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BREAKING NEWS: Koch Brothers Declare War on Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2018 //
39

The Koch brothers have decided to target K-12 public schools.

The multi-billionaire Koch Brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase control of departments in America’s colleges and universities, to spread their libertarian gospel of greed and undercut any commitment to the common good. At their recently concluded meeting of like-minded donors, the Koch’s announced that they are expanding their ideological campaign to include the destruction of the K-12 public schools in America. Choosing a school will be like choosing a pair of shoes in their vision, which is shared by Betsy DeVos,a member of their donors’ Network.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/30/daily-202-koch-network-laying-groundwork-to-fundamentally-transform-america-s-education-system/5a6feb8530fb041c3c7d74db/?utm_term=.e7ddbc619216

Arizona is ground zero for the Koch Brothers this spring. Steve Perry, the African American entrepreneur from Connecticut appeared at the meeting to urge the privatization on. The Washington Post was lowed to send a reporter on condition that the donors’ names were kept secret.

“Making a long-term play, the billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and his like-minded friends on the right are increasingly focused on melding the minds of the next generation by making massive, targeted investments in both K-12 and higher education.

“Changing the education system as we know it was a central focus of a three-day donor seminar that wrapped up late last night at a resort here in the desert outside Palm Springs.

“We’ve made more progress in the last five years than I had in the last 50,” Koch told donors during a cocktail reception. “The capabilities we have now can take us to a whole new level. … We want to increase the effectiveness of the network … by an order of magnitude. If we do that, we can change the trajectory of the country.”

“Leaders of the network dreamed of disrupting the status quo, customizing learning and breaking the teacher unions. One initial priority is expanding educational saving accounts and developing technologies that would let parents pick and choose private classes or tutors for their kids the same way people shop on Amazon. They envision making it easy for families to join together to start their own “micro-schools” as a new alternative to the public system.

“The Charles Koch Institute distributed roughly $100 million to 350 colleges and universities last year, up sevenfold over the past five years. What’s newer is the emphasis on elementary and secondary education. The network declined to offer exact figures but said it will double investment in K-12 this year, with much more planned down the road.

“There are about 700 people who each contribute a minimum of $100,000 per year to the constellation of organizations that comprise the Koch network. For years, many of these megadonors have urged Koch to wade into the battles over what they call school choice. Charles resisted, believing that his network had no special comparative advantage to move the needle in this area.

“Then he commissioned Meredith Olson, a vice president at Koch Industries, to interview members of his network about what they are doing in their home states to explore whether there is a way to scale their education efforts nationally. She developed a three-prong strategy: “reform, supplement, innovate.”

“The lowest hanging fruit for policy change in the United States today is K-12,” said Stacy Hock, a major Koch donor who has co-founded a group called Texans for Educational Opportunity. “I think this is the area that is most glaringly obvious.”

“In 2018, Koch donors see Arizona as ground zero in their push. Doug Ducey, the former chief executive of Cold Stone Creamery, became a member of the Koch network in 2011. Since 2015, he’s attended the seminars as governor of Arizona. Last year, he signed legislation to dramatically expand the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program so that students can use taxpayer dollars that would be spent on them in public schools to cover private-school tuition or other educational expenses.

“Teacher unions, worried that this will undermine the public system, collected enough signatures to put the law on hold and create a ballot proposition to let voters decide in November whether to expand vouchers. [Note: Signatures for the referendum were collected by parents and SOS Arizona, not teachers unions.]

“Addressing the seminar yesterday, Ducey touted the measure as further reaching than anything that’s been tried in other states. He warned that, under Arizona law, if advocates lose at the ballot box, they will not be able to legislate on the topic in the future. “This is a very real fight in my state,” Ducey said. “I didn’t run for governor to play small ball. I think this is an important idea.”

“The Koch network is likely to spend heavily to support the voucher law, setting up a battle royal with the labor movement.

“Ducey introduced Steve Perry, the headmaster of Capital Prep Charter Schools, who has been traveling Arizona to speak in support of the law. “The teacher unions are unencumbered by the truth,” he told the Koch donors. “It is a distant relative that is never invited to dinner.”

“Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, highlighted field operations that the network has built in 36 states to advance its agenda, including on education. “We have more grass-roots members in Wisconsin than the Wisconsin teachers’ union has members,” he said. “That’s how you change a state!””

