Lee Fang has published a blockbuster investigation of Jeb Bush’s foundation. Fang is an investigative writer for the Nation Institute.
Last year he published a stunning exposé about the online industry in which Bush and his chief lobbyist were central players. That article followed the money.
In this new article, he digs into the financial entanglements of Bush, based on emails that were obtained by a public interest group.
To understand the great push for online learning, charters, vouchers, and union-busting, read this.
Follow the money. Here is an astounding article about the thousands of emails that were released and what they contained about Bush’s activities through his “Foundation for Educational Excellence.” Read this article from Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Actually, there was a “great push” for charters from people like Rosa Parks, Bill Clinton and the late US Senator Paul Wellstone long before Bush and others got involved. I realize this makes the narrative more complicated, but it’s true.
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And if charters had stuck with their original mission to educate all children, especially the most “difficult”, and to work with regular public schools to collaborate and share best practices, there might still be a “great push” for charters.
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Dienne, in many places, this is still happening. That’s part of the reason the # of people sending their children is steadily increasing, along with the # of charters operating. But to clear, I agree there are some great district schools too.
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Sorry Joe, not some great district schools but MANY.
You always beat the charter drum…your brand is being tarnished by the eduvultures.
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But then back during the time of Wellstone and Rosa charters were a different beast. They hadn’t morphed into what they are today. A profit center for sl;eazy pols and hucksters or heavens forbid- an opportuinty to launder money.
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Actually, from the very beginning of the charter world, some of the same people who vigorously opposed the charter idea have retained their intense opposition. Moreover, the majority of charters are not affiliated with “for profit” groups.
As to Linda, I have shared a variety of examples of newspaper columns I’ve written that praised district schools and educators.
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This article is about using ones position/influence to push for policy that directs money into ones own pocket (and/ or the pockets of associates/friends).
A list of persons who at one time or another supported charters does not make the narrative more complicated.
It is just a diversion form the central point.
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Sadly, Ang, there is a long history in public education of people using their influence to push for policies that will line their own pockets or those of their associates. If you are interested I can share articles about teacher union officials who have done so, as well as district school officials, along with business people.
We probably agree that this is reprehensible, whether it is done by a person advocating for a charter public school, for her/his union (note that AFT has taken over some locals because of the degree of corruption), for a company, or whatever.
What I see day after day in Diane’s materials is attacks on the charter world. I see nothing about corruption in district schools or nothing about corruption in unions. Perhaps I’ve missed those examples but I have watched closely.
We urgently need more money going to the effective district and charter public schools in this nation. we urgently need more money going to high quality early childhood programs. And there are other needs. I think/hope we agree that abuses are outrageous, and that we need better policies to reduce the amount of corruption and conflicts of interest.
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This issue is larger than who advocated for charter schools. It’s about the Bush “charity” peddling influence with politicians to personally profit from education laws written primarily for their personal gain. Bush and his mouthpieces in the media are running around the country promoting themselves as child advocates when, in reality, they’re grifters. The Bush foundation, FEE, exemplifies the rotten core of corruption behind the corporate edu-refrom movement.
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Who gets to file the form to have his tax exemption revoked and initiate an IRS investigation?
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Joe Nathan, do you work for FEE?
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Have tried 3 times to respond to your question. Answer is “no.” I direct a small group that works with district and charter public schools in Minnesota and around the country.
Among other things, we helped the Cincinnati Public Schools, with great assistance from the Cincinnati Federation of TEachers, eliminate the high school graduation gap between white and African American students.
I have been an aide, teacher and administrator in urban public schools. Our 3 children all attended and graduated from urban public schools. Also, I oppose vouchers.
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Joe,
What is the name of your “small group”. What exactly does this group do? Are you the owner of that group? How much does your group take in dollar wise? I can understand why you would be a conciliator between the seemingly two apposing (and opposing) forces of the public sector vs the deformers (and yes that is what most of these schemes are, deforms) since your current lively hood depends on both sectors.
You had asked previously what I do and I didn’t get a chance to respond until now. I have been teaching high school (public) Spanish for the last 19 years and I didn’t start that until I was 39 so you do the math, eh! Before that I had a variety of jobs: I’m a master upholsterer, I’ve done customer service and customer service management, I’ve done production control and materials management, I’ve done pharmaceutical purchasing and inventory control and distribution in a major university teaching hospital. By far the best “job” is teaching. So my prior outside of public education work experiences certainly color my teaching philosophy and practices (I also grew up in the parochial system K-12 in St. Louis where Catholic schools have always had a strong presence).
