I recently received a copy of Hillary Clinton’s policy book, assembled for her by her most trusted advisors in 2014. This policy book was released in 2016 by Wikileaks after it hacked into John Podesta’s emails. The education section begins on page 156. Clinton’s lead education advisor was Ann O’Leary, who is now chief of staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Let me say at the outset that if I had read this brief before the 20116 election, I would have been disappointed and disheartened, but I still would have voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump. Despite my disagreement with her education advisors and plans, she was still 100 billion times better than Trump. Maybe 100 zillion times better.
Her education advisors came right out of the Bush-Obama bipartisan consensus that brought up No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Common Core. The brief tells us that this wing of the Democratic party, which was in the ascendancy during the Obama administration, is an obstacle to improving American education. After thirty years of promoting charter schools and billions of dollars spent increasing their number, it is obvious that they are not a source of innovation, transparency, or accountability. The charter sector is a problem, not a solution. They have not brought great ideas to public schools; instead they compete with public schools for students and resources. Anyone who is serious about education must consider ways to help and support students, teachers, and communities, not promote schemes of uneven value that have opened the public purse to profiteers, entrepreneurs, religious zealots, and corporate chains.
What the brief teaches us is that the Democratic party is split between those who are still wedded to the failed bipartisan agenda that runs from Reagan to Clinton and those who understand that the Democratic party should commit itself to equity and a strong public school system that serves all children.
The education section of the policy brief makes for sobering reading. (It begins on page 163.) O’Leary wrote the education section of the policy brief. Among the “experts” cited are billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and Bruce Reed of the Eli Broad Foundation. Among the policy papers is a statement by Jeb Bush’s spokesperson Patricia Levesque, recommending Jeb’s horrible ideas.
To sum up the recommendations:
- The brief lauds charter schools as a solution to the nation’s low academic performance (only a year earlier, CREDO had released a report saying that only one of every five charter schools outperforms public schools).
- The brief excoriates colleges of education and their graduates. It calls for Clinton to “professionalize teaching” by embracing TFA. TFA is likened to Finland as a model for finding excellent teachers. The brief does not mention that Finland would never admit teachers who had only five weeks of training into their classrooms. Every teacher in Finland goes through a multi-year rigorous program of preparation.
- The brief contends that tests should be “better and fewer” but should not be abandoned. Jeb Bush and Florida are cited as a model.
- The brief says: Don’t shy away from equity issues: While the root cause on inequity in our schools is still disputed – with reformers focused on the in-school availability of good teachers, good curriculum and rigorous course offerings and the unions focused on the challenges faced by teachers who are asked to find solutions to problems that stem from poverty and dysfunction in the community – there is an agreement that our public school system is one of the root causes of income inequality in our country, and that you should not be shy about calling it out and demanding we work to fix the inequities inside and outside the school building. [sic]
- Support the Common Core standards, which were already so toxic that they helped to sink Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. The brief says: Stand Up for the Common Core. There is strong agreement that we need high academic standards in our public school system and that the Common Core will help us to be more globally competitive. There is recognition, however, that the implementation of Common Core and the interaction with the testing regime has made many supporters nervous (including Randi Weingarten). However, all agree that you must stand for common core while working on the real challenges of how to implement it in a way that supports teachers.
- The brief holds up New Orleans as a dramatic success, when in fact its greatest achievements were busting the teachers’ union, firing the entire teacher force (most of whom were African American, and turning public schools over to charter operators. We now know that about half of the charter schools in New Orleans are considered “failing schools” (ranked D or F) by the state’s own metrics, and that New Orleans is a school district whose scores are below the state average, in one of the lowest performing states in the nation. Hardly the “success” that should be hailed as a model for the nation.
Ann O’Leary interviewed Laurene Powell Jobs as an “expert” on education. One of Jobs’ strong recommendations is to reconsider the value of for-profit entrepreneurs.
