Paul Tudor Jones was featured in an article in Forbes magazine.
Raised in Tennessee, he is now worth $3+ billion and has decided that his new mission in life is to save the public schools.
He has decided to start his mission in New York City.
He has so many misconceptions about public education that I hardly know where to begin.
Please, dear readers, is there one of you who will send Mr. Jones a copy of Reign of Error?
He doesn’t seem to know that New York City’s public school system has just gone through a decade of “creative disruption” at the hands of a far bigger billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, than Mr. Jones.
He doesn’t seem to know that the U.S. is the greatest nation in the world, and that our public schools are not failing.
He thinks that charter schools have demonstrated that they can close the achievement gap between the poorest kids and the richest kids.
His foundation–the Robin Hood Foundation–raised $81 million in one night, much of it for charter schools.
He doesn’t seem to know that charter schools on average do not outperform public schools unless they exclude low-performing students.
He thinks that the Common Core “was our Sputnik moment,” because it showed we don’t measure up to other developed countries. He seriously doesn’t know what he is talking about.
He doesn’t seem to know that Common Core was not our Sputnik moment, because it is only now being implemented and proves nothing except that state officials can set the passing mark wherever they want.
He doesn’t seem to know that we are #1 among the advanced nations of the world in child poverty.
He doesn’t seem to know that income inequality is at its highest point since the days of the robber barons.
Please help this man.
I am sure he means well.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I saw this article yesterday and it creatively disrupted my sleep last night and I don’t even live in New York.
But it’s the principle of this new order: (if I might quote reader called “M”), who wrote:
. . . the hedge fund billionaires who have co-opted democracy believing they know better how to run communities from afar with donations and directives. Meanwhile, so long as they have more voice than your average citizen via their money, then they are the ones purporting to be running society and we live on their good graces.
LikeLike
Ah, Mr. Jones again. I live in Virginia & he became notorious in the local media for meddling into the affairs of Theresa Sullivan, President of The University of Virginia, who was the victim of an attempted coup by Board of Visitors’ Rector, Helen Dragas, an alum of UVa’s school of business. Mr. Jones, as a large donor, teamed up with Ms. Dragas to oust Ms. Sullivan because, in a nutshell, they believed she wasn’t a “game changer” for the University, bringing it to the level of Harvard, Yale, & Stanford while also embracing online learning.
Needless to say, the ouster of the much loved Theresa Sullivan lasted about a week. UVa faculty, students, & alumni rallied to her defense on campus until Ms. Sullivan was reinstated by the Board of Visitors. Ms. Dragas & Mr. Jones retreated in defeat with Mr. Jones proclaiming his innocence. The issue of large donors trying to influence the University’s affairs became a hot topic.
And then came his off-color remarks at a UVa function about female traders becoming ineffective once they have children. He was pummeled for that one, too.
Funny how a guy who disavows the value of his economics degree from UVa sure does seen to care (in his own misguided way) about its direction & prestige.
If Mr. Jones’ comical attempts in Virginia to bring about “disruptive change” to our flagship & prestigious university are any indication of how he will try to do the same in NYC, you don’t have anything to worry about.
P.S. He is also on the board of Student’s First. Need we know more?
LikeLike
Concerned Mom of Two: thank you for reminding us in your third paragraph of the wit and wisdom of an exemplar representative of the Billionaire Boys Club. I knew I had heard that name before…
I provide one link below from HuffPost entitled “Paul Tudor Jones, Billionaire Hedge Funder, Says Babies Destroy Female Traders’ Ambitions”:
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/paul-tudor-jones-female-traders_n_3328293.html
Save public schools? He can’t save his mouth from his foot…
😎
LikeLike
deBlasio and the overwhelming majority of voters who elected deBlasio specifically ON education issues are too stupid to understand the issues. Got it. Thanks.
Remember “it’s the economy, stupid”? For ed reformers, it’s the arrogance, stupid.