I am a strong supporter of public education and I see many practices that are put into place that are harmful to the students and those proposed by the deformers are even worse than the ones that have been implemented by the public sector over the last 15 years (and I have fought those to the detriment of my employment). I sure as hell am fighting the idiocies that the deformers are trying to force upon us. And those idiocies are getting worse every year.
My assumption of your work, unless you state otherwise, is to earn a living off of implementing these various idiocies in both the charter and public sector. And that’s okay by me, just be up front with what you are actually doing and not just say “Well our group works with both sectors”. That seems to be a tad too elusive for me.
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Joe Nathan mentioned there were people who were pushing for charters who we tend to respect. Sure were. Albert Shanker proposed autonomous schools led by teachers and, as a working teacher, I thought it was a great idea — something worth trying. But then something happened — people who wanted vouchers or tuition-tax credits more than anything else settled on charters as a second best option.
What happened then? People started to smell money The schools weren’t, for the most part, led by teachers, instead they were led by (dare I say it) entrepreneurs. And they got money, really a pittance at first, from business people who lauded entrepreneurship and had little respect for teachers (‘why would someone teach instead of getting a real job? they must be a little dim’) Or they were franchises of some larger corporation, like White Castle — um, I’m sorry, White HAT.
Money changed the vision for charters and their mission. Obviously there were a lot of different proposals, but I thought the best involved teachers creating a smaller school within an already existing school and then maybe going on their own a few years down the line. But chain charters that brand themselves?
And the opportunity to make money meant there was the opportunity to get laws written in a way that would help investors make money. Take the The New Markets Tax Credit Program, passed at the end of the Clinton Administration. That was just about the time that charters reached the 1000 school mark (from less than a dozen ten years earlier). It provides tax credit incentives to investors for equity investments in certified Community Development Entities. These are areas were charters are likely to be located so, whether as a result of planning or serendipity, there was a lot of room to invest in creating the physical facilities for charter schools.
As our friend the New Jersey Jazzman wrote (or quoted — it isn’t clear to me which):
“Under the New Markets program, a bank or private equity firm that lends money to a nonprofit to build a charter school can receive a 39% federal tax credit over seven years.
The credit can even be piggybacked on other tax breaks for historic preservation or job creation. By combining the various credits with the interest from the loan itself, a lender can almost double his investment over the seven-year period.
No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.”
[http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.in/2013/01/charters-get-even-more-brazen.html]
As for myself, I propose that the US DOE make it mandatory (wish me luck) that
the following must be included on every document that a charter school releases
to the public, whether they are brochures, press releases or whatever else:
“Charter schools are not public schools.
They are privately run schools which receive public money.
They do not have to take all children who apply
or hire qualified teachers in most instances.”
Anything to add?
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Thanks for using your name, Mr. Ford. While we disagree, I like it when people are confident enough of their positions to be willing to provide their name.
As to Shanker’s recommendations -he knew that what he was proposing already was in place. It was a clever pr move to make this sound like he was proposing something new. In fact, school districts all over the nation allowed teachers to come forward with new ideas. The fact was that they often were squished. As he wrote in a New York Times advertisement, “People who tried to create new (schools within schools) often are treated like Traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lockstep…if they somehow managed to succeed (in opening a new school or school within school,” they could look forward to insecurity, obscurity or outright hostility.” He wrote that in the late 1980’s.
Sadly it is still true. Some districts are very negative about teachers coming forward with new, potentially more effective ideas for schools.
So some of us proposed in the lat 1990’s that there be another group in addition to local districts that could “sponsor” or “authorize” and monitor new schools.
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Thanks for the reply and I am glad you recognize “ome districts are very negative about teachers coming forward with new, potentially more effective ideas for schools,” but it goes far beyond not being supportive.
Please note that I worry that I might end up regretting using my real name. Retribution in the public schools is real. I even asked my publisher if I could use a pseudonym, but it was too late in the process. I would not recommend to anyone that they stop using an alias. You could become a target otherwise.
As for Al Shanker, you are right that the word proposed seems to suggest he thought up the idea. He didn’t, but he did support schools within a school and teacher led charters.
And I do not doubt the sincerity of those who wanted to make it possible for ‘another group in addition to local districts that could “sponsor” or “authorize” and monitor new schools.’
