Who–and What–Does the New Philadelphia School Board Represent?

Philadelphia Mayor Kenney enters the press conference with 
School Superintendent Hite  to announce the new Philadelphia School Board.

from The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

By Deb Grill, Karel Kilimnik and Lisa Haver
April 4, 2018

APPS biographies of the nine members of the new Philadelphia School Board.

Unlike the other 500, Philadelphia is the only school district in Pennsylvania whose voters cannot elect a school board. We've had town halls, online surveys, and pronouncements from city politicians, but it all comes down to this:  The government officials who will decide the future of the city's public schools, and who will control a $3 billion budget, have been chosen by one person, Mayor Kenney.  His decision has been based, in part, on the opinions of the thirteen people selected by him to be on the Nominating Panel. It has also been based on the wishes of the influential individuals, organizations and corporations who have lobbied him to represent their interests on the board. Two built-in lobbyists on the Nominating Panel, Stephanie Naidoff and Bonnie Camarda, are members of the board of the Philadelphia School Partnership, which funnels millions every year from private investors into schools of their choice for the programs of their choice, mostly charters.

All of the deliberations of the Panel were held in secret.None of the district's stakeholders, or the city's taxpayers, were able to express their opinions about any of the candidates, whether pro or con, or to raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest. APPS did everything we could, short of legal action, to open up this process. We sent letters to the Mayor and to the Panel, refuting the Mayor’s false assertion that the Panel could deliberate in Executive Session because it was discussing “personnel matters”, pointing out that the Panel was neither hiring nor appointing any personnel. We had several community groups sign a letter asking the mayor to obey the Sunshine Act.

Click here to read the entire post. 

 

Philadelphia's School Reform Commission denies six new charters and approves one with conditions.

by Greg Windle and Dale Messacappa
Philadelphia Public School Notebook

The School Reform Commission denied six of seven applications for new charter schools on Thursday, heeding evaluations by the Charter School Office and information from follow-up hearings that raised significant questions about most of them.

Among those rejected were an elementary school in Yorktown proposed by Mastery, the largest charter operator in the city; two schools to be managed by ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania; and a middle school on the Franklin Towne campus in Bridesburg, which already provides grades K-12.

Also rejected were bids from two new operators. The Asociacion Puertorriquenos en Marcha (APM), a community organization that builds affordable housing and runs preschools, wanted to open a K-8 school in North Philadelphia for 702 students. And Hebrew Public, a nonprofit that runs four schools in New York City, sought to operate a dual-language K-8 school in East Falls in which students would learn Hebrew and study the history of Israel.

The one that was approved, a third MaST school in Far Northeast Philadelphia, had significant conditions attached. One condition cut its planned enrollment in half – from 2,600 to 1.300. Another required that the school accept half its students from certain zip codes so that it can attract a more diverse population. And under a third, it must work to provide transportation to kindergarten students, because the District doesn’t provide transportation for them and the expectation is that many students will travel some distance to the school.

With the conditions, the MaST vote was 5-0 in favor. 

Click here to read the entire article. 

Click here to read the MaST III Charter report from the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

Also see:
APPS members have an Op Ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer protesting the lack of transparency in Mayoral selecction of a new school Board

by Richard Migilore and Karel Kilimnik

Unlike those in every other school district in the state, and in almost every district in the nation, we the people of Philadelphia continue to be disenfranchised in the governance of our public schools. To make matters worse, the return to local control, after the 17-year reign of the state-imposed School Reform Commission, will devolve into one-person control unless our elected officials take steps to guarantee the independence of the new school board.

 Following the mandates of the current City Charter, Mayor Kenney appointed a 13-member nominating panel, which is scheduled to hold a public meeting Monday and vote on a list of names that Kenney will draw from to select a nine-person school board. The mayor had directed the panel to hold previous meetings in executive session, effectively barring members of the public from witnessing or taking part in the process in any way.

This absolute control by the mayor can be mitigated in several ways. First, the nominating panel, under the leadership of Chair Wendell Pritchett, should have opened all of its meetings to the public. As city officials, members of the panel are obligated to obey all laws, including the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act, which codifies the right of the people to witness the actions of all government officials, whether elected or appointed.

Click here to read the entire article.

