A few days ago, I posted Nancy Bailey’s critique of McKinsey & Company’s report claiming that it’s time for schools to get tough on students. As Bailey points out, when I worked in the Department of Education, the White House was crawling with McKinsey consultants, smart young things who knew everything about education but were seldom old enough to have been in the classroom for long.
Our faithful reader and meticulous researcher Laura Chapman (a retired arts educator) responded to Nancy’s post as follows, describing the mastermind of the McKinsey report:
Nancy Bailey probably knows that the author of the McKinsey report, Jimmy Sarakatsannis jumped straight to McKinsey as an expert in everything about K-12 and teacher education from his job as a science teacher for three years at Sousa Middle School, a charter school with “scholars” in DC.
Sarakatsannis has held exactly one job in education and there is every reason to believe that he left Sousa Middle School in 2008, in the midst of a major meltdown at that charter school. A tyrannical principal created chaos there. http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2010/07/tyranny-of-dcs-sousa-middle-school.html
ABOUT JIMMY FROM THE REPORT’S WEBSITE: “Jimmy is a partner in McKinsey’s Washington, DC office and a leader in our Education and Private Equity Practices.
Jimmy’s work in education straddles the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and spans every stage from pre-K-12 education to higher education and workforce development. He serves school systems, educational services providers, technology companies, and educational non-profits, as well as private-equity firms and philanthropic foundations that invest in education.
Much of Jimmy’s work focuses on how technology can be used to transform teaching and learning both within and beyond formal education. He also has deep expertise in the improvement of human capital within education systems, investment in education, and the development of successful organizational and business models for companies working across the public and private sectors.
Among his recent client projects, Jimmy has:
• advised an online learning company on developing a strategy to raise its student success rates
• supported professional development for teachers in some 20 US school districts
• helped a major technology company define a strategy to enter education, including product development, team building, and a go-to-market strategy for the new business
• led our support of a new non-profit in K-12 education, helping to design and set up the organization with an independent sales force and operations team
• worked with a national system of technical and vocational colleges to create online and hybrid programs to expand access and provide better educational experiences, reaching more than 50,000 students to date
Before joining McKinsey, Jimmy taught middle school science in the District of Columbia Public Schools. He is the author of a number of papers on educational topics and a regular contributor to our knowledge building in this field.”
That is a perfect example of corporate gibberish too easily sold to school districts.
I looked up Jimmy’s publications in Google Scholar. In those five entries he is never a solo author. All publications are from McKinsey, including COVID-19 and Student Learning in the United States – The hurt could last a lifetime.
Do not believe hype about the wisdom of McKinsey, least of all in education. Arne Duncan was a friend of McKinsey and by 2008 had engaged USDE with an “uplift” education campaign conjured by McKinsey. The project, was called R.E.S.P.E.C.T. an the acronym for “Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching.”
The project was nothing more than another scheme to make pay-for-performance the norm, get rid of collective bargaining, set up tiers of qualifications for teachers. Each teaching tier was offered an initial contract. In order to get a continuing contract you had produce more than a year’s worth of gains in test scores year-to-year for multiple years.
There are still records about this scheme. It was reportedly inspired by a 2010 McKinsey report: Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top-Third Graduates to Careers in Teaching: An International and Market Research-Based Perspective. That report called for recruiting the “best and brightest talent” into teaching because they could produce the highest test scores and those high tests scores could predict economic outcomes (with Chetty and others treated as experts). I wrote about some of these schemes on Diane’s blog back, in May of 2016. Diane has also devoted some blogs to the McKinsey’s corporate follies.
One point of clarity/correction in this post – Sousa middle school is NOT a charter school – it is a regular DC Public School.
I stand corrected. Thank you, but the chaos at that school was unending, multifaceted, and well-documented. It reflected an ethos found in many no nonsense charter schools where test scores are prized above all else. .
YIKES! You know what I miss? Remember that idea that Hillary had to sit down and listen to a bunch of teachers??
I miss that idea….and no offense meant to be pointed at men, or even, dare I say, white men, but let’s listen to ALL the WOMEN who are working with children at this time!!