This is the Arne Duncan school of political persuasion. If you don’t shut up and fall in line in NY, this billionaire will hit you over the head with a big pile of money 🙂
It must be tough for the 1% when they lose an election, because no one ever tells them “no”. Certainly no one in any of these “foundations” or lobby shops are contradicting the guy who signs the paycheck.
LikeLike
Joanna expressed the real game here very well. This is not about facts or education, this is about social engineering. Our expectant plutocrats and oligarchs don’t care about facts; they know the truth: The rich shall rule and the rest follow, and our public education—the education of the poor masses after the death of the middle class—exists for that purpose. Just as the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers, etc. did to our public schools a century ago,
Diane, your history as well as others I’ve mentioned here before, really needs to be broadcast to the public. We’re not seeing anything new; this is just another chapter in the economic class war that was joined during the Gilded Age. I think if people understood that this is not just some aberration, but a real cultural mindset and anti-democratic political philosophy that has deep historical roots, then maybe they’d be more adamant about taking back our democracy.
LikeLike
As usual M&S wel said!!
LikeLike
Diane said, “He doesn’t seem to know that we are #1 among the advanced nations of the world in child poverty.”
From the article: “They met at the offices of McKinsey & Co. in midtown Manhattan and came up with three main goals for the next decade: to close the achievement gap between the poorest and the richest, to lift 1 million people out of poverty during that time and to impact $10 billion in public funding.”
Seems like he has a pretty good handle on the poverty issue.
While we’re giving him the straight dope, let’s remember to point out that our high-performing traditional public schools succeed in much the same way as high-performing charter schools–the cost of real estate screens out at-risk children and selects for educated, well-off parents who are highly invested in their children’s education.
Charter lotteries are open to all; traditional district schools are open only to people who have the money to live in them (and heaven help the inner city parent who tries to enroll their child at a school in a district where they don’t reside). If Paul Tudor Jones wanted to use his own money to build houses in Greenwich (or any other leafy, segregated suburb) for Bed Stuy families to live in and attend the public schools, he would be slapped with a hurricane of lawsuits and the project would never get off the ground.
I oppose the disproportional influence the wealthy have on public policy, and in this instance, it’s particularly hard to stomach someone who lives and works in Connecticut largely to avoid paying (admittedly out-sized) New York city and state taxes having any say in what goes on in our schools. That said, I don’t have any problem with someone operating from a default position of A. New York city spends plenty on education (it’s 25 billion, not 22 as stated in the article) and for a variety of reasons there’s no guarantee that spending more will result in better conditions for kids; and B. charter schools in New York City are tightly regulated and are a good alternative for many families living in poor segregated neighborhoods whose district schools are spotty, even if everyone who works in them is well-meaning and doing their best.
LikeLike
The article is very flattering to Mr. Jones.
Read this, about the University of Virginia and the attempted “coup” there:
“Kiernan said it was “absurd” to suggest, as some protesters later did, that Sullivan’s removal was a Wall Street conspiracy. “This notion that one or two or three donors could get together and topple a president,” he said, “forget whether it’s possible; it’s not even smart.”
But some Sullivan supporters see a more subtle chain of causality. Ligon, a former board member and a successful entrepreneur himself — he was a founder of CarMax, a used-car chain — said he thought the board members had fallen under the influence of high-finance mentality. “Private-equity and hedge-fund guys typically come into a situation of mediocrity, where rapid change may result in a profit,” he told me. “When you’re talking about a well-established university with a strong reputation that is trying to enhance that reputation, that’s not
how the game is played.”
What’s most disturbing about it is, they wanted UVA to embrace online learning, which was the fad of the moment.
The big name in online learning renounced his own idea about 2 weeks ago:
“We were on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and at the same time, I was realizing, we don’t educate people as others wished, or as I wished. We have a lousy product,” Thrun tells me. “It was a painful moment.” Turns out he doesn’t even like the term MOOC.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb
LikeLike
“Charter lotteries are open to all; traditional district schools are open only to people who have the money to live in them (and heaven help the inner city parent who tries to enroll their child at a school in a district where they don’t reside). ”
Uh, no. At least not where I live (Michigan). No one pays attention to residency. Schools get money based on student population size. More students = more money. Therefore, all are welcome. I teach in a district that neighbors Southfield (mostly lower class income levels) and a stone’s throw from Detroit. Our school is in a middle class community. We all know that 20% of our student population comes from those communities. We are functioning like every other middle class district around us. There are no residency investigations.
Many of our public schools have open enrollment. Anyone can go. (Maybe where you live its different.) Talk to any teacher in suburban Detroit and they’ll tell you how much of their population comes from the city. The Detroit News recently ran an article about Ferndale Schools being a funnel district for Detroit kids (meaning they get tons of kids seeking to escape the massive variety of schools in Detroit). The News also estimated that 15-20% of the kids in Detroit don’t attend schools in Detroit.
So in reference to your sentence that I quoted above. You’re statement is very wrong where I live and work.
LikeLike
I strongly suspect that where you live and work is an exception; most districts across the country are primarily locally funded. Maybe if there are other commenters who live in districts that welcome children who don’t reside there (and don’t charge tuition), they’ll chime in.
I also suspect that even where you live, residency matters far more than you think. Can parents from Detroit simply walk up to a school in one of the Gross Pointes (or any of the other high-end Detroit suburbs or exurbs) and enroll their kid there for K-12 without any problem or tuition payment? I’m skeptical. Why haven’t kids from Muskegon flooded the schools in Norton Shores? Why are no kids from Benton Harbor going to school in St. Joe’s?
I’m sure that some districts look the other way when an individual student sneaks through here or there, but then there’s this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654
LikeLike
Tim,
Thanks for the link. Here are some other links:
http://articles.courant.com/2013-09-30/community/hc-glastonbury-residency-investigations-1001-20130930_1_glastonbury-officials-bookman-out-of-town-students
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E6D6153FF930A25752C0A96E9C8B63
http://portchester.dailyvoice.com/schools/port-chester-schools-increase-residency-investigations
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20121004/NEWS/121009956
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-15/news/ga-6913_1_la-canada-schools
http://onlineathens.com/stories/111407/news_20071114087.shtml
More, of course, can be found through your favorite search engine.
LikeLike
Tim,
I have a post with a number of other links awaiting moderation, so I thought i would post one with one link here:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/nonresident-students-vexing-chesapeake-schools-officials
According to the article the school district in Chesapeake Virginia was busy looking for illegal student attendance:
“More than 5,000 families have been seen this school year by the Office of Student Enrollment concerning approval of residency, and 45 out-of-area students have been expelled. Last year, 223 were removed, compared with 164 in Virginia Beach.
LikeLike
I can’t speak for other places. I’m simply telling you that your statement is definitely not universally true. Grosse Pointe is on the other side of town from our district. But I can tell you that West Bloomfield, a district in a relatively affluent area, is notable for having a large number of kids from Pontiac. The links are good and some places have the luxury of doing those investigations.
But my statement was a response to the quote I noted from your post. So yes, there are places where residency doesn’t really matter.
LikeLike
Steve K,
When a student switches districts is transportation (school busing or a practical alternative) available? In my district they offer transfer within district, but they don’t offer transportation so by that fact alone there is a large percentage of the population who take take advantage of it. .
LikeLike
I would think that the impact of transportation issues depends a great deal on local circumstances. In transportation rich densely populated areas, it may have a very limited impact. For other households like mine, the students may actually be assigned to schools that are more difficult to get to than other schools in the district. Parents may work in other catchment areas or other school districts, and so transportation may be easier if students do not go to the assigned school.
LikeLike
Concerned Mom,
If a student lives outside the geographic boundaries of the district, they must provide their own transportation. Transportation costs are high so districts aren’t willing to explore their boundaries for bus routes. But we do see a lot of car pooling from outside student arrivals.
Charters rarely provide buses. Which is a reason for their “cost-effectiveness.” Read about kids in New Orleans who have to take multiple public bus transfers to get to their schools. Because choice didn’t get them into a neighborhood school. Charters do that because they save so much money.
LikeLike
In my district, many students depend on the school bus so they can’t take advantage of charters or transfers. I understand busing is expensive, but in my town large groups of students can not take advantage of alternative options if transportation is not provided.
LikeLike
Thanks for the additional information, Steve. I found an excellent article that explains more about Michigan’s Schools of Choice law that was helpful in bringing me up to speed: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120219/NEWS01/202190305/ . (concernedmom, neither the sending or receiving district provides transportation for kids attending a participating choice school)
Here’s a quick summary of the program from the MDE website: “Schools of Choice programs provide students with additional enrollment opportunities, which range from allowing students to determine which school within the resident district they will enroll, to allowing non-resident students to enroll in a district other than their own. Participation in choice programs is optional for districts. The degree and extent of participation are determined at the local level, including details such as application and enrollment dates, and which building, grades or programs will be accepting enrollment under a choice program. Interested parties will need to contact districts directly for detailed information regarding their program.”
According to the article I linked to above, about 6% of the children in traditional district schools in Michigan participate in the program. So yes, you were correct that my initial statement about inter-district accessibility was not 100% universal, but I think it is safe to say the overwhelming majority of district schools in the US are open only to children residing within the district borders or those who pay tuition.
St. Joseph’s and the Grosse Pointes do not participate in Schools of Choice (and you can Google “grosse pointe residency enforcement” to find several articles showing how seriously they take it); the district that Norton Shores is a part of does take a limited number of students (20-30 for elementary, 5-10 for middle, 10-20 for high school) and is wrestling with the decision to accept many more to offset a large decline in population and enrollment.
LikeLike
Ah, Mr. Jones again. I live in Virginia & he became notorious in the local media for meddling into the affairs of Theresa Sullivan, President of The University of Virginia, who was the victim of an attempted coup by Board of Visitors’ Rector, Helen Dragas, an alum of UVa’s school of business. Mr. Jones, as a large donor, teamed up with Ms. Dragas to oust Ms. Sullivan because, in a nutshell, they believed she wasn’t a “game changer” for the University, bringing it to the level of Harvard, Yale, & Stanford while also embracing online learning.”
Thanks. Here’s a piece on the UVA “coup”:
It’s probably good the university resisted the MOOC fad. The inventor no longer believes it works:
“We were on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and at the same time, I was realizing, we don’t educate people as others wished, or as I wished. We have a lousy product,” Thrun tells me. “It was a painful moment.”
LikeLike
Exactly! Teresa (not Theresa as I wrote above – sorry!) Sullivan’s view was to proceed with caution re: the online craze because the evidence wasn’t there yet re: its effectiveness. It was something to look into & not just rush to copy the others.
LikeLike
Oh, it was a HUGE fad! It was all they could talk about at the Aspen Institute! 🙂
“What had the board so worried? In late May, as she prepared to remove Sullivan, Dragas e-mailed a board colleague a link to a Wall Street Journal column, beneath the subject line: “Why we can’t afford to wait.” The article described a joint venture that offers free, open online courses. In the last year, Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T. and other elite schools have moved aggressively into this arena, drawing significant global audiences, if no actual revenue. While many veteran professors roll their eyes at predictions that online learning will transform the structure of universities, to certain segments of the
donor community — the Wall Street and Aspen Institute types — higher education looks like another hidebound industry awaiting creative destruction. “If you’re not talking about it,” says Jeffrey Walker, a UVA fund-raiser and a former JPMorgan financier, “what’s wrong with you?”
A Wall Street Journal article! “Elite schools” were beating them!
