Laura Chapman, retired arts educator and diligent researcher, has created a partial portrait of the privatization movement.
My guess is that the privatization movement consists of a small but significant number of billionaires and several hundred of their lackeys, shills, and front groups. As you will see, it is almost impossible to tell the Republicans from the Democrats.
Laura writes:
I have been building some spreadsheets on who is funding what. There are so many interconnected initiatives that Jeb Bush and friends are part of.
For example. Bush’s projects are connected with another big reform outfit: Partners for Innovation in Education (PIE) an outfit with at least 180 affiliates (in my spreadsheet) all connected to many others and all seeking national, state, and large metro area policies that favor charter school expansion (marketed as innovative), along with Teach for America (mostly on the job training), and active interference with teacher union contracts.
The PIE website still includes a guide for “Rabble Rousers” who were given quidance on how to work on legislated policy changes to favor charters, TFA and privatizers and how to enlist active support from civic and business organizations. It is a guide for lobbying and controlling narratives about education in the press.
The 47-page PIE Rabble Rousers handbook (2010 funded by the Joyce Foundation) includes this statement about the process of changing state policy:
“Most of the groups we spoke with (about shaping state polcies) declined to involve educators on their governing boards; if they did so, those groups do not make up a majority of the governing board. The rationale was clear enough: if the goal is to be a voice for the public’s interest, educator involvement confuses that message. As one group leader explained: “Educators already have the overwhelming voice in our state capital through their various associations. If we brought the interest lobby to our meetings, our discussion would get rutted in the same issues that already complicate the public debate. Our goal is to have a conversation that looks at the issues differently, considering only the students without the adult agendas.” An even blunter explanation was: “We tell our teacher associations that when they invite our leaders to vote on their boards, we will include union representation on ours (p. 32).” http://pie-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/rabble-rousers.pdf
Since that 2010 publication, PIE has shifted its strategy to include carefully selected educators. Most are working in charter schools or they have been willing to be indoctrinated into PIE’s agenda. Indocrination is the correct word.
In Oakland, CA, for example, the bait for PIE’s program has been a two-year “fellowship” with $1000 for the first year, and $2000 for the second year for attendance at two-hour meetings twice monthly plus readings and research. (I could not determine if the “year” was a calendar year nine month school year). In a series of tasks, the Oakland Fellows were given preferred data about their union to think about, along with model language for changes.
There are similar programs in multiple metro areas and states, with teachers working as if hired hands of PIE, token payments or emblems of prestige by virtue of becoming “fellows” or “ambassadors.”
Here is a list of organizations and financial supporters of “teacher voice” in the PIE Network–all recruiting teachers to advocate for policies favoring TFA, charters, and dismantlying unions and more under the banner of “innovation.”
Advance Illinois “Every Student World Ready”; Chalk Board Project; Ed Allies (Minnesota); Educators for High Standards; Go Public Schools (Oakland CA); Hope Street Group (multiple states); National Network of Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY, nominated by governors of states and celebrated by the Council of Chief State School Officers); Rodel Foundation of Delaware; State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE, Tennessee); Stand for Children Louisiana; Teach Strong (National, with one year “ambassadors” who lobby politicians), Educators for Excellence (in Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Los Angeles , Minnesota, New York); Teach Plus (in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts); and Texas Aspires.
PIE Board members are powerbrokers. Many are veterans of reformy projects to undermine public education through draconian standard-setting, exemptions for and expansions of charter schools, and killing collective bargaining by teachers.
1. Derrell Bradford, Executive VP of 50CAN, recruits state executive directors, fellows, and YouCAN advocates; known for leadership of legislated tenure reform in New Jersey.
2. Rachael Canter, Executive Dir. and co-founder of Mississippi First. Two years Teach for America; successfully lobbied for Mississippi Charter Schools Act of 2013.
3. Jonah Edelman, co-founder and CEO of Stand for Children Leadership Center and Stand For Children with affiliates in 11 states (Edelman is son of civil rights activist and lawyer Marian Wright Edelman). A political scholar (Ph.D Oxford, Yale) with deep family connections to the Democratic Party. SFC works for privatization with major funding from the Gates and Walton foundations among others. Major promoter of Read-by-Grade-Three policy.
