The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy
Published April 06, 2009 @ 01:09PM PT
[Note: The article Sharon discusses below is available for free if you sign up for a free trial with SAGE that expires at the end of April. Register and then download the article here. I just finished it, and found it an even-handed approach to the topic.- Clay]
Here’s a scholarly and informative article to share with you: "The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy and Advocacy," by Janelle Scott (Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, formerly NYU) and published by SAGE. It will take a while to read (32 pages), but I believe it will be worth your time.
Scott explains the billionaires' strategy to push charter schools onto communities and how they are maneuvering their immense foundation-giving to achieve this result. She also describes the not-always-well-intentioned, and/or misguided, history of foundation "giving" which has targeted communities of color in the past.
The foundation-giving programs of today require an important trade-off from the local communities: namely, the relinquishment of interest and power over their own public schools to the public education notions of a few immensely wealthy oligarchs. What does it tell us that the communities where this is occurring necessitated first being placed under authoritarian rule?
Scott’s article explains how the "gifts" of these foundations are going to a broad range of charter advocacy groups, pro-charter research organizations, alternative teacher and principal training programs, charter school development organizations, etc. EdVoice, Center for Education Reform, TFA, NewSchools Venture Fund, NewLeaders for New Schools, KIPP, Green Dot, Democrats for Education Reform, and the EEP are just the teeny tiny tip of the you're-going-to-have-charter-schools-if-you-want-them-or-not iceberg.
Scott describes the flow of money to these organizations with the intent to have them work as a network in unison to further the billionaires' goal. Very few of the donations go directly to individual schools and their students, but just enough to make them look a lot better than their traditional school neighbors. The majority of the dollars go toward advocacy, propaganda, and the building of a national pro-charter school structure.
I've recently learned how Broad has bought off large, important portions of PBS, and how Ms. Gates is on the board of the Washington Post. The extent to which the media has been co-opted by this force would be a good topic for someone to track. We know how heavily they have influenced the White House.
I was especially interested to learn that one of the official techniques used to push charter schools, and described in a 2004 Philanthropy Roundtable donors guide, is "...the sponsorship of efforts that put parents of color out front instead of 'rich, white Republicans.' " The technique is exactly described here and here.
This general strategy may also explain why a deeply-in-debt-to-the-IRS Al Sharpton was persuaded to join the pro-charter force.
Another small item that may be of interest to some of you is that the Broad Foundation paid the Century Foundation $100,000 (in 2004) and $29,973 (in 2007) to "support research on the late union leader Albert Shanker." You may view The Broad Foundation 990's here.
Perhaps this is the "why" it has come about that pro-charter forces mention Albert Shanker so frequently for being responsible for the idea of charter schools. They use this statement to both justify the existence of charter schools, and to attempt to disarm the teachers' union complaints about them.
The details of these maneuvers are extensive, and won’t be easily grasped by the American public, not to mention the lesser educated parents in the communities now being targeted. The word about what is really going on desperately needs to get out more broadly.
Image by poritsky
Share this Post
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
EmailRelated Posts
-
An Achievement Gap Report Unreported by the Mainstream Media
-
Web Roundup: KIPP-Union War, Eli Broad Smackdown, Madoff and AIG Edu-Connections, SUMO Math
-
Ed Sec Duncan Tips a Troubling Hand
Comments (9)
Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.
Author
-
Sharon Higgins has been an active public school parent in Oakland, California, since 1993. For seven eye-opening years she was employed as a parent coordinator at her local (labeled by some as "failing") public middle school. Today she spends time researching, reading, thinking and writing about certain school and social issues. She posts the product of those efforts on a blog called "The Perimeter Primate."
Featured Education Actions
-
-
-
Eliminate Violence Against Women
1739 People
-
Eliminate Violence Against Women
The charter movement is seen right now as the chief place for R&D in education. The reason there is such a lot of money thrown at them is they are places where innovation can be tested. It certainly is not going anywhere in traditional public schools. The problems you outline are serious and real, however, I wonder how you propose to fight these forces. I don't think you can shut the whole thing down. That would be like trying to put the rain back in the clouds, it can be done but with lots of effort. The solution I don't hear proposed often enough is for local school districts and local teacher groups to start charter schools themselves. The federal startup grant money, which is extensive, doesn't differentiate between schools started by local groups and those started by the billionaire philanthropic crowd. The DoE lets the states decide how to disperse these funds. The stronger safeguards are to lobby for responsible and progressive charter school legislation that limits the influence of outside groups and helps local taxpayers keep control of their local schools. The other way to fight this is to address within our traditional schools the issues that charter schools address. Namely, address accountablility and problems with teacher tenure, address alternative models of pedagogy, address flexible scheduling, address differentiated instruction, address personalized learning, and address a need for schools to try new and innovative ideas. Show the government that charter schools are not necessary because our traditional public schools can address these things too. The problem is, I don't think the way traditional schools are governed are capable of making these changes or trying new things.
