Among rightwing think tanks, none has more intellectual firepower than the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, due to its leading thinker Chester E. Finn Jr., who has an Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and worked in the administrations of Reagan and Nixon, as well as working for Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Lamar Alexander.
The Institute, formerly a foundation, is based in Washington, D.C., where it has a large voice in Republican politics, but its actual (if not physical) home is Ohio, because the money came from a Mr. Thomas B. Fordham, who lived in Ohio.
TBF is very influential in Ohio, where it recently wrote the state’s academic standards. TBF has been a loud cheerleader for the Common Core standards, having received millions from the Gates Foundation both to evaluate them and advocate for them.
Fordham looms large as an advocate for charters, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and punitive policies towards teachers and principals. I was an original member of the TBF board, when it was launched, and resigned in 2009, when I realized that my views were no longer aligned with those of TBF. One of the projects I disliked intensely was a “manifesto” funded by Eli Broad, which argued that one did not need to be an educator to be a school principal. I disagreed. I also disagreed with the TBF decision to accept Gates’ funding, since it would hamstring TBF’s role as an independent think tank and put it in the debt of Gates. It was also unnecessary, since TBF had $40 million in the assets at the time. Since I left TBF, it has accepted many, many millions from Gates, Broad, Walton and other external funders.
Who was Thomas B. Fordham? How did his fortune become the founder of a rightwing think tank?
Mercedes Schneider here reviews an analysis of the origins of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based on a paper by Richard Phelps.
As I have often stated, I was an original member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. I objected to two major policy positions: one, the decision to become an authorizer of charter schools in Ohio, which I believed was not the role of an independent think tank. I lost that vote. As I recall, almost every one of the charters authorized by TBF either closed or failed or both. I also objected to accepting money from the Gates Foundation, as it would impair our independence and make it impossible to criticize Gates when it was wrong. And TBF didn’t need the money, it had assets of $40 million. I lost that vote too. I left the board in 2009, since I no longer supported either choice or the TBF vision of accountability. I later heard that “my seat” (the girl) was awarded to the CEO of a Gulen charter chain in Los Angeles. So there.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Once again, Mercedes does a great public service for all of us.
It is my understanding that Fordham funds the Alliance for High Quality Education (https://ahqe.org), a motley collection of superintendents from “wealthier” public school districts in Ohio (the super of my district is a member). It was originally known as the Alliance for Adequate School Funding and changed its name in 2009, something I believe Fordham was instrumental in doing. In their “Benefits of Membership” statement, one of the things they crow about is being opposed to the “‘Robin Hood’ concept”. Doesn’t take much to figure this one out.
This is another aspect of Fordham that needs to be investigated and illuminated (watch ’em scatter like cockroaches if it is done). It’s their insurance policy for the time when privatization and its spawn are hopefully killed for good–driving a wedge between “wealthier” and “poorer” districts. Educational apartheid is not a bug for Fordham, it’s a feature.
Greg, thanks for being an Ohioan who brings credit to the state.
Fordham makes a mockery out of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The Stanford swimmer given a light sentence in a case that went national (the judge was subsequently removed from office) graduated from one of the wealthier Ohio school districts. The school gets a pass. They don’t get to select which students enroll. But, the district employee who wrote to the judge, in her capacity as staff, praising Turner’s character, showed both poor training and judgement.
Thank you, Linda. I’m not sure your characterization of me is accurate, but it is humbling. I am both an immigrant to this nation—although I was young at the time—and an immigrant to Ohio—I chose to move my family here and have no familial or employment ties to the state (in my work it doesn’t matter where I live). Perhaps that is why I sometimes feel like I care more about their respective fates than natives.
I don’t know comparatively what percentage of Ohioans are sluggish to react, to seek objective information or to protect their property from political bandits but, whatever the number, it makes Ohio a target for education grifters and the ALEC agenda.
Greg, I’m glad you chose Ohio. The state needs good citizens to counteract Fordham employees. I happened to be in Dayton last week and saw the Fordham Foundation sign attached to a building.
Honesty would make the sign read, Division of Out-of-State Oligarchy.
Linda, if it helps, most TB Fordham people live in DC and its near suburbs, not in Ohio.
Diane I wrote a relatively long comment on the Glass/Margaret Raymond of CREDO post that addresses issues in this post. My comment remains in moderation. I re-post below sans the citation/reference to economics texts:
One could write a book in response to G. Glass’ note, about both education and economics.
On education, however, I bring forward this statement from his note regarding earlier CREDO research: ” . . . charter schools no better than old fashion public schools, some good, some really bad;” then their later study findings where Ohio charter schools were “a mess.”
I have not read the CREDO reports; however, I like to presume that Margaret Raymond, and others at the Hoover Institution’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, understand how the basic structure of charter schools–as distinct from public schools–invites, even promotes, those “messy” problems that are scarce if not absent from public institutions, and how dangerous to democracy they are. It’s not about this or that school room, but about the whole idea.
The “mess” that Glass speaks of too-often flows from deeper roots that merely this-or-that classroom experience–the unremarkable but hugely influential absence of institutional structures and long-time, set-in-place policies, guides, and people connected directly with public service in a democracy: as Idea #1 (small-d).
At that deeper level (that we expect all parents to fully understand?), those publicly-oriented structures serve to systematically quash the free-reign of greed and fraudulence that is all-too-commonly associated with unregulated private enterprise (think of Flint MI, Boeing, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, we could go on-and-on); e.g., self-dealing, misdirecting and absconding with (public) funds, tribalism/ nepotism, outright theft and a general carelessness about, or even contempt for, their customers’ well-being, and those they “serve.”
In education, if the choice is between qualified children’s education and the owners’, funders’, or stockholders’ bank accounts, guess what? . . . It’s the old recalcitrant problem of trying to serve two masters. The problem is that, with public institutions, public service is structured-in and surrounded by supporting policy and people; whereas with private or quasi-private institutions, public-service is absent or structured-out, at best given lip service. There, even government regulation (presumably still working on the part of public interest) is constantly railed against, even hated, and/or “bought-out.” How dare they try to control US.
The worst of it for reformers and charter-supporters is the growth of powerful lobbies that, systematically and over long periods of time (cited on this site), denigrate all-things-public-education (including teachers); so that the whole idea of public schools and teachers is constantly smeared, and where charters and the truly Orwellian use of the term “choice” can grow without the oversight of those actually involved with the OTHER idea of public service and interest–in this case, the qualified education of all children.
In my experience, and embarrassingly, we have many teacher who have no idea about the difference between (1) public service in a democracy and (2) working in a business enterprise.
Further, the Hoover Institution is interested in “outcomes.” Here, in the end, through local, state, and federal government powers, the outcome
is this: parents will be left with a choice between what’s left of the dead body of public education, OR one quasi-private charter school over another–none are good choices. I have to ask at this point: What hand do the funders of the Hoover Institution (the Walton’s) have in this scenario?
Then there is the broader problem of curriculum choices. To put it way too briefly, in our public schools, students and teachers can explore political systems, do comparative analyses, including on our own, and with all the warps and weaves associated with any system (also including oligarchy).
Whereas how does private enterprise or even non-profit boards take to comparative analysis and criticism? or the Waltons, the Kochs or the Gates, of their own enterprises? And what would put or keep them in an authentic dialogue about the basic structure of their influence? Under the private or quasi-private structure, how goes the idea that we can bite the hand that feeds us and not suffer for it? Who will stop clapping first?
So the problem is rich, but not whether some charter schools do well educating students or not, in Ohio or in any State–I’m sure some do well, regardless of their political or economic roots. And having not read the CREDO reports, those who wrote it may understand this difference. Implementation under the Walton influence is probably quite another issue.
Rather, the problem goes much deeper–to those same political and economic, even spiritual roots. The problem is in those who influence or make policy (1) failing to see the GREAT DIFFERENCE between business enterprises and public institutions–this is probably what Margaret Raymond tripped on when she remarked: “markets don’t work well in schooling.” (I wonder what the Waltons thought about that?)
. . . OR (2) in those who are fundamentally against public- or democratic (small d) anything, and who have the resources to import their personal viewpoints (often egregiously narrow and under-educated) on the entire world, all with the cover-story of “doing good.” If it’s not fascism we are involved in, if left to its own unchecked devices, fascism is on it’s way.
Finally, parents need to be further educated, indeed; but also we need to be able to trust our policy-makers to know the basics–though public institutions live in a capitalist economy, they are not about economics or capitalism. We are about educating people to choose to live in, maintain, and grow in thinking democratic culture.
We need to be able to trust our representatives AND our HOOVER-TYPE institutions, to know and to truly work in the public interest instead of shooting-the-feet out from under the democratic and public institutions that their own freedoms depend on. CBK
This one, too, went to moderation. I give up. CBK
Thank you to those doing this research on the think tanks that promote right wing ideology.
I hope someone does a similar dive into CREDO at Stanford. I found a press release from its first incarnation at the University of Rochester in 1999, getting 1.25 million dollars in grants led by principal investigator Eric A. Hanushek. And the director of this brand new organization was one Margaret Raymond. One year later, Hanushek moved to Hoover at Stanford and so did Raymond and CREDO.
I was trying to figure out what Raymond’s background was before Hanushek gave her a plum position as founding director of CREDO in 1999. She was an ADJUNCT Associate Professor at Rochester at the time (I notice that the Adjunct is now left out and now she just claims to have “held faculty positions” at U. of Rochester and many publications incorrectly describe her as being an Associate Professor at U. of Rochester which she clearly has no interest in correcting.) I also notice that from 1985 to 2000, for the 15 years before her university “colleague” Eric Hanushek gave her this plum job, she ran her own private consulting company “Raymond Associates”, which among other things did telecommunications consulting.
You know, I assume, that Hanushek and Raymond are married.
But presumably they were not married nor even having a relationship at all when she got the position of director of CREDO at U. of Rochester, since the PI who got the grant was Eric Hanushek. I assume that having a person who had a relationship with the grant recipient being given the job to direct the organization for which he just received a 1.25 million dollar grant would not be appropriate. So I was curious about Raymond’s previous peer reviewed academic publications and research before 1999 that made her the best candidate for a job directing this new organization at U. of Rochester that was funded by foundation grants. I assumed from the first articles I read about her that she was a tenured professor at U. of Rochester (or at least on the tenure track) and then I was surprised to learn that U. of Rochester called her an “adjunct Assoc. Prof”.
Do you know anything about her research publications in peer reviewed journals before getting the job as director at CREDO? I assume she had a stellar history of highly recognized education research.
Diane Is there some reason why my comments on two of these post-areas went to and remain “in moderation”? Thanks, CBK
Where the thinking tanks
Stink tanks!
Lol. That too. Extraordinarily removed from actual classrooms. Lots of big time self-dealing, like a certain President whose name will go down in infamy.
Poet labeled them “spin tanks”.
To the billionaires, they are brothels housing intellectual prostitutes who provide client services that destroy democracy and Main Street.
Yes, Linda. The word that comes to mind when I think of Fordham is “meretricious,” in both its current and older definitions. It doesn’t mean “having merit,” lol.
Who understands the significance of this piece of public information? It went to the MA Commissioner of Education in1995 before the ELA standards document was finalized.
Click to access 40-linguists.pdf
I do!!! See this: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/on-the-pseudoscience-of-strategies-based-reading-comprehension-instruction-or-what-current-comprehension-instruction-has-in-common-with-astrology/
Please let Whole Language/Balanced Literacy devotees read it (or at least know about it). We don’t need a continuation of the Reading Wars.
Dr. Stotsky, let me take this opportunity to thank you for your cogent defense of coherent literature and history curricula and explanations of the ways in which such curricula are undermined by the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic].
I know, Dr. Stotsky, that you have expertise in the preparation of English teachers. So, sharing this with you: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/what-should-be-taught-in-an-english-teacher-preparation-program/
The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent Literature Curriculum: What Secondary English Teachers Can Do, with Jamie Highfill, Ashley Gerhardson, and Christian Goering, 2012.
Dear Bob Shepherd, Unless experienced and well-read English teachers can develop coherent and increasingly demanding literature curricula in their schools, average high school students will remain at about the fifth or sixth grade reading level–where they now are to judge from several independent sources. This book seeks to challenge education policy makers, test developers, and educators who discourage the assignment of appropriately difficult works to high school students and make construction of a coherent literature curriculum impossible.