Philadelphia's Proposed New Charter School Reports: February 22, 2018

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by Lisa Haver
The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools
February 14, 2018

On February 22, the  lame-duck School Reform Commission (SRC) will vote to accept or reject applications from seven charter companies: APM Community Charter School, Franklin Towne Charter Middle School, Mastery Charter Elementary, MaST Community Charter School,  Philadelphia Hebrew Charter School, Antonia Pantoja Preparatory Charter School and Eugenio Maria de Hostos Preparatory Charter School.  (Pennsylvania Institute Charter School withdrew its application at the hearing; Qor Charter withdrew its application subsequent to the hearing.)

APPS members have read and analyzed the applications, attended the hearings, researched the charter company and its officers, and examined the records of any existing schools the company operates in the district.

Those who scratch the surface of this process begin to realize the depth and breadth of the questions surrounding the funneling of tax dollars into institutions that are not “public” in the sense of serving the common good.  Dig further to discover highly paid top administration officials, cozy and complicated financial dealings, far from transparent or open organizational practices, and academics that are rarely superior to public schools.

In defense of a truly public education system that serves the common good as a cornerstone of democracy, APPS continues to delve into the facts and history of charters. Our tax dollars should be spent to improve the quality of education for all of our students and should not be spent on a wasteful, corrupt, two-tiered system made possible by those who benefit from the provisions in what PA Auditor General Anthony De Pasquale has called “the worst charter school law in the country”.

Following are the reports by APPS members along with written testimony submitted to the SRC.

APM Community Charter School

Aspira Inc: Antonia Pantoja Preparatory Charter School

Aspira Inc: Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School

Franklin Towne Middle Charter School

Philadelphia Hebrew Charter School

Mastery Charter Elementary School

MaST III Charter School

Also see:

Philadelphia charter operators rally to demand deregulation and removal of oversight of charter schools. Read the comments. 

Protesters seek 'working group' to draft policy on amending charters 

Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Education Responds to Demands For Transparency

from Wrench in the Gears
February 10, 2018


Last Monday, parents, teachers, and community members took to the streets outside the marble halls of Girard College to protest a closed-door event where representatives of the Mayor’s Office of Education, the Philadelphia Education Fund, and the Read by Fourth Campaign met with Chamber of Commerce affiliates about the future of business in Philadelphia’s schools. We handed out a sheet with five demands to the attendees on their way into the event and requested the Mayor’s Office of Education respond by February 9, 2018.

I share below the response we received with annotated comments. While I appreciate Mr. Hackney’s efforts to address the demands, I am left with a lack of clarity about the role private interests, corporations and non-profits, will play in shaping education policy going forward. We specifically asked the mayor to take a public stance against adaptive learning management systems for literacy and the use of Pay for Success or Social Impact Bonds to fund early childhood or K12 education and workforce development. The letter below endorses the former and says nothing about the latter, which is a serious concern. It supports the use of software in literacy but there is no mention of reduced class sizes, restoration of libraries with librarians, or reading specialists.

The letter also indicates an acceptance of closed door meetings whereby “feedback from a diverse set of stakeholders” is obtained. What stakeholders would need to meet with the mayor and his representatives in small groups outside the public eye? As we move to “local control,” that is a very important question. Will we have a version of “local control” that preferences “Big L” interests like Comcast over “little l” interests like regular parents and teachers? Who gets a seat at the table? Will community engagement drive policy development or remain an easily-dismissed charade as it was under the School Reform Commission?

For reference, these were the original demands:

Click here to read the rest of the post and view the videos. 

 

Philly Education Street Talk at the Eagles Super Bowl Celebration

from Wrench in the Gears
February 9, 2018

Given the outgoing School Reform Commission’s plans to vote to spend almost $20 million dollars next week on corporate computer-based curriculum and data management by Pearson, the celebratory Eagles Super Bowl parade seemed like a perfect time to go out and ask Philadelphians how they would use the money instead. It’s time we started listening to the voice of the people. It was a great experience that made me so appreciate the wonderful human connections that are possible in our city. If you want to build a movement, education is critical and it can happen many places, including the streets. After watching this video I encourage you to share it with others who value human teachers over data and algorithms.

Click here to view the video.

$20 million: Teachers vs. Data in Philadelphia

 

Are Charters Under Attack? Facts Show Otherwise

from the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools
January 30, 2018

Charter CEOs and supporters held a rally at City Hall on Tuesday January 30 to ask for a “seat at the table” when the new school board replaces the School Reform Commission. Several City Councilpersons attended the event, held in the Mayor’s Reception Room.