I am so sick of listening to men and corporations explain what we know as women working with children!!
No more!! Stop the nonsense!
You’re right to be hesitant about “white men”. So let me throw it right back at ya. If all those white GAGA Good German teachers would refuse to implement educational malpractices, maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in. By not standing up and doing the right thing they have insured that many children have been harmed. I so sick of listening to women who make excuses for the majority of the women teachers who refuse to stand up for doing what’s right by the students. No more!! Stop implementing harmful, nonsensical malpractices.
“The world’s most prestigious management-consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, has been drawn into a national reckoning over who bears responsibility for the opioid crisis that has devastated families and communities across America.
In legal papers released in unredacted form on Thursday, the Massachusetts attorney general said McKinsey had helped the maker of OxyContin fan the flames of the opioid epidemic. McKinsey’s consultants, the attorney general revealed, had instructed the drug company, Purdue Pharma, on how to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin, how to counter efforts by drug enforcement agents to reduce opioid use, and were part of a team that looked at how “to counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed” on the drug.”
I question whether they should be running public education or really anywhere near it – the stuff they did with opioids is truly shocking.
. . . OMG. . . . CBK
You have to wonder
Do they employ people with experience (professional drug dealers) as consultants to advise companies like Purdue on turbocharging opioid sales?
Or do they take the next best thing: college frat boys?
“In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.
The presentation estimated how many customers of companies including CVS and Anthem might overdose. It projected that in 2019, for example, 2,484 CVS customers would either have an overdose or develop an opioid use disorder. A rebate of $14,810 per “event” meant that Purdue would pay CVS $36.8 million that year.”
I just wonder if anyone at McKinsey will ever be held accountable for their work promoting drug addiction.
I see that they’re all for holding public school students and teachers accountable- when do they hold themselves accountable?
Shouldn’t they have to explain this before they get another fat federal contract?
One word: SICKENING.
These pundits don’t have a clue about how kid learn. If they had it their way, our young would sit in front of a computer all day GLAZED over by ridiculous, stupid, electronic worksheets.
What people like McKinsley want is a nation of dummies, then they can do their “BAD” on our young and their teachers forever and forever and have a steady stream of revenue. It’s all very SICK.
Thank both parties for this kind of heresy.
I really don’t think they really care what the consequences might be to kids or public education. They only care about how to maximize impact and profits for their clients and therefore maximize their own. Once they take a job, they don’t owe anything to those who might be negatively affected by their actions.
I have an ambivalent feeling towards Mayor Pete leading the Department of Transportation. Mayor Pete is a smart young thing that has never led such a large department. Who knows what he will cook up in his neo-liberal McKinsey trained brain? I hope he pleasantly surprises us.
The ed reform lobbying group that have utterly captured my state government analyze the pandemic:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/five-uplifting-stories-ohio-education-2020
Public schools and public school students completely excluded. They’re simply not mentioned.
Amazing. Ed reformers simply “disappear” 90% of students and families in the state- the students who attend the unfashionable public schools.
Ohio lawmakers accomplished nothing for public school students in 2019 and 2020 and is it any wonder why? They’re completely captured by lobbyists who don’t believe public school students exist.
Teaching is where you learn about kids and what works and what doesn’t. There is a vast gulf between theory and practice. Three years of teaching experience doesn’t even come close to being able to bridge the difference. One more example of ed. reformers taking short cuts. Listen to teachers and assistant principals with real experience. At three years you’ve done nothing but kept your head above water.
Technically, RESPECT would be a backronym, where an acronym is tailored to an existing word. I learned of this while reading about the Subaru BRAT, also a backronym.
I the case it’s spelled “anachronym”, belonging to a time period long ago.
we have a Haverhill Education Committee; I went through the McKinsey references to be prepared; John King has already been quoted on cable /media about the “high ” intensity tutoring and you know the Jeb Bush group. I sent my notes to the Haverhill School Committee. In particular, be very wary about the report cited on Lawrence public schools. Arne Duncan showed up in MA the day the test scores were released in MA and he wanted to spotlight Lawrence. Those of us who have worked in the county for years know there is no Lawrence “miracle”.. these are the itemized notes for the school committee in my city.
