Tom Ultican tells the sad story of the Johns Hopkins University Education Policy Institute, which was once known for unbiased scholarship.
As he recounts the politicization of the Institute, he explains the upside of joining forces with privatizers, disrupters, standardized testing zealots, allies of Relay “Graduate School” of Education and the charter industry. The Institute is now the recipient of millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, Charles Koch, the Walton family, and other very rich luminaries of the philanthropic world.
In one of JHU’s consequential reports, it was commissioned to study the high-poverty Providence, RI, school district. Only weeks later, they turned in a gloomy assessment that set the stage for a state takeover. Then-Governor Gina Raimondo hired ex-TFA Angelica Infante-Greene, who never been a principal or a superintendent, as State Commissioner of Education. She, in turn, hired a new superintendent and deputy superintendent for Providence, who were both fired after the deputy was caught forcibly massaging boys’ toes.
Infante-Greene has now been inducted into Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change (which had previously designated by Chiefs as a future leader.)
Is it worth mentioning that the outcomes of state takeovers have been dismal?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They all insist they are “agnostics” but if you read their actual work it is so lockstep with ed reform dogma it’s almost sad, in the sense that I think they are so far into an echo chamber they don’t see it themselves.
The voucher “analysis” is just shockingly low quality- they don’t even read the laws they’re endorsing. If it’s pro-private school and anti-public school it gets the echo chamber endorsement regardless of content.
Someone should slip a provision into one of the voucher laws dictating “all public schools must close by 2025” just to test their work. Not a one of them would notice.
Ultican shows how poor students have become the play things of the wealthy and politically well connected. All the super wealthy have to do is flash some cash at elite schools like Hopkins, and they get to drive the school bus full of poor students over the cliff of unsubstantiated, neo-liberal education policy. It is pathetic that the wealthy get to buy education policy without a shred of evidence to support their belief in state takeovers, competency based education and testing, TFA and fake schools of education as well as ever encroaching privatization. As Pasi Sahlberg has said, “America does not have an education problem. It has a poverty problem.” America also has the most billionaires in the world. Another big obstacle is that America has an arrogant billionaire overreach problem, and policymakers that are for sale. Our schools are not failing. They are victims of wealthy, political interlopers that are drunk on their own sense of self importance while they take public schools apart brick by brick.
a painfully poignant line: “how poor students have become the playthings of the wealthy…”
Dismal because state commissioners such as Rhode Island’s Infante-Greene have no experience with public education at all and local mayors seem to want to get involved when they, too, have no experience with education. Get the mayor and appointed school board (political cronies) out of the mix. Elect a new school board made of people who have a stake in the public schools and who have their success as their goal. Involve the teachers, parents, and students in determining how to improve the system. Since I mentioned in a previous post that poverty is the primary issue, state leaders need to find out ways to alleviate some, if not most, of his issue before anything constructive can be done. Will this take money? Yes, and lots of it. Will it take time? Yes, again, and lots of it. Solutions are not bandaids. The state needs to rethink its school aid formula and send the bulk of the monies to those inner cities with the greatest need. Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket. Provide the services students in those areas need – wrap-around services of breakfast, lunch, and if necessary, supper as well. After school help with school work and remediation. Teachers, teachers, teachers. Improve the facilities so that there is plenty of space, ventilation. Walls are not crumbling, and so forth. Politicians want a quick fix and there isn’t one for Providence. An interim superintendent has been chosen who has come up through the ranks. At first glance, he seems to be well respected in the school where he was principal. Give him the chance and the authority to reach out to the teachers, the general staff, the public, the parents and let’s see what he can do. Politics has no place in public education…get the politicians out of the schools. Can you imagine what damage politicians could do with medicine? Good Grief! The issues we face beyond privatizes wanting to get rid of public schools is that teachers and the teacher contracts and the unions are not the problem…Poverty is the problem.
To elaborate – wrap around services also include health care, dental care, social workers and all sorts of other services students need, not just the meal services.
