Hedge fund managers supply the millions that enable charters to thrive. They are big givers to charters, and they are big givers to political candidates who support charters. The hedge funders’ political arm is called “Democrats for Education Reform,” even though their agenda looks like the traditional GOP agenda of privatization, choice, and competition.
Bill Moyers explains the hedge funders’ love of charters in this article.
Understand that this tiny slice of the financial elite is making obscene amounts of money:
“In 2013, the trade journal Alpha revealed, the hedge fund industry’s top 25 earners collected $21.15 billion, a whopping 50 percent over their total the year before.
“A hedge fund manager in 2013 needed to take in $300 million just to make the top 25. Ten years ago, in 2004, an aspiring hedge fund kingpin only had to grab $30 million to enter the industry’s top 25 elite.
“Numero uno on this year’s hedge fund pay list: David Tepper, with $3.5 billion. Three other fund managers pulled in over $2 billion. Totals this grand essentially make Taylor Swift’s millions look like a paycheck for a Holiday Inn lounge act. Swift averaged $109,000 a day in 2013. Tepper’s daily average: $9.6 million.
“But the real enormity of America’s annual hedge fund jackpots only comes into focus when we contrast these windfalls with the rewards that go to ordinary Americans. Kindergarten teachers, for instance.
“The 157,800 teachers of America’s little people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us, together make about $8.34 billion a year. Hedge fund America’s top four earners alone last year grabbed $10.4 billion.”
Think of it: four guys raked in more than 157,800 kindergarten teachers!
Not to worry: the hedge funders love education. They love it so much that they are investing in charter schools to compete with public schools. As public funds are diverted to privately-run charters, some of those kindergarten teachers may lose their jobs.
What’s in it for the hedge fund guys? A fun hobby; power; a chance to call themselves “civil rights leaders” (not too many to be found in the big cities’ exclusive clubs); and, yes, a chance to make money. Those who invest in charters can double their money in seven years, thanks to a federal program called the Néw Markets Tax Credits.
Put it all together, and the love affair between hedge fund managers and charters makes good sense and bad public policy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They are just going to love education to death! (Bless their hearts.) I am also sure they will abandon it like other hobbies they get bored with, when the money ceases to flow. If our economy continues it’s collapse, poor people and schools will be less profitable and then they may leave us alone. Too late for us, but….We may be able to force regulations on them such as we live with. Take public money, take regulation. I can only hope.
Good time to re-read “Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten?”
or, Everything I Know I Learned at McKinsey?
Or Everthing I know Was in My Gene Pool.
I hope Bill Moyers has a whole lot of interns whose values and interests are parallel.
Not surprising that the lobby known as the Education Industry Association, started in 1990, with substantial funding from the Milton and Rosa Friedman Foundation, has helped to define the market and pushed for policies friendly to the market. This organization helped to define the education market as growth sector for investments.
I can remember addressing “free- market education” about that time with a lot of rich material from topics listed on one of the first conference programs. One was titled “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” The rest were variations. The hucksters and hedgers have scaled up and now hold miniature Davos gatherings with a touch of Donald Trump staging and those retreats in the backwoods of New York, reminiscent of a meeting of the Mafia intended to slit up their territories, everyone getting something big.
Here are topics from the 2014 conference program of The Education Industry Association.
K-12 MARKETS OVERVIEW–WHAT’S HOT AND WHAT’S NOT?
Robert Lytle, The Parthenon Group
UNDERSTANDING INNOVATION AT THE STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL
MODERATOR: Ben Wallerstein, Grayling
SPEAKERS: Dwight D. Jones, Education Practice & Policy Partners; Jean-Claude Brizard, UpSpring Education Group; Richard Laine, National Governors Association 10:00-1:00 Private School CEOs and Leadership
CONGRESSIONAL OUTLOOK ON ESEA AND FUNDING IN K-12 POLICIES
MODERATOR: D’Arcy G. Philps, PennHill Group
SPEAKERS: Amanda Beaumont, Senate HELP Committee; Peter Oppenhiem, Senate HELP Committee; Brad Thomas, House Committee on Education and the Workforce; Joel Packer, The Raben Group
MATCHING FUNDRAISING STRATEGIES TO YOUR BUSINESS’ LIFE CYCLE
MODERATOR: John Stuppy, Edumetrix
SPEAKERS: Matthew Witheiler, Flybridge Capital Partners; Donna Harris, 1776, Inc.; Ed Metz, SBIR, USDE
SELLING STRATEGIES IN K-12–YOUR TO-DO’S ON MONDAY
FACULTY: Lisa Sacchetti, Renaissance Network
PRICING STRATEGIES THAT MAKE GOOD BUSINESS SENSE
FACULTY: Joseph Olchefske, Calvert Education Services; Joshua Chernikoff, Flex Academies; Judith Bunnell, Flex Academies
INTEGRATED MARKETING TO BRAND, PROMOTE AND SELL
FACULTY: Derek Fairfield, MDR, Inc.; Stephanie Nash, MDR, Inc.