Deming EEPA article— just keep the focus on “time ” on task as the academy was used (not the entire Lawrence “model” which has no over-all general conclusion with evidence and really angers a lot of local people who know the system well.
“Learning acceleration”. from the TNTP — this has been an accepted strategy with gifted students for 2 or 3 decades; the idea is to focus the curriculum in terms of BREADTH and scope and there are specific strategies. (Just as the MCAS has reduced the curriculum , this “Speedup” idea will most likely hinder all subjects outside of reading and math taught by computer testing practice.
Fryer “Injecting Best Practices”. — the one thing that charter schools in MA have clearly shown is that “time on task” pays off. This has been known for decades (50 years) as “Grandma’s rule” and it is not an innovation of charter schools. It has repeatedly been identified such as Gladwell when he talks about 10,000 hours of practice. The auditor for MA said the charter schools (and the state department ) have no way of putting a metric to their “charter school innovations” and that innovation isn’t even clearly defined.
Honig gives an umbrella for these ideas when he writes “Crafting Coherence.” That is one item in the McKinsey report that is worth some additional study time
I know HEC has a lot to do and times are hard for everyone right now. Ben Forman has provided one useful reference in the MA Inc report that reference the “Comer” schools project model. With all the trauma that we have witnessed, it would be valuable to examine the “well-being” fostered by Comer et al. Sven mentioned it when he ran for school committee. campaign this past year. Tom Grannemann pointed out that Jack Schneider also speaks of “well being”.
The Catholic Church has been promoted by Governor Baker as doing all the right things keeping the schools open. They are using the term “refugees from public education” in their news releases . I’m sure that this assault on public schools will have a demoralizing effect on staff. It is like Gates and other reformers who keep telling the teachers they are failures , that student are unmotivated and “grit-less”. and parents are feckless .
7.We have ONE lab school that remains in the University System in MA — that is where these strategies were frequently tried out before scaling up for schools in the state. We lost that state funding ; even though they had their lab funds cut, Fitchburg University , offered a summer Reading Clinic under the guidance of Dr. Rosemarie Giovino, with graduate students in small class size in the summer (academy model) and yet these models from outside are now telling us to do the similar things? That is where Honig can possibly be helpful (or a decent administrative team) because he writes about Coherence! of change and policy for schools. The summer learning program in Haverhill has a reported learning of 20 words over the time frame. Do you realize how long that would take to bring achievement up to “average” for our lowest performing students. Is there a better way than what has been tried and suggested.
these are highly specific to Massachusetts and for the Haverhill School Committee and Haverhill Education Coalition in particular.
Marc Tucker at NCEE has put out this set of recommendations for Biden’s new Secretary of Education. Among his recommendations are the tiering of teachers that Laura has mentioned above, comparing Singapore and Shanghai to the US and looking for larger (good grief NO!) class size.
And here, he wants teachers trained to regurgitate the “national”curriculum, which um, does not exist, so that students can meet the state “standards”.
“One is making sure that what is taught in the teacher preparation program is closely aligned with what the state expects the students to learn. At a minimum, this means preparing teachers to teach the national curriculum well for students from many different backgrounds. In the United States, it will typically mean preparing future teachers to teach students what they need to learn to reach state standards. This may sound obvious, but traditions of academic freedom often make it difficult or even impossible for states to take this obvious step.”
https://ncee.org/2020/12/getting-teacher-professionalism-right-notes-for-the-biden-administration/
Tucker is an idiot
The national curriculum not only does not exist but is forbidden by law.
From Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
“Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State, local educational agency, or school’s curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of State and local resources, or mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act”
Marc Tucker has been beating the same drum for 40 years.
Sad to see that Marc Tucker is still pushing for a national curriculum, but he is behind the times,
Before long China will be marketing an international arts education curriculum, with iPhones attached to a table-top stand as the main method of delivery. The curriculum for this idea has not been elaborated upon yet, but unlike Bridge International that caters to tech-delivered programs in Africa and India, this one has not yet gone into elaborate marketing yet.