4. Chris Korsmo, CEO of the League of Education Voters, backed by The Broad Foundation and supporters of projects to undermine teacher unions.
5. Scott Laband, President of Colorado Succeeds, coalition of business executives for corporate friendly education, including school policies that subsidize workforce preparation.
6. Patricia Levesque, CEO Foundation for Excellence. Was Jeb Bush’s Chief of Staff for education promoting corporate friendly education, six years as Staff Director for education policy in the Florida.
7. Lillian M. Lowery, Ed.D. V.P. of Ed Trust’s PreK-12 Policy, Research, and Practice, former state superintendent of schools in Maryland and state secretary of education in Delaware.
8. Nina Rees, President and CEO of National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, first Deputy Under Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.
9. Aimee Rogstad Guidera, former president and CEO of the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign for enganced surveillance of K-12 school and “teacher of record” performance, with a variant tracking workforce outcomes of pre-K to post-seconfary workforce outcomes.
10. Evan Stone, Co-CEO and Co-Founder in 2010 of Educators for Excellence. Yale University thesis on No Child Left Behind in urban school systems, Master degree in teaching, Pace University.
11. Suzanne Kubach, Executive Dir. PIE Network. Appointed to California State Board of Education, former Chair of Los Angeles Charter School Board. Ph.D. in Education Policy, University of Southern California.
12. Tim Taylor, co-founder and Executive Dir. America Succeeds, founder of Colorado Succeeds, seeking corporate friendly policies.
13. Jamie Woodson, Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), Former legislative leader for expansion of Tennessee’s public charter schools. J.D., the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
And that is just for starters. What “innovative policies” are being marketed in your state, by whom, and why?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“War is too important to be left to the generals”- Clemenceau (French Statesman)
The corollary is that education is too important to be left to educators. In our democratic society, all interested parties should contribute to education policy. Just like all citizens should contribute to agricultural policy, and foreign policy.
Industrialists, corporate CEOs, military leaders, and others have to deal with the output of our educational institutions. Why not seek their input?
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Of course, Charles. Medicine is too important to leave to the MDs. Let the billionaires determine how to treat your next illness by sending a recent college graduate with no medical training to treat you. I’d like to see your next surgery. Heal for America.
You prove to me that this blog has no educational value. You claim that you can read yet you never learn anything.
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Your analogy is false. When South Africa was under the apartheid regime, many people in the USA marched and protested. Very few of them had ever been to South Africa, and most could not pronounce “apartheid”, an Afrikaans word, that is not easily pronounced. None were diplomats, but they gave advice to our state department on how to conduct foreign policy.
The congress passed Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, and Pres Reagan vetoed it. The congress overrode the veto. The people of America overruled the professional diplomats.
Public education, financed with public funds, and supervised by public officials, is a public enterprise. The public must become involved. You yourself, keep pushing for referenda. How many of the voters are professional educators?
The military policy of this nation is determined by the democratic process. The people’s congress closely supervises how our defense objectives are met. Would you advocate, just turning over billions to the generals, and letting the Joint Chiefs determine our military policy?
As long as the education establishment is feeding at the public trough, there will have to be close public supervision.
If you conclude that this blog has no value, that is your right. I disagree. There is a great deal to learn from this blog. I can read 4 languages.
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Charles,
The only sources you trust are rightwing.
You learn nothing by reading this blog.
Why don’t you stop wasting your time and mine?
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Charles pontificates spewing ignorant hot air.
The United States is not a pure democracy so the public does not control anything. Even after the public elects their local, state and federal representatives, the US Constitutional Republic is still guided by the US Constitution.
Citizens that vote elect representatives who all take an oath to defend and obey the US Constitution. Corporate CEOs and corporate boards do not take that oath and do not answer to the US Constitution. When a public sector is privatized but still funded by public money, it is removed from that process.
How many times has the United States Supreme Court ruled that a referendum at the state level approved by the popular “mob” vote was unconstitutional?
“The U.S. Supreme Court may hear appeals from state supreme courts only if there is a question of law under the United States Constitution (which includes issues arising from federal treaties, statutes, or regulations), and those appeals are heard at the Court’s sole discretion (that is, only if the Court grants a petition for writ of certiorari).”
How many times has the United States Supreme Court ruled that legislation passed by Congress was unconstitutional?
