Matt Barnum: Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

After a high point in the Obama administration, philanthropies no longer drive education policy

Soon after the pandemic shuttered school buildings across the state, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious plan to “reimagine” education in the state with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Let’s take this experience and really learn how we can do differently and better with our education system in terms of technology and virtual education,” Cuomo told reporters a year ago, saying the effort would be a collaboration with the Gates Foundation.

The announcement drew widespread attention. It seemed like a blast from the recent past: a deep-pocketed foundation shaping education policy.

But this time, it didn’t play out that way. There was a swift backlash, and it soon became clear the ambitions of the plan were much more modest in scope. In fact, there’s no indication the philanthropy played any role at all, and Gates did not issue any grants to the state.

Why the plan apparently fell apart is unclear, but it’s one recent example of the waning role of education philanthropy in national and state policymaking.

That marks a rather dramatic change from just a few years ago, when wealthy benefactors helped reshape American education in remarkably swift fashion. But their priorities don’t appear to be affecting school policy in the way they used to. That likely reflects the fierce backlash to philanthropies’ influence during the Obama era, as well as a scaled-back federal role in education, a Trump administration that some funders CONTINUE READING: Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

Paid For By . . . – Tennessee Education Report

Paid For By . . . – Tennessee Education Report

PAID FOR BY . . .

At the end of this nice, happy story welcoming a new reporter to the education beat at WPLN, there’s a very interesting sentence:

Nashville Public Radio thanks the Thorne Family Charitable Fund, the Scarlett Foundation, the HCA Healthcare Foundation, the Joe C. Davis Foundation and the Andrew Allen Foundation for their generous support of our education beat.

It’s great that the education beat has some solid financial support. What’s noteworthy, though, is that two of the five sponsors of education news are also hard core privatization advocates.

First, there’s the Scarlett Foundation. This group, headed up by Joe Scarlett, is solidly in the privatization camp. Plus, as the Scarlett Foundation’s page notes about their board chair:

He serves as chairman of the Scarlett Hotel Group and vice-chairman of the Beacon Center of Tennessee.

Yes, THAT Beacon Center – the conservative group pushing policy schemes like school CONTINUE READING: Paid For By . . . – Tennessee Education Report

CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

The Book Love Foundation

 Penny Kittle teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and has logged a few decades in public school as a reading teacher and literacy coach. She's picked up some NCTE awards, written some books, and generally done pretty well professionally. But for my money, one of the coolest things she has done starts with this story:

I stood in a most perfect bookstore in the Memphis airport one evening smelling the strong scent of Bar-B-Q that permeates the place as I waited for my flight.
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Under maple bookshelves lit softly by spotlights, I came upon a collection of animal books, not just The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and A Dog’s Purpose by Bruce Cameron, but Cassius: The True Story of a Courageous Police Dog by Gordon Thorburn, which explores the scenting capabilities of police dogs that help solve crimes.

There were books about training birds, the history of zoos, and endangered species. I could imagine current students who would enjoy each title. This was an intriguing collection placed directly across from classics recommended by those who work in the store. There was a shelf of new fiction, one of psychology and self-discovery, and a section for business books. The store went on and on. You know: a book for anyone who might wander through this place. It’s hard not to pick lovely books up, hard not to stuff my suitcase even fuller. (I did, in fact.)
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But I also twirled around the room for a moment and imagined clearing out the center shelves in CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

CURMUDGUCATION: Jebucation Has New Five Year Plan

CURMUDGUCATION: Jebucation Has New Five Year Plan

Jebucation Has New Five Year Plan

Long long ago, when Jeb! Bush still had White House dreams, he cooked up a Floridian reform group, which then scaled up to national status as the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which has now become ExcelInEd. Headed up by Patty Levesque, the organization  remains a clearinghouse for education disruption ideas pushed by well-heeled, well-connected education amateurs. It is hard to pretend any more that these are serious people who have goals other than breaking up public education so that the private market can profit from the pieces. 

Their website is still chock full of carefully twisted stats (Florida is first in AP test participation!) and same old baloney talking points (US students rank 38th internationally in math on the PISA scores--which is of course right where they've always ranked). The message remains as always that public schools are failing and we must open education to the privateers who want access to all those sweet, sweet tax dollars. (It also includes some celebrity bad quotes).

The group is busy-- they push policy ideas out into the states and have been busy filing briefs in support of ESAs (the newest flavor of education voucher) and just generally supporting the privatization agenda whenever they can. And they put on an annual gathering of privatizers and profiteers called, seriously, EdPalooza.

Recently Levesque was interviewed by Rick Hess. As with his recent exit interview with Betsy DeVos, this is Hess being uncharacteristically soft and fuzzy, allowing his subject to spin her tale without ever questioning or challenging her story. The end result is illuminating only because it gives us an unvarnished picture of the alternate reality that Levesque wants to promote.

Levesque's account of what EIE has done is standard reformy fare-- they're "developed policy CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Jebucation Has New Five Year Plan

Stories from School AZ: Platforms Vs. Foundations. Pre- and Post- Pandemic Metaphors | National Education Policy Center

Stories from School AZ: Platforms Vs. Foundations. Pre- and Post- Pandemic Metaphors | National Education Policy Center

Stories from School AZ: Platforms Vs. Foundations. Pre- and Post- Pandemic Metaphors

Lately I have been considering the term “learning platform.” If you are a teacher, you have likely been expected to utilize multiple learning platforms over the past decade. If you have been avoiding digital learning platforms, then you certainly have been forced onto them in the past year of pandemic teaching.

Some digital learning platforms allow for great teacher creativity and agency, depending on how districts utilize them (think: Canvas); others include pre-made curriculum, but strive to incorporate effective teaching practices and teacher decision-making (think: Summit Learning); and still others are basically pre-packaged curriculum with very little room for teachers to creatively differentiate for student needs, or to create experiential learning or inquiry-based activities (think: Gradpoint or other credit recovery programs, Florida Virtual, many reading intervention programs such as Lexia.) They all have their appropriate uses within a learning community.

A platform can be defined as a “raised level surface on which people can stand” (Oxford Languages via Google). At first glance, that metaphor seems to describe these learning tools: A place where students can stand and encounter the learning, or a place to stack content or assessments, like palleted goods on a loading dock.

The risk we take using the metaphor of a learning platform is this: When I think of the image of a platform, I think of a train station or a subway stop. People standing on a level surface, waiting to board the train, or stepping out of the train. So in this metaphor, I suppose the CONTINUE READING: Stories from School AZ: Platforms Vs. Foundations. Pre- and Post- Pandemic Metaphors | National Education Policy Center