APPS members have said consistently that district budget problems stem not just from a lack of funding, but from the spending priorities of the SRC which keeps resources out of classrooms. Consulting fees, faux graduate school, training by outsourcing by unqualified and inexperienced people: Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, Relay Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Boston Consulting, Jounce, Institute for Student Achievement, etc.

But the biggest waste of money in the SD budget is the funding of malfunctioning charters. Report after report, including the latest from Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), shows that district schools outperform charters. Charter supporters say that they only support “high-quality” charters, that they want the failing charters closed. But when they have the opportunity to prove that, they are nowhere to be found. Some examples:

Click here to read the rest of the article 

and a Philadelphia Notebook report about the rally 

and comments about the new school board procedures.

Last Night We Lay Down In The Street To Protest Closed Door Meetings About Public Education in Philadelphia

by Wrench in the Gears
January 30, 2018

Public education activists are living through an interesting moment now in Philadelphia. The School Reform Commission is being disbanded. In the coming months Mayor Jim Kenney will be appointing a school board from nominations put forth by a select panel. The process is murky, and a pattern of closed-door education policy decision-making has been established here, here, and here. Last night, the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce held a ticketed event to discuss the future of business in our schools at Girard College, an important site of struggle in the Civil Rights Movement. You had to be a Chamber of Commerce affiliate to purchase a $35 ticket for the event, which included the following language on the event website.

 

It appears the future of public education in our city is being mapped out by industry, venture capital, and well-connected non-profit and higher education partners.  The people, meanwhile, are left standing outside the gate. Last night, however, the real action WAS outside the gate as a dozen activists carried out an act of civil disobedience to contest policies of exclusion and shine a light on the mayor’s hypocrisy in casting this new school board as a step towards accountable local control. Because what does “local control” actually mean if educational policies are being directed by the hands of elite interests in Greek Temples with no teachers, students, or parents present?

On January 29, 2018 from 5-5:45pm we claimed the space in front of the entrance to the Girard College campus, carrying banners that read “Nothing About Us Without Us,” “Public Schools NOT Private Profit,” “Teachers Before Tech,” and “Our Children Are NOT Data, Human Capital, or Impact Investment Opportunities.”  This blockade compelled attendees to park along a nearby street and walk past the people to the gates where members of the Caucus of Working Educators pressed our demands for transparency in school governance into their hands. Click here for a copy of the handout we gave attendees. The video below provides a 15-minute overview of the action.

Click here to read the rest of the article
and to view two videos about the demonstration.

Social Impact Investors Eye Public Education Market in Philadelphia

from Wrench in the Gears
January 25, 2018

I would like to share a comment I made yesterday in response to this op-ed published in the Philadelphia Public School Notebook: “The city needs a transformation to improve education, not jut a new school board.” The piece was written by Paul Perry, a director with San Francisco-based Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies.

In the summer of 2016, the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia published a white paper positioning the Philadelphia region as a “unique center for the impact economy.” That same year, an influential group of venture capitalists under the leadership of Ben Franklin Technology Partners launched ImpactPHL, an accelerator for social impact initiatives in the region.

Click here for a relationship map that shows the founding members.

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Deployment of “innovative” technological “solutions” is central to social impact investing, because profit is generated by combining predictive analytics with Big Data “impact” metrics. Services addressing social problems must increasingly be delivered through digital platforms that extract the data demanded for program evaluation and profit-taking.

Those receiving services, including public school students who spend their days slogging through benchmark tests and online modules and who are often tracked via classroom management apps, generate vast data-sets that can be used to profile them and inform future “impact” investments. “Success”=profit. Success is determined as meeting narrow, specific targets defined in terms of data points. The need to generate outcomes then shapes how services are delivered, more screen time and less face time. See the rise of ed-tech “solutions” forced on our public schools and on refugee populations.

We are seeing this dehumanizing shift in service delivery take place not only in public education, but also in healthcare, social services, and mental health treatment. Mr. Perry’s op-ed signals that Philadelphia is entering a new phase of the privatization battle, one that will be less about charters and vouchers and more about online learning and behavioral management systems and data-driven “wrap-around” services provided by non-profits working hand-in-hand with impact investors. These systems prioritize profit over children and will install data-driven interfaces that dehumanize students as well as the staff that is forced to provide the “innovative” technology-based “services.” If you read Mr. Perry’s piece you can see their plan is to sell it under the guise that they actually care about the poor, when in reality Philadelphia’s poverty is is just another investment opportunity.

