Teach Plus: Astroturf In Indiana?
On Thursday I shared an interview with education historian Diane Ravitch on the controversy surrounding the video of Jonah Edelman, CEO of the non-profit advocacy group Stand For Children. She discussed how a number of supposedly grassroots groups like this have cropped up and had a significant impact on education policy. She listed several groups, including one called Teach Plus.
I did a bit of digging to find out more about the role Teach Plus played supporting Senate Bill 1, passed this spring in Indiana. I found out that Stand For Children was responsible for active support of the law, including sponsoring polls that showed public support for the idea of basing teacher pay and layoffs primarily on "student academic growth."
So there is the big footprint of Jonah Edelman's Stand For Children. But what was the role of Teach Plus? In this New York Times article in May, Behind Grass-Roots (sic) Advocacy, Bill Gates the story leads off by describing