 

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Billionaires, Education Industry, Education Reform, Evil, Koch Brothers, Privatization

“Big Money Rules”: My Review of Two Books about the War on the Public Sector

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2018 //
10

This is a review of two important books.

One is Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth for America.”

The other is Gordon Lafer’s “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time.”

Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Democracy, Koch Brothers

How ALEC Attacked Public Schools in Indiana, Despite the State Constitution

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2018 //
26

 

Imagine a state whose constitution contains an ironclad guarantee of uniform system of common schools, free and open to all. Imagine a state whose constitution flatly bans the funding of any sectarian schools. Call that state Indiana. How is it that Indiana is now awash in charters and vouchers, flatly contradicting the explicit language of the state constitution.

The answer lies with an organization called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is funded generously by the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and many of the nation’s largest corporations.

Three Professors at Ball State University—Michael Schaffer, Jeff Swenson, and John G. Ellis—published a very informative explanation about ALEC’s stealth attack on public education in Indiana, 

The cold and calculating destruction of public education in Indiana was not the result of democratic deliberation. It was planned and implemented by oligarchs and rightwing politicians, who betrayed their own communities.

Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Privatization

What You Need to Know about ALEC, the Koch Brothers, the DeVos Family, and Privatization

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2018 //
9

This article was written in 2015 but it is as timely today as it was then. Maybe more timely, because in 2015, who would have dreamed that Betsy DeVos would soon be U.S. Secretary of Education?

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a bill mill founded in 1973 and funded by the Koch Brothers, the DeVos family, and major corporations. It operates secretively. It does not issue press releases. It churns out model laws that state legislators introduce into their own states to deregulate business and privatize the public sector for profit. It is a stealth political campaign to privatize everything for profit while classified by the IRS as a charity. Its members include one of every four state legislators in the nation. It’s corporate members include some of the nation’s pre-eminent businesses.

One of the major targets of ALEC is public education, because it is public. ALEC has model legislation for charter schools, vouchers, and cybercharters. It has Model legislation to eliminate collective bargaining and unions. It has Model legislation to lower standards for teachers and deregulate entry into teaching.

To learn more about ALEC, watch DeVos and read the website ALEC Exposed.

Alecexposed.com

Circulate this post and the links to everyone you know.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Privatization

Wisconsin: Expansion of Vouchers Divides Communities

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2018 //
21

 

Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature expanded the voucher program despite its failure in Milwaukee. To zealots, evidence doesn’t matter. In some small communities, the voucher money is subtracted from the local public school to subsidize students already enrolled in religious schools. The many will see their education impoverished to subsidize those who never attended public schools. Others are fearful that the fabric of community life will be injured by this diversion of public dollars and civic support to private schools.  Walker is a favorite of the Koch brothers, which may explain his eagerness to destroy public schools. The Koch’s backed him as a candidate for president in 2016, but he didn’t last long. His love of vouchers is destabilizing communities across the state.

 

“When Superintendent Sue Kaphingst moved to Chilton less than a year ago, she marveled at how the northeastern Wisconsin community rallied around its local school district.

“Nestled to the east of Lake Winnebago about 75 miles north of Milwaukee, Chilton and its 3,900 residents felt cohesive. Football stars acted in the high school musical. Parents, students and school board members created a yarn art installation on the Chilton Middle School lawn to demonstrate that they were all connected. The high school theater was built with millions from a local family who owned pet supplies company Kaytee Products.

“But there’s a new development here and in other communities across Wisconsin that will test those ties: school vouchers. Four years after the GOP-led Legislature approved a statewide voucher program, the number of private schools registered to receive taxpayer-funded tuition subsidies has sharply increased. Together with the longstanding Milwaukee voucher program and the more recent Racine voucher program, close to 300 private, predominantly religious schools from Lake Superior to the Illinois border are poised to receive taxpayer funding for an estimated 33,750 students this fall, according to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget.“For the first time, the Chilton School District could face either an enrollment drop because children will use a voucher to attend the local Catholic school they couldn’t otherwise afford, or more likely, the district will have to raise taxes to fund vouchers for children who already attend the private school.

“Together, the state’s voucher programs are expected to cost about $263 million in 2017-’18, according to Walker’s budget proposal.

“While President Donald Trump is pitching to boost federal spending on school choice programs by $1.4 billion — a down payment on his promise of $20 billion — Wisconsin is already demonstrating the complexities of expanding private-school choice to exurban America. Now that private schools outside of densely populated Milwaukee and Racine can tap into voucher funding, new tensions are bubbling up between religious conservatives eager to offer more students a religious-based education and district advocates who fear losing resources to private schools now competing for the same pot of public dollars.

