The Chippewa teacher started providing the Koch organization with classroom data from our students classes because no one noticed. When the situation was brought to the administration’s attention, Principal Hollihan said:
“The District’s attorney has reviewed the Empowered curriculum and found no content that violates state law …”
We think our students deserve a higher standard than presentation of content that is not illegal.
In 2021 Adam Schmidt, a Chippewa teacher, became an independent contractor of Empowered
Empowered is a part of Stand Together, the name the Koch organization adopted in 2019.
Adam Schmidt began teaching the Empowered lessons in the 2022-2023 school year
Adam Schmidt and the other Empowered teachers are incentivized by Empowered to teach material from the Empowered website. Payments include:
$500 prepaid gift cards
“loans” to paypal accounts that do not need to be repaid
gift boxes
opportunities to be paid for mentoring other teachers
To be eligible for these compensation opportunities and the free lesson plans, Empowered teachers such as Adam Schmidt, agreed to provide classroom data to the political organization.
Empowered states that the classroom data is used to “…measure our impact and share success stories with our donors”
Fall semester 2025
Mr. Schmidt presented Empowered activities on 66% of instructional days
He displays the Empowered Logo in his classroom.
47% of instructional days the welcome slides Mr. Schmidt used displayed the Empowered logo
Fall semester Mr. Schmidt either taught a lesson written by Empowered or displayed the Empowered logo to his students on slides 81% of the instructional days.