The National Governors Association has a corporate fellows program.
Mercedes Schneider takes a close look at which corporations are supporting NGA and where their money so spent.
Some of their leading corporate sponsors are deeply involved in education:
“Here is NGA’s complete corporate listing. However, allow me to list a sampling of corporate names that hold particular meaning in the current corporate-friendly, education reform atmosphere:
“ACT, Amplify, Apple, College Board, Educational Testing Service, ExxonMobil, General Electric, McKinsey and Company, Microsoft, Pearson, Scholastic, and Walmart.
“If these corporate names sound familiar, here’s why:
“ACT and College Board were on the CCSS insider work group. Also a CCSS insider, David Coleman is now president of College Board.
“Amplify is run by former NYC Chancellor, Joel Klein, and is connected to the CCSS assessment consortium, Smarter Balanced.
“Apple is involved in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) iPad fiasco. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy owns Apple stock.
“Educational Testing Service (ETS) is connected to both CCSS testing consortia (PARCC and Smarter Balanced).
“ExxonMobil has taken a vocal stand for CCSS of late.
“General Electric (GE) donated $4 million to David Coleman’s Student Achievement Partners in 2010.
“McKinsey and Company is the former employer of David Coleman.
“Microsoft is Bill Gates’ company. It just abandoned the destructive employee evaluation methods that Gates is trying to impose upon public school teachers.
“Pearson is a major corporate reform presence. For one, Pearson is involved in the LAUSD iPad fiasco. Pearson is also connected to both CCSS testing consortia.
“Scholastic and Gates released partial results of a survey that notes (surprise, surprise) teachers are fine with CCSS.
“And finally, Walmart is owned by the Waltons, who are anti-union and pro-charter and spend millions on education privatization.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It was announced some weeks ago that John Deasy sold his Apple stock
so that he did not have to recuse himself from LAUSD BoE meetings
whenever the Board spoke about the iPads. He did own the stock when
he made the decision to purchase the “$1 Billion” iPads.
We are making a dent…see article below. Ellen
Political MoJo
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The Gates Foundation Is Done Funding ALEC
—By Andy Kroll
| Tue Apr. 10, 2012 6:47 AM GMT
8
Portland Action Lab
It’s been a rough week or two for the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate-backed group that writes model legislation for state legislators on everything from voter ID to privatizing public schools to curbing workers’ rights. Since the GOP’s massive gains at the state level in the 2010 elections, liberal activists have sought to expose ALEC by publishing its model bills and listing its legislative and corporate members. The pressure is having an effect. Last week, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi all announced they would cut ties with ALEC. On Monday, another big name ALEC funder joined the list of defectors: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The foundation, which boasts an endowment of $33.5 billion, had given ALEC $375,000 in the past two years to provide “information to “ALEC-affiliated state legislators on teacher effectiveness and school finance,” a spokesman told Roll Call. But no more. The spokesman, Chris Williams, said the Gates Foundation would finish its existing grant but discontinue future ALEC funding.
Here’s more from Roll Call:
Last week, Kraft Foods Inc., Coca-Cola Co., and Intuit Inc. each said they would withdraw support. The announcements came after months of behind-the-scenes pressure from another liberal group, Color of Change, an African-American advocacy group.
Color of Change went public today with demands that AT&T Corp., one of ALEC’s 21 corporate board members, also sever ties with the organization. Over the past year, the group has reached out to 15 consumer product companies that back ALEC, highlighting the organization’s connections to voter ID laws passed in at least a half-dozen states.
Civil rights activists say the laws disproportionately target minority, student and elderly voters, who tend to vote Democratic, and could bar up to 5 million voters from the polls this fall. In recent weeks, other liberal groups have joined the effort.
Color of Change Executive Director Rashad Robinson said the group is using Internet appeals to pressure companies that have made explicit efforts to build a strong relationship with African-American customers.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement that “the dominoes are falling and the curtain is closing for ALEC. People power has worked and this is a major step in the right direction.” An ALEC spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sounds like incest!
The goals of this corporate collective group have nothing, NOTHING, NUH-THING to do with providing children with high quality education, or high-quality teachers… that’s just the facade, and the puppet-masters pulling the string know this…
That’s not hyperbole. This is EXACTLY what is going on.
THESE PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY THE TEACHING PROFESSION AND THE SYSTEM OF TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS—schools that are transparent to the “public”, that educate all the “public”, and that are accountable to the public via democratically-elected school boards.
