The National Education Policy Center reviewed Summit Learning Program, which has been heavily subsidized by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation, is spreading, but careful review shows no evidence for its success.
The Summit Learning Program: Big Promises, Lots of Money, Little Evidence of Success
Key Takeaway: Despite a lack of evidence that it is effective, the Summit Learning Program, propelled by a flood of Silicon Valley money, continues to spread.
Find Documents:
Press Release: https://nepc.info/node/10398
NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/summit-2020
Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net Faith Boninger: (480) 390-6736, fboninger@gmail.com Alex Molnar: (480) 797-7261, nepc.molnar@gmail.com
BOULDER, CO (June 25, 2020) – Virtual learning and personalized learning have been at the forefront of education reform discussions for over a decade. One leader of this sector, Summit Public Schools, has been backed by almost $200 million philanthropic dollars from the Chan- Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation, and others. Summit Public Schools has aggressively marketed its Summit Learning Platform to schools across the United States since 2015. As a result, the Summit Learning Program is now one of the most prominent digital personalized learning programs in the United States.
In “Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Platforms,” Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar, and Christopher M. Saldaña, of the University of Colorado Boulder, provide a thorough analysis of Summit Public Schools, an 11-school charter network operating in California and Washington. Summit Public Schools began marketing its proprietary Summit Learning Program to potential “partner” schools in 2015 as a free, off-the-shelf, personalized learning program; it is now used in nearly 400 schools nationwide.
The marketing message of Summit Learning Program trades on the alleged success of the Summit Public Schools. Summit claims to have developed a “science-based” personalized learning model of teaching and learning that results in all of its students being academically prepared for college. It further claims that its students succeed in college and are prepared to lead successful, fulfilled lives. These successes, it claims, are the result of its unique approach to personalized learning and the use of the digital platform at the heart of its approach.
None of these claims made by Summit Public Schools have been confirmed by independent evaluators. In fact, other than scant bits of self-selected information provided by Summit itself, Boninger, Molnar and Saldaña found no evidence in the public record that confirms the claims. Nor did Summit Public Schools provide the information that the authors solicited in a California public records request.
Despite the lack of evidence to support the claims made by Summit Public Schools, the Summit Learning Program has been adopted by nearly 400 schools across the country. While Summit has offered positive anecdotes and some selected data, there is no solid evidence that “partner” schools are experiencing the promised success; to the contrary, there have been a number of reported incidents of problems and dissatisfaction. Further, the student data collected pursuant to the contracts between Summit and these partner schools presents a potentially significant risk to student privacy and opens the door to the exploitation of those data by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and possibly by unknown third parties—for purposes that have nothing to do with improving the quality of those students’ educations.
Virtual education and personalized learning are at the top of the education reform agenda in large measure because of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and advocacy by philanthropic organizations (e.g., the Gates Foundation), large digital platforms (e.g., Facebook and Google), and venture capitalists anxious to access the school market.
Exacerbated by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country are struggling to find safe ways to educate their students. The rapid spread of the
policymakers with to protect the public interest by establishing oversight and accountability mechanisms related to digital platforms and personalized learning programs.
Find Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Platforms, by Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar and Christopher M. Saldaña, at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/summit-2020
This research brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).
The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The 74 gave the Summit CEO an entire section to promote her charter schools and learning program:
https://www.the74million.org/article/listen-class-disrupted-podcast-episode-6-help-my-child-and-i-are-overwhelmed/
It’s under the “analysis” section. LOL.
I can’t think of any charter chain and CEO the ed reform echo chamber have promoted more than Summit, although Success Academy has to be a close second.
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Public school parents should understand- they’re not just promoting the Summit charter chain and learning program. They have an entire educational approach they’re selling and they care not at all that there’s not s shred of evidence that any of it has value.
The ambitions are much bigger here than promoting charters (although they do that also). They hope to turn every public school into a Summit charter.
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because: profit
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And, in usual ed reform fashion, they are “advising on how to open public schools by carefully excluding every person who attends, works in or supports a public school:
“We also talk with Grit author Angela Duckworth more about what these habits are, how they’re intertwined with academic learning and how they can be explicitly taught. And we talk to Veronica Vital, lead teacher of Acorn Montessori in Minneapolis, who puts these ideas into practice every single day.”
Summit sold their program to 400 public schools but they have so little regard for the people who bought it they don’t even include them in the marketing efforts.
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Boy, I wish that the district in which I teach would research this. They are adding Summit to several more schools in the district. All the students do in core classes is Summit “Learning.”
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