Then there is this from the Walton Foundation, hyping the opportunities for hires in this sector. According to a brief report by EdWeek columnist Denisa R. Superville (May 7, 2014, p. 5), the Walton Foundation has started a PR campaign called EdFuel, for a new non-profit targeting districts in the 50 largest cities for “transformation” of traditional public schools. EdFuel provides services for the “autonomous and accountable” school sector, made up of public charter schools, innovation models inside school districts and the hot-growth startups and advocacy groups that support them.” http://edfuel.org/
The campaign is managed by Bellwether Education Partners. a well-known PR agency. that produces “studies” based on push surveys. These are designed to make news and build momentum for an educational agenda. The EdFuel “study” says that charter expansion in these urban centers will create a need for at least 32,000 senior and mid-level workers in the next decade. The “talent gap” will be greatest for non-instructional staff —legal, instructional coaching, policy, marketing/outreach, and implementation. Those are the five “fast-growing” talent gaps. Others will be workers skilled in business, finance, operations, data analytics, and communications.
The website of EdFuel says its mission is “to attract, develop, and retain the next generation of leadership for the rapidly evolving K-12 education reform sector.”
Bellwether’s “Map the Gap” study has a double-speak definition of this emerging sector. It is called an “autonomous and accountable” public school sector. This phrase “autonomous and accountable” is code for the decade-old concept of a district comprised of a portfolio of schools that benefit from public funding including charter schools as well as private schools—for-profit and religious—supported by publicly funded vouchers for students.
Welcome to the new doublespeak where “public can mean private can mean for-profit, can mean religious, can mean taxpayer voucher-paid education of any kind.” Welcome to the new requirements for accountability within an “autonomous private sector” subsidized by public dollars, where the concept of accountability for educational outcomes is based on a bell curve. If there is a theory, it is that a highflying school system is built from performance managements systems that produce a constant churn of schools by stack rating them and closing the low-flyers, preferably on short notice (less than six months out) so opposition is harder to organize. Welcome to an autonomous system populated and managed by operations experts, by lawyers, by marketers, by recruiters, by instructional coaching staff who are not really instructional staff. http://www.crpe.org/events/portfolio-school-district-network-meeting-autonomy-and-accountability-july-2013
Laura Chapman writes about the hucksters and so did I… My essay “Magic Elixir’ http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html addresses the way in which charter schools can be sold to the public.
A few weeks back, when I spoke of the need to ensure education for all as part of the intent of the Constitution for the common good, someone on this blog pointed to the huge burden that paying for education put on the taxpayers, as it ate up the budget.
I offer this from the Moyer’s piece : “The final indignity? The families of those kindergarten teachers who make less in a year than the average top 25 hedge fund manager makes in 15 minutes pay a greater share of their incomes in taxes than hedge fund moguls pay on theirs, thanks largely to a notorious tax code loophole — known as carried interest — that Congress has not yet seen fit to plug.”
There’s plenty of money in the ‘free market’ if we stop giving it away freely to a tiny portion of our citizens because they own the elected officials. Add to this loophole, the enormous waste of money in the Pentagon as they give away contracts with abandon to the death merchants and there is money for the schools.
Or, the budget can be reduced according the rational of NJ governor Christie, by reducing the pensions of state workers… the oligarchy at work… end education and stress out the middle class.
Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Hedge-Fund-Titans-Hum-a-Ha-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_FACT_Money_Public-Assets-To-Private-Wealth-140521-658.html#comment490182
Credit for the quoted language, and the linked story, should go to Sam Pizzigati, not Bill Moyers.
I’ll repeat that. Sam Pizzigati, not Bill Moyers, wrote the article. Not that I don’t love Bill Moyers.
