The Relay “Graduate School of Education” was created by charter schools to train charter school teachers on test-score-raising and no-excuses discipline, while using Doug Lemov’s Bible “Teach Like a Champion.” It’s teachers mostly taught in charters.
Relay is called a graduate school, but it has no research faculty, no campus, no library, and at last review, no scholars or anyone with a doctorate.
Nonetheless, Relay has landed some contracts for professional development in districts run by corporate reformers and Broadies. The chancellor in D.C. is Lewis Ferebee, who previously led privatization efforts in Indianapolis.
In D.C., it does professional development for principals.
One principal in D.C. didn’t like Relay’s philosophy.
She was fired.
Parents were not happy.
Ceaira Richardson recited the challenges that make life in her Southeast D.C. neighborhood difficult.
Grocery options are sparse, making it tough to find fresh produce. Crime rates are higher than in other parts of the city. Keeping children safe is not always easy.
But she feels at ease at Lawrence E. Boone Elementary School, a recently modernized, light-filled campus not far from Richardson’s home. There, her three-year-old daughter is already reading. She senses teachers truly care about her child, so much so that she persuaded family members to send their children to the school.
“I told everybody, ‘Enroll in Boone. Enroll in Boone,’” Richardson said.
In recent months, Richardson and other members of the Boone community have rallied around the school’s principal, Carolyn Jackson-King, after they learned the veteran educator was fired and will not return to the position for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Teachers, parents and some D.C. lawmakers have demanded D.C. Public Schools reverse its decision. Jackson-King and her supporters say she was dismissed by the school system because she resisted teaching practices that educators at Boone felt were militaristic and racist.
“I just feel they attempted to control Black bodies,” Jackson-King said.
Ferebee had no comment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Community members say her departure would only hurt a school that already suffers from educational inequities that will likely worsen because of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.”
Really worries me. They haven’t gotten anything done on supporting public schools and ed reformers seem to be actively engaged in lowering expectations and convincing parents to accept much lower quality and lower cost “online learning” as the “new normal”.
They’ve abandoned public schools again, just like they did after the financial crash. They’re the dead last priority, somewhere behind “travel and tourism bailouts”
They bailed out charters with PPP, and DeVos bailed out private schools but no one has lifted a finger on behalf of the schools 90% of kids attend and it’s July.
and it’s July….
The entire discussion in the ed reform lobby on Covid is elaborate, charted, researched criticism of public schools. If you want to know what public schools did wrong in response to this crisis, they have you covered.
None of them are lobbying political leaders for help. They won’t even consider it. It’s all loss and sacrifice and inevitable cuts.
It’s like our schools got a very well compensated and well funded professional critics association, but no money for upgraded ventilation systems.
I think they got the charter bailout and abandoned the other 95% of students.
We better start making masks in smaller sizes. None of these folks work for us. Our students are the dead last priority, again.
In my state, some commenters (a fringe so far, but I expect this group will grow) is starting to demand to “defund public schools” if we don’t go back this fall, because “teachers are doing nothing, and so funding should go someplace else.”
If a principal is managing a school that is safe and meeting needs of students, why would she be fired for refusing to implement demeaning practices on students? This is why due process is important. It ensures that the accused gets a fair hearing. It ensures that people are not fired for a personal vendetta or political association. If the community disagrees with the board, they should protest and keep the pressure on the board.
Diane: “Relay is called a graduate school, but it has no research faculty, no campus, no library, and at last review, no scholars or anyone with a doctorate.”
Here my last review, from my post sometime in January this year.
The Relay Graduate School of Education now has “leaders” who have earned doctoral degrees at Teachers College, Ball State University, St. Thomas University, Johns Hopkins University, Fordham, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Education (Doctorate in Educational Leadership, no dissertation).
Several other leaders are listed as “Dr.” but have not completed the degree. One is studying at The University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. The current leaders and brief vitas for them are here //relay.edu/about-us/relay-leadership
The University of Southern California Rossier School of Education is really devoted to charter schools. https://rossier.usc.edu/?s=charter+schools
Another is the Alder Graduate School of Education which began as a training program for Aspire charter schools. https://aldergse.edu/about/
There are other graduate schools of education detached from universities.
One is High Tech High Graduate School of Education located in the High Tech High charter school franchise. (Search for Scholarship and Graduate Culture at the HTH Graduate School of Education).
Another is the Sposato Graduate School of Education with teacher training for Match charter schools in Boston.
http://www.sposatogse.org
The National Center for Teacher Residencies lists 29 programs that offer a master’s degree with some variant of the Teach for America model. Academic institutions are enlisted for some coursework and credibility but these are basically on-the-job teaching apprenticeships. The New Teacher Project offers another version of teacher preparation untethered from university programs https://tntp.org/become-a-teacher.
In other words, the Relay Graduate School of Education can now boast that it has leaders with doctoral degree credentials. Someone should do a dissertation analysing the dissertations of those who have doctoral degrees.
Great idea. Sounds like a job for Mercedes Schneider.