Many members have reported being invited to attend events with Educators 4 Excellence (E4E), a corporate reformer-funded organization purporting to act in the best interests of our members. E4E has taken no position on Ballot Question 2, but their funders sure have. According to their website, E4E is funded by many of the same donors driving the campaign to privatize education and Question 2 on the November ballot including the Walton family (who has given $2 million to YesOn2), New Profit, the Boston Foundation, Strategic Grant Partners, and of course the most prominent funder of the YesOn2 campaign: “those who wish to remain anonymous.”
Just in the past month, E4E joined a coalition including Democrats for Education Reform, one of the driving forces behind privatization and union busting (as well as Success Academy Charter Schools, TFA, Stand for Children and many others) in a push to rate educator prep programs based on student test scores. Read more about E4E.
Educators for Excellence claims to want to help teachers make impacts on education policy. In fact, the best vehicle for accomplishing this goal in our union. If you have an issue where you want to make a difference for your school and your students, please contact Jessica Tang if you have a new idea that you’d like to lead.