This is an important, can’t-miss podcast about the malign plans of one of the richest men in the world.
Business reporter Christopher Leonard has written a best-selling new book called Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.It’s an eye-opening account of how the Kochs built the private company that has made them richer than Bill Gates. Leonard spent seven years reporting the book, which gave him plenty of insight into what he describes as the Kochs’ fixation on dismantling public education. In a recent episode of the Have You Heard podcast with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, Leonard was blunt about what the Kochs are after. “The ultimate goal is to dismantle the public education system entirely and replace it with a privately run education system. ” Leonard says don’t be fooled by the Koch’s sales pitch (like the Koch Network’s latest education venture, Yes Every Kid, headed by the VP of Communications for Koch Industries.) “There are going to be a lot of glossy marketing materials about opportunity, innovation, and efficiency. At its core though the Koch Network seeks to dismantle the public education system because they see it as destructive. So that is what’s the actual aim of this group. And don’t let them tell you anything different.”
You can listen to the entire interview here: https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast/kochland
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I looked at the Koch Network’s Yes. Every Kid website several weeks ago. The podcasts tell the bigger story. The website has a mess of videos for this initiative which “aims to rethink education from the ground up by connecting innovators in a shared mission to conquer ‘one size fits all’ education reform.” Almost all of the recent videos begin with the caricature of public education as a one-size fits all factory system and unchanged from long ago. Here are some lightly edited briefs about the videos.
“Self-directed learning: How ‘unschoolers’ control their education. The factory model of education is outdated, so what’s next? Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and author of “Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom” (Chicago Review Press, 2019). “Conventional schooling was largely designed with an industrial-revolution mindset. However, this factory model of education doesn’t hold up today. Our access to technology allows learning to happen beyond the conventional classroom. Unschooling serves as a reinvention of education that invites students to indulge in their natural curiosity on their individual path to knowledge. A full transcript is available.”
“Why top-down reform won’t save the education system. Countless top-down reforms haven’t improved the US education system: Can community-based education make a difference? “A new report from the RAND Corporation details another top-down initiative that failed to improve student achievement. Community-based education reform creates coalitions of stakeholders to support lifelong learning. Though barriers exist, such reform could synthesize the best of top-down and bottom-up reform.” More at https://bigthink.com/yes-every-kid/why-top-down-reform-wont-save-the-education-system
“If America’s education system is outdated, how can we evolve? Specialization in education is just one way of optimizing the system for the future. The current education system wasn’t designed to accommodate the dynamism required today. Derrell Bradford of 50CAN points out that, while education reform in the past has done some great things for many students in America, there is a definite need to evolve. That evolution involves maintaining the positive aspects of the education system and overcoming the negative. “More at https://bigthink.com and even more interesting the “experts” in the Koch version of Big Think for Business https://www.bigthinkedge.com/business/
“Revolutionary K-12 education might look like a creative incubator What can a learning space achieve when it’s optimized for both student and parent expression? …As America’s mainstream education systems continue to disappoint both parents and students, schooling alternatives present a fresh opportunity and revolutionary approach to teaching children. Collaborative learning communities help students to discover themselves and their passions while parents play an active role in their education. Inspired by Montessori, Catherine Fraise founded Workspace to provide children the opportunity to learn and grow outside the four walls of ‘school.’”
“What NASA can teach us about education reform. If teachers weren’t taught to fear failure, could they see greater success in the mission of education? Matt Candler, founder of 4.0 Schools, questions why school has stayed overwhelmingly the same the past 100 years.” He thinks NASA’s ‘failure is welcome and necessary’ idea is fine, just so failure does not happen during the mission.”
• Big Think is a Koch-funded content aggregator and marketer of videos, podcasts, and newsletters with a premium option for hot new ideas, for people on the go. Here is one more for K-12 education
How can cognitive science inform the future of education? The science of learning is decades ahead of the education system. How can we bring education into the present? Lindsay Portnoy, PhD, is a cognitive scientist working to translate research-based practices in teaching and learning to improve curriculum, assessment, and the intentional integration of emerging practices and tools to support all learners. A former public school teacher… is cofounder and chief learning officer at Killer Snails–a producer of “extended reality and tabletop games aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards for K-12 students.” ….
In addition to marketing questionable ideas based on caricatures of public education and recycling ideas already present in some districts Big Think also has several videos sponsored by Lumina. but funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. Moreover,if you keep following the links, you discover that that the Koch-funded Cause of Action Institute has filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court arguing for a repeal of the Blaine Amendment, with a case in Montana the starting point. The Koch-funded Cause of Action Institute is notorious for filing lawsuits against regulations that inhibit “free market” activities. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cause_of_Action
The aim of this AMICI CURIAE brief–on behalf of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and Koch-funded Yes. Every Kid–is to secure a legal ruling that will make tax-supported vouchers for religious education possible in every state, beginning with those states having a Blaine Amendment that prohits public funding of religious education. Here are some opening sentences in the case:
“The Montana Constitution includes a “Blaine Amendment” that prohibits state “appropriation or payment” to sectarian schools. The Montana Supreme Court’s recent ruling, striking down a facially-neutral school-choice program, demonstrates that Blaine Amendments are fundamentally incompatible with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
“Although the Montana school-choice program did not directly fund sectarian schools, and thus might have escaped constitutional review, the Montana Supreme Court construed its amendment to require excision of any possibility that religion may receive a public benefit.”
More at https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/116183/20190918121723025_No.%2018-1195tsacAmericansForProsperityAndYesEveryKid.pdf
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It never ceases to amaze me that these billionaires’ biased and absurd ideas, no matter how ridiculous or impractical, gain traction under the weight of their deep pockets. The rest of us get to defend ourselves against these outrageous notions.
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In a modern oligarchy, the rich and powerful few are able to control even thinkers. A good mind is a terrible thing to waste; it’s an even more terrible thing to sell.
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I can think of two instances where the person I knew was very liberal, openly tolerant, even a rebel, and then joined an organization (one, the military, the other took an admin. position in a church’s missionary office) and as the years went by each slowly turned into more and more of a right-ish close-minded zealot
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I do not think the Kochs’ ideas are stupid or ridiculous. In fact, quite coherent. They just simply have a different phiosophy to life: the masses should support the few chosen ones. If this is the goal, the education system they propose makes a lot of sense.
The Koch philosophy is deeply antidemocratic, and in my opinion it should be considered dangerous.
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