Updated: Gates grant to NYSED for more PR around standards, testing and data collection

Update, December 11: Nick Tampio had an oped in LoHud news which asks:what if a food conglomerate making high fructose corn syrup bankrolled a state campaign on benefits of sugar? Or if tobacco companies subsidized a government campaign to push teen smoking? Same will likely happen if the Regents accept this Gates grant to push flawed standards, testing and expanded data collection.  The Non-profit Quarterly also  covered the controversy: "perhaps the Gates Foundation might consider the time and energy parents and other stakeholders must spend organizing against Gates initiatives instead of for ones they can believe and invest in among the costs of its growing number of failed educational efforts."

There was a lively discussion of this grant and its potential consequences at yesterday's Regents meeting and whether Gates Foundation would "control the narrative."  Commissioner Elia said the reason for the state to expand its data collection from early childhood through higher ed was that  currently students applying to SUNY and CUNY schools can't have their transcripts sent on time, a claim that is hard to believe. Many questions were raised about the data practices and policies and who would obtain the data.  Elia promised "no outside company" will be given access to it.  The Board of Regents voted to approve the grant, with only Regent Cashin and Regent Oudekirk voting no.  In the end, this decision will likely backfire, causing parents from trusting NYSED even less than they do already on standards, testing and data collection, knowing that these communications are part of a PR campaign, financially supported by Gates.

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December 10, 2018

See how the Board of Regents are discussing tomorrow morning a $225,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to improve NYSED's "consistent and targeted communication " to parents and other stakeholders to help them "understand a variety of critical academic changes" regarding the state's learning standards, accountability initiatives (ie testing) and need for enhanced data collection "to connect early childhood, K-12, and postsecondary student information."   The proposal is posted here and below. 

One wonders if more PR is going to really help persuade parents who are already very distrustful of NYSED's insistence on imposing new standards that are little different from the Common Core.  There is still too much emphasis on flawed high-stakes state exams, and a lack of transparency about their design.  Finally,  NYSED still hasn't released regulations or enforced  § 2-d. regarding the unauthorized release of personally identifiable information , the state student privacy law that was passed in 2014 in the wake of the controversy over inBloom -- though the legal deadline for implementation was more than four years ago. 

Education Nation ignores parents but we make our voices heard at the premiere of "Won't Back Down"

Yesterday was NBC's Education Nation's "parent engagement" town hall, which turned out

Real-life public school parents

to be nothing but a big infomercial for the controversial film  "Won't Back Down" promoting the "Parent Trigger" and the privatization of our public schools. (See our review of the film and our FAQ about its backers and their political agenda.) The Education Nation parent engagement panels featured the stars of the film, along with privateers Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, two people who have never shown any  interest in parent empowerment.

Movie poster starring Klein and Murdoch

Only two public school parents appeared on any of the panels, neither of them from NYC, and though the audience was full of real life public school parents, not a single one was allowed to speak. A more frustrating hour I have never spent. Rhee and Klein were pushing "choice" and charters, predictably enough, and Klein, who runs Murdoch's for-profit virtual learning division, was also hawking online learning, though weirdly the NBC host described him as running "an educational organization."

Fake public school parents

Afterwards, we bumped into one of the two parents allowed to speak, Chicago's Vanessa Bush Ford, who also expressed frustration at the lack of substance in the event (they kept showing us clips from the movie, some of the same clips twice). Then we joined the real-life parent protest outside the red carpet premiere at the Ziegfield, where we held our own "red carpet" event. One confused reporter asked us if this was an "actual parent protest" (unlike the fictional ones depicted in the film.)

Yes, this was indeed a real life protest, starring real-life public school parents. unlike the rest of the day's events, which featured  movie actors and corporate reformers who would like to spin their own illusions, while ignoring our priorities.  I was happy to find out afterwards by watching MSNBC's coverage inside the theater that our voices could be heard. Check out our video below of the protest. Short news clips about the protest were also run by WNBC and Fox News.




Wont back down protest from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

Gates-funded project leaves parents off the list of key stakeholders, once again

The research organization AIR was funded by the Gates Foundation to commission a series of papers on the Bloomberg/Klein education reforms, and to “convene a working conference….to inform future educational improvement efforts in the city.”

