This is one of the best articles you will ever read on the subject of for-profit schooling in poor countries. It is beautifully illustrated and contains interviews with key players in the for-profit education industry. The author is Graham Brown-Martin. The subject is public-private partnerships in Africa. The discussion centers on the efficacy and ethics of the movement to turn the responsibility for schooling over to for-profit Bridge International Academies in countries that have lagged far behind in providing universal public education. What you will learn is that the “market” is huge. The cost of the scripted schooling is $6 a month, which leaves out many children whose families cannot afford $6 a month.
Start with the cartoon at the opening of the link, which explains “the magic of the market.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, I think you’ll be interested in a new book just released by Teachers College Press. It’s entitled The Privatization of Education: A Political Economy of Global Education Reform, authored by Antoni Verger, Clara Fontdevila and Adrian Zancajo, Spanish researchers. Verger et al. examine how privatization operates in locations worldwide, who are its major purveyors, and the forms of opposition to privatization schemes. I’ll send you a copy.
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Thank you, Bryan. I heard Prof. Verger speak at NYU.
TC Press should send me a copy of his book.
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Teachers College Press is at Columbia, same place that has CPRE, which was founded by the President of Teachers College, the subject of an article, “Students Urge President to Cut Ties with Pearson” and, which, is funded by Pearson, Gates, Goldman Sachs,…
Faculty at Teachers College are comfortable co-writing papers with organizations funded by the Waltons, while the papers themselves are funded by John Arnold and the Waltons. The same faculty serve on the Broad prize review board for charter schools. TC’s PR department thinks its acceptable to list one paper funder and omit , the second. A TC faculty paper about successful charter schools that identifies “political support” first, and “quality” last, raised my eyebrow but, apparently, none at TC.
Does the book have plutocratic underwriters? If so, who? Was Teachers College Press selected as the publisher for a particular reason?
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So to over-simplify: The diamonds have been mined, the gold has been mined, and now the children.
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I was struck by the financial dark side discussed, “Essentially the public purse is subsidising the commercial risk.” So, governments tax their people to pay venture capitalists (not philanthropists) who profit not by maintaining a sustainable model or high quality product, but “through their business interests, which may include natural resource exploitation or technology businesses with sophisticated taxation arrangements.”
Governments should be using the people’s taxes to train and sustain as many qualified and certificated teachers as possible, not to buy scripted programs and tablet devices. There is simply no way to measure how much impact is lost putting a low functioning robot in front of a classroom instead of a caring, insightful, inspiring professional.
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Exactly, dear Leftie…..it is the shame of the Western World that some venture capitalists have morphed into Vulture Philanthropists….and to watch the purveyor of Common Core (Crap), Pearson, now in the lead, with Gates and Zuckerberg racing behind, to impose this greed-centered onslaught in Africa, is disgusting.
Some years ago Gates was able to produce simple computers at very low cost which he put into African-run schools. They helped to open the world for these Third World children. But what seemed to be a good idea then has morphed into a huge business venture now. These Masters of the World, many from our most prestigious universities, have found a way to endless profit by using the non-profit tax laws of the US and Britain to their own advantage.
Why is our own government not policing this sham? Why is it so easy in the US to form non-profit corporations?
Diane…thanks for this most informative article.
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BTW…Gates worked with the Ford Foundation some decades back to get his simple, inexpensive computers into real African-run schools, as I recall.
An added twist to doing the right thing, real ‘not for profit’, is Gil Garcetti’s Africa wells project whereby outlying villages can use donations to dig wells for water…causing women to be able to start schools which include girls, instead of their having to walk hours a day to fill buckets with potable drinking water. There are still some true philanthropists but they seem not to be the uber wealthy.
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You mean the Uber Economy wealthy. No unions, no pensions, no benefits, no stability for workers. Low salaries, high profits.
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Yes…agree with you, Leftie.
