VOX reports on billionaire Reed Hastings’ grandiose plans to build a fabulous resort in Colorado for teachers, where they will learn to love charter schools, high-stakes testing, test-based accountability for teachers, and other failed reform strategies.
Hastings has $5 billion and he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, even though California has many people who are homeless and many hotbeds of racism and injustice. So, he decided to keep spending on privatization, no doubt gladdening the heart of Betsy DeVos, and high-stakes testing.
Every one of Hastings’s favorite ideas has failed but he plans to convert teachers to follow his path by immersing them in luxurious surroundings.
If only he would read SLAYING GOLIATH, he would realize that he is wasting his money and undermining an essential democratic institution, the American public school, which nearly 90% of American families choose.
Theodore Schleifer writes in VOX:
Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, is quietly building a mysterious 2,100-acre luxury retreat ranch nestled in the elk-filled foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Recode has learned.
Hastings has been one of the country’s biggest donors to the education reform movement that’s trying to reshape America’s struggling school system. And now public records reveal that Hastings is personally financing a new foundation that will operate this training ground for American public school teachers, a passion project shrouded in secrecy that will expand the billionaire’s political influence.
Hastings is one of many Silicon Valley billionaires who have deployed their fortunes in the education reform movement, which calls for a greater focus on testing, tougher accountability for teachers, and the expansion of alternative schools like charters to close America’s achievement gaps and better train its future workforce. Those tech leaders, though, have had uncertain results, with the very biggest of them — Microsoft founder Bill Gates — having admitted earlier this year that he was “not yet seeing the kind of bottom-line impact we expected.” Opponents, including teachers’ unions, charge that these reformers are blaming educators for factors beyond their control, such as poverty.
The new training center, called the Retreat Land at Lone Rock, seems to be a priority for the Netflix CEO, at least based on Hastings’s level of personal involvement: He and his wife have been visiting the area since at least 2017, when they went so far as to request a face-to-face meeting with a local fire chief at his Colorado firehouse to try and smooth over any looming permitting concerns.
Hastings, whose involvement hasn’t previously been reported, declined to comment on his plans through a spokesperson.
But public records filed with the government of Park County, Colorado, and reviewed by Recode offer a glimpse at the ambitious plans for the center, which local officials expect to open as early as March 2021.
“The proposed Conference and Retreat Facility will be run as a nonprofit institute serving the public education community’s development of teachers and leadership,” a Hastings aide says in one prospectus.
One group that is expected to use the “state-of-the-art” facility is the Pahara Institute, which operates a well-known networking group and training program for activists and teachers aligned with the education-reform movement. Hastings heavily funds and serves on the board of the Pahara Institute, which currently hosts its retreats at different locations around the country rather than at a single place.
It was Pahara that initially contacted local landowners to buy the acreage before Hastings personally stepped in and decided to do it himself, said Dave Crane, a real estate broker who did the deal and gave a tour of the property to Hastings before the firehouse meeting in 2017. Pahara’s founder serves on the board of Hastings’s new foundation as well.
Retreat Land at Lone Rock will effectively function as the grounds for leadership retreats like these for teachers, principals, and nonprofit heads, according to a person close to Hastings. It will be open to both educators at traditional district public schools and those at charter schools, a favorite cause of the Netflix founder, the person said.
The center will nevertheless extend Hastings’s influence in the American education system. Although it remains unknown whether the leaders that are brought to Lone Rock will be the key people to fix America’s schools, Hastings, a private citizen, will now have the ability to choose a few leaders who agree with him and support them with his bank account and his center, giving him an outsized voice in one of America’s most fraught public policy debates.
Overlapping groups of about 30 educators at a time from across the United States are expected to enjoy the 270-room retreat center at once, staying for four days each and playing team sports, using its classrooms, and enjoying its pristine hiking trails — “maybe with pack llamas,” says another document.
Yes, poverty is the essential problem that afflicts the lives of large numbers of children. Ignore it at your peril, Mr. Hastings. Keep pursuing your vanity projects while teachers and students cry out for smaller classes, bemoan the lack of resources, weep for the loss of the arts and play, and plead for social workers, psychologists, librarians and nurses.
Mr. Hastings, you have made a lot of money–billions–but you are a foolish man.
Just think what you might do instead: fund medical centers in schools across California; fund the arts in schools; fund libraries and librarians. There are so many ways you could bring joy to children and their families. Why don’t you do something to spread goodness instead of disruption?
Hastings will not be deterred my any messages to him. He must be stopped. That means passing campaign finance reform, taxing billionaires, and demanding that government adequately fund integrated democratically governed public education and free college tuition.