Instead of just looking at the deficits of these schools, consider it a huge opportunity for transforming learning. Beginning to see some of this work in Udacity, Coursera – and we should be doing more of making the best in technology available to support students in getting skills and credentials they need.
More from education expert Mrs. Jobs:
Re-Design entire K-12 system – know how to do it, but it comes down to political will. Public schools are a huge government program that we need to work brilliantly b/c it could change everything and be the thing that reduces income inequality; but we are stuck in system right now
Think about Charters as our R&D – only 5% of public schools still – MUST infuse ideas into the public school system, it is the only way – must allow public schools to have leaders that can pick their team and be held accountable; take away categorical funding, allow them to experiment and thrive
Need to increase IQ in the teaching sector: Teach for America; they are a different human capital pipeline – if Ed schools could be rigorous, highly esteemed, and truly selective like TFA and Finland, we’d see a different kind of teaching profession that would be elevated. Right now we have mediocre students become teachers in our classrooms;
Need transformation in our pipeline – Ed Schools should be like Med Schools – need to compensate teachers accordingly from $45K to 90K – have a professional union – like SAG; like docs and lawyers that have professional unions – individual contributors can negotiate; scientists and mathematicians; Teachers shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty
Need to use technology to transform – technology allows teaches and children to focus on content mastery versus seat time; get to stay with your age cohort, but you have a “learn list” and “dashboard” set up to help you reach the needed content skills. This is happening with Sal Kahn and schools in Bay Area – need to learn from it and grow it.
Need to call out and address the inequities – Huge differential between what is taught in higher income and lower-income schools; the top 50 college admissions professionals in US know which high schools have rigor embedded; in low-income schools, kids top out and cannot get more; black 12th grader curriculum/school equivalent to 8th grade curriculum for white student
Then Ann O’Leary interviewed “education expert” Bruce Reed, president of the Broad Foundation, but with zero experience in education:
Hillary’s initial instincts still hold true – that choice in former [sic] of charters, higher standards and making this a center piece of what we do as a country – nation of opportunity – still all true, nothing has changed; turned out to be even more true than it was 30 years ago
Challenge of education reform: school districts are pretty hard, if not impossible, to reform – they are another broken part of democracy b/c no leader held accountable for success or failure; no one votes on school board – don’t’ know who it is; sups not elected; mayors don’t want to be involved.
o New Orleans is an amazing story – when you make it possible to get political dysfunction and sick a bunch of talent on the problem – it’s the one place where grand bargain of charters has been kept the best
Problem with Charters as R&D:
o Traditional system – less incentive and less freedom to do things in different ways – big part of charter success is to pick staff you want and pick curriculum you want – don’t have anyone to blame if you are failing; principal is ultimately accountable, but in traditional system principal is often without any power
o Critical mass…. Get to certain tipping point and rest of the system and will follow – New Orleans – if you create the Silicon Valley of education improvement, which is what New Orleans has, you can get there; but the central office must let go of thinking it knows how to run schools; Denver does it, letting go of micromanagement on curriculum, instead do transportation and procurement….pro charter; pro portfolio system for public schools.
o Critical mass…. Get to certain tipping point and rest of the system and will follow – New Orleans – if you create the Silicon Valley of education improvement, which is what New Orleans has, you can get there; but the central office must let go of thinking it knows how to run schools; Denver does it, letting go of micromanagement on curriculum, instead do transportation and procurement….pro charter; pro portfolio system for public schools.
Glad you wrote about Hillary’s DREADFUL education plan.
The DFERS are so WRONG.
This policy brief is no different from so much we read from so-called reformers. They make unsubstantiated statements attributed to all public schools, and they have no understanding of what really happens most public systems.. Maybe some of what O’Leary claims like bureaucracy and rigidity are a problem in a few large systems in the country, but it is unfair to label the many varied districts as having the same problems. O’Leary vastly over generalizes the problems in some public systems.