“It is true that since the Marbury decision in 1803 until 2002, the Supreme Court has found federal laws unconstitutional 158 times. In the last 10 years, it has exercised that power in 14 additional cases (see discussion below) for a total of 172. The justifications for doing so fall generally into three distinct categories.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-friedman/the-supreme-court-vs-cong_b_1561123.html
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Good comparison, Diane.
Charles, I think with your analogy, the Reformist plutocrats are more akin to the generals than educators are.
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I trust the information that I get, from many sources. I am always skeptical when I view government sources. I have plenty of time, I do not consider it a waste.
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The key word, Charles, is “contribute” NOT “control.”
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@speduktr. I agree, “contribute” is the operative word. The public schools are a public enterprise, and the people must be in control.
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We all know how the peace Clemenseau and David Lloyd George worked out. Twenty years later, we had a powerful Nazi movement. I like your reference though. It reminds me that twenty years ago we began our walk down the school reform pike, led by what Diane calls the BILLIONAIRES BOYS CLUB. we now find ourselves worse off than when we got on that road.
The problem is your use of the word, corollary. A corollary follows closely the theorem. Public control of education does not follow logically from public control of the military. Actually both follow from the idea that the public has a vested interest in seeing that it’s money’s are spent wisely and with perfect intent.
Which brings us to the contrast between public schools, which are responsible to local control, state financial audit, and civil rights legislation, and private schools, which are only responsible to boards of trust. Which of those institutions is most likely to engage equally the interests of all parties?
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Roy,
We are not worse off. The leeches are there and they proliferate but we now know beyond question that none of their “reforms” help kids.
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You are overlooking one very salient point. Non-public schools are responsible to the discipline of the marketplace. If a non-public school is not delivering a satisfactory educational product to the consumer (students/families), then the consumer will pull out, and take their business elsewhere. The marketplace is a stern and cruel taskmaster.
Publicly operated schools, like any public enterprise, are immune from the marketplace. Public schools have a “take it or leave it, but we still get your money” attitude. If a public school fails, the politicians just spend more money on it.
Public schools do not have to face the realities that non-public schools do.
I submit that privately-operated schools are much more likely to engage in activities and policies which suit the interests of the consumer. They are immune from having to “suck up” to any politicians. They focus on the needs of the student (and families), because they know that if they don’t, the consumer will go elsewhere.
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Gosh, Charles, I noticed the very same thing about the local police department. They are not responsive to my needs. Don’t you agree that the local taxpayers should give me a voucher to hire a private security guard, just for me.
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Who plugged Charles’ brain into an Alt-Right Trumpish algorithm.
Yes, publicly funds for-profit private sector charter schools are answerable to the market and that’s why so many go bankrupt and close their doors. The market is also a victim of fads, frauds and fools.
But publicly funded, democratic, transparent, public schools are answerable to local voters every time there is a school board election and the elected school boards hold their monthly meetings open to the public.
In addition, those school boards in those democratic public school districts must follow ed code that only exists as long as it is not unconstitutional while private sector corporations are not governed by Constitutional Law.
The US Constitution was written to protect the people from the government, not private sector businesses.
Private Sector vs. Public Sector Employee Rights
“Private sector employees work primarily for businesses or non-profit agencies. Public sector employers hire employees to fulfill official functions and perform public services, such as law enforcement, public education and public safety. Because public sector employers are government agencies, the constitution grants public employees certain rights that their private sector counterparts do not enjoy. However, some rights of public sector employees, especially union activity and speech, are limited so that the government agencies may perform their functions and because these employees often hold positions of trust in the society.” …
First Amendment
The United States Constitution prevents only governments, not private citizens, businesses or organizations, from interfering with a person’s freedom of speech.”
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/private-sector-vs-public-sector-employee-rights-47957.html
Wala — and that helps explain one of the reasons why the never-ending greed of autocratic billionaires and corporations want to get rid of the public sector but not public dollars, so they can interfere in our public elections, freedom of speech rights and censor us without the US Constitution getting in the way. They can also fire anyone for any reason at any time without the US Constitution getting in the way.
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Comparing education to police protection is another false analogy. It is comparing apples to stones. Police protection is generally more cost-effective as a public enterprise. Same with highway construction/maintenance No one wants to abolish the Defense Department, and give people “army vouchers”. None of those dogs will hunt.