Thank goodness she resisted.
LikeLike
Man, especially Rich Men, are always looking for things that will make them immortal, just like J.P. Morgan did, but it should not be at the expense of our school system. Tell this man to go to the ghettos of Chicago and New York and New Jersey and give the poor children’s parents jobs, food and after providing a salary, then teach the parents how to be responsible to their child in school. that would be a good way to spend all of his Billions and they might name a city after him.
LikeLike
Oh my. Guess another one who asked CUI BONO amd decided, ‘Yup, this is a boondoggle for me. Who cares that I know nothing. Everyone else is in the gravy wagon so why no me, too?” OY VY…is my comment. Can’t say much else that can be put online.
LikeLike
“He seriously doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
Along with all the other edudeformers.
And all the GAGAers whorefuse to stand up to these educational malpractices.
LikeLike
Maybe the GAGAers are “whore fusers” but I meant who refuse.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Unpacking Reform.
LikeLike
A good friend gave me an article about a Charter School that began in our district. She said it’s great for her grandson and proceeded to tell me about the longer school day and all the extra opportunities.
I let her know my concerns about Charter Schools and found an article, “How Privatizers Are Killing Our Schools.” I copied it for her. I can certainly understand we as grandparents want the best for our grandchildren, but I don’t believe Charter Schools are the answer.
LikeLike
I have wrestled with that too, because having taught in inner city Kansas City, MO and having known children of friends who would have been culturally outnumbered (and probably very frustrated as students) in their neighborhood schools, I have seen the value in the charter schools for some of my friends’ kids. I get that. But I rest on two premises, one being that KCMO has been plagued with problems for a long time (having lost state accreditation) (albeit I think they are doing much much better) and that charters there are sort of accomplishing what they had hoped the magnet system would accomplish (but because of a lack of support from white middle class families, it failed). The one that impresses me the most is a French Immersion one and in fact language is to me what is really missing in American Public Education. . .real mastery of language earlier than high school (where real mastery in speaking is more difficult). languages and the metric system. That’s what I think would put us at a place of being more globally competitive. More so than just deeper readings of informational text. So if a charter can do what a magnet might have done, perhaps that is worth considering (where there is a special emphasis; albeit even then you have to be careful because I recall the example of a Hebrew charter, which is clearly purporting a bias that should not be funded by tax dollars). Tis a hard nut to crack, the charter issue.
LikeLike
“That’s what I think would put us at a place of being more globally competitive.”
I couldn’t care less about being “globally competitive” whether more or less. That term is edudeformer code for Race to The Bottom. The elite edudeformers want you to think that they are “saving the great America from itself”. We will wail and bemoan the day when America becomes globally competitive because that means the vast majority will be making a couple of bucks a day while the elite parasites steal the rest.
Globally competitive is such a completely backward way of viewing improving public education. The focus should be on local improvement for the local students providing adequate (all the same amenities the global elite have for their kids’ education) education for all.
LikeLike
Well, I agree there Duane. I tire of the phrase. But if that’s what they are going to harp on, I can tell you what I think matters along those lines.
LikeLike
All these billionaires seem to be reading from the same script: *our schools are failing, * charter schools and school vouchers are the solutions, *the unions are a big problem and must be busted, *mediocre and terrible teachers must be purged now, now, now, *ergo tenure and seniority and LIFO and collective bargaining must be eliminated now, now, now. The billionaires and their corporations should be paying their fair share in taxes, they should be paying the same top marginal tax rate of the 1950s (91%), they should stop the outsourcing, the insourcing of cheap labor via the H1b visas. Many of the top corporations have not paid corporate income taxes for years in some cases. Will the billionaires step up to the plate and pay the tab for living in the USA? Of course not, it’s so much more fun to beat up on struggling middle class teachers and paint teachers and their unions as the “real” villains. Whoopee.
LikeLike
Joe Umberto, If Paul Tudor Jones read my recent book, he would have different answers to the problems.
