XQ, you may recall, is the organization created by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs to “reinvent” high schools. Thus far, it has paid out many millions of dollars but produced no results. Perhaps you remember one evening a few years ago when XQ bought time on all three networks to showcase celebrities extolling its ambitions. Arne Duncan is a senior advisor at the Emerson Collective, Ms. Jobs’ group.
Now the Emerson Collective has hired Ursulina Ramirez, who was chief operating officer at the New York City Department of Education.
Chalkbeat reports:
XQ has been increasingly partnering directly with governments to launch new schools, and it appears Ramirez will be part of that effort, drawing on her leadership experience within the nation’s largest school system. Her title at XQ is “head of systems strategy,” according to its website.
Ramirez was a special assistant to Mayor de Blasio before he became mayor. She is not an educator, but that should not be an impediment to building out Ms. Jobs’ vision for an innovative high school.
Aren’t DOE employees constrained from taking jobs with external organizations that do business with the DOE for one year? She probably got a waiver. Nothing like being connected.
Jackie,
You are right. Joel Klein violated that prohibition about taking a job with an external organization that does business with the DOE (Amplify), but no one brought it up. Same with Ursullina. Maybe someone should lodge a complaint with DOE Inspector General.
Friends in High Places
Laws don’t matter
With a friend
On the ladder
Near the end
We are in a battle for the soul of America pitting the common good against out-for-outselfism, elitism (or authoritarianism) against trust in democracy. The struggles in education are a part of that. The elitists (of which Gates is a member) and the privatizers-of-everything (led prominently by Charles Koch, the Waltons, and other) are, like all corporations, in the scoop up talent business. So, they work at grabbing and converting potential leaders. They also work at setting the terms of dialogue because the realize that to win and retain power they need to win and control the battle of ideas. Their vast wealth enables them to do so. Local, state, and national elections, organizing, and influencing Democrats to provide an effective democratic-equity–human rights decency narrative remain our only paths to change.
Wealthy individuals of both political parties are no better than elite pirates trolling the landscape looking for ways to scoop up public money and “talent” to help them undermine the common good. We have been operating under the false assumption that billionaires have some kind of insights the rest of us do not possess. Most of their ideas and plans have fallen flat and short of the goal. Billionaires have been meddling in education for years with few positive results. All they have done is disrupt and diminish the common good. At what point do we recognize that poor students should have the right to not be used for billionaires’ pawns in human experiments. It is the state’s responsibility to educate its students, not billionaires that nobody voted for.
See my description below of a colleague’s family’s experience with an XQ-funded charter high school. So why does the charter high school give all students inflated grades and graduate students with high grades who then find out they were completely unprepared for college? Because that keeps the Laurene Powell Jobs money coming, of course.
They actually do have insights the rest of us don’t have.
Criminal insights.
great understanding: “grabbing and converting potential leaders”
The elitists (of which Gates is a member) and the privatizers-of-everything (led prominently by Charles Koch, the Waltons, and other) are, like all corporations, in the scoop up talent business.
Joel Klein? John Ready? Arne Duncan? Campbell Brown?
I thought they were in the pooper scooper business.
John Deasy
Self correct strikes again!
There’s an XQ charter high school in my area. XQ didn’t build it — they were going to fund a new charter school in another nearby city, but that school collapsed before it opened, so XQ transferred the $10 mil or whatever vast sum it is to an existing charter high school.
A colleague mentioned to me a few years ago that his grandchild, who lives with him, was about to start at the XQ charter high school. I said wow, let me know how it goes — that charter chain says all their students pass 6 AP classes. He said dubiously that he wasn’t sure his grandchild was AP material.
Now the grandchild has transferred out to a public school. The grandparent tells me the XQ charter high school gives unearned passing grades in all classes no matter what. The clincher was that the XQ charter high school took a group of students to tour a college, and during the tour they met an alum of their XQ charter high school who attends the college, and the alum whispered to the kids to transfer to another high school if they can, because the alum was completely unprepared for college work and has really struggled. So my colleague’s grandchild did change schools.
I’m not mentioning the school’s name or city so it doesn’t show up on Google searches and bust the alum who whispered to the students of the XQ charter high school that they should transfer to another school, just in case it might be obvious. The charter folks can be Theranos-level ruthless.
Yes. A colleague won first of the first XQ grants. It was a fiasco. The co-designer of the school saw an opportunity to make money on the side as a consultant to the school. Bad idea. XQ oversight on the use of money and schedule for results was “Theranos-level ruthless.”
At the current XQ website you can see a “poor us” explanation on why a middle school program was blocked from expansion to high school. The school board is painted as hostile to charter schools, as if XQ had a inalienable right to co-location and other absurdities on XQ’s wish list.
Imagine my surprise! In my experience (16 years teaching in the New York City Department of Education), most of the bureaucrats in the NYCDOE are out first and foremost for themselves. Our schools and the kids that populate them are basically an abstraction to someone like Ursulina Ramirez. Her salary and bullet points on her resume? Now that’s something concrete bureaucrats in the NYCDOE understand.
Needless to say, I became very weary, then enraged, at watching this.
I thought XQ was a style and grooming magazine for Xenophobes.
The Billionaire and the Reformer” (after The Walrus and the Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll)
The pol was pining for a charter,
pining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The regulations sleight —
Which wasn’t hard, because the pol
Was charter acolyte
The public was pining sulkily,
Because they thought the pol
Had got no business to be there
After the charter stole —
“Incredible of him,” they said,
“To work for charter dole”
The money was tight as tight could be,
The coffers were bare as bare.
You could not see a dollar, cuz
No dollar was in there:
No Race was funding overhead —
There was no Race to fund.
The Billionaire and the Reformer
Were talking under bleachers;
They wept like anything to see
Such qualities of teachers:
If these were only cleared away,’
Our schools would be like peaches!’
If seven Chetty’s with seven VAMs
VAMmed for half a year,
Do you suppose,’the Billionaire said,
That they could get them clear?’
I doubt it,’ said the Reformer,
And shed a bitter tear.
O students, come and walk with us!’
The Billionaire did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
A better way to teach
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.’
The eldest student looked at her
But never a word he said:
The eldest student winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head —
Meaning to say he did not choose
To go with Jobs, and fled
But four young students hurried up,
All eager for the fest:
Their hair was brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and best —
And this was odd, because, you know,
They’re going to a test.
Four other students followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more —
All hopping through the student waves
And scrambling to the door.
The Billionaire and the Reformer
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little students stood
And waited in a row.
The time has come,’ the Billionaire said,
To talk of many things:
Of Common Core — and standard tests — of passing score — and VAM—
And why the schools are failing [Not!] —
And whether pigs have wings.’
But wait a bit,’ the students cried,
Before we have our talk;
For some of us are out of breath,
And some of us can’t walk!’
No hurry!’ said the Reformer.
As patient as a hawk.
A lot of bread,’ the Billionaire said,
Is what we chiefly need:
Testing and Common Core besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, students dear,
We can begin to weed.’
But not with us!’ the students cried,
Turning a little blue.
After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!’
The day is fine,’ the Billionaire said.
Do you admire the view?
It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!’
The Reformer said nothing but
‘That cut score won’t suffice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf —
I’ve had to tell you twice!’
It seems a shame,’ the Billionaire said,
To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them test so quick!’
The Reformer said nothing but
The opt-out’s spread too thick!’
I weep for you,’ the Billionaire said:
I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears he sorted out
The scores of lesser size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
O students,’ said the Reformer,
You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d flunked out every one.”