Many people choose to augment their police protection. You may purchase an ADT alarm system. The government protects your right to keep and bear arms, so that you may shoot any intruders to your home.
Fire protection is more analogous to education than police protection. In many communities (Ex:San Mateo, Cal) the citizens have determined that privatizing fire protection is more cost-effective. Some communities have no publicly-operated fire protection at all.
Volunteer fire departments were pioneered here in Virginia. Citizens eschew paying taxes to establish fire departments/rescue squads. They choose to volunteer their time and efforts to establishing and running volunteer departments.
Communities with privatized fire departments and/or volunteer fire departments, enjoy fire insurance rates that are generally equal with communities with professional publicly-operated fire departments.
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There is nothing cost effective about diverting public money from public schools—attended by 85% of students—to subsidize the few who attend private and semi-private schools. A dual school system is never cost effective.
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Charles, I appreciate your concern for keeping education policy open to democracy. I presume you object to Reed Hastings efforts to abolish elected school boards and be replaced by appointed boards?
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I am unfamiliar with the Hastings proposal. Any public enterprise, must be open and accountable to the public. There are several ways to achieve this goal. I tend to lean towards, as much local control as possible. That is why I have long advocated, the abolishment of the federal department of education.
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If you ever read what is posted here, you know that Reed Hastings has proposed the elimination of all elected school boards and recommended that corporations with private boards run all schools.
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Here are the 50 smartest public high schools in the USA. see
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/did-you-know/the-50-smartest-public-high-schools-in-america/ss-BBLsSW4?ocid=spartanntp#image=51
The #1 spot goes to the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Which happens to be my personal favorite, as well.
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Charles,
Selective schools get high test scores.
Come up with a list of the 50 best high schools that accept all who apply, including students with disabilities and English learners.
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I am an engineer, not an academician. I have no way of developing such a list.
The fact that excellent public high schools are selective, proves my point, and is another argument for school choice.
Students who have the “right stuff”, should have the opportunity to choose and relocate to schools, which fit their needs. ALL of the schools on that list are public schools.
Are you against quality? Are you advocating that all students should be required to attend the public school in their neighborhood?
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So you want to destroy the schools that serve the 86% to enrich schools that select their students. Shameful. What should we do with the kids who are not elite? Build more prisons?
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@ jcgrim: I just read this article:
https://www.educationnext.org/disrupting-the-education-monopoly-reed-hastings-interview/
I find myself 1000% in agreement with the statements of Mr. Hastings in the article.
For the record, he does not advocate the abolishment of school boards. Here is an excerpt.
Q Hastings didn’t call for abolishing school boards in his speech, as reported by some. “Of course, no one’s going to go for that,” he told the conference. “School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years.” But he does want to make school boards obsolete. END Q
Your presumption that I object to Hasting’s non-existent efforts to abolish school boards, is therefore moot.
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You are right that he didn’t want to abolish them at once. He wanted to abolish them over time:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/14/netflixs-reed-hastings-has-a-big-idea-kill-elected-school-boards/?utm_term=.d52d5f68f7b0
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@Diane:
Q So you want to destroy the schools that serve the 86% to enrich schools that select their students. Shameful. What should we do with the kids who are not elite? Build more prisons? END Q
I do not want to destroy any school! Absurd.
I am advocating that our society can provide BOTH an adequate and appropriate educational experience for our gifted/talented youth, AND have adequate and appropriate schools to serve children who do not have an extraordinary IQ.
We can multi-task.
(I despise the word “elite”).
Most people have no problem with providing additional educational resources to the deaf, the blind, the learning-disabled, and English language learners. No problem at all.
The Illinois math and science academy is a publicly-operated and publicly-staffed school. Its teachers are all state employees, just like teachers in other public schools. No one is getting robbed.
You are a bright and intelligent woman, obviously of superior IQ. What have you got against gifted/talented children?
see
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-america-turned-against-smart-kids/
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OK, I read that the article at the American Conservative that Charles provided a link to so you don’t have to now. In a nutshell, it’s just what one would guess, full of blame for egalitarianism and the civil rights movement, while not mentioning anything about the role of conservatives in education, like how the George W Bush vetoed funding the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Act or how No Child Left Behind (NCLB), passed under his administration, had no provisions to prevent gifted and talented kids from being left behind.