LikeLike
Although I agree if he read your book he might have some different solutions. And many others have proffered excellent solutions, some that echo yours, and are well worth examining by those who wish to understand American public education.
LikeLike
Maybe the billionaires should figure out how to fix the income gap,(if that is possible – and I mean that sincerely).
LikeLike
Mr. Tudor, before you start your reign of terror perhaps you should start interviewing charter school teachers so you can hear how the schools are inferior to our existing public schools. Also, they are awful places to work. Shouldn’t he find out the truth?
LikeLike
If these billionaires were serious about trying their ideas out, why don’t they set up PRIVATE schools on their own dime, recruit their rich friends to send their kids, hell even offer free tuition to poor and middle class kids, and work out the kinks to come up with a better school that way?
Instead, they force their ideas on the public schools whether the ideas are ready for prime time or not.
LikeLike
Paul Tudor Jones was intimately and intricately involved in the attempt by conservative Republican Bob McDonnell to oust Teresa Sullivan as president of the University of Virginia. Obviously, What transpired at UVa is not over.
One of the things we learned from the attempted ouster was that many on UVa’s Board are intellectual bimbos, latching on to half-baked musings and policy goals promulgated by conservative writers like David Brooks, John Chubb, and Terry Moe.
Chubb and Moe are at the Hoover Institution, a conservative “think” tank that promotes “free enterprise” and the privatization of public education. Both Chubb and Moe are members of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 education, funded by the Koret Foundaton. The Koret Foundation pushes “market-based K-12 education reform” and subscribes to the mistaken and easily disproved notion that “America’s broken educational system lies at the heart of our nation’s troubles” and drastic “reform” is imperative for “economic competitiveness.”
Chubb and Moe wrote a book titled Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education (2009). In that book Chubb and Moe push all the conservative “reform” buttons: competition, charter schools, vouchers, merit pay for teachers. Technology, they say, is what will “make our children better educated.” The problem –– and it’s a big one –– is that there’s little or no research to back any of it up.
Here’s their web site. Click on Virginia in the map to find out about “recent developments” in the Commonwealth regarding technology and privatization initiatives.
http://www.liberatinglearning.org/?page_id=20
Bob McDonnell claimed to be uninvolved in all of this. But most likely he was. As Chubb and Moe noted, McDonnell pushed very hard in the last legislative session for more charter schools and “virtual school opportunities.” Conservatives, especially Republicans (but also business-oriented “fiscal conservatives” like former UVA Board chair Helen Dragas), view education simply as a commodity to be bought and sold, and not as a core civic responsibility of government in a democratic republic. In that sense, Dragas and her cronies, including Paul Tudor Jones, undermined Thomas Jefferson’s belief in the importance of public education and his vision for the University of Virginia.
What transpired at UVa is not isolated to its grounds, but is part-and-parcel of a much bigger picture. And while that picture has multiple painters, including some who are Democrats, most of them are hard-right Republicans stoked with an ideology that has undermined the financial health and stability of the nation and a majority of its citizens while transferring huge sums from the public to very private bank accounts.
As it is, the Commonwealth of Virginia only funds 5.6 percent of UVa’s budget, down from more than 8 percent only two years earlier (and less than half what it was about a decade ago). Taxes in the U.S. are at a six-decade low, and conservative politicians call for even more tax cuts. And vouchers. And privatization of almost everything, from prisons to public education. They view the public treasuries as their own.
The reinstatement of Teresa Sullivan as president of UVa was surely not the end of the story. It was only the start.
And it’s not just about UVa.
LikeLike
I suspect that Mr. Jones and some of his billionaire friends might believe that they will realize some profit down the road. Taxpayer money, funding: for-profit schools, curriculum materials, testing regimens, computer-based instruction, data mining, etc.
