The propaganda behind Jeb’s Harvard “teaching” job
After years of devising and pushing legislation to disrespect and harm professional educators, Jeb Bush is going to “teach” at Harvard. The irony cannot be overstated. To be clear, Jeb is no teacher and this is no job.
Jeb will act as a visiting fellow in the Program on Education Policy and Governance – an organization where he served as chairman of the Advisory Board for several years beginning in 2011. Other members of the advisory board have included John Kirtley, Phil Handy, Gerard Robinson, Joel Klein and Corey Booker. PEPG funders include the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the The Walton Family Foundation. The Milton Friedman Foundation was among the earliest funders, dating back to 1997, the program’s inaugural year.
PEPG delivers many of the “studies” Jeb, ALEC and others use to justify privatizing public schools. One such study, The Effects of Early Grade Retention on Student Outcomes over time: Regression discontinuity evidence from Florida was written by Martin West, Deputy Director of PEPG but released to the media deceptively by The Brookings Institute. The study conveniently concluded “evidence that early retention leads to adverse academic outcomes is misleading due to unobserved differences between retained and promoted students.”
Studies like this allowed Jeb and his friends to aggressively convince 18 states to implement mandatory third grade retention, despite overwhelming evidence that retention is a proven drop-out predictor.
So, PEPG has asked Jeb to deliver its 2016 Godkin Lecture as a “visiting” academic. This is just another effort by public education “reformers” to use the Harvard Kennedy School as a beard to promote a political agenda.
It’s essential to fully understand what Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance does. Far from an objective research center, PEPG is an ardent proponent of the Milton Friedman vision of privatization of public schools using vouchers, for-profit charters, and a vast array of vendors.
Predictable, recurring themes such as mandatory third grade retention, teacher evaluations, U.S students being unable to compete internationally, investing less on public education while expecting increased returns, class-size doesn’t matter and the ever-expanding push to digital learning are front and center.
Of course, once a “study” is released, PEPG boasts about all the media coverage. The only thing this proves is that, like many other institutions, the The propaganda behind Jeb’s Harvard “teaching” job | The Edvocate Blog:
