Cathy Frye worked for a Walton-funded front organization called the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, which really didn’t want to help public schools.
She has been spilling the beans in a series of posts. This is her latest.
Her post contains links to her previous posts.
She begins:
The Arkansas Public School Resource Center touts itself as a “collaborative local partner” when describing how it excels in supporting rural traditional public schools and open-enrollment charter schools.
APSRC, funded since 2008 by the Walton Family Foundation, describes the reason for its existence thusly:
The mission of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center is to support the improvement of public education by providing advocacy services on behalf of public schools with a special emphasis on charter schools and rural districts.
This is a blatant lie.
Yes, APSRC will draft – and lobby for – legislation that will benefit the state’s open-enrollment charter schools. It also will sit idly by while Walton-backed legislation regarding private-school vouchers floats through the Legislature. I’ve watched APSRC do this twice, during the 2017 and 2019 legislative sessions.
But this “nonprofit” organization does not represent – let alone advocate for- the 85 percent of the state’s rural traditional public schools that are paying $2,500 per year to be members of APSRC.
Nor does APSRC “represent” Arkansas’ larger school districts that are spending thousands of dollars on “technical-assistance” contracts.
So why do 85 percent of Arkansas’ traditional public school districts remain – or become – APSRC members?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Cathy-Frye-Tells-All-About-in-General_News-Diane-Ravitch_Education-Funding_Educational-Crisis_For-profit-Education-191023-571.html
My comment, below, has links to this blog at the above address.
Ripe for corruption, our public schools are under assault in the same way that our health care system has been destroyed. Instead of funding our schools, the budgets are reduced , and ‘solutions to the failing schools are to hand the education of our citizens over to the private sector. We see how that works with health care.
Let’s look at the scams elsewhere in some of the 50 states
Peter Greene took a look at New York City’s decision to go into a public-private partnership with well-known Corporate Reform groups and asked whether the Reformers were helping out or the City was selling out.
Maurice Cunningham is the ghostbuster of Dark Money in education. He is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. He is a hero of the Resistance in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH.
Andrew Stewart recounts the alarming plans that Governor Gina Raimondo has in store for Providence public schools. She is a former venture capitalist who seems to have an instinctive suspicion of the public sector. What she has in mind, he says, is the planned demolition of the public schools.In this post, he details the efforts of the Walton Family of Arkansas to block the Massachusetts’ legislators who are trying to increase funding for the public schools of their state.
Valerie Strauss writes here about an important new book about the Koch Empireand its desire to eliminate and privatize public schools. The book is “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” by Christopher Leonard.After a fruitless pursuit of “innovation” for 20 years, Mayor DeBlasio has turned to two organizations that have no track record of success.
scary to know that the same continues in many districts across the nation: endlessly turning to organizations which have NO track record of success
What scares me is no one knows, or cares…the circus consumes whatever is left of their lives —after work and home absorb what’s left of their minds.
NOT A SHRED of ACCOUNTABILITY exists for anything– and THAT is the way it is! GET OVER IT– say the villains.
I AM GOING TO PUBLISH THIS AT THE BRAODER COMMENT. CIEDE, SO SEE IT THERE INSTEAD OF CREEPING DOWN THIS PAGE.
Hey Ciede and y’awl
(Forgive capitals… no way to bold face!)
I have some advice for us. “Just Keep Moving,’ is the advice that works whenever CHAOS hits— you see!
That is, of course, if on is still mobile..able to MOVE forward!…(Forgive capitals… no way to bold face!)
… and WE are mobile… you and I ,Ciede — and Diane, and Carol and Leonie and all those writers who write and speak THE TRUTH! ). WE still have our voices– WE ..the professional educators — aka –the teacher-practitioners! We must keep moving forward— the truth abut HOW CHILDREN LEARN— and how ’they’ are demolishing the public schools.
You see… WE get it!
We know that the ‘BBC’ (the BILLIIONAIRES-BOYS-CLUB as Diane called them for years) are taking over the schools!
it is a ‘fait accompli’ in some places… but not everywhere…. not yet!!!!
I call them the Power-elite— because their money gives them the POWER to mess with democracy and the schools — because Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. and An ignorant citizenry is the goal. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
It is not just about the grand theft of public funds to enrich these scoundrels.
No private citizens who owns the kind of wealth once reserved for nation-states will be able to resist the power to enrich themselves endlessly. Such mega-wealth makes kings of mobsters, and corrupts even good people.
..which is why Bernie said what he did! ( but which is another issue entirely)
But, Dear Colleagues– the elite do not count on US to stop them!
We, who are Teachers— are too low — at the bottom of the pay-scale— when salaries determine status and ignore expertise.
The power elite scorn people like us who do not worship money.
IN fact — they want to take over the schools, and they expect us to GET OVER IT, over the political machinations!
I SWEAR that TOADY MULVANEY GAVE US THE DEFINING WORDS FOR THE CORRUPTION AFOOT TODAY.
BUT, I say, CUT IT OUT!
We will not GET OVER IT! YOU demolished our institutions of education!
We will slay Goliath with our WORDS!
I will never get over the way the local public schools were demolished.
I went to these schools (with Bernie in fact.) MY sons were educated in public schools, and one is a cardiologist and the other CEO of a company that creates internet security..
I taught in the public schools for 5 decades — so don’t tell ME why they failed…
I KNOW why! And, your alternative facts are for Trumplicans, not me!
I will never get over being sent out from my career under a cloud… when I was at that moment a star.
I will never forget what the children lost when teachers like me were eradicated!
These wealthy kings can buy the legislatures; BUT, my friends… they do not realize that we GENUINE teachers will NEVER let them GET AWAY with the MENDACITY!
Because, at the very least, we WRITE , and SPEAK — and tell them–loud and clear—>>>
that WE, the PEOPLE OWN the SCHOOLS, because ‘EDUCATION ‘ is a CIVIL RIGHT!
I wrote a piece at OpED years ago, about the way in which these billionaire -power elite changed the conversation when they BOUGHT — purchased ALL THE MEDIA.
They changed the narrative on tv and in the media to “those bad teachers”;, and those “failing schools!” They began a narrative about evaluating the ’teachers’ and in no time at all, with Duncan at the helm, the tests left all kids behind— and THEY blamed US! https://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
They broke it — so THEY could fix it — so Trumpian!
…and then, you see, they began the psy-ops campaign too “Bamboozle Them”….the people
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
Suddenly, the word “CHOICE” came onto the ‘stage’’, and then — ‘charters schools” were promoted as the only ‘choice’.. even as they failed, even as they left behind our poorest citizens, even as they enriched the charlatans that sold them as ‘choice.’ Now we are haring the words “PUBLIC charter schools” because i f you repeat a lie often enough in these days of weaponized disinformation, it becomes accepted truth.
Orwell lives. ‘Choice’ is”no choice” for millions of our people, if public education is wrecked!
Charters are the” Magic Elixir” I wrote about over a decade ago: https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
SO, WHAT NEXT, Susan, WE KNOW THIS!
Okay, dear colleagues, the power elite have the advantage of the bully pulpit— BUT we TEACHERS are here to CHANGE THE NARRATIVE – to remind the public — the American citizens — that this is NOT about ‘schools’ — it is about the INSTITUTION of PUBLIC EDUCATION and about income equality, and about shared knowledge and democracy.
Democracy has a hard time surviving when predatory capitalism allows the power elite to bend the rules, and then to make the rules.The ROL. the Rule Of Law must protect the teachers and thus, the schools.
They talk ‘schools’ in ‘their’ media… we will go grassroots and talk LEARNING!
I wish everyone here would use the word teacher-practitioner!
If TFA’s ‘teachers’ practice ‘teaching’ —-> then they need a lot of practice!
We teacher-practitioners enable LEARNING, because we PROFESSIONALS know ‘WLLL’: “WHAT learning looks like in our professional practice of pedagogy!” We can FACILITATE and ENABLE a young human to learn, … and along the way, offer some FACTS and knowledge, which can then be APPLIED to CRITICAL thinking — NOT JUST to taking a FREAKIN’ TEST!
The power elite made war on teachers….
https://www.opednews.com/Series/War-on-teachers-and-the-pr-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-827.html so the schools would fa l– and then the legislatures THAT THEY OWN (thanks to CITIZEN’S UNITED) would usurp the right to tell us,—> TO MANDATE what the professional teachers (at the bottom, practicing in the classroom) should “teach; tell us how we must “teach”– and what we should use to “teach’!
They mandate everything, and when LEARNING fails to happen… they blame the teacher, and then, they tell us, WHEN our careers lie in shamble:, TO GET OVER IT????
THIS has to stop!
One last thing, for those of you who read my words, and who know who I am— let me speak about “getting over” tragedy and through chaotic times : My father died in my arms, and I well never get over the two rapes I endured when I was 16.
But, I WILL move on —and DO WHAT I CAN keep moving forward….
I will, with YOUR help, burn the false narrative to the ground!
My blog, Speaking As A Teacher DOT COM,-DOT-NET AND DOT-ORG will do that, when I get the time to put them online.!
Until then ‘read me’ at OpED News…
ARTICLES OF Susan Lee Schwartz : https://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html?sid=40790
COMMENTS PAGE. http://www.opednews.com/author/comments/author40790.html
QUICK-LINKS http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
and for goodness sakes… at least become a member OEN… so you can COMMENT WHEN I WRITE.
Join, OEN, get the daily (where I headline Diane’s posts)! Even if this site has some strong voices that you may not agree with, there are GREAT voice like those of Chris Hedges and Robert Reich, and Rob Kall, and we post the best. Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader!
Yes, it means that you will support this interesting site where people speak truth and offer real facts to support their arguments.
ARGUE THERE! I DO! And, support Diane’s links!!! Over one million people have read my comments and posts…. let them read what YOU have to say WHEN I post what Diane writes AND when I WRITE!
Fan me…and you will know whenever I post.
LET THE VOICE OF THE TEACHER come forth from the teachers’ rooms and teacher blogs.SHOUT OUT to people: ‘WAKE UP– THE ONLY PATH TO INCOME EQUALITY is being TAKEN AWAY FROM OUR CITIZENS.
The KIDS are NOT CHILDREN FOR LONG! They will be voting in no time, and some will end up very hungry, homeless adults —if WE DO NOT RESCUE PUBLIC EDUCATION SOON!
agree with everything you said, except for Robert Reich. He is a centrist moderate corporate democrat who backed Hilliary Clinton to the hilt He was in agreement with the theft of the nomination from Bernie Sanders. As such he would gladly sell out public schools when the 1st opportunity presented itself.