Absolutely. Restore the Eisenhower-era tax rates, coupled with the technology to monitor their movement of money.
Every penny we plebes earn are subject to monitoring and tracking when it comes to taxation. The rich should be no different.
You’re exactly right. The real problem isn’t that Reed Hastings wants to spend $5 billion on his idea of education, it’s that he has $5 billion dollars to spend on whatever he wants. It’s long past time that we recognized that kind of accumulated wealth as a threat to our democracy.
Stewart,
I totally agree. The raw and brazen inequality in our society is a symptom of societal sickness.
Arthur,
Like Bernie, I don’t believe anyone should be a billionaire. No one “needs” that kind of money. There are hundreds of billionaires in this country. Their wealth is tracked by Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He leaves himself off the list. He’s worth more than $50 billion. They use their money to buy and control others. Even when they use it for good purposes—for health and education—they are doing what should be done by government but can’t be because of tax rates favorable to the the one-tenth of one percent.
Hastings is probably looking for a way to reduce his tax burden. Under the guise of a non-profit, he can try to propagandize educators to promote market based education, testing and data collection.
“The proposed Conference and Retreat Facility will be run as a nonprofit institute serving the public education community’s development of teachers and leadership,” a Hastings aide says in one prospectus.”
Great! Just what ed reform needs. Another echo chamber ed reform institute where the only people admitted are people who are already in the echo chamber.
They can interview each other. Any public school supporter will be barred as “part of the status quo” or “affiliated with a labor union”. Must keep the movement pure of any actual contact with anyone who runs, works for, attends, attended, or supports an actual public school.
This is how they “serve” a population where 90% of kids attend the “government” schools they oppose ideologically. They pretend we don’t exist.
Is the resort built with untaxed money and will its revenues be untaxed? What happens when a non-profit charitable resort is subsequently converted to an IRS-defined profit-maker?
Hastings is wily. His $20,000,000 donation to HBCU’s announced this week may serve as cover for a much larger endeavor- his Colorado launching platform for an attack against democracy.
The founder of Pahara also founded or co-founded Bellwether, TFA and New Schools Venture Fund. She was interviewed in Philanthropy Roundtable about the goal of charter organizations, “… brands on a large scale”.
Jeb Bush can be the opening keynote. Again.
For some reason the former governor of Florida who doesn’t support public schools sets policy for every public school in the country and has for 20 years.
I was pleased to see the House committee on public school funding took testimony from people who work in and support public schools yesterday.
I was afraid we were going to have yet another “education debate” that excluded 90% of students and schools. They finally got around to inviting some public school people- only two- but at least 50 million public school students and families had SOMEONE at the table.
How did it happen that “public education policy” excludes public schools? It’s wacky. Just nuts. Complete and utter capture. Everyone gets an advocate except kids in public schools. They get critics.
“If only he would read SLAYING GOLIATH, he would realize that he is wasting his money and undermining an essential democratic institution….
He realizes just fine. Undermining an essential democratic institution is precisely the point. And if he can do it at taxpayer expense through tax breaks for “charitable” endeavors, so much the better.
Is it completely out of bounds for people who use public schools to expect to have people who support public schools and public school students setting policy for our students and schools?
That doesn’t seem like an outrageous request. Would Eva Moskowitz accept opponents of charter schools running her schools? Of course not. Why should I?
Are Michelle and Barack invited? They are executive producers at Netflix. SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!! They are, like, CELEBRITIES! Such rock star quality . . .
Since Reid doest pay a lot in taxes, thanks to your GOP and Democratic sponsored system, he may as well put the disable income to some use . . .
Cx: Since Reid doesn’t pay. . . . .
essential catch 🙂
“will now have the ability to choose a few leaders who agree with him and support them with his bank account and his center, giving him an outsized voice in one of America’s most fraught public policy debates”
That sounds like a great “debate”. The billionaire will choose people who agree with him and if they don’t agree with him, well, they’re excluded from “the debate”
I don’t know for sure but I think ed reformers probably win this one! They excluded the competition before the debate started, of course, so “win” may not be the right word…
Reed Hastings has already lost the debate, if the outcome of the debate is determined by the validity of his arguments in real life. We have had charters for three decades and vouchers for 20 years. No fundamental improvement. In most states, the choice schools are the lowest performing unless they cherry-pick their students.
Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions trying to prove the validity of judging teachers by student test scores. Massive failure.
