CSI: We Got A Match
by jonpelto
Turns out GNEPSA stands for the Great New England Public Schools Alliance.
Or, if you squint your eyes really tight, you might also see the words StudentsFirst.
Brian Lockhart, of the Stamford Advocate, Hearst Newspaper wrote a story entitled “StudentsFirst … I mean GNEPSA … sends out slick mailer” (click the title to read).
Lockhart is the first reporter to examine the intrigue behind the GNEPSA/StudentsFirst issue.
Linking to a Wait, What? blog post about GNEPSA, Lockhart, on his blog entitled Political Capitol, shines a bright light on the StudentsFirst connection writing “what’s interesting is while GNEPSA is a new name in what some have called the “education reform alphabet soup,” it’s not. As others have also pointed out, GNEPSA’s filing with the Office of State Ethics lists seven in-house lobbyists on GNEPSA’s payroll with email addresses linking them to another group –California-based StudentsFirst. And one of those lobbyists is StudentsFirst’s founder, Michelle Rhee.”
Lockhart adds “I’m just wondering why StudentsFirst decided to create a new group –
Stand ON Children First: New AstroTurf from Teacher in the Box
Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER
Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers
Just Like Michelle Rhee's
Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better)
we support:
Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better)
we support:
- Promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits, and specifying that those schools must remain unregulated.
- Offering private school vouchers with “universal eligibility” (using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools for the rich and others); “means-tested eligibility,” (using poverty as the first domino in an effort to privatize public schools ; and “universal eligibility with means-tested scholarship.” (Here, “scholarship” means using taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuition and/or profits.)
- Creating a scheme to deem public schools “educationally bankrupt” to rationalize giving taxpayer dollars to almost completely unregulated private schools, rather than addressing any problems.
- Setting up low-income students for failure in college by incentivizing early graduation for students in need of a complete high school education.
- Certifying individuals with no education background as teachers, a move that would weaken the quality of education, that fails to recognize there is more to teaching than knowledge of a subject, and that would undermine the role and competitiveness of professional teachers.
- Eliminating tenure for teachers in favor of “performance,” allowing districts to fire older teachers in favor of lower-cost young teachers.
- Undermining teacher’s unions.
