Chalkbeat reporter Matt Barnum reports the formation of a new group to push additional charters and the “portfolio model” in cities.
The City Fund is funded largely by the rightwing John and Laura Arnold Foundation; Arnold is the former Enron trader who bailed out before the collapse of Enron.
The group was announced Tuesday morning on the blog of Neerav Kingsland, who leads education giving at The Laura and John Arnold Foundation. According to a separate presentation created by the group and viewed by Chalkbeat, the Arnold Foundation and the Hastings Fund have already given the group over $200 million. It’s unclear if the organization has raised additional funds.
Although the group is likely to start in a small number of cities, that presentation also made its ambitions clear: it aspires to eventually be in “every city in America.”
Others involved include Chris Barbic of the Arnold Foundation; Kevin Huffman, the former Tennessee education chief; David Harris, who previously led the Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based group; and Ethan Gray, the president of the nonprofit Education Cities.
Kingsland previously ran New Schools for New Orleans, which kept the money flowing to the Recovery School District in New Orleans, where 40% of the charters are rated D or F and almost completely segregated (black).
Barbic was in charge of the failed Achievement School District in Tennessee, and Kevin Huffman (Michelle Rhee’s ex-husband) was the Commissioner of Education in Tennessee who hired Barbic. Harris is the pseudo-Democrat who is responsible for a swath of destruction in the Indianapolis School District.
What is the “portfolio” model? It is a concept that urges districts to treat their schools like a stock portfolio. Sell the losers, keep the winners.
Has it worked?
Bonafide Reformer Jay P. Greene of the University of Arkansas has written several posts arguing that the portfolio model is a failure and that it is no different from a school district (although it is privately controlled). Read here. and here. The latter post is advice written to the Arnold Foundation about why it should not invest in the portfolio model. Sad. They didn’t listen.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When the public hears/reads media quoting the Penn Wharton Budget Model, know its funding source is the Arnold Foundation, Steve Ballmer,….
Trump graduated from Wharton.
A Bernie endorsed candidate in Kansas told his audience, ” The wealthiest of the wealthy take a tiny sliver of those enormous profits that they steal from us and use it to pay off the politicians to keep it rigged in their favor.”
“…didn’t listen”.. Arnold, from Enron’s disgrace. And, his other claim to fame is as a hedge funder.
The Arnold’s did the exact same privatization scheme in Cleveland.
So why do we never hear about Cleveland? Why are they all marketing the Indianapolis privatization plan?
Because we have results on Cleveland and those results are disappointing? Is that why we get Indianapolis as the newest ed reform fad city?
Ode to ed privatizers -“Subterfuge is thy middle name.”
Enron Education — now there’s a contradiction in terms if I eve saw one.
The portfolio model is facilitated by a universal enrollment system which always requires diverting millions of dollars to technology. As Diane told me for a blog post I wrote just before even some of our allies voted to approve $24 million on one in LAUSD, “Common enrollment is a big Walton idea to put charters on the same footing as public schools.”
Different school districts call it by different names: Unified Enrollment, One App, Common Enrollment, Universal Enrollment…
http://www.psconnectnow.org/blog/2017/4/20/in-common-enrollment-one-stop-shopping-its-buyer-beware
It’s another ed reform bait and switch. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold dangle “start up money”, impose their policy preferences, then hand over the cost to the public.
You get the Arnold’s preferred school system, the Arnolds only had to make a tiny investment, and then the public gets to cover the cost of their ideas for the next 30 years.
Ed reformers apparently never were told to “look a gift horse in the mouth”. These are not “gifts”. It’s billionaires buying policy and getting it cheap.
when philanthropy moves into the world of ‘phianthrocapitalism’
I tiptoe around billionaire John Arnold, ex-Enron.
A few years back, when he first started funding charters and attacking teachers’ pensions, I made an offhand comment that he left Enron with billions while the ordinary workers lost their life savings when Enron collapsed. I got a letter from his PR person warning that if I didnt retract that statement, he would sue me.
How does it feel to be threatened by a billionaire with a lawsuit? Not good.
I apologized.
Hey, John, if you are reading this, I apologize. I’m sorry. Really truly sorry. Sorry I brought it up.
Three quarters of the way down his article, TFA-wonderboy Matt Barnum actually portrays Betsy DeVos as a champion of good school policy. You need to put Barnum (and Chalkbeat) in context when you cite him, Diane.
