Thomas Ultican is a retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics who has developed a passionate interest in the inner workings of the Privatization and Disruption Movement (also known as the Destroy Public Education Movement).
It sees itself as part of a movement, but it is not. It is merely a hobby for those who have so much money that they can”t find useful things to do with it, like feed the hungry, fight for a higher minimum wage, create health clinics for children and families, or even restore the arts and libraries in schools that have lost them to budget cuts.
There are a few things you need to know about this “movement.” It is a movement of the elite, the super-rich, the powerful. It has no troops, just well-paid minions. As long as the money keeps flowing, there will be takers, ready to sign on to the job of destroying democratically governed public schools and replacing them with privately managed schools. There is so much money available to them from billionaires like Reed Hastings and John Arnold that they can flood local school board elections with more cash than any of the other candidates and put anti-public school candidates on the board of the district.
The City Fund uses billionaire cash to undermine democracy. It does nothing to alleviate poverty or reduce segregation. Such things are not important to them, other than dreaming that changes in the ownership of schools from public to private will someday, somehow reduce poverty.
Here is the other interesting fact about the staff of the City Fund. Nothing they have done has ever improved education. All of their endeavors have failed. They exist to disrupt and destroy communities and their attachment to their local public schools. As one surveys the disaster of the Tennessee “Achievement School District,” the pathetic results of the New Orleans all-charter district (where nearly half the charters are failing schools), one wonders why the billionaires pay them to sow more chaos. The billionaires sit back and watch the fun from afar.
Ultican has created a sociogram of the main actors. None of them can point to a district that has “closed the achievement gap.” None of them can point to a success story that vaulted an entire district to the peak of excellence. Yet there they are, sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, primed to impose their will on the people and deprive them of their right to elect their representatives.
How long will the billionaires continue to fund failure?
There is something in the City Fund that is strangely detached from the lives of children and families, something completely indifferent to the importance of communities, something soulless in the work they do to rearrange the lives of other people. It as though they are looking at cities where they never lived from a height of 30,000 feet, deciding the fate of people they never met, people who are not on the payroll of billionaires.
They exist in a luxurious, air-conditioned bubble, remote from the cares of families who worry about feeding their children, paying their rent or mortgage, having a decent job, planning for the future.
They are the outsiders who land in a community to tear it apart, then exit to do the same to another community.
Strange what some people will do for money, a lot of money. Power is intoxicating. So is money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
. . . It’s power and money, but also evidence of a completely self-serving ego. “I can see how wonderful I am.” . . .a pervasive sense of deserved privilege fills the air of the bubble they blow for themselves to live in.
This is not the “ME TOO” movement, but the “ME-ME” movement of which Trump and Devos are but poster children. CBK
I call it the “I, ME, MINE” attitude.
A link to my article: https://tultican.com/2020/03/02/the-city-fund-spending-prolifically-to-privatize-public-education/
Thanks, Sir!
Privatization and Disruption Movement (also known as the Destroy Public Education Movement).
aka, the Billionaires Overseeing the Wrecking of Education across this Land, or BOWEL, Movement
Great piece, Tom! And thanks for the sociopathogram!
It’s one thing to know these people are throwing their $ around privatization. It’s quite another to see their determined and relentless organization graphically, and to hear their words.
“Moe and Chubb called for ending locally elected school boards claiming that poor academic performance was “one of the prices Americans pay for choosing to exercise direct democratic control over their schools.”… ““Let’s year by year expand the nonprofit school sector. We know the school district is probably not going to like it, but we’re not against them. We’re for good schools, period. If there’s a very high-performing school district school, let’s keep it. But the low-performing school district public school — let’s have a nonprofit public school take it over.” (Reed Hastings).
There oughta be a law. Who the HELL are these swamp creatures to feed off our taxes via non-profit orgs – supplementing with personal billions stolen from the public via $clout-purchased anti-public tax policy – to attack democracy right at its root municipal level?!
After 30 years of charters, there is no evidence —none—that KIPP or any other charter corporation can take over and “fix” low-scoring schools. Reed Hastings needs to learn more.