But those ‘other groups’ have too often been self-aggrandizing organizations with either indirect or direct corporate support.
I see a pattern. 15 years ago, when I first started looking at education policy (and I read your 1996 book) there seemed to be three leading types of reform —
vouchers, standards-based reform and charters.
Vouchers were a dead end. But what happened to their supporters?
Did the lose interest? Or did they manage to hijack the other two types?
Did they manage to reduce the genuine desire to raise standards and turn it into merely the standardization of education and the collection of data to discredit the public schools? That is what NCLB looks like to me.
Did they manage to turn charters into their second best option and hijack an idea that appealed to our idealism in order to further their own self-interest?
Leading questions, I know.
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Great questions, Brian. Like the Civil rights movement, there is a vast array of people working in and promoting the charter movement. I agree with some and disagree with others.
Progressive educators helped start the charter movement because they were frustrated with the existing district structure. There are people in the charter movement who support vouchers, and there are some (like me) who don’t.
I think that the charter movement has had various impacts on district public schools. Some positive, some negative. more about that in another post.
Here’s an example of a positive – the Boston Teachers’ Union proposed a “pilot” school approach based in part on the East Harlem district public school program. That’s where Deborah Meier was allowed to create Central Park East, and other educators were allowed to create other public school options.
Sadly the Boston School Committee (what they call a local school board) said “no” to the Boston Teachers Union. Then the charter law passed, and some of the district’s most talented educators began making plans to start a charter.
The Boston School Committee changed its mind and gave many Boston teachers the opportunity to start and operate “Pilot” Schools within the district.
Win win.
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Nice post, Brian.
Every one notice how charter school pimps always refer to them as “public charter schools”, often numerous times in every thread?
I presume the strategy is “repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth”.
Not buying it.
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Ang, are you a teacher? Are you a parent? Do you think you are helping students by referring to people with whom you disagree as “pimps?”
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Have to agree with Joe Nathan that, no matter what its emotional validity, regardless of whether someone can look up ‘pimp’ in the dictionary and come up with a justification for it use by following the definition narrowly, to say someone is a pimp is inflammatory. Words have connotations as well as definitions, and using pimp with all its associations does not help anyone.
On the other hand, there are a lot of charlatans out there running charter schools. Not that public education and teachers unions have had their share of corruption. (Remember Barbara Bullocks? Nevermind.) But the way charters are structured make them a dagger aimed at the heart of public education.
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Instead of ‘pimp,’ you could try ‘shill’
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From Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary …
Pimp – transitive verb
: to make use of often dishonorably for one’s own gain or benefit
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Joe,
I know that you do not face the same level of antagonism in Minneapolis. In fact, your data indicates a favorable rating. I would like to understand why. In your statistics, you compare charter performance to state public school statistics. Given that large portions of Minnesota are suburban and rural, comparing charters, which I am assuming are concentrated in urban areas, and public schools, state-wide would seem to produce data that is not terribly meaningful. Tell us instead how your urban charters are meeting the needs of a representative sample of students as opposed to a comparable sample of district students. Are you serving the most difficult to serve or are the district schools turning into a dumping ground? If you are serving the entire range of students, then present statistics that show those comparisons. I wouldn’t expect to see miracles, but I would expect to see better results than comparable district schools. We need to admit that the discussion needs be widened beyond the delivery of education if that is the case.
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2old2teach, I am not sure what data you are referring to. Charters in Minneapolis enorll a higher percentage of low income, limited English speaking and students of color than the district as a whole. There are no charters in the most affluent sections of Minneapolis – charters have been started and draw primarily from the families mentioned above.
The liberal leaning Minneapolis Star Tribune has done a “beat the odds” list of schools that have a high % of students of color and students from low income communities. Each time the paper has done this (for the last 4 years) the majority of schools identified on the basis of state math and reading scores are chartered. But every year there have been a few district schools.
This is part of the reason why I urge Governors, with whom I work, as well as educators, which hope I also work, to learn from the most effective schools, whether district or charter. We also believe in multiple measurements, not just standardized tests.
Our work with district schools in Cincinnati showed that it is possible to close and eliminate hs graduation gaps. However, this work involved considerable collaboration between schools and various community groups and businesses. It also involved a lot of collaboration with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.
It would be silly to argue that all the wisdom is in charters, or in district schools.