The article focuses on children who are intellectually gifted and conflates cognitively advanced kids with another population by calling them “intellectually talented.” Those of us who have had training and experience in Gifted Education know that, traditionally, kids who are talented include those who are creative and excel in the Arts and athletics. They were not mentioned though, even though many of those kids suffered most under NCLB, since the focus on high-stakes testing meant a lot of programs and teachers in the Arts and sports were cut, but the author and Charles seem to care only about STEM.
Also, even though the article was written in 2017, its focus on anti-intellectualism gives the impression they would prefer to have everyone believe that it’s not conservatives who belong to the party of stupid. I suspect just the people who pay to read that propaganda will buy into that though, since we have a POTUS who actively encourages his following of “the poorly educated” in the GOP. And, despite the Ivy League education that his father most likely bought for him (and he probably bought for his own kids), I think very few Americans have fallen for the “stable geneous” card that Trump tried to play, based on so many of his behaviors and utterances.
I hope I never have to read conservative BS like that again! Ah, wishful thinking. Well, one must be able to dream..
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Charles likes to play the compassionate conservative card.
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I’m not going to provide links to support what I’m about to say but there have been plenty of studies that show/reveal being “intellectually gifted” or “advanced” and all the other divisive tags and labels, based on a test, means nothing at all.
If you want to find what I’m talking about, use Google with the proper search words.
What counts the most is an individual’s commitment and motivation to achieve their goals and knowing what those goals are.
It takes time to learn who is focused and motivated. The test for that is time to reveal who picks themselves up after every failure and keeps working toward their goals. This cannot be taught in a classroom or revealed by a bubble test. And there are also individual cases where a child that doesn’t come with a high IQ label, is tagged as an AP or Honors student and who was raised in an abusive home made it on their own anyway because they decided to work harder than anyone else.
There is no magic pill or test to make this happen.
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The notion of a “compassionate conservative” is an oxymoron that leaves people who have genuine compassion for humankind shaking their heads. That’s because we believe in ameliorating the human condition, while conservatives believe in “too big to fail” and favor the advantaged, such as the billionaires who’ve gotten tax breaks at the expense of the struggling middle class and the working poor. That includes not just conservatives in the party of stupid, but also neoliberal DINOs, both of whom let the banksters who crashed the economy off the hook –and with bonuses to boot.
I am not saying that children in any group, including those who are gifted and talented, should be seen as advantaged and left to flourish on their own. All kids should have their strengths recognized and nurtured in school, including those who might have athletic, creative and artistic talents, such as those with musical ability who might never even know they have that strength when slashed education budgets result in the elimination of classes like music, band and orchestra. In Howard Gardner’s Creating Minds, the one thing that accomplished, notable people representing multiple intelligences had in common was someone in their lives who recognized their strengths and mentored them.
Regarding the free market argument for schools, that holds no water when you consider the fact that parents, who are the primary consumers in the privatization scheme –which claims they should vote with their feet– don’t necessarily know what’s best for their kids in all educational disciplines and domains of development. If they did, I would not get so many parents in the college courses that I teach, who tell me they are there to learn about all that so they can become better parents. A lot of them come in thinking that even with the youngest ages, teaching is about drilling kids with flash cards. They leave knowing better, including an array of hands-on active learning strategies which are more likely to promote learning and less likely to undermine student motivation.
(Sorry about all the typos in my last post. I was exhausted because I worked through the night and had not gone to bed yet.)
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Jeb Bush expected to convert his education policies into millions and residency at the White House. Though far from pleased with any of the presidents during my teaching career, I’m grateful that this unprincipled opportunist at least failed as magnificently in his presidential run as he did with the Common Core.
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The privatization movement is a veritable hydra of special interest groups backed by billionaires and dark money. They use their wealth to influence every level of government that makes decisions on public education funds.
“Our goal is to have a conversation that looks at the issues differently, considering only the students without the adult agendas.”
This is their rationale for freezing authentic educators out of the discussion. What can be more about “adult agendas” than the profit motive! Any discussion of education that starts with ways to move public money into private bank accounts is tainted. Education should be about what is best for students, not how private investors can cash in on this next scheme.
