Immediately after the Arkansas State Board of Education decided to eliminate the elected school board of Little Rock and turn the district over to state control, the Walton Foundation was ready to take charge.
“Notice apparently went out to Little Rock schools today about a focus group meeting with the Walton Family Foundation and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation “in conjunction with the Boston Consulting Group.”
When BCG arrives, public education is in peril. They are a management consulting group with business experience.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane
More or less immediately that I posted a link to this article:
http://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/science-and-social-control-political-paralysis-and-the-genetics-agenda/
the page became inaccessible, as had already happened when it first went up. This may have been a coincidence but I wanted to make sure you and your readers could see it.
I would also like to draw attention to the fact (which you may know) that this research field (of human genetics) has as its modern epicentre the Broad Institute, Cambridge, Mass, funded by Eli Broad. The institute is home to mathematician Eric Lander who was given this institute to “discover” all the genetic variation for human attributes: disease, but also IQ, “educational attainment” and many other real or imagined traits. In other words to educate the people into a modern version of the idea that their betters were so for genetic reasons and that the social order was natural and proper, which presumably is not unconnected with his interest in education? I am not privy to his thoughts, but that would be my guess.
PS If the page is again unavailable please try later or find another site where it has been reprinted.
I saw this here on the 26th….”Corporate reformers don’t like democracy. They don’t like elected school boards. They like mayoral control, state takeovers, all-charter districts, emergency managers. Anything but democracy.”
Anybody in St. Louis heard of the Walton family? Back to the main idea of this thread…..
I wonder what Hillary thinks about this………in between, I constructed a thread which included…….a visit with a writer who was fired by the post dispatch…Sylvester Brown…a conversation with a charter worshipping guy named Ashok in the commentary after a huffington post article, a questioning about the mountain of secrecy around the Danforth family opening an all girls charter….a leadership thing with a pr firm hooked up with a real estate firm……branching into a story by Jessica Bock which was reposted with zero comments for suspicious reasons…..I suggested she take Tom Brady or Serena and Maria sharapova with her to talk to her editor…before it was over, I included saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and some talk about his song save the children……..I am pretty proud of the way this wanders around….with this story enabling me to reinforce the main Idea stated above……http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1090338&p=14577557#p14577557
I don’t ask for donations…..just a quick glance…….I wanted to include enough that the Brandvein Aaranson public relations firm would not even try to respond to any of it
Wal-Mart has financed voucher campaigns and the campaigns of pro-voucher politicians all over the country. No public school employee or supporter should give them any of their business unless they want their Wal Mart purchases to be used to eliminate public education.
The Waltons, the richest family in the world, intend to demolish not only free public education, but also teachers unions and all unions. Their goal in education is to 1) make ed a free market enterprise to further enrich themselves and their ilk, and 2) to educate only to the level of low income workers who are interchangeable cogs in the Walmart industry….no benefits, lowest wages possible…in essence a complete class of serfs and vassals in this new age of serfdom.
But since the Waltons also are major funders for parent trigger laws, they encourage mendacity and trickery to turn poor schools into charters for vast profit out of American taxpayers pockets. Indeed, they are not only the salt of the earth, but they are such American patriots.
This family also funds Stand Your Ground laws so that all the mininally educated can join the elites in carrying guns.
With folks like these in charge, democracy is doomed.
This more than two year old article shows who is behind the Boston Consulting Group.
In the City of Corporate Love and Beyond: The Boston Consulting Group, Gates, and the Filthy Rich
The Common Errant – May 18, 2012
http://btownerrant.com/2012/05/18/in-the-city-of-corporate-love-and-beyond-the-boston-consulting-group-gates-and-the-filthy-rich/
As reported on this blog recently, how they are doing it in Philadelphia has just been disclosed
Parents United prevails in getting BCG school-closings list
Philadelphia Public School Notebook – January 28, 2015
http://thenotebook.org/blog/158166/parents-united-publishes-2012-boston-consulting-school-closings-list
Boston Consulting Group has a senior education advisor: Margaret Spellings
…and Margaret Spellings was Sect. of Education under George Bush the Second. She was brought in to develop and promulgae NCLB after Rod Paige left the Bush administration. She is a major force for charters, vouchers, testing…and the demise of free universal public education.
typo…meant promulgate
So could Little Rock families, teachers and administrators stage a sit-in at THEIR PUBLIC SCHOOLS? The Waltons and their minions obviously had this takeover completely orchestrated. They probably even have the police and National Guard on alert in case the citizens of Little Rock do not take kindly to their coup. Do they still use dogs and fire hoses for crowd control? I know I am going over the top, but when is enough enough?
Well they could call the national guard but some day soon they will have to realized the people in the national guard go to public schools and are our sons and daughters not theirs!
I think we need to update the Gipper’s “Nine most terrifying words”.
“I’m from Wal-Mart, and I’m here to help.”
(Okay, so I had to cheat a bit and count “Wal-Mart” as two words.)
DC continues their laser-like focus on charter schools today, as every day:
“Friday, January 30, 2015
U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), along with Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Michael Bennet (D-Utah) and today introduced S. 316, The Expanding Opportunities Through Quality Charter Schools Act, which streamlines existing Charter School Programs and provides startup, replication and expansion funding for high-quality charter schools. This bill aims to improve educational opportunities for all students by expanding the number of high-quality charter schools, helping charter schools access suitable facilities and supporting innovation and research in the charter sector.”
Nothing for public schools out of DC this year except the usual: testing.
http://www.help.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=21ee28e8-0a5b-4d0b-847a-def65c26363d&groups=Chair
Open Secrets identifies top donors to Sen. Michael Bennet, as Blackstone and Oaktree Capital. “Oaktree’s primary investor base
includes pension plans…” Is, ‘biting the hand that feeds you’, an apt description?
Gates and Kochs wouldn’t allow their hands to be bitten.
Retired teachers should make demands about their pension funds.
No investment in Microsoft or firms that promote charters.
Diane, have you ever been on the Bill Maher show and/or Rachael Maddow? Just curious.
Ironically an uber driver outted the Boston Group in LR for at least the past three weeks. If you are on FB, check out Our Community, Our Schools — its moderated by former lrsd board member Dr Jim Ross and Dr Barclay Key. It was posted yesterday about 6:30 pm.
Seems like a well orchestrated take over with recent mtgs before the state board as only show.
No need for conspiracy theories here – this is reality.
This week a bill was introduced to eliminate the requirement that the State Commissioner of Education have a teacher’s license and teaching experience! Bill 176 introduced by Sen. Alan Clark. I can NOT imagine that this is coincidental.