In response to a post about the predatory for-profit higher education industry, reader Chiara sent the following comment to remind us of how the for-profit industry buys influence in Washington, D.C. and avoids regulation:
To get a sense of how powerful the for-profit lobby is, read this:
“Anita Dunn, a close friend of President Obama and his former White House communications director, worked with Kaplan University, one of the embattled school networks. Jamie Rubin, a major fund-raising bundler for the president’s re-election campaign, met with administration officials about ATI, a college network based in Dallas, in which Mr. Rubin’s private-equity firm has a stake.
A who’s who of Democratic lobbyists — including Richard A. Gephardt, the former House majority leader; John Breaux, the former Louisiana senator; and Tony Podesta, whose brother, John, ran Mr. Obama’s transition team — were hired to buttonhole officials.
And politically well-connected investors, including Donald E. Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post Company, which owns Kaplan, and John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix and a longtime friend of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, made impassioned appeals.”
This is why I cannot believe anyone is seriously suggesting we can contract out public schools and it will be on the up and up and “well-regulated”. No, it won’t. Lawmakers will be captured and it will be a free for all. The big losers will be poor people, just as the big losers are poor people in the for-profit college scams.
Ed reformers are freaking kidding themselves with this “well-regulated! non-profits!” fantasy. It’s a weirdly arrogant assumption that they are all honorable and well-intended, so immune to this stuff. They’re not immune.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I believe John Podesta is chair of Hillary’s campaign.
Scary.
Money talks, as Rep. Ozzie Myers once famously said.
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“We, the undersigned Attorneys General of Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington, write to urge the Department of Education to immediately relieve borrowers of the obligation to repay federal student loans that were incurred as a result of violations of state law by Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (“Corinthian”). We also write to request that the Department work with state
attorneys general to establish a clear system for student borrowers to seek relief when schools break the law. ”
Click to access letter-asg-arne-duncan-04-09-2015.pdf
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Great additions to the main post
“Ed reformers are freaking kidding themselves with this “well-regulated! non-profits!” fantasy. It’s a weirdly arrogant assumption that they are all honorable and well-intended, so immune to this stuff. They’re not immune.’
The “reformers” are engaging in soft double-speak. The distinction between for-profit and non-profit is no longer useful given all of the re-writes of IRS rules, the unlimited compensation packages that private non-profits are giving to executives, and so on.
Podesta knows how to swim and survive with the sharks. He is one.
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The type of behavior described here is unethical. Normal people would be in jail for these acts. We need to make a change. Either we need to get the money out of politics, or limit members of Congress to eight years of service unless they win a reelection by 60% of the vote. Power and money corrupts. We all know the members of Congress are very wealthy by the time they leave. These ill gotten gains are the result of their “unholy alliances” that feather their nests rather than serving the public. For profit colleges are the tip of the iceberg.
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Anita Dunn was the lady brought in by Michelle Rhee in 2010 to manage public relations for Ms Rhee after she admitted taping her students mouths shut, firing 260ish teachers due to a budget shortage, then bad mouthed the teachers to Jeff Chu at Fast Company magazine, and then hired 900 new teachers.
$100,000 was donated by Katherine Bradley to D.C. Public Education Fund, the non-profit set up by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to handle private contributions to school reform.
If you go to the website of DC Public Education Fund (http://dceducationfund.org/), you can read this:
“DC Public Education Fund’s mission is to dramatically improve student achievement in the District of Columbia by serving as a strategic partner to businesses, foundations, community leaders, and individual donors in supporting and investing in high impact programs with the District of Cloumbia Public Schools.”
Exactly how does spending $100,000 on PR to get the message out “dramatically improve student achievement in DC”.
Is Squier Knapp Dunn hiring DCPS high schoolers to do the work?
(http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcschools/2010/03/katherine_bradley_funding_dunn.html)
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And don’t forget that USDOE benefits from the interest payments of the liar loans given out by banks. See this: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/governments_keeping_the_student-debt_crisis_alive_and_well_20130907
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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