LikeLike
You’re right about how “…it’s not just about UVa.” As this saga was unfolding last spring, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the pressure on UVa for “immediate change” (compounded by the shame of reduced state funding) and the attacks on K-12 public education. It informed me that this debate has now expanded to our colleges and universities.
Lucky for UVa, the grown-ups in the room prevailed. It gave me faith that the majority DOES NOT WANT corporate-style education and will rebel if necessary. The events at UVa were dramatic and chronicled in The Washington Post & on its editorial pages if anyone is interested. Professors, students, alumni, and the general public literally rallied “on grounds” (which is UVa-speak for the main campus) holding vigils until the Board of Visitors reversed course & reinstated President Sullivan. The pressure was amazing. Paul Jones Tudor was publicly humiliated, having contributed his 2 cents to this debacle by writing an editorial in the local Charlottesville newspaper supporting the ouster of President Sullivan. This may explain why he was so negative about his UVa economics degree in the Fortune article.
As it turns out, the attempted coup was supported not only by Paul Jones Tudor, but other large donors and “influential” people, many of whom attended UVa’s business school (including Helen Dragas herself). This is one reason why, in my view, it’s the business schools who are partly to blame for churning out the corporate reform and privatization crowd. Where are the ethics and morals in these folks? Have they no shame? Apparently not unless they are exposed in a very public manner.
LikeLike
@ Mom: Did the “adults” really prevail?
After the attempted ouster, Bob McDonnell REappointed Dragas to the UVa Board, and added Bobbie Kilberg and Frank Atkinson.
Bobbie Kilberg worked previously for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and both Bushes. She’s a big fund raiser for Republicans, and expressed support for Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, if he ran for president. The same big-money tobacco lobbyist Haley Barbour who now works with Karl Rove at right-wing American Crossroads, a group that refuses to disclose its donors. The same Haley Barbour who said in reference to racial segregation in the South that “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” The same Haley Barbour who as governor of Mississippi issued pardons to eight men who’d killed their girlfriends or spouses.
As head of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, Kilberg enthusiastically supported McDonnell’s “Top Jobs” legislation.
Technology “innovation” is one of the major components of McDonnell’s “Top Jobs” plan. The notion of “innovation” includes virtual schools in K12 public education and “aligning higher education and the business sector.” That “alignment” uses terms like “reform-based investment and innovation” and “technology-enhanced instruction.” The term “reform-based” is never defined, but given the current and past state and national Republican policies, it means privatization.
Frank Atkinson is the consigliere to Virginia’s conservative Godfathers. He’s a make-it-happen-and-don’t-leave-our-fingerprints-on-it kind of guy. Had Atkinson been on the Board when Sullivan was initially fired, it would have happened differently and probably out of the public eye. Atkinson was Deputy Chief of Staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese as the Iran-Contra scandal unfolded. According to the special prosecutor in Lawrence Walsh, “Attorney General Edwin Meese III became directly involved in the Reagan Administration’s secret plan to sell weapons to Iran in January 1986, when he was asked for a legal opinion to support the plan. When the secret arms sales became exposed in November 1986, raising questions of legality and prompting congressional and public scrutiny, Meese became the point man for the Reagan Administration’s effort, in Meese’s words, ‘to limit the damage’.”
In other words, the Attorney General of the United States led a cover-up of illegal and unconstitutional acts in “a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”
Atkinson worked closely with former governor George Allen, who allowed a small group of conservatives to seize control of writing new state education standards that foisted a massive testing program on Virginia’s public schools and taxpayers.
Atkinson is a member of the Federalist Society, co-founded by Ed Meese and co-funded by the Koch brothers. As Judge Walsh said in his aftermath book on Iran-Contra, “In calling for the narrow construction of constitutional grants of governmental power, the Federalist Society seemed to speak for right-wing Republicans. I was especially troubled that one of White House Counsel Boyden Gray’s assistants had openly declared that no one who was not a member of the Federalist Society had received a judicial appointment from President Bush.”