Why keep using the word “invest” other than in a deliberate attempt to imply that donors to charter schools are making money on them? A deliberately misled readership is not a benefit; it’s Fox News redux. The hedge fund manager sucking money out of public education is a straw man, plain and simple.
Sure, disagree with the fact that their philanthropy is to charters instead of district schools, but at least try to keep it truthful. I guess it’s easier to imply they support charters for greedy motives than to explain why they feel their dollars are better spent on charters.
When it comes to actual facts, the one flimsy piece of evidence offered for the constant sensationalist “hedgies investing in charters” headlines is the New Markets Tax Credit.
The NMTC applies to construction in economically disadvantaged areas, and about 5% of it has been used for charter schools. It has created more than 100,000 permanent jobs in low income areas, and the beneficiaries have been in retail, healthcare, housing, etc. The GAO found that the program has led to increased investment in low-income communities.
Throwing NMTC under the bus because it is a convenient way to imply an untruth is a perfect example of what happens when you start with an ideology and then cherry pick facts to support it, instead of starting from the facts and forming an opinion. Clearly, the benefits that NMTC have had to low income communities, and the net tax revenue that it has created, are not important to someone on a mission to discredit anyone who might support a charter school. In fact, most of the investors in NMTC are banks.
Anecdotes aren’t data, but does anyone else notice there isn’t even anecdotal evidence anywhere here? Do a search for “NMTC” and “hedge fund”, and you will only find articles from the echo chamber, quoting each other and trying to create a fact where there is none.
And for the record, I agree that the carried interest tax rates are ridiculous and need to go. I also think there should be a small tax on every financial transaction in this country, and would love to see that go to education.
The accusation is not that the NMTC is universally abused, but that Wall Street market is using it in combination with other credits to turn funding charter expansion into an investment vehicle.
It is not only in blogging circles: Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News investigated the exact scenario in Albany. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/albany-charter-cash-big-banks-making-bundle-new-construction-schools-bear-cost-article-1.448008
Perhaps you can explain how he is in error.
Daniel,
You could say the same thing about YMCA’s or hospitals. The idea that investors make money by constructing buildings in low income neighborhoods is hardly unique to charter schools, and as I mentioned, they account for 5% of the NMTC deals.
NMTC is attractive to charter schools as a way to construct their buildings since they don’t get building funds in NY (now some NYC ones do, but upstate ones don’t). It’s prudent use of public funds to finance using NMTC, especially for a school with an unproven track record that can’t go to the bond market.
Will Juan Gonzalez be writing an article about this NMTC deal? http://ow.ly/x7APg. The answer is no, because there is nothing wrong with NMTC. It’s just used to imply that the people donating money to charters are in it to make money. It’s not even the same people, and investing in NMTC is done through a bank, not a charter school, so the millions these people are donating to some NYC charters has absolutely nothing to do with this. Just a little sleight of hand to try to get away with calling them “investors” instead of the philanthropists they are.
One blogger, respected in this community, even implied NMTC “may be the reason” why Mark Zuckerberg donated money to Newark. That’s like saying he may kick his dog. Cheap, Fox News-like junk reporting. It’s no less misleading when it happens here rather than there.
What I don’t see on your reply is an explanation of how this particular use of NMTC by hedge funds turning giving money to charters into an investment vehicle is actually incorrect. What you are writing is a general defense of the NMTC which I fully agree with. But the defense of the credit does not mean that it cannot be manipulated in this manner.
Juan Gonzalez is a long time reporter. Sam Pizzigati is a labor journalist and fellow at the institute for policy studies. For that matter, my sister works at the exempt divisions bureau at the IRS and confirmed that the mechanisms are staggeringly complex, but yes, the credits can be made to This is a major Appeal to Authority, but I have no reason to believe they are all wrong about that.
Daniel,
You said “What I don’t see on your reply is an explanation of how this particular use of NMTC by hedge funds turning giving money to charters into an investment vehicle is actually incorrect. ”
What particular use are you referring to? Where in any of this is an example of a hedge fund manager using NMTC (even if there was an issue with this).
What are you actually alleging?
I am “alleging” that Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News, Sam Pizzigati of the Institute for Policy Studies, Addison Wiggins writing on Forbes and Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School and the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law (and my sister as well) are not lying when they say that hedge funds can utilize the New Markets Tax Credit in combination with other portions of the tax credit code to make charitable support of charter schools into an investment vehicle with a 100% return over a 7 year period.
