"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, June 16, 2016

CorpEd's "Third Way" Is Corporate Welfare Stealth Scheme

Corporate education reform is scrambling to come up with a new scheme that can be foisted on a general public that is now finally awakened to the giant sucking sound that charter schools make when they start drawing off millions of education dollars to fund segregated corporate reform schools.  

One such scheme in Massachusetts is the Third Way, which appropriately echoes, whether consciously or not, the Clinton-Blair style of neoliberal governance that put international corporatism ahead of the needs of people who work for a living.  The resistance to charter expansion in MA is fierce, and a ballot initiative to lift the cap on charters is up for a vote later this year.  

Corporate education deformists, however, are not waiting for the results to come in on the vote but, rather, are moving ahead with a plan for corporate control in MA's poor school districts, whether or not charters are uncapped.  The Third Way is based on deal cut in Springfield, where governance is by a charter-centric board headed by Chris Gabrieli, who "is the Chairman and CEO of Empower Schools [a private consulting firm], Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, and a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education." Now that's what I call triangulation.

Wondering who has the contract to advise the Springfield experiment where Gabrieli is the Chairman of the Board that governs the middle schools empowered to operate like charters?  Empower Schools, of course, which has as a partner the phony teacher prep outfit, Relay Graduate School of Education.  Also partnering with Empower Schools is TFA, TNTP, Education Cities, and the list goes on. See the bottom of the page here, but don't miss the mini bios on the staff that works under Gabrieli.  Ivy League non-educators?  You think?

So how many paychecks is Chris Gabrieli collecting here?  I lose count. 

Here is a link to a Third Way conversation between Gabrieli and Lisa Guisbond from FairTest.  Note that Lisa only wants to talk about the upcoming charter vote and does not weigh in on the virtues or vices of the Third Way.  

Oh yes, I almost forgot--the corporate "teachers'" union has cut a deal to cooperate with the Springfield experiment. 

Could this be what Eli Broad is trying to put together for Los Angeles?  Seems that Secretary King is all in.  Wonder why the Boston Globe did not cover this event? 

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous12:45 PM

    Any teachers' union should know that you cannot negotiate with terrorists or vulture capitalists. Once they co-locate in a public building, they will suck the funds from the public schools. Once the public school fails, they will grab the real estate.

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