The $6,000 / Day DEI Consultant
A defense of ETHS speaker, Calvin Terrell
One of the first tips I received here is about an Arizona-based speaker who visits ETHS every year, Calvin Terrell. When Mr. Terrell visits anywhere, it stirs up controversy. For example, in the comment section on an early post, someone said these were “annual indoctrination sessions.” It’s not just Evanston - when he visits other towns, there are critical parents and community members. Examples: Mount Prospect, Grand Haven, Skokie, and Ottawa.
Most of this derives from the fact that Mr. Terrell is a prolific Instagram edgelord. His account covers a wide range of stuff, from the personal, to the political, to the spiritual, to the downright .. weird? There is no doubt in that his content is strongly left-wing political content (some but not all of which, I agree with).
Having followed him for almost a year now, I enjoy his Instagram. I don’t always agree with his political takes but he comes off as authentic and willing to put his name behind his ideas. His brand message, “be better than history,” is one I agree with. He’s a decent public speaker and according to records obtained via FOIA, the students generally like his talks (or at least don’t obviously hate it).
Connecting with high school kids is hard and a guy with a weird politically charged Instagram seems on brand for 2024. I recall when I was in high school1, we had a rotating cast of speakers telling us not to do drugs that put us all to sleep (and also made drugs sound fun). At the very least, even if you disagree with Mr. Terrell, he is interesting.
The Costs - $12,000 / talk
Since 2019, local districts have paid Mr. Terrell about $260,750 - mostly in speakers fees but some in additional consulting, art, and artist-in-residence compensation.
His speakers fee is not cheap, about $12,000 for a talk. He’s charged the same rate to ETHS, Niles, Mundelein, and Mount Prospect school districts for his speaking. Sometimes he’ll do multiple talks over a couple days to different groups. Here’s an example invoice from 2023.
This is high but not outside the realm of reasonable for a speaker. For instance, I wrote about District 65 paying a speaker $8,500. I was critical of District 65 at the time and folks reached out to me to tell me I was wrong, and I agree, I was wrong. $8,000 or $10,000 for a speakers fee is not crazy, especially since these fees generally do not include travel expenses. As a consultant myself, I can do the math and say, “Well, I lose half that to taxes and then a big chunk to my insurance and then I have to pay my own travel so, my final margin is 10-15% at most, which is not very good”
To me, costs get dicey with non-speaker consulting work. For instance, in 2021 he was paid by Niles District 219 $5,333/day for “cabinet listening & learning sessions.” You can read the scope of work for the listening and learning sessions or view one of the (very weird) slides he uses.
Related to this, during public comments on a March 2023 D219 meeting, a public commenter spoke to the dispute regarding compensation;2
I attended his presentation, “The Power of our Words” and was incredibly moved and inspired. He urged white parents like me to turn to inspiration in ancestors who fought for justice, people like the white abolitionist, John Brown.
Far from being divisive, Terrell, said, “the bird needs the right wing and the left wing to fly.” Repeated he told us, “I love you. There’s nothing you can do to make me not love you.
Despite the incredibly restorative impact Calvin Terrell has made on this community, the leader of a far right community called Awake FOIA’ed everything about Calvin Terrell’s work in our District, including what he was paid and wrote a blog post about it for the Awake website. The post calls Terrell extreme and divisive and suggests that the compensation by District 219 is shocking and should be investigated.
Apparently paying a black professional for their expertise is triggering.
First, I will contend that there is absolutely nothing wrong with FOIA’ing a consultant or speaker’s compensation. The money being paid is from taxpayer funds and the people absolutely have the right to know what they’re paying for. If the tables were turned and it was someone from say, the Federalist Society or a Christian Church, critics would surely want to know how much the District spent. Transparency is important and goes both ways!
Second, I think her critique is fair. School Districts sign no bid contract on all sorts of stuff that are much more expensive than this with almost no challenge. Why this? Was it because of his race? For instance, ETHS spent $64,000 on a wellness app owned by the daughter of a (white) donor, and I was the only one who wrote about it. My gut is that it has less to do with Mr. Terrell’s race and probably more to do with his easily searchable social media takes.
But .. even if you compare his rates to other similar DEI comps, like LR Consulting or a large corporation like Scholastic, his rates are higher. $5,333 per day is objectively a lot of money to charge as a consultant!
With that said, his last invoice to District 219 in 11/2022 included a daily rate of $3,000, which is within reason for similar comps, so perhaps there is some pressure to reduce rates.
So, is the expense worth it? I have no idea - there’s no framework in place to evaluate how well these things work. Whether it’s Evanston taxpayers shelling out $1m for Beyond Diversity Training or something relatively small like this, there is no accountability to the kids on this kind of spend. Has it helped with the achievement gap? Does it improve student relations? I don’t think anyone knows.
At least with the speaker spend, you get a survey at the end.
Troy High School, Troy Michigan. 1997-2001.
I am glad people are talking about John Brown. It is an absolute travesty that John Brown is not covered more in public education. Brown is, in my mind, the most important person of the 19th century. One major thing I look forward to is taking my son to visit Harpers Ferry.
Here's the issue/concern I have with any of these types of speakers. I send my kids to Catholic schools therefore it's not surprising to me that Catholic values are espoused. It's a choice I'm making as a parent.
When we bring in speakers to public schools that are delving into these topics, who is deciding what should be prioritized or if everyone agrees with the conclusions being drawn?
It's not exactly the same, but when I hear extreme right wing folks advocate for prayer in school, I say great, how do you feel about Islam? It's the fastest growing religion in the world.
Quite frankly, based on the local reporting I've seen there seems to be a lot of room for improvement on the academic front and it seems focusing on the academic essentials should be a school's funding priority.
Public schools are called to educate our children, not dive into cultural wars. This seems to get lost a lot in Evanston.
Full disclosure: for me the primary (singular?) purpose of a school is the sharing of academic knowledge and the learning process between teacher and student. I say this as a public high school classroom teacher for close to 30 years.
So, with that in mind if ETHS can justify that hiring this speaker, or any speaker for that matter, will advance the academic growth of its students, then invite them in. However, they also need to provide some sort of objective and ongoing evidence that the speaker has in fact improved academic learning.