Foundations pour millions into school privatization

(Thanks to Lynn Schore for the link to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.)

I was surprised to learn from testimony at last Monday's school board meeting that charter school wannabes are given grants from the pro-charter school federal Department of Education of $25,000 for their initial applications, another $25,000 for revision of the application, and then $300 to $400 K more, if their applications are approved, to get their schools up and running.

It's comes as no shock then to learn that lots and lots of private money is being spent elsewhere to further undermine American public schools.

A new study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has identified over 1200 private foundations responsible for funneling  $380 million to 104 groups actively involved in promoting school choice and school privatization from 2002 to 2005.  The names of the biggest donors should sound familiar:

• The Walton Family Foundation --that's Wal-Mart-- tops the list, donating over $25 million to the cause of vouchers and tax credits in 2005 alone.
• Fourth on the list of big 2005 donors (over $2 million) is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Yes, the Gates Foundation, which has a big presence in Portland.  And even bigger now, considering that former PPS Superintendent Vicki Phillips is in charge of doling out Gates grants to school districts.

The other biggest foundation donors to the cause of school vouchers and tax credits are perhaps less well known, but certainly no less reactionary.  They include the Sarah Scaife Foundation, controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife (and a big backer of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century), the Lynde and Harry F. Bradley Foundation, and the ExxonMobil Foundation.

The top recipients of foundation largesse include the Childrens' Scholarship Fund (founded by the late rabid right winger John Walton), and several prominent think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation (Ronald Reagan's favorite), the Hoover Institution (which publishes Education Next), the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Hudson Institute.  Oh, and Focus on the Family, although it's a stretch to call Focus a "think" tank.

This statement by former presidential candidate Pete DuPont, who served on the board of the Bradley Foundation and is now a columnist* for the Wall Street Journal, is indicative of the prevailing attitude of big money interests and conservatives generally toward public education:

“What is one good thing we could do for the people who are poor... .? We could give them an education.  What does the government do worst in America?   Run the school system. The school system is awful.  Low-income people have no way out of that school system. If you gave them the opportunity to go to a school of their choice and opened the market up to creating those schools, ...  that would help the lower income and the disadvantaged people in the country, and it would be individualism as opposed to the collectivism of the education system."

There it is in a nutshell.  "Socialized" government-run schools don't work.  Let loose the free market in education.

Listed in the appendix of the report among the organizations which support school choice and school vouchers is Portland's own Cascade Policy Institute.  Cascade has teamed up with the Black Alliance for Educational Options to lobby the state legislature to allow low income students the right to use state funds to attend any school, public or private, within the state. 

Sounds like vouchers to me. 

* (This column blames unions for the overwhelming defeat of vouchers in Utah.)

Comments

[Zarwen]

Terry, did you mean that *DuPont blames unions FOR the defeat of vouchers??

[Terry]

Yes, indeed I did. Teachers unions to be precise. That's a lot of clout for the teachers since the vote on the voucher legislation referred to the people of Utah was 62% -38% in favor of throwing it out, much to the disgust of Patrick Byrne, the sponsor.

Bryne, the CEO of Overstock.com, was also a major backer of the Republican campaign for the 65% solution for funding schools.

Thanks for proofreading, Zarwen.