RISE: From A Billionairae's Dalliance With Philanthropy

rise: from a billionaire's dalliance with philanthropy

Billionaires get bored and create non-profits. In the case of Ray and Barbara Dalio, it may have been boredom, or it may have been an attempt to deflect the rich, white, hedgefund manager label, hung on them by politicians when they are not seeking donations from them, publicly denouncing them as threats to American democracy and justice. However, for the Dalios, lets take the Mrs.’ word that her drive into educational philanthropy was a result of her getting a taste of reality after visiting a Norwalk high school. Like when a politician goes into a supermarket while campaigning and is shocked to find out how much the rest of us have been paying for a gallon of milk. Barb stated, “…my four sons could have been in the same position.” Imagine that. Whatever the reason, Barbara Dalio created the Connecticut RISE Network in 2015 with a mission “to ensure all RISE high school students graduate with a plan and the skills and confidence to achieve college and career success.” However, the first words seen when one visits RISE’s website are, “Empowering Educators to Achieve Breakthrough Results.” A power that teachers apparently have not developed after obtaining a Master’s or PH.D. in education or after teaching for twenty years, but this billionaire’s non-profit will bestow upon them, like Odin to Thor. Another non-profit telling teachers they have been doing it all wrong.

In 2016, Hartford Schools leadership felt that their teachers were powerless to help mortals graduate with a plan, skills, and confidence, so, they became a founding member of the Connecticut RISE Network, joining East Hartford and Meriden, and bestowing $90k on RISE every six months ever since. Not wanting to lose their grip on Hartford the cash cow, RISE stated in a January 2, 2023 press release that districts must work with policymakers to “…secure resources to avoid pending cliffs in federal relief dollars.” Well, I doubt there is any imminent drought in federal COVID relief dollars based on the same logic Congressman John Larsen used when asked about the 5-year limit on his recently passed Social Security bill; it’s hard to get rid of something once it’s already on the books. But if there is, I’m quite sure Barbara Dalio, the Chair of the RISE Board of Directors, has more pull with policymakers than anyone in the Hartford school district. In the meantime, the RISE Network has grown to include high schools from 8 Connecticut communities, located in Manchester, East Hartford, Hartford, Meriden, Middletown, Naugatuck, Stamford, and Norwalk (where Barb’s four sons could have been). In Hartford, RISE has a presence in the 3 neighborhood high schools as well as the Kinsella Magnet School, while in other communities they may be in only one high school.

So, RISE appears before a Hartford Schools Board of Education meeting on January 4^th for the first step in securing a new 6-month contract. Except for a chart showing only 3 years of only Quarter 1 freshmen “on-track” rates (which show an overall decline), the Board, and the community, are presented with no Hartford specific graduation rates or multi-year “on-track” rates for students in the RISE program, data one would think important to assess the effectiveness of the program. However, using Connecticut’s education data hub EdSight, we are able to see that, for all students, Hartford’s graduation rate is at 72%, up 3% since the onboarding of RISE through the 2020-2021 school year. Similarly, the graduation rate for Hartford “high-needs” students, the RISE cohort, over that same period, has the same 3% growth rate (66% - 69%). The 3% growth rate in Hartford is the same rate of growth for Connecticut’s graduation rate since 2014-2015 (according to RISE), a growth rate which RISE calls, “relatively flat,” yet in Hartford they want confetti, balloons, and a new contract for RISE.

During her presentation on RISE, Hartford’s Dr. Madeline Negron spoke on the importance of “educator feedback” on the RISE program. Yet her presentation included merely 5 bubble quotes from unnamed teachers about how they love the RISE data hub and the group meetings with other educators in the program, no quotes on the meat of the program. There must have been a few teachers the Superintendent could have enticed to appear at the meeting to at least try sound convincing and sell the RISE program to the Board and community. She didn’t. So I did.

I asked a teacher very familiar with the RISE program to give an assessment. Due to the spiteful, vindictive nature of government leaders at any level when they encounter negativity of their message from anyone within the organization, we will leave this teacher nameless – like those in Dr. Negron’s teacher quotes. What RISE would refer to as coaching through a modified curriculum, appears in reality to be a less rigorous, watered-down curriculum with much hand-holding and accommodation of students, resulting in a diploma based on modified requirements, such as being exempted from the State’s requirements that a graduating student must have a foreign language credit. These criticisms of RISE appear to be confirmed by EdSight data shown in the chart below. The rate of Hartford students, “high-needs” or otherwise, considered to be “college and career ready” as measured by the SAT, is dismal and falling despite great claims by RISE as to some arbitrary, unofficial “on-track” benchmark.