How Big Tech And Big Money Made Our Schools Go Woke

Few issues have become cultural hot spots like critical race theory. Better known as the CRT, an ideology that places race and racism at the heart of education has become a cornerstone of college programs across the country. He's welcomed by some parents, despised by others, and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has sought to have him banned from public schools in Florida entirely. In his new book School of Awakening, author Kenny explores

In the summer of 2018, Merrick Garland, who had just lost a Supreme Court case, walked arm in arm with her daughter Rebecca Garland down the aisle of the lavish St. Vrain Wedding Hall in Longmont, Colorado.

He introduced her to her future husband, Alexander "Xan" Tanner.

Xan Tanner, then 27, was the enthusiastic co-founder of Panorama Education, a full-service "analysis software and services" company, represented by The New York Times and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's aide Xan Tanner spearheaded what was increasingly the pinnacle of liberal fashion: a Yale graduate, prominent tech CEO, and education activist.

But what was behind his condition?

The New York Times may have described Panorama in cautious terms in its coverage of the Tanner-Garland marriage, but the reality is that Panorama Education is not a software company at all, but rather an educational technology company, its primary business model. it is, in particular. , , are given. about children.

Together with fellow Yale students Aaron Feuer and David Karel, Tanner has created a student survey platform focused on the puzzling concept of "social-emotional learning," which Panorama loosely defines as "advocating for the whole student."

What is strange, however, is his rapid increase in wealth.

There is nothing technological about Tanner's product, as it can be built on top of SurveyMonkey. But ironically, Zuckerberg picked Tanner out of a number of potential investment opportunities and decided to fund him. Between 2017 and 2021, according to Forbes, Tanner personally raised more than $16 million from the tech billionaire and $76 million from others using the Zuckerberg name.

Zuckerberg was interested in "fixing" public schools, and his $1 billion Startup: Education fund, which he founded in 2012, has actively sought to invest in education boosters like Tanner. The foundation was set up to "improve the education of the country's most disadvantaged children". Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan believed they could "solve the problem" of education in America using what they knew best, the power of big business.

But the Facebook CEO needed loyal servants to his cause.

And Xan Tanner, with his prestigious background and genuine social justice, fits the bill perfectly. Tanner himself earned a lot working with Zuckerberg, mostly money and a lot.

His path to riches lay through running a children's research company that was tied to Mark Zuckerberg's money.

But once Tanner took the job, Zuckerberg asked him to tackle a previously intractable problem: how to get US public school boards to grant the foundation access to their children's private data. After all, the last time Zuckerberg spent money on education — a public school takeover in Newark, New Jersey in 2012 — Zuckerberg saw his $200 million disappear into a black hole of mismanagement and corruption.

"The $20 million went to consultants who were typically paid $1,000 a day to implement various management reforms," ​​wrote Dale Rusakoff, the reporter who documented the incident. Zuckerberg's push for school reform.

An additional $89 million was spent on the teacher's contract, which had no direct impact on teaching. The New York Times denounced Zuckerberg's gift as something that "slowly dissolves in a sea of ​​accusations."

National embarrassment convinced the young philanthropist that in future he should exert his influence more subtly and judiciously. And one of those ways was channels like Tanner.

But how did a young Yale graduate get his foot in the door when faced with very strict school boards? After years of putting his nose to the grindstone trying to get the school board to release his Zuckerberg-backed research product, Tanner has found the answer: wake up.

This past April, protesters marched outside public schools in Center County, Pennsylvania in support of CRT programs and gender ideology.

SOPA/LightRocket images via Getty Images

Tanner's presentation strategy was to convince schools that to help children with their "social-emotional health" they needed data on "racism" in their communities. (The Every Student Achieves Act of 2015 required schools to find ways to improve the social and emotional well-being of students.) The company has targeted the nation's most progressive counties, such as El Dorado, California, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Panorama pledged that districts would get information about the state of racism among local fourth graders and guaranteed contracts in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, asking questions like, "How do you see yourself clearly reflecting your abilities?" “Culture and history in your school? and "How often do you feel treated poorly by other students because of your race, ethnicity, gender, family income, religion, disability, or sexual orientation?"

Anti-CRT parents protest outside the Loudoun County School Board headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia in June 2021. Loudon County was one of many progressive counties that partnered with Panorama Education and its voting platforms based on race and identity.

Reuters

When emotional 9- and 10-year-olds answer these questions, they tend to lean toward a critical race theory, arguing that our institutions and schools perpetuate and encourage racism.

Panorama in Northern Virginia signed a five-year, $2.4 million contract with FCPS to conduct student surveys, according to new leaked documents from Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). How they were attacked because of their race and gender. This included transgender people: Panorama asked questions like, "Some people identify as transgender if their birth sex doesn't match what they think or feel about their gender." »

Surveys were not optional for students, which meant students had to sit for at least an hour, and possibly more, to take this survey, which was conducted on behalf of a commercial firm.

Parental protests against the CRT also erupted in New Mexico.

Pennsylvania

But because Tanner has positioned himself as a vigilante inspector, progressive school boards have admitted to it. In fact, local governments ended up paying Panorama more than $27 million in payments between 2017 and 2020. Other organizations were quick to notice Tanner's business model and followed suit.

In Loudoun County, the closest county to Fairfax County, college students were asked to participate in "social-emotional" surveys conducted by the University of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Education. UVA went even further than Panorama in incorporating edgy political issues into school life, asking Loudoun County ninth graders, "Over the past 12 months, have you ever seriously considered attempting suicide?" and "Over the past 12 months, have you ever felt so sad or hopeless nearly every day for two weeks or more that you stopped doing some normal activities?"

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have expressed interest in supporting major education initiatives and have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the cause.

Getty Images

Screening these children with questions about trauma may seem like an exercise in futility. But rest assured, progressive school administrators had their eyes on these polls. Incidentally, soon after the contracts were signed, school boards, including those of DC Public Schools, started reporting things like, "Black, underprivileged students were less satisfied with their schools than white, Asian, problem students." "Take risks, colleagues. your evidence? Footnote right: Education overview.

Zuckerberg with Cory Booker, then mayor of Newark, New Jersey, in 2010 after the Meta founder donated $100 million to the city's school system.

Gary Hay for Facebook

Armed with "intel" about "racism," activists and special interests can march down the aisle demanding "systemic racism" in the area and demand reparations and policy changes, usually to get recalcitrant administrators to give them more money and power.

Meanwhile, the Garland family has been encouraging education officials and the billionaire elite to take advantage of the cash. Progressive elites have become wealthy and politically powerful in their wake.

So Merrick Garland should be very lucky that his daughter married Xan Tanner. He brought with him all the qualities Garland would like to see in a son-in-law: elitist, liberal, he adored the forces of social justice and admired the Zuckerbergs of this world, naturals to the elitist-liberal game.

More importantly, Tanner understood the business purpose of the critical race theory defense: to get a contract.

Kenny Xu, author of The Renaissance School.

My book is about the complex interplay of radical activists, school system bureaucrats, and social justice societies like Tanner's that form a symbiotic economy based on the narrative of racism in the United States. The militants have their own ideology. The school system has power over children. Companies make money. This is good business for everyone except the kids themselves.

An excerpt from Kenny Xu's School for Awakening. (Copyright 2023) Used with permission from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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