New Update on Political Power of Teach for America
Reporting for PoliticoPro this morning, Stephanie Simon, documents the several ways in which Teach for America Rises as Political Powerhouse. Simon, a skilled investigative reporter, describes TFA’s targeted initiatives to build political power across big city school districts, the statehouses and Congress.
“TFA is now embedding select alumni in congressional offices and in high-ranking jobs in major school districts…. It’s providing start-up cash to alumni to launch ‘game-changing’ advocacy groups and business ventures. Its political arm, meanwhile, is recruiting veteran tacticians to identify key levers of power in cities such as Houston—then help alumni seize them.
For example, “TFA also selected seven alumni this year to work for senators, representatives and the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The Capitol Hill Fellows do the work of regular congressional staffers. But in an arrangement that Hill ethics experts call highly
Who Are the Philanthropic and Corporate Sponsors of Today’s School Deform?
I believe that our society’s provision of public education—publicly funded, universally available, and accountable to the public—is essential for ensuring that all children are served, and I believe that a strong system of public education is essential as the foundation of our democracy. In that context, I think it is important to write more about what I support—strong public schools—than what I oppose—the assault on public education by those who would privatize the education of our children primarily for the purpose of making a profit.
However, I don’t think we ought to be naive. For this reason I sometimes like to look up the source of the money behind the school privatization movement as a discipline to keep myself informed. In that spirit, let’s check on some of the foundations and corporations that sponsored Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education National Summit last week in Boston.
Foundations
The Grand Rapids, Michigan founders of Amway Products, Dick and Betsy DeVos, through