D is for Democrats for Education Reform

Image found on bigeducationape.blogspot.com

Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is a political action committee and lobbying group that is predominantly supported by hedge fund managers.  It's philosophy and goals are in line with the corporate reform movement's goals of privatization of schools through charters and vouchers, merit pay, the elimination of collective bargaining, deprofessionalizing of teaching, high stakes testing as the major goal of education, etc. Three other major organizations that work similarly to DFER as PACs and lobbying groups for corporate education advocates include Students First, the American Federation for Children, and Stand for Children.

In addition to these groups, the national Democratic Party seems to have embraced all aspects of the corporate reform model.  Our Democratic President Obama chose for his Education Secretary Arne Duncan,  a former basketball player with no experience in public schools.  Duncan never attended, taught, or worked in any public school in his life but he is now creating policy for the nation.  Both he and Obama consult with big business but not teachers or career educators, and their centerpiece program, Race to the Top, is a corporate reformers' dream, replete with tighter regulations on teacher evalution tied to testing and looser regulations on charter schools.  So it will be easier than ever under this Democratic leadership to fire public school teachers and close their schools and move that taxpayer money into for-profit charter schools staffed by cheap, easily-replaced teachers.

• Dump Duncan Cause He's Flunkin': The Petition
• Who are Democrats for Education Reform? And Why Do They Keep Bashing Public Schools and Unions? 
• Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform
• DFER Watch
• America's Education Reform Lobby Makes Its Presence Known at the Voting Booth
• Obama's Education Policy Sucks (warning, strong profanity here)
• DFER Board of Directors and Board of Advisors 
• Profiteering and Union-Busting Repackaged as School Reform
• "Stand for Children" Stands for Corporations
• Standing for Corporate America
• Simmering Discontent Puts Stand for Children in Hot Water
• Tom Olsen, Another Former Stand for Children Member, Speaks Out
• Rheefirst.com
• Last Stand for Children First (satire)
• Sourcewatch: The American Federation for Children
• Right-Wing Billionaires Invest in Wisconsin's Recall Elections

C is for Corporate Reform, Charter Schools, and Choice

Diane Ravich, former Assistant Secretary of Education under the administration of President George H.W. Bush, explaining corporate education reform on April 10, 2011:  

A Primer on Corporate School Reform -- Excerpt posted below; the link itself contains the rest of the article, an excellent overview of what corporate reform is and what its goals are. 

“Corporate education reform” refers to a specific set of policy proposals currently driving education policy at the state and federal level.  These proposals include:

*increased test-based evaluation of students, teachers, and schools of education
*elimination or weakening of tenure and seniority rights
*an end to pay for experience or advanced degrees
*closing schools deemed low performing and their replacement by publicly funded, but privately run  charters
*replacing governance by local school boards with various forms of mayoral and state takeover or private management
*vouchers and tax credit subsidies for private school tuition
*increases in class size, sometimes tied to the firing of 5-10% of the teaching staff
*implementation of Common Core standards and something called “college and career readiness” as a standard for high school graduation...

• The Corporate Takeover of American Schools 
• The Bait and Switch of School "Reform" 
• Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools
• New Orleans: Beachhead for Corporate Takeover of Public Schools 
• Why School Choice Fails
• Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail Education Reform 
• Three Kinds of Charter Schools: Largely Segregated, Intensely Segregated, and Apartheid 
• Diane Ravich's Insider View of a Corporate Reform Lie
• Cashing in on Kids 
• 5 Biggest Lies About the Right-Wing Corporate Backed War on Our Schools 
• "Selling Schools Out"

B is for Billionaire Boys Club

Billionaires, millionaires, and big business-types are taking an avid interest in education reform these days.  They are not only taking an interest, they are opening their deep pockets and funding all sorts of projects to remake the education system into something that runs more like a business, meaning competition, bottom lines, and profits.

An especially active and influential group is known as the "Billionaire Boys Club" (coined by Diane Ravich, an education historian and author who is an outspoken opponent of corporate education reform), which is composed of three foundations that are working to reshape public education in radical and damaging ways.

These three foundations are The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (computer magnate Bill Gates), the Broad Foundation (homebuilding and insurance magnate Eli Broad), and the Walton Family Foundation (family of department store magnate Sam Walton of Walmart).

This club is by no means exclusive, however.  Many others are funding corporate education reform efforts and sponsoring legislation through ALEC.  All of the corporate reformers' efforts center around several key common goals and themes: choice and competition in public schools through charters, vouchers, and other privatization schemes; a focus on standardized testing and rote learning as the main objective of K-12 public education; the elimination or weakening of collective bargaining and other protections for teachers; the demonization and devaluation of veteran, career educators; and increased federal control and oversight of publicly funded schools.

• How the Billionaire Boys Club is Running - and Ruining - Education
• Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools 
• Ravitch: Billionaires (and millionaires) for education reform
• The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform
• Report: Meet the Billionaires Who Are Trying to Privatize Our Schools and Kill Public Education
• The Broad Report, Blogspot.com
• Under the Influence: Big Education Spenders Interactive 
• No Funds Left Behind (As states slash education budgets, private foundations have picked up the slack—and pushed some controversial reforms.)
• The Business Roundtable's PIE: Post-Partisan Corporatism at Its Most Virulent 
• Why are the Rich So Interested in Public School Reform? 
• Billionaire Donors Drive Anti-teacher, Pro-testing Education Reform Agenda

A is for ALEC

Image from Common Cause's ALEC page.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a powerful and secretive group funded by corporations and wealthy individuals that is working feverishly to shape laws and policies in many arenas, including education:

"Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists frustrated by recent electoral setbacks, ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to 'develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,' ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums."  (from "ALEC Exposed" by John Nichols, The Nation, July 12, 2011.)
 
Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan clearly explains an ALEC model bill being proposed in Wisconsin & how it's part of ALEC's plan to eliminate pubic education.


 "The Center for Media and Democracy has obtained copies of more than 800 model bills approved by corporations through ALEC meetings, after one of the thousands of people with access shared them, and a whistleblower provided a copy to the Center. We have analyzed and marked-up those bills and made them available at  ALEC Exposed."    (from "About ALEC Exposed" by Lisa Graves, The Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch, July 13, 2011.)

• A Smart ALEC Threatens Public Education
• ALECWatch: "Letting the Sun Shine on Corporate America's Secret Political Arm
• Who Funds ALEC?

Daily Kos: ALEC Releases FULL Donor and Membership List

• ALEC: The Behind the Scenes Player in the States' Fight Against the Middle Class
• ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection
• ALEC Exposed: Starving Public Schools
• Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding ALEC's Influence on Your State Laws
• Six Degrees of ALEC: Connecting the Dots in the Corporate "Reform" Agenda for Education
• ALEC's official website
• ALEC's 2012 Report Card on the nation's schools, with detailed outlines of plans to privatize and computerize education
• ALEC: On a Mission to Dismantle Public Education

Chart found in a post by Mike E at kasamaproject.org.