Click here to read the the full article and Wrench in the Gears response to Mr. Perry’s op ed.

Gatekeepers: Philadelphia Education Fund Adopts New Paid Access Policy

From Wrench in the Gears
December 16, 2017

Farah Jimenez is a member of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission and current director of the Philadelphia Education Fund (PEF), a nonprofit that hosts monthly conversations on topics related to public education in Philadelphia. These days, if you want to attend one of their Education First Compact meetings, you’re going to have to jump through a lot of hoops. That wasn’t previously the case. Advance registration for meetings is now required, a policy put in place after Ms. Jimenez was hired in April 2016. When registering via the website, attendees are strongly encouraged to financially support the organization as either a series subscriber or by purchasing individual tickets. Corporate and foundation subscribers pay $750, while individuals pay $100; though there is the option to donate more.

Until this month you could secure immediate admission to meetings via online registration without paying anything, as long as free tickets were available. However, a recent policy change states anyone who is not a paid subscriber is now automatically put on a waitlist. This policy will allow PEF to screen out people they deem undesirable, without requiring them to rescind tickets that have already been granted. PEF has done this to me twice, and not just to me, but to at least two other activists. There is a clear sense that Compact meetings are not meant to be truly “public” meetings, even though PEF’s mission revolves around public education. At the beginning of the December Compact meeting Jimenez stated that what was said in the room stays in the room; that nothing be shared via social media. I understood that to mean these are essentially closed-door discussions. So, moving forward if a person wants to have access to these discussions they have to 1) be willing to pay or 2) not voice any questions or opinions that might upset the people deciding if they get into the next meeting. That is a huge problem.

Click here to read the entire post.

The Growing Influence of Jounce Partners

by Lisa Haver and Lynda Rubin
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools
November 24, 2017

It would be safe to say that no public school teacher in Philadelphia has seen or heard any colleague forcing a student to face the wall and repeat the same phrase 25 or 30 times. Any principal who witnessed such an occurrence would be within his or her rights to formally reprimand that teacher.

Wall Practice: 
1. After giving feedback and monitoring to the point of automaticity, have teacher(s) turn toward a wall in the room to practice the skill 10-20 more times (primarily used for multi-teacher PD sessions).
 
2. Frame as optimal practice because greatest number of reps can be achieved this way.
 
3. Emphasize the importance of every rep being executed perfectly and with exaggeration of nuances.

Incredibly, that is precisely what teachers in some district schools are being forced to do. It is but one of the tactics developed by Jounce Partners as part of its intensive coaching and professional development plan, already in use at McDaniel Elementary, one of the eleven schools designated last year as "Priority Schools". The district has approved Jounce as a partner for principal and teacher training in schools that have been included in its "System of Great Schools".

The district hired Cambridge Education to conduct surveys of the parents, teachers, students and community members at last year's "Priority schools". APPS members heard these stakeholders ask for more staff, return of NTAs and librarians, more counselors, smaller class size, less standardized testing and more after-school activities. We did not hear any member of any the eleven school communities ask for the removal of teachers and principals or more training for teachers. Nevertheless, the SRC approved a resolution to enter into a $70,000 contract with Jounce Partners for "Implementation of High-frequency teacher Coaching for School Transformation" at McDaniel Elementary. That resolution, one of 142 approved by the SRC at its June 2017 Action Meeting, stated:

Through this partnership, Jounce will intensively train the school leader and coaching team to implement the high frequency coaching model described above. Jounce personnel will function as on- site instructional coaches, coaching teachers daily to kickstart implementation of the high-frequency coaching model. Jounce will also co-plan and co-facilitate a summer coaching institute, will participate in regular classroom visits, will co-facilitate monthly coaching step back meetings, and will work with school leaders and teachers to establish and codify weekly co-teaching and coaching practices. The partnership will provide an on-site Jounce coach for 5 half days each week, who will directly coach teachers in addition to working with the leadership team.

See resolution B-23 in the SRC Resolution Summary of June 15, 2017.

There was no deliberation or discussion among SRC members before the vote, no explanation of the program by Dr. Hite in his remarks, and no staff presentation on the subject. The McDaniel faculty was told just months before the resolution passed that they had to reapply for their jobs; future employment at the school was contingent on their agreement to participate in the Jounce training. A ten-day summer "training institute"" was mandatory.