“There’s only so much money,” said Kaphingst, the Chilton superintendent. “You’re taking from one for the other.”

Categories Koch Brothers, Vouchers, Walker, Scott

Peter Greene: The End Game of the Privatization Movement

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2017 //
46

Jennifer Berkshire pointed Peter Greene to a paper published by the libertarian Heartland Institute in 2002, nearly 18 years ago. It lays out the goals of the privatization movement very clearly. The main goal was nothing less than the elimination of public schools in America, replaced by a free-market system. The paper was written by Joseph Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute.

Whenever you hear someone refer to public schools as “government schools,” you can be sure you are in the presence of a free-market zealot.

“Bast expresses a childlike faith in the magic of the marketplace. “Privatization is so effective it typically costs a private firm half as much as the government to produce a product or service of similar (often superior) quality.” It’s a cute notion, for which he offers zero evidence. What was clear even in 2002, but what Bast never acknowledges, is that privatization allows private operators to hoover up a big pile of tax dollars that would otherwise have gone to the public sector. But Bast belonged to the Cult of Competition, believing that competing schools would reward schools that please parents, stimulate parent involvement, be more efficient, and penalize failure. None of these things are related to the goal of providing a high quality education for every single child in America, but then, that’s not his goal.

“Bast had some clever (if not reality-based) ideas about how vouchers would satisfy many reformy constituencies. For instance, by setting voucher amounts below current per-students spending levels, vouchers would lessen the taxpayer cost. Because, I guess, the private schools would accept the low voucher amount. Because when I tell the dealer that I can’t afford a Porsche, he just says, “Well, then, I’ll just lower the price to what you would like to pay.” Because that’s how free market competition works…

“His big vision?

Pilot voucher programs for the urban poor will lead the way to statewide universal voucher plans. Soon, most government schools will be converted into private schools or simply close their doors. Eventually, middle- and upper-income families will not longer expect or need tax-financed assistance to pay for the education of their children, leading to further steps toward complete privatization. Vouchers could remain to help the truly needy.

“Use the poor to get vouchers started. Shut down public education entirely. Let the wealthy go back to their exclusive top-tier schools, and set up some cheap ones for everyone else. Boom. No public education, and no forcing taxpayers to pay a bunch of money to educate Those People’s children…

“If you take nothing else from this piece, remember this– for many of the most ardent voucher supporters, school vouchers are not a destination, but just a stop-gap, something that will have to do until they can finally move on their real goal– the complete dismantling of public education in this country, replaced with a loose system of unaccountable, unregulated private schools. That fully privatized system, not a voucher system, is the goal. Keep your eye on the ball.”

Heartland Institute is supported by the DeVos family, the Koch brothers, and all the usual rightwing foundations.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Privatization

The U.S. Has the Highest Rate of Child Poverty in the Developed World

By dianeravitch
December 25, 2017 //
41

On Christmas Day, it is traditional to remember those who are less fortunate and to resolve to make the world better for them, not just to offer charity.

It is important to recognize the growing inequality in America and the return of extreme poverty and to understand why this is happening.

This article by Premilla Nadasen of Barnard College helps us understand what has happened to our great country.

The New Deal enacted programs that reduced poverty and enabled many to rise into the middle class.

But something changed. Many things changed. Over several decades, the social safety net built to strengthen our nation and spread hope and opportunity has been shredded by the rich and powerful.

“Since the 1970s, the safety net has been diminished considerably. Labor regulations protecting workers have been rolled back, and funding for education and public programs has declined. The poor have been the hardest hit. With welfare reform in 1996, poor single parents with children now have a lifetime limit of five years of assistance and mandatory work requirements. Some states require fingerprinting or drug testing of applicants, which effectively criminalizes them without cause. The obstacles to getting on welfare are formidable, the benefits meager. The number of families on welfare declined from 4.6 million in 1996 to 1.1 million this year. The decline of the welfare rolls has not meant a decline in poverty, however.