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If you read between the lines of the post, you can find similarities between Bridge Academies and what Gates has been trying to force the US to adopt. The goal is a one size fits all, heavy on technology, cheap “better than nothing” schooling for other people’s children. The goal is to extract profit from the poor, and call it “philanthropy.” The teachers are not really teachers; they are robot facilitators that work from scripted lessons based on a national curriculum that they tweak for various countries. After all, the wife did study anthropology. Again they create in a vacuum in Boston, void of input from true educators. Instead, they rely on business people to lobby, spin, and do PR to sell their product. It all sounds too familiar! Americans should read this, and wake up. If Americans give up democratic public schools for this type of bull excrement, our future is doomed.
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It is not just Gates. The Bridge model and the thinking about scaling up are already deeply embedded in market-based education within the US–fully scripted instruction centered on math and reading, delivered on digital tablets and data dashboards that also summarize and profile student and teacher performance, minimal or no teacher education, spurious claims and comparisons about gains in “days of learning” and so forth. You can also bet that the marketing goes deep into the political environments where pay-to-play is normal. The marketing pitches are framed exactly as they have been in the US—teacher prep does not matter, neither do degrees, formal study, etc. Next up, a race to the bottom from competitors seeking market share from Bridge. In any case this is a remarkable instance of investigative journalism.
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Bil Gatesl, somewhat disenchanted with the less than rousing success of his efforts to reform education, has turned to providing chickens for the poor in Africa. Can common coop standards be far away?
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Americans are kidding themselves if they think this will be limited to “Africa”
This is education on the cheap for poor people and they’ll apply it everywhere.
“Bridge International” has no country they’re a corporation. Low income in Africa are the same as low income anywhere else to them.
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In effect, Gates has already said it, via his $22 mil., to New Schools Venture Fund, whose school product, goal is, “a diverse supply of different brands on a large scale”.
Oligarchs do what they do, to exploit. The people betraying America include them but, fault is primarily with the 4th estate, education scholars at places like Columbia Teachers College, University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania and harvard and, politicians.
Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, who has staff that prepare his education positions, could have raised the issue but, nada.
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This is an excellent article. In an interview, BIA’s co-founder, Kimmelman, identified a “20% return that would attract investors.”
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Africa is one hell of a huge place, something on the order of 3.5 times the square mileage of the continental US. Just saying.
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Not to mention the 54 countries as varied as anywhere. Just saying.
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Is there any country in Africa with strong public schools?
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I don’t know if there are any strong public schools. I guess it depends on what you mean by “strong.” The issue is whether responsibility for establishing a school system belongs to the government or to the for-profit sector. Most poor families cannot afford $1 a week; if they have more than one child, the cost is out of reach.
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BIA is scary indeed:
I just found this news story from awhile back:
“Education Imperialism in Africa Turns Nasty – Uganda Police Harass Researcher Investigating Schools with Ties to Gates, Zuckerberg, and Pearson…
[…]
Bridge International Academies had Curtis Riep, a Canadian researcher affiliated with the organization, arrested by Ugandan police on false charges when they realized he was investigating its Ugandan operations…”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/education-imperialism-in_b_10435744.html
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What is scarier is that our politicians like Sen. Sherrod Brown, who have staffs to prepare their education positions, were, by admission, unaware of Gates’ goals (1) with BIA and (2) with charter schools, “to develop charter management organizations that produce a diverse supply of different brands.” (Kim Smith interview in Philanthropy Roundtable)
Gates’ funding of Aspen’s (David Koch is on the Board) program, “Senior Congressional Education Staff Network”, may have something to do with the politicians’ ignorance.
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According to Riep, the allegations were fabricated, which he said he was able to prove to police because he signed into visitors’ books at each school with his full name. Riep said he also included the name of the organization that commissioned his research, a worldwide federation of teachers’ associations and unions called Education International.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/canadian-student-alleges-intimidation-after-arrest-in-uganda-1.3630467
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Richard,
I posted about Riep about a week ago.
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Thanks, sorry I missed it.
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And – as you had previously posted about, Diane – the monthly cost is actually not $6 a month, but more $15 – 20… http://bit.ly/statementWBprivatisation
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