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