“Instead, the shredding of the safety net led to a rise in poverty. Forty million Americans live in poverty, nearly half in deep poverty — which U.N. investigators defined as people reporting income less than one-half of the poverty threshold. The United States has the highest child poverty rates — 25 percent — in the developed world. Then there are the extremely poor who live on less than $2 per day per person and don’t have access to basic human services such as sanitation, shelter, education and health care. These are people who cannot find work, who have used up their five-year lifetime limit on assistance, who do not qualify for any other programs or who may live in remote areas. They are disconnected from both the safety net and the job market.

“In addition to the reduction of public assistance and social services, the rise in extreme poverty can also be attributed to growing inequality. To quote the U.N. report: “The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion, as the U.S. … now has the lowest rate of social mobility of any of the rich countries.” In 1981, the top 1 percent of adults earned on average 27 times more than the bottom 50 percent of adults. Today the top 1 percent earn 81 times more than the bottom 50 percent.

“Declining wages at the lower end of the economic ladder make it harder for people to save for times of crisis or to get back on their feet. A full-time, year-round minimum wage worker, often employed in a dead-end job, falls below the poverty threshold for a family of three and often has to rely on food stamps.”

Do we want America to be the Land of Illusion, no longer the Land of Opportunity? Are we prepared to do something about it?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Poverty

How Parents in Douglas County, Colorado, Beat Back the Koch Brothers, ALEC, and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
13

This is an inspiring story about the successful efforts by parents in Douglas County, Colorado, to save public schools from a far-right faction that gained control of the local school board and began an assault on the principle of public education.

Newly elected school board members in Douglas County, Colorado unanimously voted this week to rescind a controversial voucher program. Despite a $100,000 media ad campaign by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity asking voucher supporters to show up to the board meeting, not a single public comment was made in support of maintaining the program.

The end of the voucher program marks a dramatic end to a years-long battle that began in this affluent suburban community with the election of a GOP-backed slate of school board candidates in 2009. On the one side was a vast network of deep pockets, including Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Committee and the GOP, pushing a divisive and ideological agenda for the local schools. On the other was a group of moms with no experience running political campaigns. These grassroots activists struggled to out-maneuver big dollars and slick marketing, but their hard work finally paid off. On November 7, 2017, voters swept in a slate of candidates who believe in public schools. The Dougco election results should give hope to activists across the country who are fighting to put the “public” back in public education.

The newly installed board in 2009 not only supported vouchers but it bullied teachers and principals and drove many of them away from the district.

With a GOP political operative in charge of the Douglas County School District communications department, it was increasingly difficult to remember this was a school district. As teachers and parents were intimidated, and fear settled in, teachers began to leave—by choice or force—what was once considered a “destination district.” Teachers left in the middle of the day. They were escorted out of their classrooms by police in front of children. One teacher was pulled out of a school in front of his own children. Principals were intentionally targeted and told, “You are going to do this and when parents ask we can say, ‘The principal said so.’”

Parents found it hard to believe that their elected school board wanted to undermine the public schools. But activist parents joined with the ACLU and sued to block the voucher program.

The resistance built slowly. The privatizers retained control in an election in 2013. The parent coalition won three seats in 2015. The parent resistance swept the board in 2017 and abolished the voucher program.

The story of Dougco proves that organized grassroots resistance can prevail over big money.

As the Network for Public Education says, “We have the numbers. They have the money. They can hire people to carry their message. But we can beat them if we work together and bring people out to vote for their public schools.”

We must not ever lose hope. Dougco is proof that resistance can succeed.

Categories ALEC, Education Reform, Koch Brothers

Laura Chapman: Koch Brothers Want Researchers for Hispanic Propaganda Campaign

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2017 //
8

Laura Chapman has done her usual fastidious research and discovered that the Koch Brothers are offering pocket change to anyone who will offer help for their propaganda campaign to persuade Hispanic parents that privatization of school funding is good for them.

She writes:

“The Libre Institute “research” program will pay $10,000 to academics and fellows who will offer the Institute papers that offer an “analysis and proposed policy initiatives rooted in values such as economic freedom and well-being, fiscal discipline, limited government, market entrepreneurship, and personal accountability.”

“To the extent possible, each analysis should examine federal and state-level policies related to each topic and the respective impact to Hispanics in those states. Particular states to be highlighted are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Virginia. “

“The academics who are enlisted to do research on education for the Libre Institute are asked to “review School Choice regulations and their impact on closing the achievement gap between Hispanics and other demographics.”

