For that matter, why is the National Education Association Foundation sponsoring any company or event along with companies that will eventually destroy the teaching profession as we know it? I want to make very clear that the NEA Foundation is separate from the NEA. Many members in the NEA are not happy with the NEA Foundation and how they co-mingle with corporate education reformers.
For the NEA Foundation, they have their own sponsors. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, AT&T, Bank Of America, Horace Mann, and, of course, the NEA itself. Those are the funders in the “Genius Level”. I don’t see a lot of genius involved in taking money from a foundation that pushed Common Core and its nasty little assessments along with funding tons of other foundations for seed money to incubate more charter schools.
The Global Education Forum in Philadelphia on October 13th-15th is an ed tech wonderland. All the companies that just love all this new technology taking over classrooms will be pimping their wares at this conference for sure! The conference is run by the appropriately named Global Education Conference. Their sponsors include Google Education and a whole host of ed tech and assessment companies. It looks like anyone can be on their global advisory board which looks like the Olympics for personalized learning.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind everyone that the President of the NEA sits on this foundation, Lily Eskelsen Garcia. To me, this is like when the National PTA called out the Delaware PTA for supporting a parent’s right to opt out. It goes against everything they stand for to not only support, but also fund all the ed tech and corporate education reform. They aren’t only sitting at the table, they are openly helping to buy the table. NEA needs new leadership. You can’t have it both ways Lily. Unless you are somehow profiting from all this… Stop selling out teachers!
The Season Of Myths 