Don't let them fool you: key district players & divisive parent group might just want PPS to crumble

Public School System in Crisis

As is the case in so many public school districts across the nation, Portland educators and students are in a state of crisis, having to function in extremely short-staffed buildings with high numbers of students needing unusually intense levels of academic and social-emotional support. 

To alleviate stress and ensure conditions conducive to learning, Portland Teachers Association (PAT) has presented Portland Public Schools leadership with its COVID-19 Workload Relief proposal over which they are currently bargaining. 

Disaster Capitalism in Real Time?

While still in negotiations, PPS Deputy Superintendent, Shawn Bird, who is representing the district in the bargaining talks, responded to PAT's proposal with a smear campaign against the union. Meanwhile, a powerful parent group with a history of vilifying teachers, ED300, specifically its Portland branch, Opening PDX, is waging a simultaneous war against the PAT proposal on social media and in the press. Might these seemingly unlikely allies benefit from stoking anti-teacher and anti-union rhetoric at a moment when PPS is nearing a collapse? Might the leaders of this vocal parent organization and key district chiefs be working in tandem to further weaken the union and PPS as a whole toward the common end goal of school privatization? This post invites you to consider such a possibility.

Scope of the Crisis within PPS

In a fall survey of its membership, Portland Association of Teachers heard back from over 2800 educators, or about 76 percent of Portland Public Schools teachers. As the Portland Monthly reported, results showed that “eighty percent of educators reported that they are not able to get their work done during the day—that their workload is is high or extreme—and 25 percent of members said that they can’t get their work done no matter how much time they spend on weekends, and evenings. . . 70 percent of educators reported having high or severe stress levels this year, and 28 percent said that their stress level was so high that it’s impacting their health. . . Ninety percent of educators said that their workload and stress level is significantly more than a typical year.”

The reasons for these extreme conditions are manifold. Among them are the pandemic during which staff experiencing symptoms associated with COVID-19 must stay home, quarantine if they test positive, or care for their own children who may be required to stay home.

When interviewed on Oregon Public Broadcasting last month, PAT President, Elizabeth Thiel had this to say to explain the reasons for the high level of teacher burnout:

     "Teaching, being an educator, whether that means you’re a counselor
     or a social worker or a school psychologist or a classroom educator, has
     always been very demanding work, with a high workload and one of the
     highest stress levels of any job, it frequently polls that way. So teachers
     are used to working hard and having stress.

     This year has really felt different to people. And so in digging into what’s
     going on, it seems to me like there’s three main causes. There are increased
     demands related to COVID . That’s those safety protocols, trying to make
     classrooms run with a very different set of rules about how students can
     interact with each other, having masks on, all those things are difficult.
     We’ve seen a real increase in student need this year. Emotional need,
     behavioral, and academic. And at the same time, we are dealing with a
     staffing shortage that’s been persistent since the beginning of the school year,
     and maybe getting worse."

In October, Thiel, addressed membership regarding the staffing shortage. She cited dire statistics, such as this: “between September 1 and October 5, there were a total of 1,326 unfilled substitute jobs. (By comparison, the same period of time in 2019-20 had 164 unfilled jobs.). One day last month PPS had 122 unfilled substitute jobs.” 

Since October, these shortages have only deepened with more teachers going on temporary leave or leaving the district, and even the profession, altogether.

Proposed Solutions

In the current bargaining session with the district, the union is asking for immediate workload relief so that unessential tasks and obligations can be taken off teachers’ plates to enable educators to focus on effective instruction and support of their students.

In the public’s eye, the most contentious item PAT is asking for is adequate planning time to care for the needs of the students during the pandemic. As the PAT page states, the time educators are asking for is to:

• adapt curriculum and instruction to meet post-CDL student needs
• give feedback to students and families.
• collaborate with Special Education teachers, English Language Development specialists, and Social Workers and content teams
• provide students individual support from their teachers. 

Rejecting Solutions in Order to Hasten the Collapse of the System? 

The truth is that teachers in the U.S. work longer hours than most teachers around the world. A survey of educators in 35 countries showed that, on average, teachers spend about half time on instruction, and half on other activities such as planning, assessment, and communication with families. Most school districts in the U.S. do not build in adequate time in educators' schedule to carry out all the tasks required to provide high quality education. That is simply what PAT is demanding during this pandemic year, when transition from remote learning to full-time in-person school has been fraught with so much stress and unmet need. 

In fact, the idea that a certain amount of "seat time" can be equated with quality learning experiences or student success is bogus and outdated, and many districts and states have started moving away from requiring rigid seat time hours of bygone years. Dismal Quarter 1 attendance records from schools across the district make a clear case for flexible learning schedules and innovative approaches to meeting student and family needs. After all, many families the district serves have been heavily impacted by the pandemic with large numbers of secondary students having to work and miss school to help their families make ends meet.

Opening PDX and district leadership argue vehemently for pre-pandemic seat time standards, and against flexible modes of education that would allow more time for educators to adapt, plan and carry out targeted supports. Administration opposition is unwavering, even though numerous districts around the state of Oregon operate on a 4-day a week schedule or offer weekly release time for teachers. The naysayers insist on not offering these solutions even when told that not adjusting educators' workload will result in more teacher pushout. 