Best wishes, Sandra Stotsky
We had this, Dr. Stotsky, before the micromanagement of our nation’s schools started–micromanagement from the feds, the states, and the districts. Interesting, isn’t it, that a free marketplace of IDEAS among teachers and textbook developers created great literature curricula in the past that have now been replaced by random exercises on random snippets of text based on random items from the backward, puerile, mediocre, vague, abstract, almost completely content free CC$$ skills list.
And, thanks for the suggestion!
“Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst,” charter researcher Margaret “Macke” Raymond said OF OHIO at the 2015 national conference for reporters held by the charter industry and entitled “Charters & Choice: Making Sense of the Fast-Evolving Landscape in K-12 Education.” –reported by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post
This quote from the blog entry of Mercedes says it all:
The Fordham Institute (TBF) is a propaganda outlet for ed reform, including school choice and the Common Core, and a fine example of how a few well-positioned, unaccountable, and otherwise unqualified individuals have achieved the veneer of expertise regarding American education, also garnering for themselves amazing salaries from the cushy employment of promoting their propaganda as expertise.
I presume it is the employees of Ohio’s state superintendent (Phelps provides his bio.) who are SETDA (State Education Technology Directors Association).
SETDA, funded by Gates, promotes private-public partnerships and digital learning, If citizens were being served by the ODE, SETDA would reject both of Gates’ initiatives, instead of promoting tech profit taking with workshops and pitch fests for business.
Fordham’s interests are at the intersection of ALEC and theocracy. Only wealthy Republicans factor into Ohio’s decisions.
Instead of good government in the education sphere, Ohio has Fordham and Sen. Lehman, neither of whom hold themselves accountable for ECOT nor their other failures.
Click to access 40-linguists.pdf
Why did MA students do so well on NAEP reading et al tests after 2005/7? The petition sent to the commissioner of education in 1995 (see link above) by (mainly) linguists associated with MIT removed the prestige attached to Whole Language, and it couldn’t be promoted by the MA DoE at all. Sandra Stotsky
Click to access 40-linguists.pdf
Why did MA students do so well on NAEP reading et al tests after 2005/7? The petition sent to the commissioner of education in 1995 (see link above) by (mainly) linguists associated with MIT removed the prestige attached to Whole Language, and it couldn’t be promoted by the MA DoE at all. Sandra Stotsky
Click to access 40-linguists.pdf
Why the MA DoE couldn’t promote Whole Language after 1995.
What Yatvin doesn’t tell you. http://nottrivialbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/40-linguists.pdf
Dear Ms. Schneider: The full name is
The Fordham Institute for the Paying of Big Bucks to Officers of the Fordham Institute
There’s an infinitely looping version of that, but, space, you know.
How much of Fordham’s freight is paid by people living in Ohio?
It’s billionaire control regardless but, from which states? Where did the colonialist funders send their kids to school?
Fordham Funders Rogues Gallery
American Federation for Children
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation
Collaborative for Student Success
Doris and Donald Fisher Fund
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Hastings Education Fund
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
JPMorgan Chase Foundation
Kern Family Foundation
Leona B. and Harry M. Helmsley Trust
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Nord Family Foundation
Roger and Susan Hertog
Smith Richardson Foundation
Strada Education Network
The Achelis and Bodman Foundation
The Bernard Lee Schwartz Foundation
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation
The George Gund Foundation
The Joyce Foundation
The Kovner Foundation
The Louis Calder Foundation
The Lovett & Ruth Peters Foundation
The Lynch Foundation
Walton Family Foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
William E. Simon Foundation
Does not include individual funders
Fordham lists as partners Education Cities, PIE Network, 50Can, The Brookings Institution, the National Council of Teacher Quality, EducationNext, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, CRPE, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Stand for Children, Foundation for Excellence in Education, Core Knowledge (!!!!!!!), Philanthropy Ohio, School Choice Ohio, Democrats for Education Reform, the Hoover Institution, Students First, the State Policy Network, Agudath Israel of America, ALEC, the Philanthropy Roundtable, and the American Federation for Children.
It doesn’t mention Satan, but several organizations on this list come close.
No voice for Ohioans who send their kids to public schools (and, who pay for them) because Fordham is oligarchy.
Linda, ofc, the astroturf front organizations for oligarchs exist to tell others what to do, not to recieve (ho ho ho) “input” from the rabble.
cx: receive, ofc