Even though I disagree with most of this policy brief, I likely would have voted for Clinton as well. We would have continued to lose public schools at a slower pace than we did under the Trump regime. The only good thing I can say about DeVos is that she was such a polarizing ideologue that the public was awakened to the devastating impact of privatization on public schools. Her continuous undermining of public schools made more people appreciate their value. Also, the public is now more aware that private charter schools and vouchers provide no substantive change in education. Privatization has failed to deliver on its promises. It is time to invest in greater equity in public education which, I hope, the Biden administration will pursue.
Agreed!
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I not aware of any full throated criticism by any any congressional Democrat of the deformers in any public forum like hearings, floor statements, speeches or policy papers. Members like Rosa DeLauro, to my knowledge, have nibbled at the edges and exposed support for reforms, but I don’t remember her or anyone else saying something to the effect of, “Policies supported by Democrats in the Bush and Obama administrations were detrimental to our public schools, teachers and children and we must refute them categorically.” Instead they tread (too) softly.
Biden is the first Democratic President in a long time that openly expresses support for unions. Unlike Obama Biden also wants to invest in equity for public schools. It seems to me that the selection of Miguel Cardona to lead the DOE is a continuation of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” education policy favored by Democrats that seek to appease both the DFER and the progressive wings of the party.
I fear, RT, that you are right. We shall see.
RT, you make an important point. Biden is the first President in memory who openly supports unions, which used to be a pillar of the Democratic Party base.
Obama didn’t lift a finger to help unions when Scott Walker attacked them in Wisconsin.
Powerful members of the Democratic Party are funded by DFER and its allies.
George Miller (CA) was chair of the House Education and Labor Committee and a huge supporter of NCLB and charters. He was a favorite of DFER. Pelosi listened to him.
Hakeem Jeffries from NY is a big DFER; he is #3 in Democratic leadership in House.
Senator Michael Bennett is a DFER favorite.
Scratches the surface.
Always follow the money.
I would hope that constituents of DFER money addicts be called out by teachers and parents in a flurry of letter to the editor, calls followed by letters to the offices (quoting the language of a letter in a letter to the editor is an effective tactic), and calling them out at town hall meetings when they are resumed. And it would be very nice to see Rep. DeLauro give a floor speech or statement at an appropriations hearing calling her colleagues out. We could use something like that to amplify.
…would call out…
New Congressman, Jamaal Bowman, from the Bronx and former middle school principal is very much AGAINST the Ed Reformers. He is awesome. We at least have a legit voice in Congress. Hopefully he can convince others.
(But I think the issue is less about convincing others as much as making sure positions aren’t bought.)
“(But I think the issue is less about convincing others as much as making sure positions aren’t bought.)” . . . . or TRADED. CBK
Jamaal Bowman is a friend. He is the real deal. He knows education, he knows kids and parents. He will fight for them against the deformers.
I read the report AGAIN. “OY,” is all I can say.
I also have a HUGE problem with “Thought Leaders.” Anyone else?
I bristle at the term “thought leader.”
Mine is referring to people as “human capital”.
I don’t know that anyone refers to people as “human capital”. Typically economists talk about people having human capital.
For example, professional taxi drivers have a deep knowledge of how to efficiently drive from point A to point B in a city. That is part of a professional cab drivers human capital. A part time Uber driver has purchased a cell phone, a data link, and downloaded a navigation program. The Uber driver uses the physical capital of the smart phone and data network as a substitute for the human capital of the professional taxi driver.
Thanks, TE. Though in the older economics literature the term was definitely used to refer to people rather than to people’s skills–e.g., “Basically, two methods have used to estimate the value of human beings: the cost-of-production and the capitalized-earnings procedures. The former procedure consists of estimating the real costs (usually net of maintenance) incurred in ‘producing’ a human being; the latter consists of estimating the present value of an individual’s future income stream (either net or gross of maintenance).” (Kiker, “The Historical Roots of the Concept of Human Capital”). And it is in this sense that many of us on this blog have seen the term used, often, in the Ed Deform literature–to speak of students as widgets to be milled for the economic machine. Education Deformers and Edupundits often borrow technical terms from other fields and misuse them–especially business and technical terms. A couple of my pet peeves: using “strategy” to refer to any tactic one might apply to a problem rather than to an overall approach to some end and using “benchmark” to refer to any interim assessment rather than to some quantifiable goal like the best read-write time by any disc drive that costs under $200.