At the classroom and school level, I’ve found many educators interested in learning from each other. tomorrow we will bring together about 17 district and charter educators working on improving hs math skills.
Where did you teach, and what did you teach?
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Joe,
If I may turn your question around back to you. You have stated that you worked as a teacher and administrator in the public schools. What subjects did you teach, what level, and for how long? Did you get your certifications in the traditional university teacher/administrator prep or did you go through a TFA type /Broadie administrator prep program? What are all your certifications and in which states?
Thanks,
Duane
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Hi Duane, am trying to reply but am having it “stick”. So I’ll be brief. I earned a teaching certificate at a “traditional” college program, Carleton College in Minnesota. I thought 90-95% of what I “learned” in teacher prep was a waste of time and not useful.
I taught for 9 years in inner city St. Paul, writing with students ages 5-18 and various “social studies, also k-12. We did a lot of combining classroom work and community service. So for example, I taught a class with a science teacher on how to improve the environment. The science teacher taught basic science & ecology principles, I helped students learn how to, for example, successfully challenge 3 large polluting companies. I also taught a class where students solved consumer problems that adults referred to them.
I also earned an MA and PHD in Educational Admin and thought 95% of that was a waste of time. What was really useful was attending and learning from a workshop with Saul Alinsky. That helped me understand how to bring together groups of people to work for a more just America.
I worked in inner city public schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul for 14 years.
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Joe,
Thanks for the info! Does help me understand where you are coming from.
I thought my undergrad work served me well for understanding teaching better. Masters work did too, except that if there were 15 in a class only about 2-3 actually did the readings and the majority of the discussions. The others seemed more interested in what they had to do to get an A so they could be credentialed. Many of those became administrators and I have little respect for that.
Now those of us who actually read and attempted to engage the subject matter and the professors were then chosen for the PhD programs. Did that until they pulled my funding and since my wife at the time was in law school hers came first financially wise. Plus I knew by that time that I was going to stay in the classroom and not be an administrator (I was certified at that time) because I knew I could not implement the NCLB nonsense. Other than the cash, administration has no appeal to me-too many hours (I used to work 60-80 hour weeks in the business sector), too many negatives, etc. . . . I prefer my time off at this stage of life-prefer to sit on the back porch and take in the happenings of the woods.
I’ve said that a lot of what we do in public education is wrong but not in the fashion that most believe is wrong. Part of the problem is the concept of “educational leaders”. In the late 90’s, early 00’s this talk of “leadership” came into vogue and replaced the concepts of a collaborative, engage the teachers in the governing process of a school. Deming’s quality concepts were replaced with GM/Ford/Chrysler type top down dictates for the quarterly profits-test scores for education. And considering those at the top were some of the least thinkers and best asskissers I find it repulsive (and I’m lucky in my school now to have administrators-they’re 15-20 years younger than me without much experience in the class or outside the education realm-realize that they have absolutely no idea of what teaching and learning a second language is about so I don’t get too much flack, other than being “too political” when I send out articles on the teaching and learning process-ha ha!)
I’ve found the vast majority of administrators to be quite shallow in their thinking (either that are they just know who butters their bread) and therefore end up implementing policies and procedures that are harmful to the teaching and learning process.
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I’m not sure what data I am referring to either! I was perusing your organization’s website and hit a link that I have to go back and find again. I am truly not trying to be antagonistic. I am opposed to public funding of charters for many of the reasons that have been discussed on this blog, but I have no doubt that there are charters that serve their students well.
I was a special education teacher in both economically privileged and deprived communities at the middle and high school level. I taught math, language arts, and reading, co-taught in all core academic subjects and ran resource programs. I began my teaching career in a private school for multiply handicapped children before school districts made much of an attempt to educate children with disabilities. Those children truly had nowhere else to go. I graduated from a prestigious college with a degree in psychology and had no business in a classroom. I remedied that over time with a M.Ed in educational therapy and, after a break for family, many years as a sub, paraprofessional and ultimately (qualified) teacher. I lost my last job in a struggling high school for various reasons related to their new-found devotion to meaningless metrics and the economics of balancing budgets with staff cuts of non-tenured teachers. Other than the five years I spent in the private school, all of my experience has been in traditional public schools.
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It is not a question of where the wisdom is.
There are some really good people working with charters.
But the way charters are structured, their growth over the last
decade plus and the way they are portrayed in the media and by
foundations makes them a clear and present danger to public education.
