Billionaire Fave, Matchbook Learning, Coming to Indy
By Doug Martin
Along with several other outside people and groups, Matchbook Learning’s Sajan George and his chief school officer, Amy Swann, have been picked as 2017 fellows for the Mind Trust Innovation Schools program. IPS’ supt. Lewis Ferebee and the IPS board helped choose these Mind Trust fellows, and two of them are planning new high schools (KIPP and the Purdue Polytech High School), even as the district is closing its own high schools. Mind Trust fellows can launch new charter schools, take over IPS schools, and partner with IPS itself.
According to Chalkbeat Indiana’s Dylan Peers McCoy, Matchbook Learning will open a K-8 school in Indy. But a Matchbook Learning job posting states that “We want a Principal ready for the challenge and opportunity of a five year mission to turnaround a failing school and to do say [sic] in such a way that it can impact the entire city of Indianapolis by sharing their success with other failing schools via our Accelerator.”
Known for blended learning turnaround models and cashing in on disaster capitalism, or as Matt Tully pleasantly puts it, “running a nonprofit that helps turn around profoundly failing schools,” Sajan George is the CEO of Matchbook Learning and a billionaire favorite of many involved in school privatization in Indiana and across the country.
THE CLAN
Sajan George visited Indianapolis earlier this year, giving the closing address at the DeVos/Walton American Federation for Children conference back in March, where so-called personalized learning was the buzzword, as it was a few weeks earlier at the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit.
Silicon Valley’s NewSchools Venture Fund, in fact, backs Matchbook Learning’s blended learning schools,. NewSchools Schools Matter: Billionaire Fave, Matchbook Learning, Coming to Indy:
