Yesterday happened with the much touted “Governor’s K-12 Education Reform Summit” in Virginia. (A nice distraction to the corruption scandal currently plaguing the governor, eh? If you have missed this, don’t fear, Rachel Maddow has done a significant amount of coverage on the scandal.)
The focus is all on the idea of reform. On the docket, of course, are charter schools. Virginia doesn’t have a whole lot of charter schools and the Governor would like to change. Currently, the advocates for charter schools call Virginia “hostile”. This summit seems more like a chance for charter schools, standardized testing, and other failed reforms to have profound influence on education legislation. Even if they do not directly make legislation, they steer the discussion- an influence that can not and should not be underestimated.
It is clear from the agenda of this summit that education will be spoken about as a business. The focus is on momentum, building capacity, culture of leadership, strategies for school improvement, and my personal favorite, entrepreneurship. It isn’t that I dislike the idea of innovation in education, but charter schools, standardized testing, making education a profit endeavor is ill-advised and simply does not work.
I have yet to see any article discuss the sponsors of this particular summit. I find the sponsors to be illuminating as to the purpose, discussion, and dialogue regarding education. Considering the Virginia Governor’s current issue with crossing the ethical and legal lines with campaign sponsors and friends, do we really need to stretch our imaginations in order to consider that there might be similar ethical quandaries going on in order to put on this summit? The following was posted on their Eventbrite page:
Innovation Sponsors:
Edison Learning
Dominion ResourcesOutcome Sponsors:
Amazon Web Services
Calvert Education
McGuireWoods Consulting
Micron Foundation
National Governors Association
Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association
Wal-MartEvent Sponsors:
Carnegie Learning, Inc.
The Council of Independent Colleges in Virginia
Department of Education
George Mason University
Longwood University
Norfolk State University
PublicSchoolOptions.org
State Council of Higher Education for Virginia
University of Mary Washington
University of Virginia
Virginia Community College System
Virginia Lottery
Virginia Tech
For starters, I do not find the colleges and universities or government arms listed as “sponsors” to be problematic (except maybe the Virginia Lottery- that seems odd and depressing.) However, companies like Walmart, Amazon, PublicSchoolOptions.org (charter school advocates), Carnegie Learning Inc. (a publisher of math curricula focusing on standardized testing), McGuireWoods Consulting (a pro-corporate consulting and lobbying firm), Calvert Education (a proponent of homeschooling, virtual school), and Edison Learning (for profit education management company.)
On the docket of speakers, you see Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, DC Prep, KIPP DC, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Bellwether Education, Foundation for Excellence in Education. You do not see progressive or public school advocates in the list. What you do see is a list of education profiteers who have scammed Washington D.C. public schools, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, and other state public schools and are now looking to siphon off Virginia’s resources too under the blessing of the Governor.
Antoinette Marie, Modern Pencil
The Modern Pencil 