Bob,
What you describe is not a discussion about human capital, but one of the value of a statistical life. Both are important, but entirely different.
The question of the value of a human life is an issue because humans, unfortunately, are very inconsistent when it comes to valuing another person’s life. If it is someone who is close to them, they are willing to take great risk and give much treasure to save the person. If it is an anonymous random person who’s life is to be saved, people are generally not willing to sacrifice very much. Institutions are often in a position to make decisions where spending more treasure will in all likelihood save a random person’s life. The search for the correct amount to spend is an important one.
“Jeb Bush and Florida are cited as a model.”
LOL. Of course they are. The entire thing was lifted from Jeb Bush’s education plan.
Democratic ed reformers should come up with some of their own ideas. They’ve been presenting Jeb Bush’s plan as their own plan for 20 years.
There was a SLIGHT divergence over vouchers but now that all of ed reform have lockstep embraced vouchers even that difference is gone
This document makes it abundantly clear that the promotion and worship of alternate “un-realities” in the service of ideological and financial profits is solidly rooted in BOTH major political parties. It also shows, as seen previously that HRC is a neoliberal shill. The dumbocrats just have nicer lipstick on their pig than trump did.
I would say that one political party has morphed into a far right hyper radical anti-democratic (small d) fascistic cult. That’s a million miles from the Democratic party. However, when it comes to education, both parties are lamentable and appalling.
But….. here in NJ it’s nice to have a governor who is not an enemy of the teachers’ union and NJ public schools. We had to live through 8 years of the venom of Christie who was at war with the public schools, their teachers and especially the NJEA. Murphy is the exact opposite of Christie when it comes to education.
IDK if you were replying to my comment, but I agree with yours. The point I was trying to make is that both parties lie on behalf of the donor/investor class, on behalf of those who other than being ultra rich, are unqualified to give advice on policy matters. Trump has lowered the bar and made the lies obvious, Dems are, at the moment, more polished in their falseness. Bottom line, thanks for less than nothing, Citizens United. Among others.
The best to be said about Hillary in this report is that she had trouble saying out loud what her staff urged her to say.
She just didn’t talk about education, and on the one occasion when she accurately said that “some charters” don’t take “all kids,” Eli Broad threatened to withdraw his funding of her campaign, and Ann O’Leary rushed to write an article in Medium saying that HRC was misunderstood.
I think that therein lies the problem. It has gotten too easy to rely on big donors to support a campaign. That problem has to be addressed. There is no Democracy if wealthy donors can buy it. That’s why AOC’s campaign was so enthralling. The little guy supported her campaign. That’s why Stacy Abrams is my hero. She brought out the little guy.
Good god….
And how many voters (parents and teachers) sensed this was going to be the way if HRC were elected and decided to either cast a vote for the Orange One or to just stay home and not vote at all? Seriously, the Dem party better wake up and smell the coffee and start giving “we the people” something to vote “for”. Jan 6th is the best example of what government has ignored for 20-30 yrs….politics and policy should be “about” those who live and pay taxes in this country and not to political donors trying to milk the system for greed and power.
The Education “Reformers” are Know Nothings.
In his book The Educated Imagination, literary Critic Lionel Trilling says that one of the earliest surviving texts that isn’t just a record of the amount of grain in a granary–a text from ancient Sumer–reads, “Children no longer obey their parents or honor the gods.”
There’s always been this “back in my day, we ____” phenomenon. What’s going on right now is awful. The past was a golden age. Robert Frost once wrote that people in every age have thought that they are going down under the greatest forces ever marshaled by God.