So Reed Hastings may spend $1 billion to persuade people that the moon is made of green cheese; he may hire people like Chris Barbic and Neerav Kingsland to elect local officials to assert that the moon is made of green cheese; he may buy support for followers of his doctrine. But the moon is not made of green cheese and no amount of marketing can change the fact.
OK, so I’m glad I don’t pay for Netflix….
Jeesh. I forgot about that. Thanks a lot for the unneeded guilt trip!
Sorry Greg…. If it makes you feel any better, I used the Netflix DVD service from 2005 to 2012, when I got tired of dealing with mailing DVDs every day. I still watch it–I just have access to a family account.
If we abolish public schools and ed reformer’s sunny scenario of the magic of privatization doesn’t pan out, like it hasn’t panned out in the countries who converted to privatized systems, can we get out schools back or are they gone for good?
I hope everyone in the public realizes this experiment can’t be reversed. You buy it you’re stuck with it. You’ll be begging the US Senate for a “public option” in 20 years, and you won’t get even that.
Reed Hastings’ business guru perceived himself as religious.
He was Clay Christiansen, the originator of disruptive innovation. The Christiansen Institute posted about the Cristo Rey school chain prototype in California that has 60 students.
In defending his religion which has many skeptics, Clayton said, “Every piece of data was developed by a person who has an agenda and the agenda includes what pieces of the phenomenon should we include in the data and what elements of the phenomenon should we admit.” Presumably, Reed and Gates’ profit-taking gambits follow the same anti-science twist.
Christiansen died this year- no tributes from people like me who believe in American democracy based on rationality and humanity.
Ed reformers have an obligation to be honest:
“The City Fund held a convening of like-minded organizations early this year in San Francisco, according to an attendee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the event was meant to be private. Hastings himself spoke at the gathering, the attendee said, emphasizing the value of schools governed by nonprofit organizations — as charter schools usually are — as opposed to by school districts.”
They don’t support public schools. It’s fine. They’re allowed to hold an anti-public school opinion or position. But stop telling the public you support “public education” or “students”! That is demonstrably and specifically not true.
It isn’t true and pretending it’s true isn’t fair to public school students and families. Our schools are EXCLUDED from their support. Always. We have to LOOK ELSEWHERE for people who support our students and schools. We deserve an opportunity to know this and act on it.
Ed reformers want me to believe this: they don’t support public schools but they support public school students.
Now try that with charters. Ed reformers would never accept that for the schools they prefer. Why should public school families accept it? It’s nonsense. It hasn’t worked out well for public school students ‘lo these 20 years and it NEVER will.
Another Bill Gates. A total waste when it comes to education.
and an overwhelming danger to minority communities: in times when racism is at our media forefront, it is beyond frustrating to watch the billionaire White Savior game go on and on in the name of “caring”
The White Savior game has been touted by wealthy as the path to opportunity for poor & dark people for years. Somehow, after all that saving, they never get invited to join the country club. Like the self-obsessed Koch empire, Silicon Valley is hell bent on imposing their vision on the rest of us. Reed’s facility lays bare the hubris of a person who plans to radically transform education for his own benefit.
I don’t think the Movement for Black Lives, et al., are going to fall for these guys over-the-top pitches any longer.
20 years of hiring and paying ed reformers to “improve public education” and this is what they brag about:
“For the sake of the vast majority of students who remain in traditional public schools, I am relieved to report that the predicted demise did not occur. There is no distinguishable relationship between the percentage of students within a district who were enrolled in a charter school in 2009 and changes in the test scores of students enrolled in traditional public schools between then and 2016.”
They didn’t harm the 90% of students in public schools that much. This is considered a huge success in the echo chamber.
I mean, it goes beyond “moving the goalposts” for performance. The new claim of success is “we somehow managed not to destroy existing public schools, so therefore you should hire and pay more of us”
The absolute BEST they offer public school families is they will graciously agree not to deliberately harm your schools and students in pursuit of their ideological goals. For this they want a standing ovation.
We can do better than this. We can find and hire people who actually intend to support, maintain and improve our schools. That’s not an outrageous demand.
If this resort is supposed to be an act of charity, what’s with all the secrecy? Why isn’t Hastings being open about his involvement? A secret, secluded camp intended to proselytize a political agenda? Seriously? It sounds like he’s starting a cult! That’s even with the bogus “reform the struggling school system” description in Vox, a company, by the way, involved with both Netflix and the wrong end of major labor dispute litigation.
It’s posted at OEN
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Billionaire-Reed-Hastings-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Billionaires_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Education-Testing-200617-664.html#comment766671