With a few strokes of a pen, a no-profit charter could become a for profit school, something I think a lot of people are planning on.
If charters had to meet the same standards and abide by district-wide contracts, if the problem of creating enclave schools (‘gated charters’) could be solved, then maybe I would consider the idea.
But right now I am judging them by their effects on the public school system and by who usually supports them.
I have always thought you were a dedicated educator — my limited familiarity with your writing over the last 15 years makes me think that you are fighting the good fight. But I think there are too many self-styled entrepreneurs running charters, only dedicated to self-aggrandizement.
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Brian, thanks for your note. There are a vast array of people working in district & charter public schools. We spent a lot of time helping people learn from eacho ther and no time arguing about which group is more or less virtuous.
I’m sitting in a workshop that we helped organize with district & charter math teachers who have come together on a Saturday to show each other (and get feedback and assistance) from a wonderful Univ of Mn prof.
It’s about “hands-on” math, not worksheets. We’re just discussing “rich problems” that help them connect math principles with their own lives. It’s also about bringing interdisciplinary approaches to math. No one forced these folks to be here today. I think these teachers represent great professionalism.
It any of you are teaching math, you might be interested in Professor Clarkson’s work. Here’s a link to info about her:
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ci/faculty/Clarkson.html
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But, Joe, you still didn’t answer Duane’s question about your “small group.” Scroll back, please, to the first paragraph of Duane’s 9:19 PM comment, and answer. Inquiring minds want to know!
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Name of our organization is Center for School Change. Please take a look at the video that I posted and share reactions. Part of what we do is empower young people to speak out on various issues. There are 15 videos in various languages, all produced with students.
We have produced youth/community involved for more than 40 years. This involves helping young people identify issues and work to help resolve them. Great resource on this is http://www.whatkidscando.org
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Have tried 4 times to respond. Response won’t post. Will try again. We are a 3 person organization working at the school, community & policy levels. For example, we’ve worked with high school students to create You tube videos promoting use of Dual (High School/College) credit.
These courses help students be better prepared for some form of higher ed and help them save $ in college costs.
We have a leadership academy where district & charter educators learn from eachother. On Sat, this will bring folks together to learn how to do a better job of teaching math to urban high school students
With dollars from Target, we work with district & charters to hold workshops for parents helping them learn why it’s important to read with kids, and giving them books to do that.
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Name of our organization is Center for School Change, http://www.centerforschoolchange.org
Another project was helping Cincy Fed of Teachers and Cincy school District increase overall grad rates by more than 25 points and elim grad gap between white and AFrican Am students. Wrote Ed Week column about that – praising CFT and various business and community groups that came together to help produce that progress.
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“Funding for the Center (For School Change) has come from Cargill, Gates, Annenberg, Blandin, General Mills, St. Paul, St. Paul Companies, Peters, Minneapolis, TCF, Joyce, Bradley and Rockefeller Foundations, the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Initiative Funds, Best Buy, Pohlad, and Wallin Foundation.”
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Public school districts are in on the Jeb Bush scam as well. Even after all of the articles about the Bush emails in the press this week, my district ordered its employees to register for “Digital Learning Day” (a Bush sponsored event). When teachers register, the Alliance for Excellent Education (Bush) gets their emails and then sends misleading propaganda asking for donations. You can read more about my experience with digital learning in public schools here
http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/digital-learning-day
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Fascinating story. Does your district have a teacher’s union? I assume the answer is yes, but wanted to ask. If so, have any teachers asked the district why it is encouraging people to register for this event?
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Technically we have a teacher’s union. Union leadership is often accused of being in cahoots with the district. Our superintendent is a champion of digital learning. He just got a $1.2 billion bond measure passed for enhancing the district’s digital infrastructure. I’m not sure who to ask about why we are being asked to register for this event, especially when the district blocks our ability to actually participate in it. I assume that the district is aware of the organization sponsoring the event. Backers of the event also include the Bill Gates Foundation as well as Pearson.
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Perhaps a group of educators (perhaps with some parent allies) could write to the school board and the local paper to question what’s going on? I don’t think it’s appropriate to push teachers to sign up for something that will lead to them being asked to donate.
I do appreciate and agree with your idea that technology can help students. But I also agree that no all ideas about technology have been well developed, and not all use of technology will lead to improved achievement or higher graduation rates.
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