17 Who Will Make An Impact On 2017: Rodel’s Competition

Yes, Rodel has some competition coming to town!  My fervent hope is that they compete with each other so much they just cancel each other out.  Has Rodel’s time come and gone?  Or is there more to this new corporate education reform company setting up shop in Delaware?

Yes, none other than 50CAN is setting up a Delaware franchise, so to speak.  Led by none other than…wait for it… drum roll… Atnre Alleyne.  Everyone’s favorite former Delaware Dept. of Education employee.  I knew he was one of the “fellows” for 50CAN this year, but I had no clue he would become the Executive Director of the Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now, otherwise known as DelawareCAN.  I wish someone would kick this CAN right back to whatever hole it came from, but I digress.

It seems Alleyne is using an email distribution list from a survey conducted in 2013 to let teachers in Delaware know about his new plans!  But when you click to the website for this Project 5000 Survey, there is absolutely no connection to 50CAN.  So where is Alleyne getting this email distribution list from?  Eric Schramm, who helped with the final report from the survey, leads an organization called the Twelve Seven Group LLC.

It seems Alleyne wants to get another survey out (because we can never have enough surveys in Delaware).  I took out the name and email of the party who forwarded this to me.

From: Atnre Alleyne <atnre.alleyne@delawarecan.org>
To:

Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 1:09 PM
Subject: Your opinion is needed on Delaware education!

Email Newsletter

Hi ,

My name is Atnre Alleyne and I am writing to you as the Executive Director of a soon-to-be launched nonprofit education advocacy organization — DelawareCAN: The Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now (DelawareCAN). 

A few years ago you participated in the Project 5000 Opinions (P5KO) study that engaged Delaware citizens on behalf of every child’s right to attend a great public school. The findings of the study were shared in this report and they jumpstarted a conversation on how to get more Delawareans engaged in advocating for a higher quality education system. 

I am happy to share that some of those conversations have led to the upcoming launch of DelawareCAN. 

Through DelawareCAN, we will empower, mobilize and work with everyday Delawareans to advocate for a high-quality education system. DelawareCAN is the tenth state in the national 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now (50CAN) network. 

As we prepare to launch DelawareCAN in the new year, I’d like to invite you to take part in a brief online survey about your level of involvement in Delaware’s education system. This will help us collaborate with you and other Delawareans better in our upcoming work. 

Click here to take the survey.

Thank you for your interest and participation. Regards, 
Atnre Alleyne
Executive Director, DelawareCAN

Ah, Mr. Alleyne… you are also on the Governor’s ESSA Advisory Committee.  You have been one busy man since you left the Delaware DOE last February.  He might want to check with his buddy Jack Markell over the use of DelawareCAN because it could confuse a lot of folks with an initiative to reduce unintended pregnancies in Delaware.

Alleyne’s survey asks for your thoughts about Delaware education and how involved you are with it.  And it also requests you to give some minor details like your income range, your political affiliation, and your contact information.  Other questions ask if you have gone to Legislative Hall in Dover or contacted legislators about education issues.

Now where this could get interesting is how Rodel reacts to a new ed reform shop opening up on their turf.  For the past 12 years, Rodel has been the King of the Delaware Ed Reformers.  Now Alleyne is seriously busting a move on their dance floor.  Like I said, I hope they cancel each other out.  But in all likelihood, they are most likely in cahoots with each other.

So who is 50CAN?  Just another run of the mill corporate education reform outfit ready to “fix” education.  They get funding from the usual suspects, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the John-boy club, Teach For America, and so on.  They are big on school choice and charters.  They are riding the personalized learning/competency-based education bus.  Shocker, I know!  This is the same company that merged with Michelle Rhee’s Students First a few years ago.  Huge ties to the right-wing ALEC group.  One name that didn’t appear in their list of funders is the DeVos Foundation, but I’m pretty sure they have connected at some point.

More corporate ed reform in Delaware!  Yay!  Love it!  Now we know why Alleyne was attempting to get all those groups together to support what THEY want in ESSA.  More of the usual.  Nothing changes with this bad education environment, it just evolves so more companies can make more money off of kids.  And why doesn’t Delaware have enough money for education?  Rhetoric question, I know…