Chapter 3: The ABCs of Transforming Society
How Community Schools are the gateway to a socialist, collectivist utopia
Before we dive a bit deeper into this radical coalition, here’s a brief summary of what’s been covered in the first two chapters:
Chapter 1: The Education Illuminati
Who they are: 800+ people across the nation including teachers unions, billionaire backed foundations, public officials, college professors, and more
What they want: To transform society through the public education system
Why they’re doing it: They believe it’s time to move away from capitalism and individualism to socialism and collectivism
Chapter 2: The Oligarchy of the EdIlluminati
The EdIlluminati is run by a 15-20 person steering committee, operating ironically as an oligarchy
Steering committee members are appointed, not elected, and are held primarily by teachers unions (NEA & AFT) and foundations
Partners have consistently raised concerns about the power imbalance and lack of transparency in decision-making, but the system of control remains
In this chapter, I’ll go through their three priorities and how they all tie together to drive a remodeled public education system and transformed society.
Advancing Community Schools
Community Schools are the #1 priority of the EdIlluminati. Everything else they do is intentionally done to promote this experimental model for schools. That even includes their more recent tactics of fighting against private schools and programs like vouchers and education savings accounts that aim to make private schools more accessible to everyone.
But what are Community Schools?
This comparison chart highlights some key differences between typical “Traditional” public schools and this new Community Schools model.
I’ve shared this comparison with parents, legislators, and other community members and by far the two most common responses I get are:
"Our schools sound a lot more like Community Schools than Traditional schools.”
“Are Community Schools good or bad? Some of it sounds good, but I’m not sure what it all means.”
What I’ve tried to help people understand is that Community Schools aren’t schools, at least as they’ve come to know them. Here’s how they are defined by the Coalition for Community Schools (a prominent EdIlluminati member organization): 1
A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families, and healthier communities. Community schools offer a robust curriculum that emphasizes real-world learning and community problem-solving. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone—all day, every day, evenings, and weekends.
In a rare public display, the Partnership for the Future of Learning published this short video to explain Community Schools:
What you don’t see or hear in those resources are the underlying reasons for why they have invested so much time and effort on this over the past 10 years. This group of radical activists and organizations believe our society must be transformed and their best bet is by first remodeling and transforming our public education system.
These are some of the fundamental attributes and components of Community Schools:
Community Schools are “resource hubs” for all families and community members. They’re open 24x7 and serve not just education needs for K-12 students but for all ages. They also provide food, clothing, housing, healthcare, mental healthcare, and other social services.
They’re designed to move us away from individualism, “back-to-basics learning”, and consumerism to mutuality, equity, and “collective orientation”.
Community-based organizations are integrated with each school to assist with learning, services, and leadership.
Instructional materials are not set at a district or state level. Instead, each school and classroom determines what should be learned and how best to do it. Students are regularly tasked as “community problem solvers” in project-based work.
Restorative Practices & Restorative Justice replace traditional, effective approaches of setting reasonable student behavior expectations and using appropriate consequences when needed
Community Schools are no longer led by a principal. They will have a “school-based leadership team” of 12-15 people of parents & community members, teachers and other staff, the principal, and representatives from non-profit organizations who partner with the school.2
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To put this in real-life terms, this model is intentionally designed to:
Teach kids to become activists, pushing back against our country’s systems, morals, and values and for those of this unelected, secretive group of radicals
Blur the line between public and private by integrating non-profit organizations directly into the public school system
Centralize each community’s social services within Community Schools
They never really get around to saying why it makes sense to turn public K-12 schools into 24x7 healthcare, mental healthcare, and social service centers.
Transform society into a socialist, collectivist utopia
Don’t believe me? It’s in their Partnership for the Future of Learning’s Community Schools Playbook, a collaborative effort by 20+ organizations in the EdIlluminati.
I realize this was a lot of information, and you’ve earned a sticker for making it this far. Seriously though, to truly understand the EdIlluminati and their mission, I needed to spend some considerable time here. The next two priorities will be shorter.
