NYC Public School Parents: Imagine schools: corporate-style reform rearing its head once again

NYC Public School Parents: Imagine schools: corporate-style reform rearing its head once again

Imagine schools: corporate-style reform rearing its head once again

On Thursday, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza announced a new $32 million initiative, called “Imagine Schools NYC”, described as a “Public-Private Challenge to Open 20 New Schools and Transform 20 Existing Schools Across 5 Boroughs”.  A competition was announced for teams to submit their ideas for new or redesigned public schools, with winners to be announced in May 2020 and these schools to open in 2021 or 2022.

According to this press release from the Mayor's office, the Robin Hood Foundation will contribute “up to $5 million to support the creation of up to 10 new Imagine Schools”  and the XQ Institute,  will contribute another $10 million to create 10  new or redesigned public high schools.  Presumably, this means DOE will itself be putting in an additional $16 million to create or restructure another twenty schools. 

Robin Hood is also spending $1M to expand the  DOE’s District-Charter Partnership work, “centered on proven, effective professional development,”  as well as spending up to $10 million for 18 new charter schools, as mentioned in the NY Times, which is twice as much as they’re paying for new public schools.

The XQ Institute, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, focuses on questionable “competency-based learning” and spent a boatload of money on promoting itself, first via a flashy 2017 TV prime-time special, replete with celebrity performances, and then unsuccessfully pitching the show to be nominated for an Emmy  via a national bus tour. 

The  press release describes the XQ Institute as “a national leader in transformational high school design…Based on research and expert practice.” Yet the schools that the Institute has helped launch so far have not had an impressive record of success. Four of the first ten high schools that were awarded $10 million each by XQ in their 2016 “Super School” competition  either never opened, failed to expand as planned, or have already closed. 

In addition, one of the schools awarded $2.5 million in a second round of funding , Crosstown, a new high school in Memphis, experienced a student walk-out in protest against how the tenth grade was separated into two cohorts; one composed of mostly white students and the other black students, with the first group provided with extra attention.  Just last week, the school lost its principal for the second time since it opened last year.

Over the last decade or so, the Robin Hood Foundation has primarily supported charter schools in its education portfolio, as might be predicted considering it was founded by CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Imagine schools: corporate-style reform rearing its head once again