This week was for some years Teacher Appreciation Week. Now, thanks to President Obama, it is also Charter Appreciation Week. I earlier reported that the latter replaced the former. I was wrong.
Peter Greene analyzes the two proclamations and notices a different tone in each.
“There’s something to be learned about this administration’s feelings about both charters and teachers from looking at these two proclamations, so let’s do that. Spoiler alert: there will be no pleasant surprises forthcoming.
“Here’s the first line from one of the proclamations. See if you can guess which one:
“Our Nation has always been guided by the belief that all young people should be free to dream as big and boldly as they want, and that with hard work and determination, they can turn their dreams into realities.
“That would be the opening sentence from the proclamation in praise of charter schools.
“The proclamation is laudatory, leaving one with the impression that charter schools are the whole education show. Schools are awesome, and “we celebrate the role of high-quality charter schools” in achieving this awesomeness. Also, “we honor the dedicated professionals across America who make this calling their life’s work by serving in charter schools.”
“Charter schools “play an important role in our country’s education system” and work in our underserved communities where they can “ignite imagination and nourish the minds of America’s young people” while finding new ways to do the education thing. Obama reinforces the notion that charters experiment and find new ways to help underperforming schools (though we must close them when they don’t do well). This language continues. “Forefront of innovation.”
“Also, “different ways of engaging students” including personalized instruction, technology and rigorous/college-level coursework. This administration has supported charters big-time because Obama has remained committed to “ensuring all of our Nation’s students have the tools and skills they need to get ahead.” All of which leads me to wonder A) what he thinks public schools are doing and B) if he knows that charters don’t serve all students and actually sap the resources for many other students still in public schools.”
Where did he get the idea that charter teachers dedicate their lives to this work? TFA?
What do you think he said about public school teachers?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Obama’s proclamations demonstrate his lack of understanding of the state of education in our country. Once again, he shows complete partiality to charters. He praises them for “innovation.” Where are all the amazing innovations from charters? Could it be the teaching tourists also known as TFA? Maybe we have learned a lot from cyber charters? Their biggest accomplishment is fraud and failure. Could it be “no excuses?” Actually “no excuses” has been around as long as the dunce cap. Obama show his blind allegiance to Bill Gates with his salute to “personalized learning.” He assumes this is a worthy venture, but it has yet to prove any merit. Through scholarships and grants,the president has been educated in an ivy covered bubble his entire life. His daughters attend an elite private school. If he bothered to notice, Michelle attended an excellent public school in Chicago which enabled her to go to Princeton. Of course, that was before all of Obama’s neoliberal pals drained the budgets of the public schools in the city. How can someone so smart be so ignorant?
“Where are all the amazing innovations from charters?”
Mouth bubbles
An honest to god Google image search using the keywords:
“charter school mouth bubbles”
That is serious innovation!
Exportable, scalable, and affordable.
It’s not lack of understanding. Obama is very intelligent and very aware of everything that goes on – he prides himself on both.
New Schools Venture Fund founder, whose organization got $22 million from Gates. said at the beginning of the assault on public schools (2003) , “Our goal is to develop charter management organizations that produce a diverse supply of different brands on a large scale.” That explains why failures are unimportant. They are unrelated to the goal. (Philanthropy Roundtable interview with Kim Smith)
This is sickening. We spent eight years wondering whether W. was stupid or evil — and another eight years of the same with Obama. Stupid? Evil? Puppet? I do not know. I do know, however, the likely legacy of an “education president”. He winds up in the bathtub painting portraits of his feet.
Guess what “leftcoastteacher”, we might be spending the next four years wondering/ learning just how misguided Hillary’s education policy is. Stupid? Evil? Puppet? I just don’t know.
“Obama is very intelligent and very aware of everything that goes on – he prides himself on both.”
His intelligence and awareness is very shallow.
Obama and his appointees have propagandized a doctrine of “separate and not unequal,” praising the charter schools and “lifting up” the unprofessionalism of TFA, pouring millions into these schools and charter franchise operations as if taxpayers wanted to pay for the duplications in management, and all of the extras put into charter contracts and requests for funding.
These duplicates and extras include overhead costs, travel, executive salaries, remedial training of amateurs in teaching (TFA), administrative staff to monitor grants and real estate deals, real estate scouts to identify districts and neighborhoods for expansion with easy co-location or facility deals, dedicated marketing staff and PR materials targeting students and families in high poverty and high minority schools and so on.