The district has contracted with Jounce to work at other district schools including Vare-Washington in previous years. In Spring 2017, the SRC approved a new charter application for Deep Roots Charter, to be operated by Jounce staffers.

One teacher subjected to the training program in a Philadelphia charter school for three years 1has described it as "dehumanizing". The Jounce program breaks down both teaching and learning into isolated skills:

High-repetition practice: In a coaching session, a teacher may repeat the same specific skill twenty times, thirty times, or even more, allowing her to build automaticity, which leads to a) excellent execution every time, and b) freed up cognitive energy for teaching tasks.

 Click here to read the entire article.

Riding the 'turnaround' merry-go-round in the continuing assault on Philadelphia public schools: Part VI - Who is Afton Partners?

 by Ken Derstine
@ Defend Public Education
March 14, 2016

The previous article in this series was posted June 2, 2016. This series has detailed the assault on Philadelphia public schools by corporate education reform business and financial interests. At the last posting, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission had not acted on the non-renewal recommendation of its charter office for Aspira, Universal, and Mastery charters. 

Pennsylvania law mandates that a charter term is five years and must undergo a renewal process after that.  There is a stipulation in the law that the renewal process can be extended for one year, if there are mitigating circumstances.  That one-year extension can only be used one time. They have been postponing the renewals month after month since April 2016. Aspira’s was postponed without the SRC even taking a vote in 2015.

Now, as can be seen in Part VI in this series, the privatization merry-go-round is spinning ever faster in the assault on Philadelphia public schools.

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In a recently released report by Afton Partners, the cost of students leaving Philadelphia public schools to transfer to charters was examined. The study had been commissioned in February, 2015 by the School Reform Commission, which functions as a school board and makes all final decisions for Philadelphia schools.

Click here to read the entire Afton report.

In “is the glass half full or half empty” coverage, the Philadelphia Inquirer published Report: Philly schools still face costs when students go to charters vs. the Philadelphia Public School Notebook’s Students leaving Philly schools for charters less costly than once thought.

According to The Notebook article, the resolution calling for the contract with Afton said the analysis would take place between February 20, 2015 and May 1, 2015. SRC officials claim the report “got lost in the shuffle as old administrators left and new administrators replaced them.” The District’s Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson, appointed February, 2016, said he first got word of the report last summer and has been working with Afton “to make sure the report addressed all questions.”

Why is the report being released now? Could it have something to do with a bill in the Pennsylvania House introduced by Speaker Mike Turzai on March 6th which would require the Philadelphia School District to add 3,000 charter seats per year? This bill would undercut the charter oversight authority of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC). The establishment of the SRC in 2001, as part of the state takeover of the School District, abolished local control of public schools, along with any hope of any type of democratic process.  A 2014 bill passed by the legislature imposed a $2/pack cigarette tax for school funding; it included a last-minute provision that the SRC consider applications for new charters each fall.  Rejected applicants would be able to appeal to the state Charter Appeal Board.

Now, invoking the states rights' provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Turzai wants to completely take even this oversight from any local influence. He has been agressively intervening in the SRC's charter approval process lobbying for approval of charters that the SRC has rejected. The SRC's Uri Monson said the bill is unessessary because in the SRC's five year financial plan presented last year there is an already projected annual growth of charter enrollement of between 2,700 and 3,000 seats.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Who is Cambridge Education?

by Defend Public Education

January 10, 2017

On September 15, 2016, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission approved a $200,000 contract with Cambridge Education for investigation of the cash-strapped Philadelphia School District that stated:
 

RESOLVED, that the School Reform Commission authorizes the School District of Philadelphia, through its Superintendent or his designee, to execute, deliver and perform a contract with Cambridge Education, to develop, manage, and execute a comprehensive School Quality Review process, to gather data and develop qualitative reports on school quality and to engage the school community and gather community input, for an amount not to exceed $200,000, for the period commencing September 16, 2016 through June 30, 2017. 

The description the SRC provided of the Resolution said:

The information gathered during the School Quality  Review process will be used to inform recommendations on appropriate measures to be taken to promote sustained school improvement through the System of Great Schools process. The vendor's purpose in the School Quality Review Process will be to provide additional on-the ground data to inform decision-making. All final recommendations on the investments and interventions to be made in schools will be made by the District.

See SRC Resolution A-3 for the full description of this resolution.

