiative. As of August 2018, there were 247 Community Schools across the 5 boroughs.
^^The Washington Post article was one of the ones where the excellent Valerie Strauss turns her column over to other people.
In this case, according to Strauss, her column about Renewal schools “was co-written by Kevin Welner and Julia Daniel. Welner is director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a professor specializing in educational policy and law. Daniel is a PhD candidate in education policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is studying New York City’s community school reform as part of her dissertation research.”
Weiner and Daniel are critical of de Blasio overpromising results (but what politicians aren’t guilty of that?!), but they never doubt de Blasio’s motives as wanting to do something good for public schools.
Create a few schools specifically for struggling students with class sizes of 15, or even lower. See what happens.
Agreed.
Alternative schools. They are. They work.
De Blasio’s public service career is hitting the skids after his embarrassing presidential run, so he’s opting for the exit door to the cushy private sector position wherein he gets paid big bucks to promote big business. Too commonplace. Everyone gets hurt by the billionaires’ ability to buy favor.
I think even de Blasio haters who live in NYC would find it beyond silly to think that these actions are going to get him in good with big business who are going to offer him some kind of cushy high paying job. Generally, most de Blasio haters in NYC who see him close up are certain that the big payoff is coming from the evil teachers’ union because he has been doing their bidding for the last 6 years.
And if you don’t believe me, I suggest you read some comments in any Chalkbeat NY article that reports on the efforts de Blasio has made to change test-only admissions to top high schools (which then have almost no African-American students) which are his “anti-Asian” plots. Or his efforts to bring groups of stakeholders to address how to make schools more integrated which of course are his doing the bidding of African-American and Latinx parents.
And again, always the teachers’ union is the controlling force for most de Blasio critics. de Blasio does exactly what they want — just read any comments on a blog that has the most virulent de Blasio haters to know that he is owned by the union does exactly what the union orders.
So it’s amusing to see your certainty that it isn’t the union, he’s doing it for a private sector job because he’s really on the side of all his haters who want him to be more pro-charter and don’t understand that every single thing de Blasio does is to help charters take over NYC public schools just like they want! It’s amazing they hate him so much!
By the way, in that “embarrassing” Presidential run, de Blasio was the only candidate who spoke out clearly against charters. I had a friend from California who follows California state education matters very closely and knew nothing about de Blasio – that friend heard de Blasio at the first debate and thought I was lying when I tried to explain how supposedly sensible people insisted he was a secret charter-loving pol who planned to get rich from the private sector after being Mayor. If I smeared your state’s few progressive politicians based on such spurious evidence, you would have every right to think I had an agenda that was clearly to undermine your state’s public schools.
But you and the far right agree that de Blasio is evilly trying to destroy NYC public schools. They just think he is doing it to please the teachers union and you are positive he is doing it for his big payoff when he leaves office.