Every time I think I have encountered every organization associated with corporate reform, I find I am wrong. Here is one I did not know about.
It consists of foundations, nonprofits, mayor’s offices, etc.
It shows you the funding and political muscle behind the movement to get rid of public schools and build up the number of non-union privately managed schools.
It is yet another example of false reform, false because its goal is not to improve the schools our children attend, but to replace them with privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, this is the one who has made the recommendations in Kansas City. It’s the one that got the bid that was so controversial.
Many think the CEE recommendations are a good start at changing things in that district.
One of two members in MO: The Office of the Mayor of St. Louis, Frances Slay. A supposed dimocrap!
Duane: Massachusetts is supposed to be a “democrat” state and yet we have similar problems. I have been watching Maine and NH closely to see if any of their “politics” will be directed carefully toward this; one journalist Colin Woodard seems to have made some progress in Maine with exposing ALEC and educational technology. By the way I keep quoting Neil Wilson’s “psychometric fudge” along the way. I have digested Wilson’s first 3 chapters and am still learning!!!!
These issues we are concerned about cross over traditional lines of democrat /republican…. Look at Pioneer Institute in Mass (Jim Stergios) and you will see how some of our issues cross over the political divide.
Off topic (sorry) but must read todays NYT editorial re CC in NY.
Here’s the good news: reader comments are running approximately 20 – 1 AGAINST the editorial and in opposition to the CC.
Is this the February 14, editorial about Common Core?
Not surprising to fine an affiliate in Ohio!!!!
Find
Philadelphia school Partnership is a member according to CEE-Trust web page. Also check out the followers on their twitter page. Not many surprises.
I didn’t see one on the map for Massachusetts so I looked up the closest one showing on their map (it is in Rhode Island on the MA border) The mayoral academy idea in Rhode Island was originated by Mayor Daniel McKee and developed by a coalition of Rhode Island mayors and town administrators, Cumberland Director of Children, Youth, and Learning Michael Magee, Progreso Latino CEO Ramon Martinez, and policy experts Bryan Hassel of Public Impact and Martin R. West of Brown University.
The eight Rhode Island municipal leaders supporting the plan were Joseph Almond, Town Administrator of Lincoln, RI; James E. Doyle, Mayor of Pawtucket, RI; Daniel J. McKee, Mayor of Cumberland, RI; Charles Moreau, Mayor of Central Falls, RI; David Cicilline, Mayor of Providence, RI; Charles Lombardi, Mayor of North Providence, RI; Michael T. Napolitano, Mayor of Cranston, RI; and Joe Polisena, Mayor of Johnston, RI.
Prominent business and community leaders working on behalf of its passage included Alan Hassenfeld, Chairman of the Executive Committee at Hasbro; Angus Davis, Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education; Laurie White, Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce; Stephanie Chafee, Founder, Rhode Island Free Clinic; and Ron Wolk, Founder of Education Week and Chairman of The Big Picture Company.
The legislation creating the academies was introduced as H7874 in the Rhode Island House during the 2008 legislative session. With the support of Majority Leader Gordon Fox and Majority Whip Peter Kilmartin, it was subsequently added as Article 38 in the state budget.
In fall 2009, the first Mayoral Academy, Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley (now known as Blackstone Valley Prep), opened. Democracy Prep is based on the successful model of public charter schools founded by Seth Andrew in Harlem, NY. Democracy Prep is now one of the highest performing schools in the City of New York, and the network hopes to grow to serve more students in Rhode Island who are currently on the school’s wait list. The school serves students from Central Falls, Cumberland, Lincoln and Pawtucket selected through a random lottery.[1]
The usual suspects:
CONTRIBUTORS
CEE-Trust is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CEE-Trust is also grateful for the past support of The Joyce Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
I’d like to know exactly what it means that my Nashville mayor’s office is a member of this. Are his staff working for this organization? Is he taking cues from this org? Are any of our tax dollars or city services going to support this?
Nashville Mom, it is not good news.
The privatization movement is a cancer and that cancer, funded by billionaires, has been slowly spreading for more than thirty years. At this point, I think the only way to get rid of it would be with radical surgery.
For sure, if this cancer is not cut out of our democracy, it will metastasize, spread everywhere and destroy the United States as we know it.
If this cancer succeeds, maybe Bill Gates will run for president—that is if the Amendment that limits presidents to two, four year terms is appealed so he can be CEO of the US for life. And before his body dies, his conscience, thoughts, beliefs and memories will be loaded into a super computer and then the computer will rule as the world’s new god.
Lloyd,
Here’s an idea: a 90% wealth tax for all assets over $100 million.
I like that.
But what about a cap on the size of a corporation at maybe one billion in total revenue before the company has to be split up like the US did when Teddy Roosevelt broke up Standard Oil’s monopoly.
Lloyd, how about restoring a cap on political contributions by corporations?
I agree, but total transparency for all political contributions should also be mandatory. It should be common knowledge where the money is coming from back to the actual source.
For instance, who funds the anti-global warming rhetoric (that global warming isn’t caused by CO2 emissions) and what’s the source of their wealth.
Here in Missouri we know CEE-Trust all too well. Please visit the site below and compare CEE-Trust’s proposal for unaccredited districts with what we — the educators of (the unaccredited) Normandy School District — have proposed to our State Board of Education. We really need your support by February 23. Thanks!
http://www.tinyurl.com/NSDplan
Can you provide a list of Common Core supporters who are also privatization supporters? If they can’t get Common Core adopted through the public entities, will the Common Core folks just try to do it through the private doors?
TrumanFan,
There is a long list of commercial enterprises supporting Common Core, including the Business Roundtable and US Chamber of Commerce, hardware and software corporations, Exxonmobil,. About 70 corporations took out a full page ad in the NY Times supporting Common Core. The business support runs deep and strong. As for education groups, check Mercedes Schneider’s blogs to see which have been paid by Gates to promote Cimmon Core.
we need to remember that a politician Mayor/Governor has to leave a legacy and that is often a “showcase’… a school makes a very brilliant showcase. My supervisor and I worked with a committee in NH when Sununu wanted a “gifted” school showcase but the state did not develop his idea… it was thwarted.
I think the mayors in Rhode Island who signed on may be in it for that reason? I know 3 mayors in Massachusetts have signed up for “Apps” for preschoolers and the company is flying the mayor o Revere around the country as a spokesperson and that can be a lot of “bennies” for a mayor of an urban area in Greater Boston.
“magnet” school was still commonly held as a model (see Ron Sczypkowski’s work in New York on evaluation of magnet schools.) The governors were setting up “gifted schools” when technology came on to the forefront in the 90s.
Diane, I remember when my sister raised her 4 children in Houston and I was pleased with the opportunities they had in the Houston magnet approach (for the three boys but her fourth student, a daughter, did not make out equally as well at that time it took her til almost 30 to finish college)