Frank Atkinson is also on the board of directors of the conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The Mercatus Center focuses on “economic development” and “privatization.” Ed Meese is also on its board, as are several others with very close ties to the right-wing Koch brothers ,who a;so fund Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party. Make no mistake. Atkinson is on UVa’s board for very specific reasons.
LikeLike
@ Mom:
(A) Speaking of “ ethics and morals” and “shame,” look at what is taking place in UVa’s backyard.
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/former-defense-ceo-stem-focus-needed-in-schools/article_3c8f8984-19c3-11e3-a74f-001a4bcf6878.html
In the article, Norm Augustine is portrayed as some kind of education expert. He’s not. Augustine is one of those who pushes very hard for corporate-style “reform” based on the notion that American “competitiveness” is dependent on “improving” public education. The “leadership” Albemarle County schools invited Augustine to visit and share his “expertise.” Augustine then praised the county schools “leadership” for focusing on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education, calling it vital to the “future of our economy.”
As CEO at Martin Marietta, Augustine brokered the merger of that company with Lockheed to produce Lockheed Martin. Taxpayers subsidized nearly a billion dollars of the merger cost, including tens of millions in bonuses for executives (Augustine netted over $8 million). Then the merged company laid off thousands of workers. The promised efficiencies and cost savings have yet to materialize, and Lockheed Martin is #1 on the ” ‘contractor misconduct’ database” which tracks contract abuse and misconduct.
While Norm Augustine touts the need for more STEM graduates and STEM teachers f Lockheed has laid off thousands of engineers. Research studies show there is no STEM shortage, but Augustine says (absurdly) that it’s critical to American economic “competitiveness.”
A 2004 RAND study “found no consistent and convincing evidence that the federal government faces current or impending shortages of STEM workers…there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon.” The RAND study concluded “if the number of STEM positions or their attractiveness is not also increasing” then “measures to increase the number of STEM workers may create surpluses, manifested in unemployment and underemployment.”
LikeLike
@ Mom
(B) A 2007 study by Lowell and Salzman found no STEM shortage (see: http://www.urban.org/publications/411562.html ). Indeed, Lowell and Salzman found that “the supply of S&E-qualified graduates is large and ranks among the best internationally. Further, the number of undergraduates completing S&E studies has grown, and the number of S&E graduates remains high by historical standards.” The “education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand.”
Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement recently in the Columbia Journalism Review (see: http://www.cjr.org/reports/what_scientist_shortage.php?page=all ):
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”
So why the STEM emphasis by the likes of Bill Gates and Norm Augustine? Benderly continues:
“Simply put, a desire for cheap, skilled labor, within the business world and academia, has fueled assertions—based on flimsy and distorted evidence—that American students lack the interest and ability to pursue careers in science and engineering, and has spurred policies that have flooded the market with foreign STEM workers. This has created a grim reality for the scientific and technical labor force: glutted job markets; few career jobs; low pay, long hours, and dismal job prospects for postdoctoral researchers in university labs; near indentured servitude for holders of temporary work visas.”
Benderly reports that an engineering professor at Rochester Institute of Technology told a Congressional committee last summer this:
“Contrary to some of the discussion here this morning, the STEM job market is mired in a jobs recession…with unemployment rates…two to three times what we would expect at full employment….Loopholes have made it too easy to bring in cheaper foreign workers with ordinary skills…to directly substitute for, rather than complement, American workers. The programs are clearly displacing and denying opportunities to American workers.”
Norm Augustine is a charlatan of the first order, But the county school superintendent thanked him for visiting and sharing his “vision.” And then she reaffirmed “her dedication” to focusing on STEM, which goes under the moniker of “21st-century education.”
For shame.
LikeLike
…Or, doesn’t mean well at all, seeing an opportunity to increase his few billions to many billions by investing in charters bound to fail, and therefore? Require more testing and more charters. Sort of like the blood-letting of previous dark centuries?
LikeLike