I must note that you have not actually challenged this as a fact. You have mostly derided the idea of calling use of the credits to engineer a profitable return as an “investment” and said that we might as well call funding a YMCA with the credit the same thing. Well, if a collective group of financiers used such vehicles not merely to fund a YMCA but then engineered political circumstances so that government officials showed extreme favoritism to the construction and expansion of YMCA facilities over all other forms of youth recreation whether or not the Y could or was even interested in serving all youth in the neighborhood and even excluded youths who might need special services to participate, then yes, I would challenge it.
It isn’t just that Wall Street has adopted charter school funding and fast tracking charter school expansion as a means to a) claim they are philanthropists and b) safely double their donations over a predictable time frame, it is that they then set up organizations like “Democrats for Education Reform” whose principle founder is hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson and whose board is heavily populated by hedge fund managers and whose purpose is to direct Democrats in office to keep charter school expansion on track and increasing — which continues their ability to keep making money by funding the schools. And they are effective — Governor Cuomo has gotten more than $400,000 in campaign donations from these same sources who give so “generously” to Eva Moskowitz and, quelle surprise, he enshrined her never having to pay rent into the New York budget.
Hedge Fund Managers -> Fund Special Interest PAC for Charters -> Donate 100s of 1000s to Cuomo -> Get Charter Expansion Specially Protected -> Get Many More Charters Opening -> Get to Park Millions in “Charitable” Contributions into Vehicles that Give a Profitable Return.
None of which is happening in the open or as part of our public debate. Our common school system is a key democratic institution in our society. It is part of our national “commons” and how and why various aspects of it get supported and expanded should be a matter of public debate and control.
Daniel,
You’re talking yourself in circles, saying things like “make charitable support of charter schools into an investment vehicle with a 100% return over a 7 year period” and “safely double their donations”.
I’m sure you understand the point of donations ( you give money and get nothing in return), so how do these things you are saying make any sense? You can’t turn a donation into an investment or “double” a donation.
Facts:
1. Some hedge fund managers donate money to charter schools.
2. Some investors make money by investing in construction of buildings in low income areas, some of which are charter schools.
3. I suppose it’s possible that some of the people in #1 and #2 overlap, but I haven’t seen any example of that, have you? I don’t think it’s an issue, but nobody even has an example. Most NMTC investors are banks.
I guess you are alleging that there are people who donate money to charters so that they will expand, which then makes tax credits available, which they can make money on. This makes little sense as the “return” on donations is zero and the NMTC market for charter schools is so small. Are you implying that there is a shortage of NMTC projects and that the best way to make money is to give your money away to charters so that they create NMTC opportunities? That’s nonsensical.
Implying that hedge fund managers’ donations to charters is anything but philanthropy is completely unsubstantiated, and given that, unwarranted. As I said, disagree with what they are supporting, but these people are donating a bunch of money to public education; they’re just not supporting the same part of it that most people on this blog do.
I don’t see how it is remotely talking in circles when you are not at all contradicting that people are making profits out of ostensibly charitable contributions. You are complaining about calling it an investment when the claim that it used this way comes from a number of actually credible sources, none of which you address with more than accusations of deception — deception you haven’t demonstrated..
Can you actually present evidence that people I cited are incorrect about the tax credits being able to be turned into a means of making a profit out of their contributions to charter schools? Because those people have professional credibility and reputations to protect — which makes it much more than the “echo chamber” you accused of being the only source of the claim.
As for people doing this — you may choose to believe it is merely a coincidence that hedge fund manager founded PACs are heavily lobbying and contributing to politicians to get massively favorable treatment for charter operators that they are individually spending millions funding. But given the described mechanism for turning those donations into profits, I see no coincidence.
Daniel,
I still have no idea what you mean by “turning a donation into a profit” or “making profits out of ostensibly charitable contributions”.
If you’re talking about investors putting money into financing buildings using NMTC (whether for charters or the 95% that are used for other purposes), this has nothing to do with charity, and money put into that investment is never a “donation”.
If you’re talking about something else, please explain what this “mechanism” is.
A donation is a donation. You get nothing back. No profit.
