The privatization movement used to operate in stealth. It used to pretend to have grassroots support. Those days are over. As the public catches on to the empty promises of the charter industry and its intention to undermine democratic institutions, the charter funders have created a SWAT team to infiltrate targeted cities across the nation, promote charter schools, and buy their school boards.
These guys are not the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. They are paid vandals, on a mission to destroy public schools. They are out to destroy not just public schools, but local democracy. They should be ashamed. Usually, it is illegal to buy elections. This so-called City Fund brashly announces that it has raised nearly $200 million—with more on the way—to disrupt public schools and buy elections. How is this legal?
Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum reports that vandals from the billionaire-funded “City Fund” have targeted seven cities, where they will use their millions to try to destroy public schools and to finance a takeover of the local school board.
“The City Fund has already given grants to organizations and schools in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Newark, Denver, San Antonio, St. Louis, and Nashville, according to one of the group’s founders, Neerav Kingsland. Those grants amount to $15 million of the $189 million the group has raised, he told Chalkbeat.
“City Fund staffers have also founded a 501(c)(4) organization called Public School Allies, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat, which Kingsland confirmed. That setup will allow the group’s members to have more involvement in politics and lobbying, activities limited for traditional nonprofits…
“In their ideal scenario, parents would be able to choose among schools that have autonomy to operate as they see fit, including charter schools. In turn, schools are judged by outcomes (which usually means test scores). The ones deemed successful are allowed to grow, and the less-successful ones are closed or dramatically restructured.”
This is known as the “portfolio model,” which encourages the local board to close low-scoring public schools with charter schools. When the charter schools fail, they are replaced by other charter schools.
“A version of that strategy is already in place in Denver and Indianapolis. Those cities have large charter sectors and enrollment systems that include both district and charter schools In others, like San Antonio, Atlanta, and Camden, struggling district schools have been turned over to charter operators.
“The City Fund’s Newark grant is more of a surprise. Although the district has implemented many aspects of the portfolio model, and seen charter schools rapidly grow since a $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Newark hasn’t been a magnet of national philanthropy recently. That may be because the changes there sparked vehement community protest, and the district recently switched to an elected school board.
“Charter advocates in Nashville, meanwhile, have faced setbacks in recent years, losing several bitter school board races a few years ago. A pro-charter group appears to have folded there.
“Kingsland said The City Fund has given to The Mind Trust in Indianapolis; RootED in Denver; City Education Partners in San Antonio; the Newark Charter School Fund and the New Jersey Children’s Foundation; The Opportunity Trust in St. Louis; and RedefinED Atlanta. In Nashville, The City Fund gave directly to certain charter schools.
“The seven cities The City Fund has given to are unlikely to represent the full scope of the organization’s initial targets. Oakland, for instance, is not included, but The City Fund has received a $10 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for work there. The presentation The City Fund made for potential funders earlier this year says the organization expects to reach 30 to 40 cities in a decade or less.
“We will make additional grants,” Kingsland said in an email. “But we don’t expect to make grants in that many more cities. Right now we are focused on supporting a smaller group of local leaders to see if we can learn more about what works and what doesn’t at the city level.”
“Chalkbeat previously reported that the Hastings Fund, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were funding the effort. The Walton Family Foundation and the Ballmer Group are also funders, Kingsland said. (The Gates Foundation and Walton Family Foundation are also funders of Chalkbeat.)…
“It’s gained particular traction in a number of cities, like Newark, Camden, and New Orleans, while they were under state control. In Denver and Indianapolis, cities where the approach has maintained support with elected school boards, supporters faced setbacks in recent elections. Public School Allies may work to address and avoid such political hurdles.”
Note that the Vandals’ model of “success” is New Orleans, where the schools are almost completely privatized and highly stratified. Forty percent of the charter schools in New Orleans are “failing schools,” by the state’s rating system, and almost all their students are black. Louisiana is at the very bottom of NAEP, ranked above only Mississippi and the District of Columbia (another portfolio failure), and the charter school district of New Orleans is significantly lower-performing on state tests than the state as a whole.
This is not success. There is no model of privatization success. This is vandalism.
Diane Ravitch's blog
(not on topic). The New York Times, is not one of my favorite papers. But, this (opinion) article is exactly on point. I have for many years, advocated our nation applying more priority to vo-tech and skilled trades education, for our non-college bound youth. see
That’s rich coming from the NYT which has swallowed whole every ed rephorm notion for the last decade or more, including one-size fits all Common Chore and “college and career readiness”. It’s because of rephorm that we no longer have vo-tech.
City Fund highlights what is wrong with our government today. Oligarchs are buying and dictating our policies. School policies should be decided by locally elected representatives, not those with a bus load of cash and a biased agenda that is just as large. These wealthy vandals are circumventing democracy to serve their own purpose, and nobody voted for them. No city or group of students should have targets on their backs. Policy should be determined by the needs of students and the community, not corporations or the 1%.
It’s exactly like Race to the Top. Adopt our plans and we’ll give you some small amount towards implementing our plans.
Probably not a good deal for public schools, or the public. You’ll be putting up 99% of the investment in order to conduct this experiment. They’ll provide some token amount that won’t come near to covering the eventual cost.
It’s a great deal for billionaires though- they can buy a city school district for 15 million dollars. That’s a pittance.
Don’t take this deal- it’s a rip off.
it looks more and more as if the tech billionaires are doing exactly what you describe: buying up inner city districts and then helping gentrify neighborhoods as a means to SEPARATE the kids whose parents can afford their product from the kids whose parents are out of that loop — and thus disposable
Are public schools eligible for the money if they remain public and retain labor union members?
