Panorama, which was co-founded by Attorney General Garland’s son-in-law, is active in 23,000 schools across the country.
Despite the massive influence of Panorama Education, a Boston-based education technology company that collects data on “social-emotional learning” from 13 million students in 23,000 schools nationwide, parents were largely unaware of the company until very recently.
That was before Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit that fights indoctrination in U.S. schools, revealed last week that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law, Alexander “Xan” Tanner, co-founded the company, which collects millions in taxpayer dollars to inculcate critical race theory into K–12 curricula. The revelation raised questions about whether Garland had a potential conflict of interest, days after the attorney general opened an investigation into purported threats and acts of violence against school boards across the U.S.
Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Offices to investigate alleged threats being made against school-board officials by parents who have spoken out against the implementation of critical race theory and other racially charged issues. The direction came after the National School Boards Association wrote to the Biden administration that angry parents who speak out at school board meetings are engaged in “domestic terrorism.”
Now, a new spotlight is being placed on Panorama, which serves more than 50 of the 100 largest school districts and state agencies in the country, according to TechCrunch. More than 1,500 school districts have worked with Panorama, meaning that 25 percent of American students are enrolled in a district served by the consultancy. The New York City Department of Education, Clark County School District in Nevada, Dallas ISD in Texas, and the Hawaii Department of Education are all clients of Panorama’s.
According to the nonprofit OpenTheBooks, there have been at least $27 million in payments to Panorama from states, school districts, and local boards of education across 21 states from 2017 to 2020.
In New York alone, some 30 school districts paid $12.1 million to Panorama; New York City public schools accounted for the largest payments, with roughly $10.5 million in contracts, OpenTheBooks found.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Panorama added 700 school districts to its customer base, nearly doubling its reach, according to CEO and co-founder Aaron Feuer.
Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, said she only recently became aware that her children’s school district — Arlington Public Schools in Virginia — has had a contract with Panorama since 2017.
OpenTheBooks.com revealed that the 2017 contract between Arlington and Panorama was for three school-wide surveys over a five-year period that came at a $288,750 price tag for taxpayers. The 28-page contract includes 345 hours billed at $250 per hour for consultants to design surveys and render “analysis and reporting.”
Neily said buried deep within the handbook that parents must sign to enroll their children in school was a form to consent to surveying.
“I work on these issues,” she told National Review. “I’m married to a constitutional lawyer, and I couldn’t figure out how to get around that. There was no way you could say, ‘I don’t agree to this clause.’”
At the heart of one of several recent controversies involving Panorama is the revelation that Fairfax County Schools in Virginia has reallocated COVID-19 relief funding to pay Panorama $2.4 million to conduct social-emotional learning (SEL) monitoring in FCPS, which will produce data on students.
Panorama will screen “all” Fairfax children and conduct psychometric evaluations and create psychological profiles.
The company’s SEL work includes race-focused surveys and trainings on systemic oppression, white supremacy, unconscious bias, and intersectionality, according to the Washington Examiner.
Its own promotional materials showcase a workshop called “SEL as Social Justice: Dismantling White Supremacy Within Systems and Self,” which is designed to “explore actionable strategies for using SEL as a vehicle for social justice and advocacy in your community,” the report reveals.
The company encourages educators to “learn more about how Panorama centers the voices of community stakeholders to dismantle white supremacy and systems of oppression.”
Workshop leader Becky Barstein said that Panorama viewed “SEL as social justice — seeking to dismantle white supremacy,” in a video unearthed by the Washington Examiner and called SEL the “vehicle” to achieve “equity” and “racial justice.”
Panorama also recently tweeted out a list of book recommendations for teachers to enhance their own “social-emotional learning,” a list that included a book featuring an essay written by Bill Ayers, a former co-founder and leader of the communist domestic-terrorist organization the Weather Underground.
The curriculum company claims on its website that it “is not affiliated with any particular academic or legal philosophy, including critical race theory (CRT).”
Tiffany McCaslin, a mother of three Fairfax County students, told National Review that the district’s contract with Panorama makes her “extraordinarily uncomfortable” for “so many reasons.”
“First, I just do not think that this is appropriate content for teachers to be covering with students,” said McCaslin, whose children are in first, second, and fourth grade. “I think that a number of the concepts that are noted in the questionnaire are sensitive issues and things that should be left to parents to discuss with their children, especially such young children who really just don’t have a developed grasp on some of the concepts that are mentioned, such as race, and their relationships.”
The FCPS screener for students in grades three through twelve features questions such as “How often do you think about what someone of a different race, ethnicity, or culture experiences?” “During the past 30 days, how carefully did you listen to other people’s points of view?” and “How confident are you that students at your school can have honest conversations with each other about race?”
McCaslin said she became “really uncomfortable” upon discovering that the company is funded in part by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg’s nonprofit, Startup:Education, co-led a $4 million round of seed funding for Panorama in 2013, one year after its founding. Then last month — just weeks before Garland issued his directive — Panorama announced a $60 million investment round with investors including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, according to the Washington Examiner.
She said she is concerned about how the data will be collected and stored by the schools and then “shared back to a company that has ties to an organization that, we all know at this point, is really just hungry for as much human data as they can collect on everybody and anybody.”
Panorama says on its website that it “only uses student data for the purpose of serving schools and districts” and that it does not “market, sell or rent any student’s personal information; nor do we engage in, inform, influence or enable advertising to students.”
“Panorama does not collect personal information from students unless we are performing services for their school or district pursuant to a written contract,” the site adds. “The collection and use of students’ personal information is governed by schools and districts and applicable laws.”
Even parents at FCPS who opted out of having their children complete the screeners could not prevent their child’s basic information from being shared with Panorama, however. FCPS officials told parents that the school district shared data with the company, including the name, student ID, school, and grade of students, as part of a “quality control” process in August, before parents were given the choice to opt out of the surveys.
Officials at Fairfax County Schools told parents that Panorama staff members have been given the status of “school officials,” granting them the right to private student data under federal law.
In an email to a parent, obtained by National Review, Deborah E. Scott, director of intervention and prevention services at Fairfax County Public Schools, wrote: “FCPS is permitted under the law to share student data with outside vendors who meet the criteria of the ‘school official’ exception under the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (‘FERPA’). Third-parties who are considered ‘school officials’ are permitted to receive student data absent parent consent.”
Additionally, parents who have opted out of the screening are still being subjected to “SEL”-related instruction, according to McCaslin.
FCPS responded to National Review’s request for comment with a link to a webpage about the screeners.