An investment is an investment. You hopefully get your money back. It is in no way a donation. Nothing about it is “charitable”. Nobody is calling anyone investing in NMTCs philanthropists or saying they are making “donations”.
The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. i have no idea whether there may be individuals who do both, but they are still not related in any way.
Please explain to me what you, or anyone else, mean by “turning a donation into a profit”.
Well, then I am confused by your confusion. It has been explained numerous times and there are actually numerous resources citing that a combination of tax credits can turn giving money to a charter school into an investment vehicle. It is the hedge fund managers who are calling themselves philanthropists and saying they are making charity when they are actually utilizing the tax credits to get more money back than they put in.
So fine — if it makes it clearer forget anyone (especially the hedge fund people themselves) ever called it charity. They are putting up lots of money to set up charter schools. They are using tax credits to make this a guaranteed return on that money. They are setting up PACs to influence politicians to continue to expand charter schools which just happens to keep them able to keep making money on setting them up. If, after all this time, you cannot see why people think that is an undemocratic and corrupt way of determining how our schools operate, I cannot say in any way that is clearer.
One problem with this discussion is that you seem to be using the term “hedge funds” imprecisely and it seems interchangeably with “Wall Street.” For example, see your comments at:
8:49 pm (“use of NMTC by hedge funds turning giving money to charters into an investment vehicle”);
9:04 am (“hedge funds can utilize the New Markets Tax Credit in combination with other portions of the tax credit code to make charitable support of charter schools into an investment vehicle with a 100% return over a 7 year period”);
9:04 am (“Wall Street has adopted charter school funding and fast tracking charter school expansion”; “hedge fund managers . . . whose purpose is to direct Democrats in office to keep charter school expansion on track and increasing — which continues their ability to keep making money by funding the schools”);
9:04 am (“Hedge Fund Managers -> . . . . Get to Park Millions in ‘Charitable’ Contributions into Vehicles that Give a Profitable Return”; and
3:11 pm (“hedge fund people . . . . are putting up lots of money to set up charter schools. They are using tax credits to make this a guaranteed return on that money”).
This blog post is about hedge fund managers. Specifically it’s about the most fabulously wealthy of hedge fund managers, but there are a lot of other hedge fund managers who are less fabulously wealthy but still very, very rich. Is that what you mean when you say “hedge funds”?
Based on my experience, I don’t think the “hedge fund” crowd is looking to pile their money into charter school financing to get tax credits. The funding that NMTC encourages seems to be sourced by lending and equity investments. Hedge funds don’t really do either of things. As for equity investments, hedge funds aren’t looking to provide seed money in exchange for a stake in a business with possible long-term upside. (Private equity funds do that — one of Dr. Ravitch’s sons is in that line of work, actually.) As for lending, hedge funds aren’t banks. They don’t make loans to small businesses (or big businesses, for that matter). There’s not enough leverage, there’s not enough profit potential, and the risk is too hard to hedge.
Now, if you could package a bunch of loans to charter schools and slice them up into tranches and securitize them, they might be interested. If there were a trade-able meta-derivative index based on baskets of charter school loan securitizations, hedge funds might be interested in trading it.
So are “hedge funds” or “hedge fund people” or Whitney Tilson using NMTC tax incentives to profit off charter schools? It’s possible, but I doubt it. In any event, I have never seen any evidence that they’re are doing it in any significant way.
Does that mean hedge fund managers are swell guys? No. It just means this isn’t a great use of the capital they manage.
Would it be wrong to characterize a purchase of NMTC bonds, or an equity investment in a charter school, as a charitable donation? Hell yes it would.
Daniel,
You say: “It has been explained numerous times and there are actually numerous resources citing that a combination of tax credits can turn giving money to a charter school into an investment vehicle.”
Absolutely not, since investing in NMTC is not “giving money to a charter school” and nobody is saying that it is.
You say: “It is the hedge fund managers who are calling themselves philanthropists and saying they are making charity when they are actually utilizing the tax credits to get more money back than they put in.”
Again, completely false. There is lots of documentation about hedge fund managers *donating* money to charters and they are philanthropists for doing so.
I’ve seen no example of hedge fund managers investing in NMTC buildings, but even if they are, it doesn’t negate their philanthropy.
