Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
It's "the most powerful organization in America that no one seems to know about."
That's how Scot Ross, executive director of the progressive think tank One Wisconsin Institute, describes the Bradley Foundation.
The Bradley Foundation, headed by Governor Scott Walker's campaign co-chair Michael Grebe, has underwritten a massive, pro-privatization propaganda campaign, including "a systematic and relentless campaign to turn public opinion against the public school system."
Unlike David Koch of the Koch Brothers, whose cover was blown when a gonzo blogger named Ian Murphy(editor of the Buffalo Beast and a frequent contributor to The Progressive), impersonated him in a prank call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
The Milwaukee based Bradley Foundation operates off the mainstream media radar. Yet the group has made more than $530 million in grants and awards since 1985, making it a much, much bigger giver to rightwing causes than the Koch brothers. With more than $290 million in assets, Bradley is one of the biggest foundations in the United States.
A new report by Ross's group One Wisconsin Now reveals the Bradley Foundation's particular focus on privatizing the public schools.
Among the report's findings:
--The Bradley Foundation, headed by Governor Scott Walker's campaign co-chair Michael Grebe, has underwritten a massive, pro-privatization propaganda campaign, including "a systematic and relentless campaign to turn public opinion against the public school system."
--Bradley has spent more than $31 million since 2001 supporting organizations promoting education privatization, academics providing favorable pro-privatization pseudo-science, media personalities promoting the privatization agenda, and lobbying organizations advocating for privatization legislation.
--The Bradley-financed campaign has manufactured an education "crisis," proposed a "solution," attacked and undermined the ability of potential opponents to block their agenda, and funded aggressive pro-privatization media and lobbying efforts.
--The Bradley-financed Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has manipulated research and pressured a University of Wisconsin professor to downplay results that show school vouchers in a negative light, while highlighting scientifically dubious favorable results.
Way back in 1990, Bradley backed the first private-school voucher program in the nation, right in Milwaukee.
This year, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker plans to expand the voucher program to nine new counties, despite test results that show voucher students underperform compared with their public school peers.
The free-market mission of the Bradley Foundation fits in nicely with a national rightwing pro-privatization agenda.
Across the country, Bradley has given money to groups like Americans for Prosperity to tout school vouchers and other privatization efforts as an answer to "failing" public schools.
"Their financing is the cornerstone for the privatization of public schools not just in Wisconsin, but across America," Ross explains.
Ross calls the interlocking efforts of Bradley and other groups "a tax-deductible SuperPAC." The groups that have received funds from Bradley include the MacIver Institute, the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, the Manhattan Institute, and rightwing pundits including George Will, a member of the Bradley Foundation board of directors and recipient of a $250,000 Bradley "outstanding achievement" cash prize.
The free-market mission of the Bradley Foundation fits in nicely with a national rightwing pro-privatization agenda.
"We've seen this influx of out-of-state corporate money into Wisconsin," says Ross, who was active in the effort to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. "Here we have this homegrown foundation pouring more money into the rightwing foundation network than Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Bradley Foundation. $3,000,000.00 to Charter School Growth Fund 2013