I thought not.
If these people are “agnostics” I’m a kangaroo.
I don’t mind lobbying for privatization. I mind people who pretend that’s not what they’re doing. The objective here is to privatize these schools, because public schools aren’t eligible for ed reform support.
That means you’re not an “agnostic”. Excluding public schools means they made a decision on which schools to promote and support and public schools will not be among them. That decision was made prior to ever parachuting into these cities.
If you’re a public school parent, be aware of that- your school and your kid is excluded. There won’t be any investment and there won’t be any political support.
The people that deserve targets on their backs are the complicit representatives that feast at the table of the 1% while they destroy public education. “Reform” cannot die a natural, timely death because the wealthy keep buying policy. Their goal is top down privatization by the 1% on communities of color.
Social justice groups should organize a protest march against the takeover of their public schools in each targeted city. White people that care about the future of their own children should support the march. These relentless profiteers will be in everyone’s backyard marketing their privatization projects unless the public fights back.
Maybe instead of bromides and slogans the ed reform monolith could give us some facts.
Have the “portfolio cities” they’ve already captured invested in the unfashionable public school sector? We hear a lot about the charters they prefer- let’s check in on the public schools they pretend don’t exist. How are they doing?
Because that’s the measure of “agnostic”- not what they claim but what they do.
Are public school families the collateral damage while they achieve their ideological vision? Because maybe public school families should be informed of that.
These profiteering pirates are all razzle-dazzle and the most spectacular marketing money can buy. They don’t deal in facts or substance. When they do make a claim, it’s time to look behind the curtain.
With the changing american demographics in our schools and communities , its easy to manipulate the general public now as most of the parents and students now in those regions are immigrants – many of which do not even speak english.
I did some research on the demographics of the students in those cities and the vast majority of all the students and families in those school districts are immigrants. The slick marketing is no match for people who barely understand our american culture let alone politics of it
I tend to agree with your comments, but it would be easier to take you seriously if you’d pick a consistent screenname.
In reality diversity is our American culture. We are a nation of immigrants from the very beginning except for the Native Americans who were here before the European immigrants came. I am an English as a Second Language Coordinator now called ELL( (English Language Learners) On average the students and parents in the communities that I have worked in as an educator which includes Texas and Tennessee are hungry for education they are in general well-behaved and eager to learn English so that they can be successful in the American culture. Truth be known, most Americans don’t understand The American culture or know American history. The present chaotic state of politics would leave Einstein baffled.
What they want is to produce uncritical people who accept their ideas and leadership without question. Stupidity is the ultimate goal; stupid people are easy to control. It also allows “us” to blame the underprivileged for being underprivileged. It’s disgusting. Why is the title 1984 ringing in my ears???
Even our PUBLIC LIBRARIES are under attack from this administration.
http://cqrcengage.com/ala/app/write-a-letter?7&engagementId=490753&lp=0
Do keep in touch with what’s happening re: Our Public Libraries.
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/tag/washington-office/
Dump is playing LOOK OVER HERE while I DO HARM OVER THERE.
NET NEUTRALITY is another HUGE ONE.
Net Neutrality is GONE.
But the 2018-2019 USDE Civil Rights Data Collection includes questions from the tech industry about access to broadband and high school students enrolled in computer science classes.
Not a single question in the CRDC asks if high school students are enrolled in civics/government courses but the same survey calls for detailed reports on enrollments in Algebra I and Algebra II, by grade level, with four disaggregations of data.
I will have more about this screwed up notion of civil rights in the realm of big data (every school and district, including charter schools) when I do some more unravelling of the intended use of this information in new ESSA report cards.
Parents in every community need to be informed, educated, and encouraged to take full responsibility for the education of their children. There needs to be a a Cooperative United effort including doctors, church leaders, libraries, community centers, and the schools to prepare parents to be the first teachers of their children from the time they are conceived all the way through the educational process. Practices that promote a hunger for learning should begin in the home. Education is a holistic process; to be successful it has to include all components of the learner’s interaction with the environment and Academia. A well educated community does not open the door to vandals who’s hidden agenda is to undermine the goal of excellent education for all.
I just about agree with everything you have here. What I have said before, is that many of the people who come here are people who seek out information of different types, and are well informed.
The parents who can fall for the sales talk of the reformers do not come to this website. It seems important that they be ‘educated and encouraged to take full responsibility for the education of their children.’ But they need help in getting educated… to take full responsibility.
Otherwise they will continually fall prey to those salesmen of ‘choice.’
We have to start thinking of the choice propagandists the way we think about other sorts of salesmen hyping their product, whether it’s used car salesmen or someone marketing the latest hot product as the best ever or maybe the better analogy is to a snake lil salesman, whose product cures everything.
well said!
The MacArthur Foundation’s promotion of digital learning gives it a place among the villainthropies of Gates, Z-berg, the widow Steve Jobs,…
MacArthur’s all in to support Southern New Hampshire University’s “game-based learning and digital badges” for students (Inside Higher Ed., Oct. 18, 2018).
Presumably, they join other arrogant, wealthy, know-nothings, who reject the NIH study that shows children score lower on language and thinking, when exposed to screen time. And, they reject the implications of NIH’s finding of premature thinning of children’s brain cortexes when exposed to screen time.
The spending decisions of wealthy heirs who contribute nothing to GDP and, the concentrated wealth of Gates and Z-berg, is destroying the nation’s future. It is an acute problem that requires drastic remedy.