Since the September 15^th, 2016 meeting, the SRC has held hearings at its eleven Priority Schools. They were deemed low performing based on test scores. All are in low-income communities. No consideration of the economic status of the student population or lack of resources for the schools due to underfunding was considered.

The SRC will look at five options for these eleven public schools:

•  Entering the school into the District’s Turnaround Network
• Merging the school with a nearby high-quality school

•     Engaging a contract partner

• Initiating an evidence-based plan for academic improvement
• Restarting the school

Overseeing the SRC’s Priority Schools meetings is Chris Finn of Cambridge Education. The leadership page of Cambridge Education shows they are all about business, and have no background in education. Joining Cambridge in the Philadelphia Priority Schools hearings is Educators 4 Exellence, a corporate education reform group funded by the Gates Foundation.

According to its website, Cambridge has 350 consultants:

We work with academies, schools and colleges to develop appropriate strategies to bring about sustainable and embedded practice, improving life opportunities for future generations. We recognise all educational institutions have unique needs and we collaborate with you to develop tailored approaches to some of today’s urgent questions.

A central part of their school reviews is “educator accountability” which includes a great deal of “delivering, supporting, and monitoring the implementation of improvement strategies across classrooms, schools, and districts.” Of its long-range strategy, Cambridge Education says:

As education systems grow in independence and sophistication, we can help to track and manage them. Wherever you are, we are your local company – but with global backing.

Cambridge Education’s recent activities in the U.S. are listed on its parent company Mott MacDonald website.

Our education experts at Cambridge Education worked with Springfield Public Schools to provide 130 administrators and district staff with training to meet the new Massachusetts Educator Evaluator Rubric and supporting the design and implementation of a curriculum alignment plan. The District is now able to provide more targeted professional development customised to requirements of individuals.

For Hillsborough County Public Schools we helped implement the Empowering Effective Teachers initiative, requiring that teachers are observed by administrators, peer evaluators and mentors. In 2013, we collected and analysed over 2,500 lesson observation scores with the resulting analysis being used by the county to help inform its decision making.

Through a partnership with Dr Ronald Ferguson of Harvard University, Cambridge Education delivered The Tripod Project®, a system for US educator evaluation using staff and student surveys. These surveys have been an integral part of the Gates-funded Measures of Effective Teaching project, which is improving results in English and Mathematics.

Cambridge Education is based in England with international offices including a subsidiary in the US. Click on the map points to see its offices internationally and in the U.S. Cambridge Education’s goals in the U.S. are described on its parent company Mott MacDonald’s website. The description follows the usual privatization stealth method of corporate education reformers of speaking in vague generalities, but never being specific information about the privatization objective for public schools.

The British website British Expertise says:

Cambridge Education has been in existence for more than 30 years, and was originally a joint venture between Sir M MacDonald and the University of Cambridge. We still maintain close links with the University, but are now part of the Health and Education arm of Mott MacDonald, a major, international multi-disciplinary consultancy company with more than 12,000 employees worldwide. Cambridge Education itself has over 160 staff members at its HQ in Cambridge and 220 worldwide, of which about a third are educational professionals.

The Mott MacDonald Group Executive Board

A current report of Mott MacDonald says it employs over 16,000 people in 150 countries. Education, with its subsidiary Cambridge Education, is only one sector of its portfolio. Others include aerospace, bridges, buildings communications, environment, health, industry, international development, city development, oil and gas, power, railways, transportation, water.

The Our Hertage page of Mott MacDonald Group highlights some of the companies developed by MMG.

Mott MacDonald Group’s current projects in North America says they are expecting “unprecedented growth in North America.”
 

The article “Transforming teacher education and learning” shows that they are aiming to become an international leader in digital learning. They are using their Raspberry Pi system and tablets to “demonstrate the value of technological resources and digital learning in teacher education, helping colleges see the value of embedding these practices into their teaching curriculum.”

Members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools attended many of the Cambridge Education focus group meetings for the Priority Schools. In their APPS Review of Cambridge Education Reports on Priority Schools they concluded:

After attending several focus group meetings at six of the eleven schools designated by the Hite administration as Priority Schools, after reviewing Cambridge Education’s contract with the district, and after closely reviewing the Cambridge final reports on the eleven schools, there is no other conclusion for us to come to: the Cambridge reports cannot be considered reliable on any level, including anecdotally.