How about Brown University- any deals with the devil to enable the theft of Main Street’s asset- public schools?
Impatient Optimists for Bill Gates- any footing at Brown?
Several well respected universities are riding on the privatization gravy train. Harvard and Tulane among some others come to mind.
In June, the Gates Foundation gave almost $1,000,000 to the ed reform group at Brown Annenberg.
money speaking so LOUDLY
So many self-appointed experts funded by the rich like Laura and John Arnold (Arnold Ventures) e.g. Saga Education, “high dosage tutoring”.
If the rich would pay their taxes, Main Street could identify what they need for students and they would have the resources to pay for it. Even better, the public wouldn’t be subjected to jargon like, “high dosage tutoring”.
Agreed!
It’s also interesting how the Koch family have quietly slipped into every ed reform org and group.
They’re listed all the time among the usual ed reform subjects now. Huge new source of revenue but probably explains some of the lurch to the Right in ed reform ideology over the last couple of years.
I don’t think they have to dictate or control the acceptable speech or policy in ed reform-the winnowing for fealty to ed reform dogma comes in earlier than that, during the hiring process. They just don’t hire any dissenters so they get no dissent.
“Science scores decrease at grade 4; no significant changes at grades 8 and 12 compared to 2015”
Why are we still investing everything in this “movement”? Twenty years of following directives from these people, lockstep, and public schools get weaker every year they’re in power.
Could we possibly, pretty please, hire at least a COUPLE of people who aren’t paid, full time members of this echo chamber? At least diversify our investment a little?
I think the private sector “Reofrm School” Charter industry may be guilty of breaking some RICO laws.
The law defines 35 offenses as constituting racketeering, including gambling, murder, kidnapping, arson, drug dealing, bribery. Significantly, mail and wire fraud are included on the list. These crimes are known as “predicate” offenses.
While RICO was originally aimed at the Mafia, over the past 37 years, prosecutors have used it to attack many forms of organized crime: street gangs, gang cartels, corrupt police departments and even politicians.
When does a grant or donation qualify as bribery, wire fraud, and/or white-collar crimes?
https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/rico/
Note that an enterprise is required. This might be a crime family, a street gang or a drug cartel. But it may also be a corporation, a political party, or a managed care company. The enterprise just has to be a discrete entity; but an enterprise is not the same as an individual. Thus, a corporation may be the enterprise through which individuals commit crimes, but it can’t be both an individual and the enterprise.
The criminal RICO statute provides for prison terms of 20 years and severe financial penalties. The law also allows prosecutors to attach assets, so they can’t be whisked out of the country before judgment.
Our entire political system, practically, is based on such “racketeering.” Imagine Senators and Congresspersons wearing uniforms like those of NASCAR drivers with the names and logos of their corporate sponsors printed all over them.
Its sick and sad.
Turtle Match
If Congress were
A NASCAR race
It would ensure
A lot of haste
Instead, it’s more
A turtle match
And what it’s for
Is campaign cash
David Steiner may have made some mistakes, but he’s exactly the sort of cultured, erudite mind that we need in education leadership these days. The field is populated with mediocrities, ideologues, ignoramuses and failures. Thank goodness there’s now at least one school of education that has broken from the groupthink that prevails in America. We should welcome intellectual diversity, not condemn it.
I’m having difficulty in seeing the diversity here. Steiner sounds like he bought the neoliberal assessment of education long ago. I don’t see anywhere that he sees the value in public education as a common good. You obviously know more about him than I do, Ponderosa. Please tell me why his is a voice that stands out from the crowd.
an essential understanding inside the word “bought” — he may be sincere, but sincere in selling the neoliberal assessment that he himself feel for
He’s on the Knowledge Matters board, for one thing:
https://knowledgematterscampaign.org/about-us/
Steiner started out his career as a voice for intellectual challenge and the importance of knowledge. He turned into a voice for KIPP, charter schools, Relay and the whole reform industry, which places little value on intellectual pursuits, only test scores.