“Other topics for the research initiative are:

“Health Care – explore the current Medicaid system and its ability to provide adequate health care services to Hispanics in the U.S.; alternatively, or in coordination with, an analysis of the regulations and taxes under the

“Affordable Care Act and its impact on U.S. Hispanics’ ability to access care, choice and overall economic impact;

“Regulation – examine impact of regulations on Hispanic small business owners and entrepreneurs’ ability to enter markets and succeed;

“Poverty – evaluate the success of current government policies and their ability to move Hispanics out of poverty;

“Immigration – study the economic goals behind Hispanic immigration to the U.S. and determine whether immigrant populations are achieving those goals and whether current policies are an impediment to success;

“Labor / Employment – investigate the current employment situation of Hispanics in the U.S., explore any changes in employment throughout the economic recovery as compared to other demographics, and analyze polices which may further exaggerate any differences.”

“Now here are a few of the strings attached to becoming a shill for the Libre Institute.

“Each paper will be peer reviewed by at least 2 scholars in the community prior to publication. ” (“In the community” scholars are not identified but it is obvious they must meet ideological criteria).

“Once released, each paper will be the subject of a roll-out campaign highlighting the topic of the analysis, and may include additional efforts including op-ed publications, local-level town halls and legislative briefings. It is envisioned that the author of the piece will participate in a select few of these efforts. ”

“Authors will be expected to provide a non-exclusive, but otherwise unlimited license to The LIBRE Institute so that it can publicize and otherwise use the material as part of its public education activities. Authors will be encouraged to submit their pieces for publication in other journals after the paper has been published and released by The LIBRE Institute.”

Research Initiative: The LIBRE Institute Perspective Series

“The Libre Institute is not really interested in research. It wants propaganda points annotated with some references.”

Categories Arizona, Billionaires, Koch Brothers

Why Was a Pennsylvania Senator So Eager to Get a Tax Break for a Small College in Michigan?

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2017 //
9

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania sponsored an amendment to the GOP tax bill that would exempt small Hillsdale College in Michigan from a tax that would apply to other colleges with a sizable endowment. This exemption is worth $700,000 a year to Hillsdale College.

Why did he care so much about a college that is not even in his home state?

Hillsdale is an unusual college. It is one of the very few in the nation that refuses any federal funds, even for student aid, so that it is exempt from any federal regulations, like civil rights.

It is also a special object of the affection of the DeVos family. The DeVos family gave Pat Toomey $60,000 in his close 2016 election. He won’t face the voters again until 2022. Hillsdale College is also a favorite of the Koch brothers, who also supported Toomey’s re-election campaign.

Columnist Will Bunch explains Toomey’s peculiar affection for a super-conservative college not in his own state:

If you’ve never heard of a small institution of higher learning called Hillsdale College, here are a few things you should know about it. The school decided after a 1980s Supreme Court ruling to forego all federal funds, which means it doesn’t need to follow the Title IX rules aimed at reducing campus sexual assault, let alone any guidelines on affirmative action. The college is thus mostly white — and its longtime president once referred to non-white students at a legislative hearing as “dark ones.” It also has a reputation as an unfriendly place for LGBTQ students — which was driven home when the school’s chaplain called for prayer against “evil” gay marriage.

And there’s also this: Hillsdale College is located in southern Michigan, some 280 miles west of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

All in all, to paraphrase the cliché of the moment, this was a bizarre Hillsdale that one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators, Pat Toomey, chose to die on.

OK, maybe “die” isn’t the right word, but the state’s junior senator did reveal a lot about himself on the wee wee hours on Friday when — in a strange 11-minute debate amid the dead-of-night push for the GOP’s $1 trillion millionaire tax giveaway — Toomey tried to defend his amendment that would mean a $700,000 annual tax break for the conservative-oriented Hillsdale by exempting it from a levy on endowments that would hammer the University of Pennsylvania and several other schools in the state Toomey supposedly represents.

Thanks to a few wayward Republicans, the special carveout for Hillsdale College was deleted, but later recouped by adding a few more colleges to the mix:

And it was all for a murky outcome — Toomey’s amendment was voted down (even some of his fellow Republicans thought this a bridge too far), although a later, broader amendment removed not just Hillsdale but also many more traditional universities from the endowment tax.

The universities and colleges that will pay a tax on their endowments will have less money for scholarships for needy students. But that is of no concern to Pat Toomey, or Betsy DeVos, or the Koch brothers.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Higher Education, Koch Brothers, Michigan, Pennsylvania
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