Regarding the destruction of our profession, I first heard words to that effect two-and-a-half years ago at UTLA’s LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (August 2011) in a speech delivered by Warren Fletcher, my current union president:
(go to 06:30)
———————————————-
WARREN FLETCHER, UTLA PRESIDENT:
“Well, I’ve been through a lot. In the past our reactions to each successive wave of bad educational ideas would have been what you might expect: ‘We’re professionals. We’ll do what’s best for the kids despite these bad policies. We’ll just get through this.’ That’s what professionals do!
“But the challenges we face today in Los Angeles are different. THE GOAL of the phony ‘reform’ movement IS NOT TO CHANGE YOUR JOB; IT’S TO ELIMINATE YOUR JOB.
“THEIR GOAL IS NOT TO CHANGE THE TEACHING PROFESSION; IT’S TO ABOLISH TEACHING AS A PROFESSION.
“Teachers are college educated professionals. You are not easily taken in. You see what the current school board majority is trying to do to your profession and to your students. I know that every one of you is ready to stand up and take this fight to the District, ready to take back our schools.
“You are not alone. Your union stands with you.
“We are public school teachers and we are proud of it!”
– – – – – – – –
Indeed, one of the goals of the “reformers”—a goal that goes hand-in-hand with overall privatization—is change teaching from…
————————————-
CATEGORY A … a profession with requires exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… much like that of doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. … a career job that last decades…
and convert it to …
CATEGORY B… nothing more than a low-level service job that requires the most minimal education, almost no expertise, and little if any training period (just gimmicks from godawful books written by “experts” like Doug Lemov) … like fast food, retail sales at a store, janitorial, etc. … not a career job… and with no job protections, or due process for firing… a few years and out you go, to then be replaced by a next round of similarly poorly-compensated, short term workers…
—————————————–
CATEGORY B need only be paid a pittance and can be abused and over-worked with impunity, while CATEGORY A requires considerably more compensation. If the money-motivated privatizers are going to make a decent profit while taking over all or much of what is now public education, the the work force has to be the latter.
I remember talking to a TFA Corps Member at a school site, telling her that doctors, lawyers, and engineers need exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… and so should teachers.
Her reply, “Yeah, but those are different from teaching; those are REAL professions.”
THUD! Sound of my jaw hitting the floor. (That’s part of what they’re taught during their five weeks of training… oy vey!!)
The other agenda is that corporations—including those not engaged in raping and pillaging of public educatin—and rich folk will have their taxes drastically cut as a result of all this. Those corporations will have higher profits, higher price for their stock, and happy stock-holders as a result. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN CHILE… thanks to decades of the dictatorship there, and no democratic process to stop privatization.
That’s why the so-called “corporate reform” privatizers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars vilifying the current teachers and their unions—documentaries, movies, op-eds, foundations, etc. Those unions are getting in their way of their rampage towards profits. The privatizers desperately need to destroy the public’s faith and confidence in teachers, and pass so-called “right-to-work” laws that will destroy unions. They want to do to education what they did to the housing industry, and to Wall Street… education is the next realm to conquer, rape, and pillage. These are the same folks.
However, you’ll notice that in the schools that these well-heeled folks send their own kids, you have teachers with multiple degrees, decades of experience… schools that include full-time dedicated libraries / librarians, arts teachers/ program, music teachers / programs..
Unlike the McSchools they want for the kids of the middle and working classes, these schools have small class sizes, and no (or very little) time spent in a cubicle with on-line or digital teachers. 100% (or close to it) of their kids’ instructional time is spend with live teachers of CATEGORY A above, and because of the small class sizes—12-to-1, 10-to-1, that attention is often 1-on-1… again, totally unlike the McSchools they want for everyone else’s kids… those of the middle and lower-income communities.
I have to say that even the least educated and most stagnnatly minded people in America are not brain dead, and the best thing we can all do, as Joanna Best has suggested, is to socialize as mush as possible and educate people about the connections Mercedes writes about. Once you turn on the “Ah-Ha!” switch in most people, it’s almost impossible to turn off, and then such people can act accordingly with their elected officials.
In my life, I get so many people telling me, “I didn’t even know that. I had no idea!”,a nd then they are transformed forever.
This is not magical thinking.
This is effective pragmatism.
We educators, teachers or administrators, have more than just children to educate.
Informing our peers, relatvies, acquaintances, etc., is one of the biggest steps in organizing and mobilizing.
Obama and his wife are among the biggest and fiercest, most fearless attackers of public education. We will stop him if we are well informed and choose to continue to organize.
NPE is one of the most effective ways to turning on the “Ah-Ha!” switch to the unsuspecting public.
Correction:
“Stagnantly minded” . . . . .