Diverse, Strong, Supported Teaching Profession
The EdIlluminati are masters at narrative framing, thanks to partners like FrameWorks Institute. I say that because, at face value, there’s nothing wrong with having a “diverse, strong, supported teaching profession”. But if I’ve learned anything about the EdIlluminati, it’s that they put a tremendous amount of time, research, and funding into how they frame and communicate everything they do so it sounds as affirmative and harmless as possible.
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Like they did for Community Schools, the EdIlluminati published a playbook for this topic, Building a Strong and Diverse Teaching Profession (May 2021). It was co-developed by the largest EdIlluminati partner, Learning Policy Institute, as well as the Public Leadership Institute and 26 other partner organizations. This graphic from page 12 illustrates the five key elements for a strong and diverse teaching profession:
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Here’s are the real-world practices and impacts of these five elements:
High-Impact Recruitment Strategies
Use state and federal funds to recruit and hire more teachers of color or those of other culturally relevant or historically marginalized identities
High-Retention and Culturally Responsive Preparation
Provide teacher residency grants and Grow Your Own (GYO) teacher preparation programs to provide financial incentives (i.e. cash payments and student debt relief) to people recruited in #1 above
Effective Retention Strategies
Leverage mentoring programs and professional development to promote the Community School model
The Critical Role of Principals
Teach principals how to be Community School leaders
Competitive and Equitable Compensation
Increase teacher pay and add new incentives, like housing assistance, to attract new people to this profession (a very challenging profession thanks to the EdIlluminati!)
Below is one example of a “High-Impact Recruitment Strategy” from my home state of Oregon. It’s hard to understand how this program and others like it are constitutional. Perhaps we’ll soon see lawsuits like the one filed earlier this year by Pacific Legal Foundation, which challenged Oregon’s Diversity License Expense Reimbursement Program.
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The key takeaway is this isn’t about making honest attempts at reaching a wider audience in promoting the teaching profession. This is a coordinated tactic within their overall strategy to remake the public education system, and they’ve already made a great deal of progress.
Adequate & Equitable Education Resourcing
I have to start off with their “Spend it on Schools: How would you reimagine public education” online game at https://www.spenditonschools.org. It’s such a corny, obvious attempt to push their agenda.
Here’s how it works:
Select programs to defund or taxes to increase like:
Reduce or eliminate Police Spending, Police in Schools, National Security, and ICE Detention Facilities
Increase Estate Taxes and add a net worth (aka wealth) tax for the rich
Now choose how to spend these dollars on “racially-just and relationship-centered community schools”:
Hire more Community Schools Coordinators, Counselors, and Psychologists
Expand Restorative Justice, Ethnic Studies, and recruit and retain teachers of color
Check out and share how you did:
View your “receipt”
Share your results on social media and with elected officials
Their game is the perfect illustration of how they view the topic of education resourcing. It isn’t about funding Traditional public schools, but about fully funding Community Schools and the ideology that goes with them.
They’ve already many of these program changes a reality by influencing federal programs, most notably the COVID-19 grants that poured billions of dollars into public schools. Schools were allowed to use these temporary funds to implement programs and practices in their shift to Community Schools. Now that those funding sources are nearly gone, we hear calls around the country to fully fund education.
Wrap-up
As much as I hate to say it, it’s impressive how they’ve stayed laser focused on a core set of priorities for ten years with a group of over 800 people from nearly every state in the country, all without anyone connecting the dots. It’s beyond time to expose them, and you can absolutely do something about it!
Here’s where I need your help:
Subscribe to this Substack and share it on all your social pages (and with your elected representatives!)
Use the EdIlluminati People Database to see who is in your neck of the woods and ask them about their involvement in this secret coalition
Watch a couple of their videos to understand their inner-workings
Check out the EdIlluminati Document Library and scan through a few documents, newsletters, and emails
Contact me with tips, questions, links to related content, etc.
Blank, M. J., Harkavy, I., Quinn, J., & Villarreal, L. R. (2021). Partnerships for Equity and Excellence: The Community School Strategy. Coalition for Community Schools. https://www.communityschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/Partnerships-for-Equity-and-Excellence-The-Community-School-Strategy-2.pdf
Multiple authors. (2019, pp. 90-91). Community Schools Playbook. Partnership for the Future of Learning. https://communityschools.futureforlearning.org/assets/downloads/community-schools-playbook.pdf