USDE just shoved money out of the door to charters, as if throwing more money at segregated charter schools was a civil rights imperative.
The USDE should be condemned for being so irresponsible. Taxpayers should contact their local representatives and remind them to be better stewards of tax dollars. They need to understand that the public is watching the amount of waste and fraud in charters, and they want to see adequate funding going to public education. If we don’t put them on notice that we are watching, they will continue to write blank checks to corporations.
As for charters and civil rights, maybe the USDE needs to understand charters are increasing segregation. Public money should not be used to enhance segregation.
The analysis above attempts show contempt of the Obama administration and the charter schools.
Let us do another analysis: From 1995 to year 2015 the Department of Education has supported the charter school industry to the tune of about 3 billion dollars. They sent the money to the states since they are not allowed to directly support the charter schools. During the same 21 years the public has spent over 13 trillion dollars on K-12 education. Orders of magnitude more money was spent by Federal government (Department of Education) in the form of Title 1 funds to support poor school districts.
In the year 2015 Federal government spent over 15 Billion in Title 1 funds as compared to the 3 billion spent during 21 years in support of charter schools.
The charter schools got about ~0.03% of the money spent on public schools by tax payers.
This charter school bashing in this blog has reached extraordinary proportions, is unfair and morally wrong.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/charter-love-feds-give-157-million-to-expand-charter-schools/2015/09/28/006ad118-6613-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
Raj,
You post only negative comments. You seem very unhappy with what you read here. Why do you continue reading? Are you a masochist?
I believe in free speech. Continue posting your unhappiness.
If you want to read positive comments about charter schools, go read EdPost or The 74. You will like those blogs.
Diane,
A vast majority of your posts are negative and you are judging me. In addition a majority of comments on this blog are negative. You are obsessed with negativity. This is a collective of disgruntled people who have nothing better to do.
As for my opinion, Obama is a good president and his choice of people are good. I support a majority of Obamas policies and I have the right to do so.
Yes, Raj, you have the right to support whatever you wish. My question is why you continue to read the posts and comments here and make negative remarks about those who write them and read them. Your negativity is very strong.
Raj,
You are wrong in your comments about this blog. I write negative posts about events and policies that are negative. When billionaire reformers try to take away the jobs of teachers, that is negative. When schools serving poor children are closed because of their test scores, that is negative. When children, parents, and teachers win a victory, the posts are positive. When the number of opt outs in New York exceeded 200,000 that was a very positive signs. When the people of Buffalo swept out the “reform” board, that was great news. When an experienced educator won the chancellorship of the NY Board of Regents, that was great news. I could go back and count many times that we have celebrated victories. But I agree that this has been a very bad time for students, parents, teachers, and public schools.
First: dianeravitch, what you said.
Second: total amounts are often very misleading. For example, charters often complain that they don’t get the same per pupil spending as other “public” schools in the districts where they ply their business, yet typically those totals include monies for the most expensive students (almost all in the “traditional government monopoly schools” in rheephormish), maintenance and other costs & obligations, etc.
It gets as silly, and the data is so clumsily handled, that a district that pays the bus (transportation) costs for its own students and those of the charters is then charged with being unfair in doling out the per pupil monies—yet the charters want the money but not the expenses and obligations!
So without a lot more context and specificity, simply bringing up huge amounts of money spent over many years is essentially meaningless.
In conclusion, I remind one and all of a painful example. The $4.35 billion in RaceToTheTop aka RTTT funds doesn’t look like much when compared to total national spending on education during the time DashForTheCash (as someone dubbed it) was in place. Yet at a time of belt tightening and painful austerity cuts and layoffs, that money seemed to promise a welcome bit of respite for desperate states and school districts. So the competition for those monies was fierce even if, compared to TOTAL SPENDING, it was a relatively small amount. Yet that small help came with some costly fine print: it often required the recipients to promise to honor financial obligations [think above all faux standardized testing accountability] that, in the end, totaled more than the help they initially received.
The tone of any discussion regarding charters and privatization and vouchers and such would be greatly improved if their advocates would simply stop setting the bar so low when it comes to the “data analytics” regarding their management and pedagogical practices.
Based on experience, though, I am not holding my breath.
😎
Don’t have contempt for charter schools – was a director of one for several years. But I do have a very low tolerance for duplicity and profit mongering off the backs of children, wherever it occurs.
