Learning Matters: Reporting you trust on education stories that matter

December 4, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Sharon says:

California might get $350 million to $700 million from the Department of Education’s Race to the Top. So what? It only works out to being a one time chunk of $56 to $112 per pupil (2008-09 enrollment was 6,252,031). You can bet that some of the money will be used on administration.

States are allowing themselves to be manipulated for a quite tiny amount of money.

Schemes to attach a set of specific strings to the federal money is just another tool of the “innovative disruption” approach favored by the corporate class who wants to dismantle public education. They call it “venture philanthropy.”

Just look at the number of Eli Broad/Bill Gates reps who have now infested the leadership at the US Dept. of Ed.

Duncan’s Chief of Staff, Margot M. Rogers, most recently served as the special assistant to the director of education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Director of Race to the Top, Joanne Weiss, was most recently employed as Partner and COO at NewSchools Venture Fund, a major hub where millions of dollars from philanthropists are accumulated and then distributed to charter management organizations and “education entrepreneurs,” both nonprofit and for-profit. NSVF received $7,605,000 from Eli Broad from 2002-2007. This organization has also received enormous amounts of money from the Gates Foundation. In 2003 alone, they received $22 million from the GF to create charter schools.

The Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, James H. Shelton, previously served as a program director for the Gates Foundation. He also had been a partner and the East Coast lead for NewSchools Venture Fund.

Other Broad affiliations are Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education who was a fellow in the Broad Superintendents Academy, and Russlynn H. Ali, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, who was a member of the review board of the Broad Prize in Urban Education.

Why don’t you share this type of info with the public, John Merrow?

As an aside, Matthew Yale, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, was previously vice-president at Chicago’s Ariel Capital Management LLC. Ariel Capital was founded by John Rogers, Duncan’s longtime basketball buddy. Rogers provided Duncan with his first job after the Australian basketball years, and greased the way for Duncan into Chicago Public Schools. Rogers is also the ex-husband of Desiree Rogers, the friend of the Obama’s who was appointed as White House social secretary. After that recent breach in security at a state dinner, Rogers was asked to testify before a House panel, but she has refused.

December 16, 2009 at 10:36 pm
richard r pieper sr says:

Attempting to push from the top DC seems similar to pushing a wet noodle across a table top . Much easier to pull it as from the bottom , at the school level , focus on its culture of character and virtue of all its citizenry and from that comes extroadinary successful school building. We are doing it in Wisconsin see wicharacter.org . Keep the discussion going and the fine reporting that illuminates effective solutions ! Thank you .