Year: 2016

Relay Graduate School of Education: A Policy Brief

Relay GSE

This year the Philadelphia School District used training videos on classroom management from The Relay Graduate School of Education as part of its New Teacher orientation.  The principals of Blaine and Kelley Elementary School (recent turnaround schools) are enrolled in Relay’s principal training program.

Relay Graduate School of Education is a teacher/principal training program based in New York and founded by people who had little experience or training in education.  The school has opened a Philadelphia/Camden branch and has a partnership with Mastery Charter in the Philadelphia region.  Since it appears to be extending its reach inside the Philadelphia School District we felt the need to explore Relay’s history and influence.

Kate Peterson, a graduate student at Arcadia University, has looked into Relay’s founders and programs.  Her findings are posted below.   We want to thank Kate for her thorough research and for allowing us to post it.

Relay Graduate School of Education Policy Brief

by Kate Peterson
January 2, 2016

Relay Graduate School of Education is a stand-alone school based in New York City. It began as Teacher U in 2007, when Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP Public Charter Schools, and Norman Atkins, co-founder of Uncommon Schools, decided to develop a program that would supply their charter schools and others with high-quality teachers, which they deemed as scarce. They partnered with the founder of Achievement First, Dacia Toll, to create their program. Receiving $10 million from Larry Robbins, founder of the hedge fund Glenview Capital Management and current board member of Relay, and $20 million from the non-profit The Robin Hood Foundation, the three charter school leaders partnered with Hunter College in New York to implement their program (Relay Graduate School of Education, 2015h; Barbic, 2013).

Click here to read the entire article.

APPS Member Coleman Poses tells the SRC they are using incorrect information for the Wister ‘turnaround’

Coleman Poses

This testimony was given at the December 17th SRC meeting.

Dear members of the SRC:

Last month I testified about the questionable data that the school district had presented during several meetings with the families, staff, and the neighbors of the John Wister School in Germantown.

I showed one slide, which was entitled “Why a change is needed for Wister,” which, supposedly detailed a precipitous decrease in student enrollment over 2 years from about 275 to about 170.

Coleman Slide #1

I showed another slide, based upon my own research, that showed that the student population at Wister fell from 452 to 383, but that the decrease was due to the school’s losing a sixth grade, and that four out of the six remaining grades actually increased in population.

coleman slide #2

About a week later, to my surprise, I received a phone call from Dave Zega, in Superintendent Hite’s office – informing me that my data were in fact correct. The information that I had displayed in my first exhibit were actually data about another school.   He went on to say that my slide had actually been supplanted by the correct slide in subsequent Powerpoints.

I informed Mr. Zega that I had attended several meeting in both October and November, and that the new data were never presented at these meetings. I then asked Mr. Zega if he wouldn’t mind sending the new information to the Wister principal and families. He informed me that he would need to consult his colleagues. As of today, neither the staff, nor the families to whom I have spoken, have been informed of this new information.

I do not wish to speculate upon why the school district has not disseminated the correct information to the public. I just thought that the SRC, as the final arbiter of this turnover, would be interested in knowing the truth. Thank you.