StudentsFirst’s Rebecca Sibilia and Her “Charter’s Little Helper,” EdBuild
One of the characteristics of those pushing the test-score-driven privatization of public education is that they easily hop from “venture” to “venture.” If time is up for them at one nonprofit or education business, they just hop onto another corporate reform nonprofit or business, or they easily secure corporate-reform-philanthropy, hedge-fund, or other bucks to mushroom into yet another, likely “nonprofit, nonpartisan”-styled venture.
They might even a preserve some tertiary connection to the former, uh, venture.
Such is the case of Michelle-Rhee-gravy-train associate Rebecca Sibilia and her new venture, EdBuild.
In August 2014, it was announced that Rhee planned to resign by the end of 2014 as StudentsFirst CEO to work at (of all places) Scott’s Miracle Gro. She is supposedly still on the StudentsFirst board of directors. Meanwhile, in January 2015, Rhee was appointed to a three-year term on the Scott’s board.
Sibilia has been working in DC in ed policy and connected to DC Public Schools since at least 2001. In 2000, Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP) began work in DC schools, “redesigning the city’s recruitment and hiring practices.” During Rhee’s time as DC chancellor (2007-10), Sibilia became chief financial officer for the Office of State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), where she remained until August 2011, when she joined Rhee’s StudentsFirst as chief operating officer and vice president of fiscal strategy. According to Sibilia’s Linkedin bio, Sibilia continues to hold this StudentsFirst post even as she became “founder and CEO” of EdBuild (located in Jersey City, NJ) in November 2014.
One curiosity from Sibilia’s Linkedin bio is that she states that she actually created EdBuild sooner, and with other people, when she was president of Resources and Strategies, LLC (July 2005-September 2009). Here is how she describes EdBuild:
Participated in the creation of EdBuild, a venture capital project to utilize charter school facility funding and practices to renovate District of Columbia Public Schools buildings, in partnership with the New Schools Venture Fund.
Thus, it seems that the purpose of EdBuild is to help DC charter schools secure and maximize facilities.
New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF) is known for supporting test-score-driven, StudentsFirst’s Rebecca Sibilia and Her “Charter’s Little Helper,” EdBuild | deutsch29:
Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER
Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers
Just Like Michelle Rhee's
Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better)