This same phenomenon underlies much of Education Reform. People who don’t know what they are talking about nonetheless pontificate about how bad things are and about easy fixes.
Let me give one clear example of the general phenomenon. Master of the Universe Gates appointed Coleman Lord of K-12 education in the United States because Gates wanted a single bullet list of national “standards” to key educational software and databases to. This he did despite Coleman’s almost total ignorance of US K-12 education. Coleman hacked together a set of puerile and backward “standards” based upon a cursory review of the lowest-common-denominator existing state “standards,” and these were an almost entirely content-free bullet list of abstract skills. But surrounding the bullet list was Coleman’s call for English teachers to start using classic, substantive, canonical texts and to have students start doing “close reading” of those texts. In particular, he called for students to start reading “foundational texts in American literature” and canonical works like Shakespeare, the Bible, and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Now, if Coleman had known anything at all, actually, about US K-12 public education at the time–if he had had any knowledge of what was actually being done on the ground–he would have known this:
Every public school in the United States was using one of four or five integrated language arts literature textbook programs. The most widely used was McDougal, Littell’s The Language of Literature, but there were others, like EMC/Paradigm’s The Masterpiece Series: Literature and the Language Arts.
Every one of those literature programs, used by all public schools, was a collection of substantive, canonical, classic texts.
Every one of those programs contained Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, and Hamlet, as well as sonnets by Shakespeare.
Every one of those programs contained selections from the Bible.
Every one of those programs contained the canonical works of American, British, and World Literature–Longfellow and Emerson and Percy and Mary Shelly and Cervantes and Plato and so on.
Every one of those programs contained foundational works of American literature and history at every grade level, and every program contained a dedicated, year-long treatment of those works in Grade 11–an American literature survey course.
Every main selection in every one of those literature programs used by every public school, was followed by questions that guided students through close reading of the text, starting with factual recall questions, followed by analysis questions, followed by synthesis and evaluation questions. Every selection, in every text, in every program, used in every public school.
So, Coleman’s great call to read substantive texts, including American foundational texts like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and his call for close reading, was like saying to birds: “You know, you would be more successful if you took up flying.” It was like saying, “If people would just try walking or using wheel chairs, they could get from place to place.”
Coleman was appointed the decider for the rest of us. He was made, by an oligarch, THE pundit in English education.
But he didn’t know the first thing about what was actually being done.
BTW, his “standards” called for “foundational texts in American history and literature” in Grades 11 and 12, but every one of those literature programs had an American lit/historical documents survey course in Grade 11 and a Brit Lit survey in Grade 12. In other words, each was organized to cap off high-school with surveys of the greatest works in the English language.
But Coleman didn’t know this. He knew very, very little. He was a know-nothing, but he was put in charge. Lord Coleman. Ours is buy to obey.
And Coleman’s breathtaking ignorance was reflected in almost every line of his puerile, backward “standards.”
cx: Every one of those programs contained foundational works in American literature and history at every grade level (except Grade 12, where the standard text was a Brit lit survey), and every program contained a dedicated, year-long treatment of those works in Grade 11–an American literature survey course.
Now, here’s something interesting: Coleman, who put himself forward as THE expert on education in the English language arts, could have learned these things had he bothered to talk to ANY 6-12 public school English teacher. But he was an example of what one so often finds among Education Reform pundits: the expert on birds who had never bothered to look at a bird, the expert on sailing who had never been on a boat or learned to sail.
or if he had bothered to look at any standard 6-12 English literature textbook of the time
I just read the above summary.
What a depressing way to start the week/day.
20 kids are about to enter my office (virtually) and face my mediocrity. If only, instead of mediocre me — what with my credential and decades of teaching — they were being taught by totally untrained and inexperienced TFA elite teachers (who, btw, will quit teaching in June, or the following June).