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Arizona is at the top of the list regarding school privatization and I have been asking around to find out if a ‘list’ has been created for AZ…to no avail. There are many fake pro-education groups supported by the Goldwater Institute, Koch Bros etc. If anyone knows of an AZ study of all these groups and their affiliations, we want to share that!
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Would someone mind posting the link the the website? Thanks!
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There is no website. Laura posted that comment here. She is a dogged and careful researcher.
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This should do the trick…http://pie-network.org/rabble-rousers/
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Thanks. Interesting there is a grammatical error at the very beginning, where they call the pamphlet “Rabbles Rousers”
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I am in awe of Laura, who must sit for hours finding out these connections. Thanks for the hard work.
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yes; it is an amazing feat
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Agree. Laura is a what a just and honorable America deserves.
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CROSS POSTED AT https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/In-Search-of-the-Tentacles-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Billionaires_Corporate-Fraud_Diane-Ravitch_Educational-Crisis-180831-508.html#comment712055.
WITH THIS COMMENT.
While everyone watches the Trump circus, the only road to income equality for all is being dismantled by the very people who want an ignorant, stressed population who can be easily conned! Not merely is School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/opinion/charter-schools-desegregation-los-angeles.html
it is the enemy of democracy which depends on shared knowledge.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/opinion/charter-schools-desegregation-los-angeles.html
Do you want theKoch brothers writing the curriculum in humanitiesas they do in North Carolina?https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum
It ain’t just in Jeb’Bush’s state. Watch out Oakland! The Gates Foundation gave the City Fund $10 M to privatize https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2018/07/OPP1191868 what’s left of your public schools!
Recently the Education Writers Association Blog posted a “debate” between distinguished economist Helen Ladd of Duke University and charter advocate Robin Lake of the Center for Reinventing Public Education about whether charter schools were harming public schools financially. Ladd had completed a study of the amount of money that districts in North Carolina had lost to charter schools. Gates-funded CPRE exists to sell charters and portfolio districts.
Lake didn’t bother to contact scholar Gordon Lafer, author of the “One Percent Solution” and of a recent study The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts demonstrating that charters diverted tens of millions of dollars from public schools in three urban districts in California.
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/
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AND I ADDED 2 COMMENTS which demonstrate what was said about just catching the surface. At OPED, there are embedded links
COMMENT 2
“AND DO NOT MISS THIS: Retired physics and math teacher Tom Ultican continues his investigation of the Destroy Public Education movement with this post about a new organization determined to extinguish public education by privatization. Diane Ravitch says “Please open the post https://tultican.com/2018/08/18/dpe-2-0-the-city-fund/ to read the rest of this shocking story of arrogance and contempt for democracy, as well as many links.”
COMMENT 3
How about LITTLE ROCK? It was inevitable that the Waltons would make their move to privatize the public schools of Little Rock, the largest city in Arkansas, which the Waltons consider their fiefdom. The Waltons have used their billions to leverage control of the State Education Department, the Legislature, and the State Education Board.
The Waltons have long coveted control of Little Rock’s public schools. Local citizens resisted, but David doesn’t usually defeat Goliath. For example, as the Arkansas Times reported earlier this year, https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2018/03/01/the-state-assault-on-the-little-rock-school-district-continues
the Legislature passed a law Legislation “requiring Arkansas school districts to turn over buildings constructed with local property taxes to be turned over to any charter school that wants them, no matter how unproven the charter operator, no matter how damaging the charter might be to existing — and successful — true public schools.”
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“The 47-page PIE Rabble Rousers handbook (2010 funded by the Joyce Foundation)…”
I find that very enlightening! I’ve often wondered about the Joyce Foundation, but couldn’t find out much about them, other than the fact that, going back to Obama’s days as a community organizer, he was associated with them and, ultimately he sat on their board and they bankrolled his career…
No wonder Obama implemented neo-liberal economic policies, did little to help people of color, and rarely, if ever, mentioned poverty other than to put all eggs in the education basket and claim that education was THE way out of poverty, so everyone should go to college –but without supporting any plan for a free college education (as Bernie Sanders does).