Posted by Carl Anderson on 04/07/2009 @ 08:43AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
That's great. For the first time in a long time, at least a few rich white people are trying the best that they know how to improve education in the inner cities. Better than neglect and indifference, right? Even if you think their help is somehow misguided, why are you using such hostile language ("targeted," "propaganda," "authoritarian," etc.)? At least give them the credit of trying to do something to help, which is a lot more than can be said of most rich people.
Maybe back in the Rosenwald days, you'd have ridiculed him for "targeting" black communities too.
Posted by Stuart Buck on 04/07/2009 @ 12:50PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Stuart and Carl: Have you ever heard the billionaires refer to anything like this? http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_12084768?source=rss
To me they are in absolute denial -- or something... They can't seem to get past blaming the cause of low achievement on the teachers and their unions.
If their approach was a little more balanced, their arrogance wouldn't be so repulsive to me and I would be less suspicious of their motives.
Posted by Sharon Higgins on 04/07/2009 @ 05:35PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Why would they need to refer to that study or any like it? Poverty doesn't explain all of the achievement gap; every study that examines the achievement gap finds that there's still a gap even after controlling for poverty. So school reformers are entitled to focus on a problem that they think is important, without constantly being spuriously accused of bad faith and bad motives just because they aren't promising to solve every other problem in the world at the same time.
If you run across someone whose cause is fighting poverty, do you accuse them of "targeting" poor people? Do you say that you're suspicious of their motives just because they're not making charter schools their mission? That would make as much sense. For my money, if someone wants to concentrate on fighting poverty, bully for them. I'm not going to complain that they're evil because they're not fighting for my pet cause at the same time.
Posted by Stuart Buck on 04/07/2009 @ 06:20PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Prof. Janelle Scott's report addresses the Rosenwald Fund. "Although there is no question that these institutions [schools and industrial education] provided opportunities that otherwise might not have existed, the schools were also originally organized around specific notions of what African-Americans' social status should be, usually aligned with training students for industrial and service work." So Dr. Scott sees that particular example as largely positive, but a bit two-edged.
However, funding opportunities for disadvantaged students without attacking, damaging and disrupting the existing institutions that already serve them is a different strategy from what we see the current crop of unelected, powerful education venture philanthropists doing.
Posted by Caroline Grannan on 04/07/2009 @ 07:42PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
A correction to your sentence:
without attacking, damaging and disrupting the existing institutions that already [purport to] serve them, [although often quite incompetently].
That's the real point. If someone is so much in the tank for government-run schools that they are convinced that all other schools are suspicious or dangerous, then your sentiment makes sense. For all the rest of us, there's no religious obligation to stay with the "existing institutions." Sometimes those institutions are good, sometimes they're dreadful, and it's wrong to act as if the only solution to dreadful institutions is to lock other people's kids inside and hope things magically improve.
Posted by Stuart Buck on 04/08/2009 @ 07:56AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Well, if your view represents the view of the venture philanthropists, @Stuart, you're acknowledging that their purpose is to destroy existing institutions, not to support their improvement. Obviously, we disagree on whether that's a beneficial and ethical thing for powerful outsiders, wielding their might and wealth in secrecy and without democratic input, to do.
It's twisting my view to accuse me of espousing "lock(ing) other people's kids inside and hop(ing) things magically improve," needless to say.
Posted by Caroline Grannan on 04/08/2009 @ 11:06AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Well, fine, but it's equally twisting people's views to say that charter school advocates are out to "damage" or ruin existing schools. There's no need to demonize people just because they are trying to improve education in a different way than you.
Posted by Stuart Buck on 04/08/2009 @ 11:45AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Why do you keep calling me "@"? I don't quite understand that.
I'm not sure why you're so hung up on the "destroying existing institutions" claim. Clearly no one is suggesting that all public schools be destroyed, so that's a straw man. The most that any mainstream person in the public debate has suggested is that the the very worst of the worst public schools should be radically restructured or else closed.
Other than that, the overwhelmingly common position among education reformers is that public schools -- like any monopoly -- would actually improve (NOT be "destroyed") if they had at least some competition. You're just completely inventing motivations and demonizing people if you say that they're trying to "destroy" schools when, from their own point of view, they're trying to IMPROVE those same schools.
Posted by Stuart Buck on 04/08/2009 @ 12:02PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.