Reportedly, the papers will be published in a collection by Harvard University Press.

On November 10, they are holding an “invitation-only” forum at the downtown Hyatt hotel to discuss the results of their findings in what has been described as “an opportunity for dialogue and conversation among NYC stakeholders, DOE staff, and researchers…” (see invitation below.)

Yet the only NYC public school parents who have been invited to participate in this “dialogue and conversation” of stakeholders are the five borough-appointed members of the Panel for Educational Policy.

This exclusion of parents is reminiscent of the definition of stakeholders put forward by Secretary Arne Duncan and Joanne Weiss, when she ran the federal “Race to the Top” program (both of them former Gates grantees as well).

In their list of “key stakeholders”, they included education administrators, the teachers union, the business community and charter school operators, but not public school parents, as those groups that states were supposed to elicit support for their proposals. (They put in parents in afterwards, and only pro forma, after receiving negative feedback.)

Here is what Patrick Sullivan wrote in his comments to the US Education Department at the time:

One factor considered in awarding the grants to each state is the extent to which support and commitment of key stakeholders is enlisted (Overall Selection Criteria E3). While the administration has a long list of stakeholders, parents are not on it. Charter schools, teachers unions and foundations are deemed to be important stakeholders but not parents.

For this conference, once again, the concept of stakeholders appears to exclude public school parents and their children, who have been most affected and disenfranchised by the policies of this administration.

Parents aren’t even at the bottom of the list. In fact, they don’t exist at all.

On Oct 26, 2010, at 4:00 PM, nycretrospective <nycretrospective@air.org> wrote:

Dear all,

I just wanted to remind you of the conference invitation attached. The meeting will take place in two weeks (November 10th) and will be an opportunity for dialogue and conversation among NYC stakeholders, DOE staff, and researchers from inside and outside NYC about the findings of the NYC Education Reform Retrospective project. This is an invitation only conference and has been designed to offer an intimate venue for sharing ideas and considering implications for reform efforts in NYC and elsewhere. You have been invited based on your involvement in the NYC education reforms or your relevant research or practical experience. We hope that you will be able to join us and contribute to this discussion.

We have extended the RSVP and registration date to November 1st.

If you plan to attend, please fill out the attached registration form and e-mail it back to nycretrospective@air.org by November 1st.

If you are unable to join us, please reply to nycretrospective@air.org by November 1st to say you will not be attending.

We look forward to seeing you in NYC on the 10th!

Jennifer O'Day, Project Director for the New York City Education Reform Retrospective

Parents and teachers protest budget cuts

Advice for Duncan in the WaPost: parents need not apply

Check out Diane Ravitch’s succinct advice to Arne Duncan, the soon-to-be Secretary of Education, in yesterday’s Washington Post, recommending that he scrap NCLB. Here is an excerpt:

“The law's remedies don't work. The law's sanctions don't work. The goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 is ludicrous; no nation or state has ever reached it. Achievement gains have been meager. Test scores improved more on federal tests in the five years preceding NCLB than in the years since it was implemented. What Washington does best is write checks, collect honest information, and call attention to problems. “

On the other hand, Margaret Spellings, current Secretary of Education and a big supporter of NCLB, writes Duncan:

“Congratulations. I don't want to hurt you, but I think you're a great choice. You're the right guy at the right time. I look forward to working with you and know you to be compatible, tough-minded and someone who does what's right on behalf of kids. You'll need those characteristics as secretary.”

Check out either of the above pages for links to advice from The Critic, The Early Education Advocate, The University Chancellor, The Student, The Teacher, The Astronomer, The Bioethicist, The School Superintendent, The Author, and The Thinker (as the Post describes them.)

Unfortunately, no one mentions the importance of class size. But then they also didn’t bother to ask any parent.

Even though on the very same day, Jay Mathews of the Post had a column, saying that sometimes, parents actually have good ideas when it comes to our children’s schools.

Clearly we are swimming against the tide.

If you'd like to know what some real-life parents from NYC and Chicago would recommend, check out the Common-sense reforms for our schools, from Class Size Matters and Parents United for Responsible Education.