And no wonder Obama’s education policies were so extreme. He took No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to draconian levels, privatizing public education, under Arne’s Duncan’s Race to the Top (RttT), by promoting the use of student test scores to evaluate and fire teachers, close schools and hand them over to unregulated, privately controlled, government funded charter schools. Many are pseudo-schools, led mainly by non-educator entrepreneurs and which, for a two year stint, employ primarily non-union teacher imposters from Teach for America (TFA), who are mostly non-education major recent college graduates that receive just 5 weeks of summer training before being assigned to their own classrooms.
It seems the Joyce Foundation is the New Democrat’s DINO version of the GOP’s Bradley Foundation, just a lot slower to roll out their agenda and with much more stealth. Despite Democrat’s claims against supporting vouchers, their policies have lead to the outcome long wanted by conservatives and the Bradley Foundation, today’s federal Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who like Arne Duncan, trashes public education, and who also promotes the use of tax payer funded vouchers to pay for unaccountable private and religious schools.
So Obama was effectively the Joyce Foundation’s equivalent of the Bradley Foundation’s Corey Booker, another black politician who’s an economically neoliberal conservative who was planted in the Democratic party in order to promote false free-market education miracles for our nation’s children. Meanwhile, Obama, Duncan et al. can afford to put their own kids in costly, often progressive private schools, which are too expensive for vouchers to cover and are nothing like the schools they promote for other people’s children. No wonder this is the only Obama policy that Trump has supported.
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I think the privatization of everything public started with the Koch brothers and grew from there to organizations outside of the Kochtopus.
“But those who think the brothers, older and chastened, will now fade away don’t understand the Kochs. Not a bit. Obama’s victory was just a blip on a master plan measured in decades, not election cycles. “We raised a lot of money and mobilized an awful lot of people, and we lost, plain and simple,” says David. “We’re going to study what worked, what didn’t work, and improve our efforts in the future. We’re not going to roll over and play dead.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/12/05/inside-the-koch-empire-how-the-brothers-plan-to-reshape-america/#474420fc650b
What did they learn, how did they revise their master plan and what have been the results so far?
“The GOP takeover in the states”
Reported in 2010, just two years after Obama was elected: “Before the midterm elections, Democrats controlled 27 state legislatures outright. Republicans were in charge in 14 states, and eight states were split. (Nebraska, which has a single legislative chamber, is officially nonpartisan). Today, Republicans control 26 state legislatures, Democrats 17, and five have split control. In New York, officials are still determining who is in charge in the state Senate. Republicans control seven more legislatures outright than they did after 1994 and the most since 1952.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/13/AR2010111302389.html
“At present, Republicans control 67 of the 99, and control both chambers in 32 states. Democrats control 32 chambers, and both chambers in 14 states. Only four states have divided control of their legislatures.Mar 27, 2018”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/article/whats-at-play-in-the-2018-state-legislature-races.html
If this insidious trend to subvert the US Constitutional Republic is not reversed in the 2018 midterms, the US will probably be lost to the cancerous Koch labyrinth. If there is a small reversal, do not count on Charles Koch and his dark machine to give up. Charles has built a Frankenstein monster that will love on long after his death.
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The Charles Koch Foundation has sent money to 349 colleges/ universities. Among these is Wellsley. The website list does not indicate what the money was for, but these are usually for programs and faculty to promote free market “solutions” to everything..
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Laura,
This was a source of great concern to me and many other alumna. The College accepted the Koch money for a “Freedom Project,” to expose students to libertarian ideas. It held a lecture series, which invited people like Charles Murray of “Bell Curve” infamy. The worst was a lecture on “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” a real Koch Industies pleaser. The director of the Center slimed Jane Mayer, author of “Dark Money,” on Twitter. Alumnae complained, the Director took a year’s leave of absence, and the new director is a Chaucer scholar with no ties to political activities. I’m watching.
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UnKochMyCampus.org, affiliated with the Center for Media and Democracy
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I have a lot of links. I try not to load these into my posts because there are so many. You can find almost all of my sources by redoing the research using the website information and noticing especially the Trustees, and “partners” and “funders” and their histories.
Some of these projects are like unravelling a rug…can’t stop pulling a thread untill I can see what else is just below the surface.
Charles has stated his opinion of educators: They are analagous to pigs “feeding at the public trough.” He appears to have little respect for expertise in any field.
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Mean to say, He appears to have little respect for any expertise other than what he claims as his own.
