Atnre Alleyne, the Executive Director of DelawareCAN, sent out an email blast to Delaware educators today. The email was unsolicited and left Delaware teachers wondering how Alleyne even got their email address in the first place. This pattern of abuse on Alleyne’s part ends a week filled with his mischief.
DelawareCAN, the offshoot of 50CAN, came to Delaware in 2017. Headed up by a former Delaware Department of Education employee, Atnre Alleyne, there is now a Political Action Committee (PAC). They released their campaign finance report two days ago and some big Delaware millionaires are donating big bucks!
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?
I’ve written about Atnre Alleyne more than any other Delaware Dept. of Education employee (aside from Godowsky) in the past six months and he doesn’t even work there anymore! On Wednesday, Delaware Public Media released a letter Alleyne wrote to the Delaware DOE for input on the first draft of their Every Student Succeeds Act which should be out tomorrow. With a ton of other sponsors on the letter, including Rodel, Teach For America, the Delaware Charter Schools Network, the Delaware Business Roundtable, the Delaware Chamber of Commerce, and of course, TeenSHARP, an organization run by Alleyne and his wife. An organization he could potentially benefit from through ESSA grants. No conflict of interest there. But to make matters worse, he also sits on the Governor’s ESSA Advisory Committee.
Alleyne and the Delaware Corporate Education Reform Network (my new nickname for the above-mentioned companies) also rounded up every single civil rights group they could for this letter. The PACE Network, Christina Cultural Arts Center, the Wilmington Education Strategy Think Tank, Aspira of Delaware, and oddly enough, the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware. The same organization who submitted a Civil Rights complaint against the State of Delaware and Red Clay Consolidated School District for authorizing charter schools that continue segregation in Delaware (22 months later and no word on that one).
To say Alleyne is making a move would be an understatement. This was the same person who did everything in his power to kill legislation on teacher evaluations. He pretty much got his wish when Senator David Sokola added his amendments to the bill. Why should anyone listen to what amounts to a benefactor of ESSA? Thanks to Delaware Public Media for putting this letter up on Scribd. While I agree with very few of the points of the letter, it is definitely a power grab by Alleyne. Alleyne is also an “education fellow” at 50CAN, just another one of those education think tanks that sprung up in the past decade with funding by the Gates Foundation and a gazillion other foundations that support charter schools. And one of the documents Alleyne brings up in his letter was something Alleyne was compensated for at the Delaware DOE. He worked in the Teacher/Leader Effectiveness Unit before he sprouted his wings to do… this kind of stuff.
I have no doubt the Delaware DOE gave this letter very serious consideration and will incorporate the thoughts of it in the plan. Kind of like how Senator Sokola took Alleyne’s charges with House Bill 399 very seriously. But they were in cahoots the whole time. This is Rodelaware you know…
We know a lot of school districts, charter schools, and state departments of education give a ton of money to Teach For America, but who got the group going? And who still funds them? Let’s just say it is a lot of organizations! Some of these foundations I had never heard of. Keep in mind, this is the corporate Teach For America. There might be foundations funding each state chapter. For example, the Rodel Foundation loves giving money to the Delaware TFA!
Richard Barth is the CEO of TFA, but Wendy Kopp, Barth’s wife, runs the show. But Barth runs the KIPP charter school chain.
Going from here, it is amazing how many connections between Teach For America, Kipp, the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the NewSchools Venture Fund, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Charter School Growth Fund, and Tom Vander Ark exist. It is important to know Vander Ark’s role in this because he is one of the biggest pushers for the death of traditional public schools through his competency-based education personalized learning career pathways earn to learn agendas.
I’ll be doing more of these. If any traditional school district unionized teacher isn’t very worried about their future, I would probably start doing something about it now. Unless you want to be working as a facilitator in an online charter school in 2026. This IS corporate education reform, but only a part of it. It goes much deeper than that. I’ve been telling people this for over two years now. But sometimes pictures say a lot more than words ever can.
The Season Of Myths 