Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Building Excellent Schools: Bio Details

Click on the following link to see a profile of Spencer Robinson; I think it's interesting that while he has some professional experience teaching, his B.A. from Duke doesn't mention any focus on education, and obviously his Stanford M.B.A. is NOT an education degree. It's also interesting to note that his charter school, the PAVE Academy, is a project he's working on is through a Fellowship program , presumably through Building Excellent Schools. Some of the work details listed here make it sound like he may be more interested in running businesses than being on the front lines teaching. Since his most advanced degree is an M.B.A., it annoys me even more that during the meeting we had at the school last month, he challenged my questions about the legitimacy of his running a private business (the non-profit charter academy) on public school property - he tried to duck my question by questioning whether his non-profit was actually a business. He KNOWS it is, and he assumes that he's dealing with ignorant or uninformed people.

So my question today is this: is his commitment truly to educating students, or to establishing and administering education programs? I'm asking because the teachers who work at PS15 have shown their true dedication to teaching by remaining committed to working with the Red Hook population over the course of years - more years than the meager three that Mr. Robertson spent teaching in Harlem.

Anyway, have a look at the profile.
Building Excellent Schools: Bio Details

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