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@Laura: I have stated no such thing. I have nothing but respect and admiration for school teachers.
-My grandmother was a teacher at a one-room, all-grades school in Grant County Kentucky in the 1920s. Just like you see in the western movies, like “The Cowboys” (1973, with John Wayne)
-Two of my aunts were school teachers, one was a principal at a public school in Louisville KY.
-My sister completed her master’s degree, and took a teaching post in Jefferson County KY in 1975.
My other sister taught at a public school in Warren County KY.
I was approved to be a substitute teacher in Fairfax County Virginia.
I do not think that public school teachers are “swine”. I know that public school systems are fed from the public treasury, like any other public enterprise.
Public schools and public school systems must be subject to the same oversight and accountability, as any other public enterprise.
Do NOT put words in my mouth.
-And I do have respect for expertise in other fields. I am an engineer and IT professional. I work with people from all kinds of professional and academic backgrounds.
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Feeding at the trough is your language,earlier in this discussion. That is an insulting phrase for teachers and other workers in education.
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Charles was all in for protecting U.S. borders and whatever cruelties Trump thought up to achieve it…until he wanted the foreigners in his wife’s family to get in.
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@Linda: I am in favor of strict and proper enforcement of all laws, including immigration laws. A nation without borders is no longer a nation.
My wife is a naturalized American citizen. Immediate relatives of American citizens are entitled to permanent residence in the USA. My in-laws are retired, and they will not be taking any jobs from American citizens.They have pensions, and they will not become public charges.
They want to live out their lives in Mother Russia, and they will not be moving here.
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No chain migration for you! But chain migration for Melania’s family!
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@Diane: Be Fair. I am 100% supportive of permitting the immediate relatives of American citizens to immigrate to the USA. (Providing all other admissions criteria are met).
My in-laws are choosing to remain in Mother Russia. They cherish their homeland (haven’t you seen “Dr. Zhivago”, where Yuri loves Russia, more than he loves Lara?)
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Charles, that is what Trump calls “chain migration.”
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With two foreign wives, and many hours studying immigration procedures, I am well familiar with the terminology. “Chain migration” is the law of the land, and it is generally beneficial.
I do not necessarily agree with all of the policies of the president.
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I’ve read that “chain migration” was in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that GOP President Reagan signed into law.
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Trump is against it, except for Melania’s parents.
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Charles’ in-laws better hope that U.S. oligarch John Arnold doesn’t cross the ocean to attack their pensions. Is a Russian pension at the level that it would qualify a person for food stamps in the U.S.? Would Russian pensions be sufficient to cover American medical care? Medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy for American families. Charles does know that hospitals can’t turn away patients based on an inability to pay? A good job for Charles, he can stand in the parking lot of the hospital and watch people die because in one of the richest countries in the world, there’s no money to save people’s lives because that’s the way the Koch’s want it.
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You can’t make this stuff up. The Center for American Progress’ education policy V.P. (former TFA) interviewed a Gates Cambridge scholarship recipient who wrote a book. The interview was published in Forbes on Aug. 27, 2018, title, “She Never Saw a Classroom until College. Now She Has a Ph.D. and a Lot of Thoughts about Education”.
The woman interviewed is the daughter of “a survivalist, fundamentalist parents.” In answer to one of the questions posed, the woman responded, “…a Nobel Laureate can’t teach you better than you can teach yourself…” The woman was then asked, “Can education create a fact base for political debate?” Her response, “…as soon as education elevates you above someone else …that’s probably ignorance…”
Unbelievable devaluation of education but, an expected foundation for policy decisions by opportunistic DINOs, grifters and Republicans.
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One-fourth of the 101,000 Michigan students enrolled in virtual schools failed to complete even one class.
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Wow. Where’s the link?
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May 8, 2018, WKAR Public Media from Michigan State University- “Study: Virtual schools growing in Mi despite poor outcome”, by Kevin Lavery.
IMO, an academic travesty beyond measure-
Given the statistics (unnecessary research because anyone with a brain expects that outcome) professors at PUBLIC Michigan State University took Arnold grants and recently joined Tulane’s Douglas Harris (also Arnold funded-see the Deutsch 29 blog) in taking taxpayer money to develop products and marketing for charter schools.
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