Maybe you’re confusing banks and hedge fund managers, as Flerp suggests. In fact, you mention Whitney Tilson (a hedge fund manager). He donates a lot of time and money to charter schools, and the only school-related investment of his that I’m aware of is that he shorts (or at least did) K12 education (k12.com) so he would make money if they fail. I’m sure that was just an investment decision on his part, but he also has said that he does not support online charters at all.
I understand your confusion, because lots of people are suggesting something nefarious here (conflating hedge fund managers’ donations with investors making money using NMTC tax credits). I guess you are underscoring my point by continuing to suggest that hedge fund managers donate money to charters that somehow turns into an investment that makes them money. I’ll stop here because it’s beating a dead horse to repeat the arguments. Just consider asking any of your sources for an explanation of how a donation turns into an investment with a return. They won’t be able to.
Bill Moyers has been a favorite of mine for decades. His journalism is one bright spot in a desert of corporate propaganda. His program “The World of Ideas” years ago was spectacular and even before that he introduced me to Maya Angelou and even before that one of his first programs “On Evil” was unforgettable. A real intellect.
It’s a chance to make oodles of money but with very little risk on their part.
It’s nothing but a bank heist. Charter schools should not be allowed to operate, period.
The person who wrote the article seems to be confused about the words “invest” and “philanthropy.” Those words are not synonyms. In an “investment,” a hedge fund would expect to get its money back plus more. When a hedge fund manager makes a philanthropic donation, he does NOT get his money back.
So it is utterly stupid to point to examples of hedge fund managers donating money to charter schools as evidence that hedge funds are “investing” in charter schools.
It’s not confusion. It is a deliberate attempt to paint these donors as profiteers. Look at just about any posting on this blog regarding hedge fund managers and charters and you will see the very deliberate use of that misleading word. Try a Google search for that combination and you will see it all over the place. It’s not confusion; it’s a (false) talking point.
WT, you are right. Some hedge fund managers invest in charters to make money. Some donate because they think it is cool to create schools to skim the best students from public schools and to drain resources from the great majority of children. Some donate in hopes of privatizing public education because they don’t like the public sector. They have different motives, all of which weaken public education.
Would donating to a private school also be viewed as evidence that the diners aim is to weaken public education, say a donation that would allow students to attend the school on a scholarship?
Are members of charter school boards like Beth Lief and Katharine Darrow out to weaken public schools? Are the business that donate to the Walton Rural Life Center Charter School motivated by the desire to destroy USD 373?
TE, Here we go again. There may be a few outliers and unwitting players in this game, but it is those with mega bucks who are the heavy hitters and they aim to privatize public education across this nation. See the article at the link I provided in the following comment.
The hedge funders belong to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) –which is a PAC, and privatizing education is consistent with the policies of Obama and Duncan. See the “Hired Guns on Astroturf: How to Buy and Sell School Reform.”
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/hired-guns-on-astroturfhow-to-buy-and-sell-school-reform
The GOP is on the same page as Democratic education policies, with the exception of Republican support for vouchers (which could be changing for neo-liberal Democrats, since they don’t staunchly rail against them). Last year alone, of the $164,205,764 the right-wing Waltons spent on Systemic K-12 Education Reform, they sent $63,412,817 to organizations like charter school associations, think tanks, universities, Teach for America and StudentsFirst, just to “Shape Public Policy” in education, which means privatizing public education.
Don’t bother replying because I don’t expect you to actually read the links provided, since that is not your typical pattern of behavior, so I’m not going to respond.
I will reply anyway.
Your calling schools like Walton Rural Life Center Charter School and board members of the Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn New York outliers is interesting. Do you mean to suggest that there are “good” charter schools as well as “bad” charter schools? If so, I think we might have a fruitful discussion about the appropriate regulatory environment that will encourage these “good” charter schools and eliminate the “bad” charter schools.
Oh yes of little faith… I went to the link and cross posted it, with this comment “Chipping Away at Democracy is a great section here. I hope there is some discussion here at how turning the public institution of education into a business model does not profit the bottom line… when that line is the education of an emergent learner who is a US citizen.”http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Hired-Guns-on-Astroturf-H-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Democracy_Education_Education_Flow-140523-228.html#comment490594
Venture Philanthropy is implemented for ideological reasons, too, not just for monetary ROIs. Read, ” When Billionaires Become Educational Experts: Venture philanthropists” push for the privatization of public education” By Kevin K. Kumashiro
http://www.aaup.org/article/when-billionaires-become-educational-experts