Evaluations and assessments, in both the public and charter sectors, should involve a body of evidence that looks at the whole child, charting progress across multiple domains of understanding, not just knowing. Instead, policy makers focus on what is easy to measure (however inaccurate or invalid) rather than what is important to learn.
Teachers pretty much have been left out of any sort of meaningful assessment decisions, Just do what we tell you, while we bank the big bucks. That’s a hefty negative for any profession, but especially one that cares deeply about children’s well being. Moreover, education and assessment continue to be something society does TO children rather than WITH them.
Folks who are on the outside looking in, pontificating away, are entitled to opine. Have for millennia. But regardless of the field or topic, an insider’s view typically is the more accurate. Veterans of the Vietnam War, as but one example, would agree.
Raj
Suspending five year olds, “got-to-go” policies, refusing to serve all students, draining public funds from public schools (while ling their own pockets), cheating on standardized tests, counseling students out, refusing to back-fill openings, no-excuses abuses, bullshit comparisons to public schools, and giving up (closing charters: 2,500 to date) on kids – are all “unfair and morally wrong”
RageAgainstTheTetsocracy
You are assuming none of the bad stuff happens at public schools. Are you sure?
Some one posted a teacher or aide throwing a student at a wall. Mark Brent cost the LAUSD 139 million dollars. A north Carolina school teacher was arrested in Virginia trying to have sex with her former 13 year old student. There are many more. Before you take charter schools to task make sure that the public schools are super clean and do not have any problems. Are you certain that there is no fraud in public schools? Check it out first. Every one is human and there are problems every where not just in charter schools.
Raj, the money issue has nothing to do with whether an employee of a charter or public school commits a violent crime. Those people are prosecuted.
The money issue is when you seem to be actively calling for public schools to do the same as charters and reward the principals who kick out all the expensive kids! Why shouldn’t they be rewarded? They are making money for their school, as long as they can recruit enough well-behaved children to take their place.
Of course, since you are so concerned with finances, you obviously want those kids to be on the streets since you don’t believe anyone should pay the cost of educating the expensive kids if the school decides those kids aren’t worthy.
Or more likely, you want to make sure public schools have all those costs because it certainly leaves lots of profits for the charter school CEOs who you believe are just in it for the kids (especially the kids who they don’t have to suspend over and over again to get them out of their school!)
I enjoy watching Diane and everyone here make mincemeat of Raj’s misguided beliefs. Cheers to all.
One more thing. I just had a great idea. Raj, next time you have a bright idea, try making mouth bubbles.
It just occurred to me: when I criticize glaring rheephorm failures and misleading claims, that gets tallied in the rheephorm got-to-go ledger. How uncivil of me!
😱
But when I severely criticize public schools—as I have quite openly and directly on this blog—that doesn’t get counted in the self-same accounts register. The data gets disappeared.
😏
So when all is selectively added up or subtracted according to CCSS-inspired rheephorm math—I am unfairly critical of cage busting achievement gap crushing 21st century innovative disruption and unfailingly protective of every dirty secret and misdeed of pubic schools.
Rheeally! It make ₵ent¢ in the most Johnsonally sort of ways if you are all in for $tudent $ucce$$.
But not really if you are for the honest and ethical use of data in order to ensure a “better education for all.”
I have failed to honor the rheephorm Marxist maxim:
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
I plead guilty to disappointing Groucho and his fellow travelers.
😎
“Don’t ever argue with an idiot. They’ll drag you down to their level and then beat you with their experience.” Katarina Bivald
William Cozart, NYC English Tutor
Like all Presidents in their final months in office, Obama is concerned about his legacy.
Let me tell you what historians in the future will say: Obama’s most enduring achievement was the destruction of the American public school system.
Not Obamacare, not the taking out of bin Laden — beyond all his other accomplishments, Obama made possible, irretrievably, the privatization of American public education. This was the purpose of Common Core. This was the infamous mission of Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan — and of his replacement, John King.
But a troubling question remains: What if the public school was, and is, essential to American Democracy? Today, the public school is disappearing. Charter schools rule!
What, then, happens to the Democracy we all cherish?
Mr. Cozart, I just read your comment on Mr. Greene’s blog and I was about to repost it here because it is exactly what I believe.