Why is it that on education Republicans and Democrats can find unity proposing unsound educational policy for other people’s children?
a. sheer ignorance, or
b. $$$$ for their edupreneur donors and golfing partners
Aie yie yie. In moderation again. Must be the immoderateness of my posts. LOL. I’m no fan of these “reforms,” to put it mildly.
Bob FYI, I’m in moderation also. CBK
Poor Diane! Constantly having to deal with this! I also have a WordPress blog, and I know what a pain this is. But I don’t have to do it a hundred times a day. I really feel sorry for Diane having to deal with this!
Why are you in internet jail? Has a robot found too many multi-syllabic words? Or have your posts been deemed of dangerous thoughts, by some low paid highly questionably qualified minder somewhere out there in the ether?
WordPress seems to do this pretty randomly. For a while, any post that mentioned the Supreme Court justice whose last name begins with K was being placed in moderation. And ones mentioning various presidents from bygone eras. Weird.
Testing. Kavanaugh
Yes, Bob, that comment was in moderation–about Kavanaugh!
Polk and Kavanaugh are dead certain to send a comment to moderation.
So, I guess we have to use “the cave man” instead. LOL.
It’s got to be some computer algorithm. Or is it possible that a bot can object to a post enough to have an algorithm throw someone into moderation? Could a bot be programmed to object to a posters name?
I thought the moderation thing was about length and/or links. It does feel a bit like 1984. CBK
Catherine, WordPress has a feature that allows the moderator to set the number of links allowed in a comment. It seems to me, from past experience, that the default number of links must be 3.
Bob Well, then, it cannot be the number of links . . . . CBK
This policy book prompted me to write: Maybe Betsy Devos was a Good Thing (https://tultican.com/2019/10/17/maybe-betsy-devos-was-a-good-thing/). My idea was that DeVos and Trump were incompetent and Clinton’s more competent team would do much more lasting damage to public education.
tultican The flame or the fire. . . . That’s pretty-much it where education is concerned. CBK
I can’t even feel bad or sad about this. Just MAD.
Centrist Democrats are not with us, they’re against us, in every measure. Because everything in this ‘ed policy’ connects to every other policy. It’s just one stinking entrail in the cancerous bowel that is neoliberalism. Prettied up with distractions, subterfuges, and lie after blatant lie. True, Republicans have gone out of their way to act even worse, but facts are: centrist Reps = centrist Dems = neoliberals– & before you get carried away saying most Reps are worse, AynRandian or something– find me a difference between right-libertarianism & neoliberalism.
The only thing the neoliberal Obama/ Duncan admin did for my family was the ACA. It’s not nothing. The greatest achievement there was helping convince the public that affordable healthcare is a minimum requirement of nations calling themselves OECD. The ACA however did not produce affordable healthcare for all. My low-salary millennial sons got it at the expense of higher-income middles whose premiums went through the roof– and all of them have huge deductibles the likes of which one saw only on catastrophic policies in the past.
ACA, SO-O-O typical of neoliberal policies. Neoliberalism leads directly to inequity, a huge rich-poor gap, which is what we’ve got. No significant redistribution from rich to middle or poor. ACA is a redistribution of wealth AMONG the middle/ poor. We take an insufficient, finite pot of money and swap it around, stirring up divisions between old/young, midclass/ wkgclass, white/ black, whatever distracts attention sufficiently from common interests.
EXACTLY what we do with charters/ vouchers/ public schools. I call it fighting over the floor scraps.
The policy notebook managed to put together hundreds of pages of recommendations– if the rest is anything like the ed section it’s all guff & hot air– and yet ironically the “experts” hadn’t yet been able to assemble anything for the “centerpiece,” Section 2 “A Raise for Middle Class Families.” (good luck with that one)
bethree5 I like the “fighting over the scraps” metaphor. It fits. and leaves the 1 percent on the sidelines, making bets, and lots of money regardless. CBK
Hilarious, from LPJobs: “ Ed Schools should be like Med Schools – need to compensate teachers accordingly from $45K to 90K.” That’s a range; presumably Jobs is saying, teachers “should be” compensated an average of $57,500. Which is exactly what it the natl ave was at the time [$57,379 in 2014-15 (down from $58k-$60k between 1989-2010)]. By comparison, Internists – the GP’s, perhaps parallel to teachers— were in the bottom quarter of doctors’ salaries that year: $188k. That’s 327% of average teacher salary, 2014.
