On December 23, I posted an email exchange I had with Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in which we disagreed about who was the Goliath and who was the David in the field of education.
Mike objected to my characterization of the billionaire-supported “Reform” movement as the Goliaths of American education, the behemoths making war on public schools. He insisted that his side–those supporting charter schools and vouchers–are the true Davids, and those who oppose them are the true Goliaths because we have the AFT and the NEA on our side.
I pointed out to him that the assets of the two big unions are not in the same league as the supporters of school choice, like the Waltons (at least $160 billion) and a long list of other multibillionaires, who avidly fund school choice, along with the U.S. Department of Education, which has shoveled billions into charter schools since 1994 (and will spend nearly $500 million on charters this year alone). You can’t be supported by billionaires, multiple foundations, the U.S. Department of Education, and call yourself the “David” of education.
My clincher, I thought, was to point out the Reformers’ absence from a Twitter campaign on #GivingTuesday sponsored by a website called #Benevity, which offered $10 for every retweet of its message (#BeTheGood) to the charity of your choice. Look at which groups were asking for $10 retweets. The Network for Public Education urged its followers to retweet the message so that we could be designated to receive $10 per tweet. We figured if we got 100 retweets, we could pull in $1,000. That amount of money means a lot to NPE. It means nothing, zero, nada, zilch to the well-funded “Reform” organizations. It means nothing to organization supported by the Waltons, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc.
I wrote:
On #GivingTuesday, I didn’t see a single Reformer group putting out a request for $10. Not one. Not TFA. Not Educators4Excellence. Not Stand for Children. Certainly not the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which is sitting on tens of millions of dollars and gets huge grants from a long list of foundations.
No, they get gifts of hundreds of thousands and millions from foundations like Walton, Gates, Arnold, Broad, and about 50 other foundations who like to do whatever the big boys and girls do.
Ahem. We proudly claim the title of David to your Goliath. We know how that turned out.
I was surprised to get a response from Mike Petrilli.
He wrote a series of emails to demonstrate that several Reform organizations asked for money on #GivingTuesday. He must have skipped over what I wrote, because not a single one of them asked their followers to retweet #Benevity’s message and get $10 for each retweet. As I wrote, “Not one.” Not one of them cares about a gift of $10. That is not even a rounding error in their budgets.
So here are the Reformer groups that Petrilli sent me to prove that they asked for donations on #GivingTuesday and their annual revenues as of 2016, the last date the figures are available on their public tax reports (thanks to Darcie Cimarusti of the NPE staff for collecting the 990 information).
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Annual revenues: $9,582,733
Education Reform Now (nonprofit arm of Democrats for Education Reform, the hedge fund managers’ group)
Annual revenues: $12,379,392
GreatSchools.Org
Annual revenues: $10,774,696
Center for Education Reform (loves all choices, except for public schools)
Annual Revenues: $4,090,687
Rocketship Education:
Total annual revenues: $82,957,671
Net income: $6,761,892
(There are separate reports for local and state Rocketships, like Rocketship DC and Rocketship Wisconsin)
Expect More Arizona
Annual revenues: $3,729,325
Bricolage (the new charter school that will replace the last public school in New Orleans)
Since the school has not opened yet, there are no tax forms, but it is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, NewSchools Venture Fund, New Schools for New Orleans, and the Arnold Foundation.
Washington State Charter Schools. No 990 forms yet, but the charter schools in Washington State were funded entirely by Bill Gates and a small group of billionaires, including Alice Walton, Nick Hanauer, Alice Walton, the parents of Jeff Bezos, and a few others with very deep pockets.
Why in the world would any of these organizations ask you to retweet a message that would win $10 for them?
Ahem. The Reform and privatization industry is a hobby of the billionaires. It is not a “movement.” Its purpose is to destroy public education and eliminate unions. It is a substitute for funding public schools, which 85% of American children choose.
If the money dried up, the entire edifice of privatization would shrivel and blow away.
Meanwhile, the Network for Public Education, whose annual revenues are not in the same league with the Reformers, would be delighted to receive your gift of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100. If 100 people give $10 each, that’s $1,000. That means a lot to us. Unlike the Reformer groups mentioned above, we don’t have office space. We have a Post Office Box. Not a penny of your donation will be wasted on exorbitant salaries or lavish facilities. We have no facilities! We have 1.5 staff members, and none of them is paid a six-figure salary. We are a lean, keen organization. Every dollar you give will support our work to protect, support, and improve public schools.
Make the Network for Public Education your charity of choice this year. We need the money. Don’t be fooled. We are the Davids of education. And you know how that turned out!