A least part of the delay comes from a the fact that the CEO of the Rise Fund, a major US investor, was last known to be among the parents who paid surrogates and intermediators to get their children into college programs. The scandal was dubbed Varsity Blues.
https://www.law360.com/articles/1332452
That hiccup has not cancelled plans for money making on an arts education curriculum envisioned as a major investment opportunity by the deal makers described in a recent announcement. Be aware: I found this promo with a search and translator on BING (not Google). https://www.translatetheweb.com/?from=&to=en&ref=SERP&dl=en&rr=UC&a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.meishubao.com%2f#
More about the US investors can be found here.
https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/tpg-series-d-meishubao-221403/
I looked at a version of the marketing platform. I saw some light gray whisper type translations in English. The visual illustrations of lessons included conventional copy-this lessons with a few diagrams and cute formulaic work you might find in how-to draw workbook.
Here is demo with some English. A teacher shows on how to draw a panda and how to use some of the digital marking tools.
Unfortunately this lesson has all of the hall marks of what is known here as “The School-Art Style” a phrase coined by the late Arthur Efland, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MOUmX8lCDU
There is no curriculum as yet, but marketing is well underway for exercises in drawing and painting, some much like vintage 1920s offerings in the US, but computer animated.
So move over Mark Tucker. You are over the hill and then some.
Great work, Laura! Does anyone know if Jimmy Sarakatsannis came from Teach for America? I’ve checked his Bio in a few places and cannot find where he went to college or the title of his degree. He only taught 3 yrs. Are TFA corps members calling themselves teachers without the TFA label? Are they blending themselves into the profession like they are the real deal? I’ve noticed charter schools dropping “charter” too.
I have not found any connection to TFA. If you watch the YouTube linked below, you will see that he is reading from a script. This presentation was for the Brookings and it is filled with talking points long advocated by KnowledgeWorks and fans of big tech along with a healthy dose of studied ignorance about public school governance and financing. He seems to believe that thinkytanks are free to shape and dismantle school policies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKT9HdbjXbc
Great work, Laura.
Have def. noticed that many TFAers are simply listing ‘teacher’. Looks something like this:
‘Kelley was a teacher in the Delta region for three years before pursuing her MPP at Georgetown.’
—Rather than:
‘Kelley was a proud 2011 corps member and taught in DC schools for two years before pursuing her MPP at Georgetown.’
Wonder why.
In the video, Jimmy was talking about, or rather talking around, ending teacher tenure. Still? Really? McKinsey & Company is still spewing the same washed up nonsense as 2009. They don’t learn. I thought those guys were supposed to be cunning, not thickheaded.
LCT,
McKinsey has been giving the same education advice since at least 1992, when I encountered them. They want all teachers to serve at-will, fired at will of the employer.
LCT
Learning is an impossibility because their positions are ideologically based and hence immovable.
He certainly sounds like a know-it-all for teaching all of 3 years.
Hi Nancy – He may have been Teach for America or possibly DC Teaching Fellows (both of them had a connection with American University.
And as I mentioned earlier this school was never a charter school.
Thank you. Anything to end the teaching profession. And Knowledgeworks, Laura. Gracious!
As an arts educator/teacher educator living and working in Cincinnati, OH, Laura Chapman is/was always a champion in our education circle. Her voice resonates here, as always.
It seems to me that the decline in our country in recent decades can be linked to the rise of the wanker tanks like McKinsey (also misleadingly called think tanks because there is little if any thinking going on)
They should be called Tell Tanks. Their belief system is locked into place and they Tell others what to do to comply.
Must be really good peer review if there is a 100% acceptance guarantee.
Is your company also known as Clown Publication Research?
Ha ha ha
Are you a 🤡?
On a related note, what do you know, if anything, about Panorama Education and its founder/CEO, Aaron Feuer? Our district just purchased their program, and the only information I can find seems to be in promotional literature. Thank you for any information you can provide.