President Obama’s legacy will be the destruction of public schools. Certainly the Republicans have tried to destroy public education for many, many decades but they never succeeded. The Democrats made sure of that.
But President Obama single handedly managed to do what Republicans have been chomping at the bit to do since the days of Milton Friedman. I certainly hope history gives him full credit for destroying public education because the Republicans could never have gotten it done without President Obama to lead the way. I’m sure somewhere Milton Friedman is celebrating President Obama’s true legacy.
I certainly hope he is proud of his lasting legacy.
Since district public schools continue to enroll more than 90% of students attending public schools (and the overwhelming majority of K-12 students) it’s had to see how Obama has destroyed public education.
He did pump huge sums into public education at the height of the recession. He has pushed hard for more early childhood programs. He has succeeded in helping millions of people gain access to health care. He has demonstrated to millions of people that a person of color can be elected president.
He’s not perfect. But I think historians will note that he accomplished a great deal – including showing grace when confronted with continuing, disgraceful racism.
District public schools have experienced huge budget cuts. They now educate a fast growing number of low-income at-risk kids with the most expensive special needs as the Obama administration has directed enormous federal funds to underwrite charters so that they can market to the kids without those special needs and push out the ones who are so the expense is burdened by those public schools who had their budgets cut.
The federal dollars that ARE directed to public schools are doled out to “race to the top” consultants and testing companies and testing “products” and testing “materials” while public schools are crumbling and classroom teachers purchase their own supplies (except for the expensive test prep materials which those federal dollars happily overpay for). Millions in federal dollars are directed to the charter schools whose unprincipled abandonment of exactly the hard-to-teach at-risk students who have not been served in public schools has been not just enabled, but encouraged by the Obama administration. (If you reward a charter school that suspends outrageous numbers of at-risk 5 year olds with untold millions in federal grants, you can guarantee their expansion and encourage other charters to copy those “best practices”)
If you want to admire someone, Mr. Nathan, you might admire Mayor de Blasio, who single handedly pushed for universal pre-k in NYC (those “early childhood programs” you mention). No Mayor had ever committed to that in the history of the city. And not a penny came from those federal grants you seem to think were actually used to do anything but promote a testing requirement that benefited the corporate testing industry the most.
Joe Nathan,
Who funds your Center?
Currently the St. Paul, Bremer, Securian Foundations, and Generation Next.
As has been noted, we work with district and charter public schools that ask to work with us.
We’re also working closely with leaders of the Minneapolis and St. Paul Federation of Teachers to help convince the legislature that they should provide startup funds to help district educators create new district public schools. That’s not funded by anyone.
We do have a list of all the organizations that have funded CSC over the last 28 years.
No one funds me to comment on various websites such as this one.
A group of Mn newspapers also pays me a modest amount to write a weekly newspaper column.
Please tell us more about your work.
The Gen Next Foundation home page has a photo, identified, “The Seventy Four”. (Walton-funded group with Campbell Brown as spokesperson.) Joe- Is that the richest 0.1% ers’ vulture philanthropy that’s giving you $$$?
Generation Next (in Minneapolis) St. Paul lists the funders for their efforts to make progress in six major areas, with district & chartered public schools.
The list of funders is available on page 20.
Click to access Gen-Next-Annual-Report-2015.pdf
It’s a coalition that includes the Minneapolis and St Paul Public Schools, University of Minnesota, United Way and a variety of foundations.
It’s the kind of coalition that I think makes sense.
Hope everyone reading this has a wonderful Mother’s Day, and finds ways to help more students succeed.
Ethics would prevent me from working for the Waltons, whose business practices have hollowed out communities, impoverished their employees and cost their suppliers’ workers, their jobs. Walmart’s low cost compulsion (now applied to schools) leads to factories exploiting labor and, to the avoidance of health and safety precautions.The six heirs to the Walton fortune have wealth equivalent to the combined wealth of 40% of Americans. Our taxes already pay the social costs of Walmart’s employees, do they really need more people working for The 74, to take money from America’s children?
Joe- Is the Minneapolis outfit connected to the bigger Gen Next?
One funder for the Minneapolis group is the much known, Lumina. The publicized, economists’ letter, written against Sanders, was signed by Lumina board member, Alan Goolsbee. He didn’t note the affiliation with Lumina, only his university affiliation. He was similar to another signer, Tyson, who failed to mention the 4 corporate boards she’s on and, the two corporate senior advisor roles that she plays. In the ultimate irony, she chairs the ATT Corporate Reputation Committee. It’s a shame her university didn’t have the same committee, maybe if they had, the PUBLIC university’s reputation wouldn’t have suffered by her political action.