Social Impact Bonds-
Readers of the Ravitch blog may recall Goldman Sach’s attempt to take money from tax dollars intended to help pre-schoolers.(Utah)
A staff member at the Center for American Progress co-authored a general report about Social Impact Bonds which is posted at the CAP website. The report’s other two authors were, a representative from a group that Art Pope’s Gov. McCrory established and a group that appeared to be cheerleading for “Pay for Success” programs.
Welcome to Utah–land of bad ideas (especially, but not limited to, education).
This group sounds like they have united to try to play beat the clock by invading urban areas and try to smash and grab as many public schools that they can before the public catches on. Their portfolio model has repeatedly failed, but why stop when billionaires will hand out money for repeated failures.
In whatever city they target, the NAACP, social justice groups and concerned citizens should unite and pressure local representatives into taking an honest look at all the devastation and failure of such portfolio approaches. The need to resist and fight back against this colonialist approach to education. Poor students deserve so much more than being a line item in a rich person’s portfolio.
They’re expanding the Indianapolis model before they know the results.
This just isn’t “data based” and it isn’t “agnostic”. These people have a political and ideological agenda. If they didn’t they would spend so much money cheerleading and expanding what are experiments.
I don’t know why they just don’t say what they’re about. They want 100% charter systems.
It is UNFAIR to public school families who have children IN public schools to pretend otherwise. The students in public schools will not know why politicians are no longer investing in their schools. Ed reformers have a duty to tell people that the decision to eradicate public schools has been made, and the kids in public schools will no longer get support or investment while ed reformers transition to privatized systems.
Kids in existing public schools are the collateral damage in these grand plans. That’s not fair. Especially because they aren’t even told it’s happening.
The same Reformers expanded and replicated ASD without waiting for results. They are in a hurry. They can’t wait for clinical trials.
If you turn your public school system over to these people you are making a decision about which schools will be invested in and supported and which schools won’t.
Charters will be promoted, supported and invested in and existing public schools will NOT be.
So what does that mean for families IN existing public schools?
There are children IN the existing schools- the schools that are slated to be wound down and replaced with private contractors. Families should be told that their schools will be abandoned, at the very LEAST they deserve to be let in on the plan.
If you read these lobbyists dispatches, you will notice that they do not even mention existing public schools.
There’s a reason for that. Existing public schools in these systems get no support and no investment.
You’re putting people in charge of existing public schools who seek to CLOSE those schools and replace them. How do you think that works out for students in those schools?
Not well! We know this from other ed reform cities, where public schools are the last priority.
In Missouri, the progressive candidate, Cori Bush, should be given consideration. Her establishment Democratic opponent, William Lacy Clay, gives lavish praise to charters and he has cast votes for them..
oh, to IMAGINE a day when the label of Democrat will only be bestowed on a politician who notably supports a return to all-student-inclusive local neighborhood public education
ciedie-
The way it should be- public education is the nation’s unifier and most important common good.
Someone tell Enron boy to stay out of California. The money-grab power blackouts that killed people here were bad enough.
The City Fund is already the name of a non-profit set up to serve schools in Washington DC.
The City Fund initiative from the Arnold Foundation and Reed Hastings is actually a reboot for Education Cities. Staff from Education Cities are migrating to work on this “new” initiative. So far there are no signs that there is anything new at all—just an effort to push through charters and take advantage of the DeVos created “choice” funding. The Education Cities website seems to be confirm this morphing.
Date of post. July 31, 2018 https://educationcities.org
Today, we are announcing that Education Cities is undergoing an evolution that we think will better support local education leaders.
Several staff from Education Cities – including our Founder and CEO, Ethan Gray – are partnering with colleagues from the philanthropic, non-profit, district, charter, and state sectors to create a new non-profit organization called The City Fund.
The City Fund will provide resources and support to city-based leaders striving to improve public education. With expanded expertise and capacity, The City Fund will also continue Education Cities’ strategy of convening and supporting city-based education organizations in a community of practice.
Since some of Education Cities’ core activities will continue through The City Fund, Education Cities will shift its focus to support the development of two new initiatives under the leadership of current Education Cities staff.
Community Engagement Partners (CEP), led by Charles McDonald and Rebecca Weinberg Jones, “is building the capacity of education organizations and leaders to partner with their local communities to create and sustain great public schools. CEP expands on the work Charles began as Senior Fellow for Advocacy and Engagement at Education Cities.”
I looked into this Initiative. So far Community Engagement Partners only offers a website and a publication titled “From Tokenism to Partnership” by Charles McDonald, the Executive Director for CEP. What is noteworthy? McDonald’s bio portrays him as “ an educational justice organizer, strategist, and advocate”… “ with a special emphasis on lifting up the voices and influence of the parents and families most impacted by educational inequity.”