More teachers who are already at a breaking point will quit if current workload and stress levels continue. With staffing levels already at a crisis point, why would PPS continue to insist on its refusal to grant educators the relief for which they are asking? 

This could be an intentional way to add pressure, in hopes that the public school system as we know it might implode. Many private education service providers are already positioned strategically within the system. Others are exerting their influence from the outside, stoking public distrust of teachers and pushing the system closer to collapse. Both strategies hope to seize on this situation as an opportunity for their own financial gain. 

Key Players as Key Profiteers?

Rene Gonzalez who co-founded ED300 and its local chapter, Opening PDX, is one of the chief architects of the group's anti-union and anti-teacher campaign on social media and in the press. Why would Gonzalez, himself a parent of school-age children, be invested in whipping up anti-teacher sentiments? The answer lies in the close examination of his career and affiliations. 

Gonzalez began his career as a business lawyer at Stoel Rives. In 2005, Gonzalez went to work for Knowledge Universe, an education company where, as his website states, he "rose through the ranks at what was then Oregon’s largest privately owned employer, eventually managing its Business Law Group, before leading the Corporate Strategy Team."

Knowledge Universe was founded by Michael Milken who encyclopedia.com calls the "controversial king of junk bonds who served 22 months in federal prison and paid a $1billion fine for six counts of felony securities fraud." Milken had seen for-profit education as a business opportunity. In 1996, he shared his vision for "cradle to cane" enterprise with the Fortune magazine. Although the initial focus of Knowledge Universe was IT training, its aspirations included schools for children as well as technical training and continuing education for adults. Over time, the company began investing in early childhood education, acquiring various childcare chains and quickly rising to a billion-dollar "mega brand." 

As encyclopedia.com reveals, the company had its eye on profiting off public education from its early days:

      "Staking out market share and building a mega-brand were of greater concern

     than becoming highly profitable in the immediate future. Knowledge Universe was

     spreading in all directions, quickly becoming a billion-dollar company in annual 

     revenues. Moreover, no other company was attempting to vertically integrate the

     education market, leaving it virtually unopposed. While Knowledge Universe was

     very much interested in acquiring more childcare facilities and developing private

     schools, extending its reach from pre-school through high school, the real opportunity

     lay with the public schools, which represented about half of America’s $665 billion

     education. The increasing popularity of charter schools provided a wedge into the

     public K-12 market. These schools were publicly funded but were operated by

     foundations or community groups, and in some cases private enterprise. In much

     the same way that for-profit hospital chains have become a major factor in health

     care, companies like Knowledge Universe might one day do the same thing with

     public schools."

Knowledge Universe acquired KinderCare in 2005, the year Gonzalez started working for Knowledge Learning, a Knowledge Universe subsidiary. Founded in 1969, KinderCare by then had become the largest private childcare and education provider in the nation. It is now based in Portland. Gonzalez' law firm bio states that prior to starting his own legal and consulting company, Eastbank, he served in "strategy and legal roles at KinderCare." In 2015, Knowledge Universe was sold to privately held Switzerland-based Partners Group. Soon after the sale, in 2016, the company changed its name to KinderCare. 

KinderCare was set to go public on the New York Stock Exchange this year on November 18, but due to "regulatory delays," the date of the initial public offering has been delayed indefinitely. 

Rene Gonzalez of ED300 is not the only one in this equation connected to Knowledge Universe, Knowledge Learning or KinderCare. It just so happens that Sharon Reese, Portland Public Schools Chief Human Resource Officer who has also represented the district in bargaining sessions this year, has had a career that mirrors that of Gonzalez. 

Reese was a Stoel Rives Attorney from 1998 to 2001, and then in 2001 began working for Knowledge Universe where she spent 11 years climbing the ranks from Associate Counsel in the area of Litigation, Licensing, and Employment to "Sr. Director Corporate HR Business Partner & Employee Relations" and Sr. HR Director.

Long-term Interim General Counsel at Portland Public Schools, Liz Large, also has ties to KinderCare Education where she served as Executive Vice President & General Counsel. Prior to PPS, Large and Reese worked together at Knowledge Learning Corporation as attorneys. Currently Large's role in PPS is described on her Linked in account as "leading the District’s Legal and Risk Management teams through significant transition."

In addition to Reese and Large, former PPS Senior Director of Communication, David Roy, who held the PPS position from October 2019 to September 2021, also has a long history with KinderCare where he worked as Senior Director of Community and Communications for more than thirteen years.

Coincidence or Intention?

Is it a coincidence that Gonzalez, the most vocal parent group's leader, and other key district negotiators involved in bargaining with the teachers union, all have a deep history with education industry profiteers?  Could the campaign's anti-teacher and anti-union rhetoric simply be a strategy to vilify those who stand in the way of school privatization? Is it really meant to deepen the public school system crisis, in order to prepare the terrain for their own offers of profit-driven alternatives?  You decide.

 image credit: salon.com