When I was interviewed the other day for a KPFK radio broadcast (the Connect the Dots show will be aired Monday morning), the interviewer asked me “why are public schools so bad?”…which gave me an opening to quote Diane’s stats on the real accomplishments of our schools, teachers, and students. And I recommended to her, and to her audience, to read Reign of Error for real facts.
However, I find in talks on education which I do around the LA area, even at the university, I am confronted by people who label me an idealogue…especially when I talk about the Gulen Movement and explain that Gulen is the largest charter school operator in the US. Even the LA Times did an article on him two weeks ago. I have been accused of being a bigot and anti Muslim when I tell the story of his life, and his goal of overthrowing the Turkish secular government in favor of one ruled by Sharia Law…and much of this financed by American taxpayers through the funding on students in his 143 charter schools.
It is disheartening to see how ignorant the American public is, and how so many would prefer to believe Bill Gates and Eli Broad who they frequently call geniuses without looking into the destruction they cause.
Ellen Lubic
Woof (Ellen?), I agree ith everything you are saying, but I don’t think people really agree with people like Gates and Broad because they dont’ even know who they really are and certainly what their agendas are about and they subvert the democratic process with money and lobbying.
NEVER give up hope or tenacity, even in the worst times.
The fight and awaress have just had their seeds planted and the sprouts can be seen with the magnifying glass. They are there . . . . .
Robert, people are sick of hearing from me. I was already a champion of public education prior to CCSS, now I’m a fanatic. I can see the look on their faces when the topic of education comes up and I try to enlighten them about their misconceptions, “Oh no, there she goes again”.
Ellen, don’t be discouraged.
There are always bound to be a few who have traction and think twice. Also, the doubting Thomases will have already been given some background knowledge from you so that then the truth hits the mainstream media, they will now start to reconsider what you’ve been telling them. It is that very reconsideration that puts another crack in the dam to eventually make it break.
Also, try to diversify the people you hang out with whenever you can.
Don’t lose hope. People can be educated. Your fanaticism is a virtue . . . . .
Yes,,,Other Buffalo/NY Ellen…I get the same response. Did you get your blog site going??? Hope so.
Robert…the problem is that it is not “a few” but rather the preponderance of people, certainly in California, and in Los Angeles, who have so little interest. I spoke with a teacher today from a small city only 20 miles north of LA who did not know who Supt. Deasy is, who had not heard of the Vergara case and his vile testimony in support of the plaintiffs…etc.
If even teachers and self proclaimed media mavens do not read about what is vital to education, and they do not show up at meetings to protest, why would the average citizen, resident, who may not have children in public schools, care about any of this? That is what we who are in the trenches are confronting.
Hyperbole does not help…but if we ask you to be in line at Beaudry to confront the BoE and Deasy, and you do show up, that is a real hero. If people are too lazy to show up, then I have lost interest in what they have to say. Let them walk in the shoes of the good teachers who are unfairly in teacher jail…or have been fired without due process.
I have little tolerance for words which preach to the choir. Actions speak far far louder than words.
Reminder…I am Ellen Lubic…and Woof is my collie.
““Oh no, there she goes again”. Substitute “he” for “she” and I’ve heard it since I started teaching. My son diligently warns people not to talk to me about education, and then he walks away because he’s heard it all, too many times as far as he’s concerned.
I take every opportunity before and after school to speak to my students parents about how public education is under attack by corporate interests and how their children’s education, and our democracy is suffering because of it.
I hand out and email them information on opting out of testing, and forward much of what’s posted here to them as well.
public-private partnership. n. backroom deal made completely outside normal democratic processes.
Examples: the creation of the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic]; the coronation of David Coleman and Susan Pimentel as absolute monarchs of education in the English language arts in the United States; the revision of the F.E.R.P.A. rules to allow states and LEAs to turn over extremely private data about students to a private corporation that can then sell that data to its clients
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
Tons of Markell connections too.
Centralized, top-down systems like that being imposed by the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (MiniTru) are almost always going to be exponentially more stupid than are the actions, decisions, creations, false starts, revisions, rethinkings, kludges, and so on made by large numbers of independent (autonomous) agents.
This is the difference between an ecology and a monoculture. The deformers are trying to impose a monoculture on U.S. K-12 education. We should do everything in our power to stop that, for it will INEVITABLY lead precisely to the opposite of what some among the deformers are trying to “Achieve.” It will lead, inevitably, to mediocrity, to dumbing down.
And, of course, centralization has many, many other pitfalls–corrupt manipulation by those at the controls, for example.
Amazing that many, if not most people can’t understand what you have stated in this post. To me our only choice is to continue the dialogue open-and pointed, to continue our own Quixotic Quests trying to find multiple Sancho Panzas who will listen and understand and help fight the “giants”.