McDonald has a BA in political science, and no record of teaching. Even so, he was a senior manager for external affairs for Teach For America – South Carolina (fundraising, TFA recruiter (four years), managed a graduate fellowship program for Education Pioneers in greater Boston (two years), and served as a youth organizer the Alliance for Educational Justice and Californians.
McDonald is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory.
Readers of this blog should know that the Pahara Institute works hand in glove with the Rockefeller Foundation and Bellwether Education Partners to promote profit-seeking from public schools. This is to say that McDonald is among the young leaders who are using the social justice cover but who want the public schools to be treated as a financial investment, with profits to investors who participate in “pay for success contracts” also known as Social Impact Bonds. Here is a report on how that financial product is being marketed. http://pahara.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/BW_Steering_Capital.pdf
A second remainder of the original Education Cities project is
School Board Partners (SBP). SEP is led by Carrie McPherson Douglass, who is “convening and advising a network of elected school board members … to foster the conditions for quality public school growth in their districts.”
The SBP website is also thin, but the missions of SBP will be: promoting a “common theory of change,” advising school board members on “effective” leadership, and “knowledge management” to increase “bold change.”
The leader of SBP, Carrie McPherson Douglass, has been a Managing Partner at Education Cities (five years). She has a BA in education and MBA but no experience as a certified teacher in a public school. She was a volunteer teacher and leader in a several projects before earning her MBA and securing a Broad Residency in Urban Education. That leveraged a job in the “talent” department of Aspire charter schools (five years), then a job in Oakland working for an annual giving campaign for the Rogers Family Foundation, devoted to personalized learning and “a high-quality seats” plan.
Carrie is an elected member of the school board for Bend-La Pine Schools (OR) for a term ending in 2021. She serves as vice-chair of the board. The district is growing at the rate of one elementary school per year. With a population of less than 10% minority, the district was once known for logging. It is now a destination for winter sports, tourism, and retirees. Carrie is COO of Cascade Relays, a program in Bend for runners, with a foundation for good works. Carrie sits on board of EdFuel, an “education talent management company” with staff and leadership drawn from the Broad Foundation (Executive Director), prior service with the Walton Foundation, Panhara, TFA and charter schools (KIPP, Aspire, Rocketship).
In other words, if you did not know it before, the “new” CITY FUND is just a new way of thinking about Education Cities, perhaps more sharply focussed on a few cities (rather than 25) and with coordinated work to get school boards and local communities stirred up enough to “want” reforms of a certain kind–favoring budget cuts, more corporate management (Broad style), charters for “choice,” and perhaps some profit-seeking from pay-for success wrap-around programs. Targeting school boards is not that difficult. TFA has been cultivating candidates for many years. They are likely to be the camel’s nose under the tent.
The Arnold Foundation is a huge funder of charter schools and TFA, and is putting big money into pay-for-success financing for selected prison reforms.
Laura’s description clarifies politics in the beltway. The Center for American Progress which supports TFA, privatized public education and rejects taxes as an answer to starvation of education funding, has been falsely framed as liberal.
Every reference to CAP in media says it is “liberal” or “Center left.”
Education really has to be non profit, in my view.
No discussion about Arnold is complete without mentioning his funding for Baltimore police to do aerial surveillance of Baltimore neighborhoods (about which elected leaders had no knowledge). According to Town and Country magazine, Pew is a project partner with Arnold for community monitoring. No surprise there. Pew and Arnold were partners in the pension alarmism. It’s also not a surprise that Arnold funded the pension papers from the formerly liberal Urban Institute and now is partnering with them on the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
John Arnold funded a PBS program on “The Pension Crisis,” with the purpose being to awaken the public to the dangers of pensions. Pretty interesting concern from a billionaire, you know, about those greedy public employees who retire with a cool $40,000-$50,000 a year of income. Investigative journalist David Sirota exposed the funding and PBS returned the money.
When Carol Burris and I exposed the rightwing funding of a PBS three-hour special on the glories of school privatization and the horrors of public schools, we were too late. PBS aired the show but it did not run in every market. Maybe some stations reviewed the content, and recognized it as rightwing bile, bought and paid for.
Thanks for your work to expose hedge funders who are beneath contempt.
One report I read, described the average public pension as slightly under $20,000.
When a selfish, greedy Wall Streeter sees hungry people without shelter, he thinks, how can I rip them off and he comes up with social impact bonds. He then stacks the political deck to make it happen. The think tanks funded by the richest 0.1% enable him.