Two entirely different groups.
Joe,
Minnesota’s Gen Next receives NO money, nor other support, from the Gen Next foundation connected to The Seventy Four”?
List of Generation Next, Minnesota funders 2014-15 is found on page 20 of the their annual report.
As earlier pages in the report make clear, this is a collaboration involving district, charter, teacher union, city, United Way, College and University and community groups.
Click to access Gen-Next-Annual-Report-2015.pdf
I think Barak Obama has been a seriously flawed president, an elitist neo-liberal who has lost all connection to real life as it is lived by the poor in this country. He drank the Kool Aid long ago as we all knew when he appointed Arne Duncan.
Well, it’s central to market-based ideology, right? The two systems compete and there are winners and losers.
The President is just expressing his preference in the market they created.
Funny, when it came to Obamacare, President Obama recognized how foolish it would be to allow private insurance to offer plans that intentionally enrolled the healthiest Americans while purposely excluding the sickest. President Obama recognized how foolish it would be to allow private insurance to drop patients as soon as they got sick and became too expensive. President Obama recognized how foolish it would be to socialize the high costs of providing health care to the most seriously ill Americans while privatizing the profits from offering health insurance to only the healthiest Americans. That’s why Obamacare didn’t allow private health insurance companies to pick and choose patients and drop them as soon as they got too sick. (Or pretend not to drop them while intentionally targeted them by making sure they felt the most misery possible until they realized the health insurance company would treat them in the way the “market”
When it came to public education, he seemed to forget every principle he knew was right. Ignorance or rewarding his friends? The jury is still out.
Chiara,
You stated above, “The President is just expressing his preference in the market they created.”
Unfortunately for you the market, i.e., charter schools were created long before Obama became our President. Remember one has the right to his/her opinion but does not have the right to his/her own fact.
You may not be right about winners and losers either since there are 4 systems and they are public schools(~81%), private schools(~10%), home schooling(~3%) and charter schools(~6%). Looks like they are all having their day in the sun, shall we say there all winners in their own way or the way this blog worships negativity they are all losers.
Raj says: “You may not be right about winners and losers either since there are 4 systems and they are public schools(~81%), private schools(~10%), home schooling(~3%) and charter schools(~6%).
Raj, did you mean to say that charter schools should be exempt from educating the losers? That seems to be what you keep insisting is perfectly reasonable for them to do. After all, private schools can exclude any losers they want, so why shouldn’t charter schools get to do that? Losers cut into their profits and we all know how much you believe the market should rule. If the market encourages charter schools to drop the losers, that’s what you think is necessary for them to do.
After all, what charters school in their right mind would keep one of those “losers” you feel so strongly that charter schools should have no obligation to teach? Especially when all those market forces you admire would shut those charters down in a minute.
Charter school failures are irrelevant to the goal, just as, all data is.
The goal stated clearly by Gates-funded New schools Venture Fund, “Our goal is to develop charter management organizations that produce a diverse supply of different brands on a large scale.” Like war generals or kings, people who have massive egos,
want what they want. Kids, parents, and communities are cannon fodder. And, if those groups stand in the way, they are targets. As a Gates’ organization employee said,
“…reformers declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools’ ” (Both quotes from Philanthropy Roundtable)
I agree. Business will always pursue market expansion. It is in their DNA.
Diane wrote, “This week was for some years Teacher Appreciation Week. Now, thanks to President Obama, it is also Charter Appreciation Week.”
Actually, the first week of May has been “National Charter Week” for 10 years. So it predates Obama. I’m glad we had both Teacher Appreciation Week and National Charter Week.”
Yes, many people working in charters (and many people working in district schools) would like to see many more students succeeding. And lots of folks are working hard to help make that happen.
How about National Public School Week? But then, I suppose you think it is pointless to celebrate the schools that educate the unworthy kids who would never be allowed in certain charters who garner the most praise.
I think President Obama should be sure to celebrate “National privately run hospital that accepts only the medicaid patients who can be cured with a dose of antibiotics”. Their great results are sure to impress you. And of course, why would he ever want to celebrate “National public hospital that cares for all medicaid patients despite the tiny reimbursement given for treating patients who need constant care and very expensive medications that may not even work?”