Not sure whether to call that a subterfuge or a lie.
Ginny, I thought that LP Jobs’ comment about what teachers should earn was hilarious. Coming from a billionaire, who probably spends $45,000 a week on her living expenses–or more.
On December 21st, 2020, O’leary resigned as Chief of Staff.
Thanks for the update. Is she going to work in the Biden administration?
She was mentioned for the top spot at the Office of Management and Budget; but that job went to Biden’s former chief-of -staff, Btuce Reed.
I was in error, Reed didn’t get the OMB job, it went to Neera, Tanden.
Side note: Bruce Reed would have been an even worse pick than either O’Leary or Tanden in the Budget role. He previously served as executive director of the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission and lead author of its report, The Moment of Truth. After leaving the Obama administration, he spent two years as the first president of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation
Diane, would you care to give Gavin Newsom a score on his education program? I know that his selections were problematic. From f your archives:
“Of the 11 members of the task force appointed by Tony Thurmond, in consultation with Governor Gavin Newsom, at least six are directly connected to the charter industry…”
https://dianeravitch.net/2019/03/11/california-thurmond-and-newsom-put-the-fox-in-charge-of-the-henhouse/
Sounds like Newsom’s chief of staff, Ann O’Leary, had a part in the selection. She was she’s a school deformer in the Jeb Bush/Obama vein. She was a fellow at John Podesta’s Center for American Progress. CAP is Gates-funded and promotes charter schools, along with tying teacher pay to test scores.
Richard, did you read Jake Jacobs’ review of this plan?
Here is a quote from his alternet article:
“Behind the scenes, however, O’Leary was pushing for holistic student supports, by March of 2016 suggesting that Clinton’s K-12 platform:
It seems too simplistic to say that there is no difference between Jeb Bush and Ann O’Leary, unless behind the scenes Jeb Bush was also pushing for these kinds of sweeping liberal programs to address the problems.
If Tony Thurmond made the picks, he must be a strong supporter of the entire CAP and Jeb Bush/Obama agenda. If he wasn’t, he would not have made those picks but would have ignored O’Leary, just as O’Leary was ignored when she was pushing for holistic student supports in 2016.
The Jacobs article also includes this: “Podesta, O’Leary and Tanden all busily raised campaign money from the same billionaire education reformers with whom they were also talking policy specifics.
…when [Clinton] criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students. John Podesta and Ann O’Leary would publicly correct Clinton, reaffirming her commitment to charters.”
I am not well enough informed to offer a grade. I admire Tony Thurmond.
Speaking of usual suspects resurfacing in disturbing places, I was googling the Center for American progress I came across this.
Shadow Elite of Teacher Education Reforms: Intermediary Organizations’ Construction of Accountability Regimes
Elena Aydarova
This report shows that, among other things, The Center for American progress serves as a conduit for billionaire wishes to become policy. for example: ”the organization (CAP) commissioned an analysis of teacher preparation accountability and released it in July 2010 under the title Measuring What Matters.
[…]
In September 2011, when the Department of Education released Our Future, Our Teachers…The CAP report comprised the core of proposed accountability reporting.
This research paper finds:
“Private sector’s support tends to coincide with potential profit opportunities that accountability initiatives create. “
[…]
It concludes:
“policy activities conducted in the shadows …undermine democracy.”
[…]
Taking cue from social movements, the educational community needs to come together in order to subvert the spectacle of neoliberal reforms and interrupt inequities of unjust social systems.”
Click to access aydarova.2020.shadow-elite.pdf