Those public schools and public hospitals educate and care for the children and patients who bring them no “value added” or accolades for their stellar “test results” and “cure rates”. I suppose in the world dominated by bankers and finance men that Obama admires so much, those public schools and public hospitals would certainly not be doing anything worthy of celebrating. They are obviously wasting money on the children and people who just aren’t worth it.
“….many people working in charters (and many people working in district schools) would like to see many more students succeeding….”
Do you mean “many more students succeeding in charter schools”? Is that why charters are so anxious to expand in suburban areas where there is an entire untapped market of the kind of children they think are worthy of their education?
Actually I have been working in and district public schools since 1970. I’ve been writing about terrific educators in weekly newspaper columns since 1989.
Charters like district public schools vary throughout the country. There are some terrific district and charter suburban schools in Minnesota and some other states. Some serve students with whom traditional schools have not succeeded. Here’s a newspaper column about some of them, and the students they serve.
http://hometownsource.com/2016/04/27/joe-nathan-column-courageous-award-winning-student-speeches/
Joe Nathan,
Who funds your Center? It’s best practice to post funders at the organization’s website.
Joe Nathan,
Perhaps I have missed your criticism of the charter schools that have notoriously high suspension rates of at-risk Kindergarten children. Perhaps I have missed your call for charter schools to open their records to the public so we can see what the true number of charter school drop outs really is, and whether those high drop out numbers pass the smell test.
It’s pretty easy to criticize on-line charter schools AFTER everyone has finally realized that hundreds of millions in education dollars have gone to make their operators extremely wealthy while public school systems paid the cost of educating the students they failed to teach.
Where is your criticism of the high suspension high attrition charter schools that are underwritten by billionaires? I haven’t seen it, so if I have missed it feel free to correct me. I would find it admirable if you were criticizing by name the charter schools that value high test scores over their LEGAL obligation to teach every single child who wins their lottery and not just the ones they “choose” to keep. And demanding they open their records to the public so there is no way for them to hide how many students who win their lottery leave the school over the next many years.
Of course, if their funders are the same as yours, I understand your reluctance. I’m sure the sacrifice of a few unworthy 6 year olds is a small price to pay for the rewards of having big donors’ approval.
It reminds me of an article about Joe Paterno I read today. So many people willing to rationalize looking the other way and insisting there is no “real evidence” of wrong doing so it’s okay not to mention it. What’s the lives of a few poor kids who “may or may not” have been abused (no “proof”, say Penn State officials) compared to the reputation of a multi million dollar football program or the reputation of a multi million dollar charter school chain? Sometimes the few need to be sacrificed for the greater good, right? And if keeping quiet when you should be demanding an investigation is good for the program, you can always rationalize it by saying there isn’t yet enough evidence — just strong indicators that something is wrong — so why would you ever want more investigation to prove whether or not those indicators are true when the truth might be bad for college football or charter schools. Especially if those football programs or charter schools were supposed to be the ones “doing it right” and it turns out they were just as corrupted by money and power as the “bad” ones.
Or better yet, pretend that Penn State and the NCAA can investigate themselves! It’s okay to keep all that information confidential and hidden because we are sure the NCAA (or charter authorizers) will always have the best interests of children and the not the best interests of the people who keep them in business as their main priority. Right, Joe?
I’ve been quite critical of some charters in columns Education Week published. I’ve also recommended (successfully) that some charters be closed. So have lots of others working with charters.
How about sharing your name and involvement with public education?
Is Joe’s center funded by the Gen Next (Vulture) Foundation? Gen Next lists, “The Seventy-Four”- a Walton -funded group with Campbell Brown, as spokesperson, on its home page.
Julian Assange highlights Gen Next (about the 30th paragraph) in a chapter of his book titled, “Google is Not What It Seems” (available on the internet). Assange identifies and links the following with Gen Next, Jared Cohen (his Wikipedia bio. makes for fascinating reading), “Against Violent Extremism”, “Save the Summit”, “Advancing Human Rights” and “Movements.org”.
The manipulation of democracy, cloaking information, that citizens would benefit from knowing, and both-party collusion, in Machiavellian plots, if Assange is correct, should scare all citizens.
America’s children, rather cover or pawns, in a charter school movement, if attached to Gen Next, is, IMO, beyond frightening.