Who donates to Jeb Bush’s education foundation? Here’s the somewhat surprising list.
When Jeb Bush was governor of Florida from 1999-2007, he became a pioneer in the corporate education reform movement that centered around using standardized test scores as the chief metric of “accountability” for schools and the privatization of public education. His “Florida Formula” became a model for other states — and Bush was praised as a “champion” of education by none other than President Obama.
In 2011, Obama shared a stage with Bush at a Miami high school and said this about Bush:
“We are also honored to be joined here today by another champion of education reform, somebody who championed reform when he was in office, somebody who is now championing reform as a private citizen — Jeb Bush. (Applause.) And we are grateful — we’re grateful for him being here. Aside from being a former governor of this great state, Jeb, of course is best known as the brother of Marvin Bush. (Laughter.) Apparently the rest of the family also did some work back in Washington back in the day. (Laughter.) The truth is I’ve gotten to know Jeb because his family exemplifies public service. And we are so grateful to him for the work that he’s doing on behalf of education. So, thank you, Jeb.”
When Bush left office in 2007, he continued his reform evangelism by creating the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which promotes school reform and hosts a national school reform “summit” every year that brings together like-minded reformers from the worlds of business and policymaking. Last year, when Bush was getting ready to jump into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice (who served in his brother, George W. Bush’s administration) took over leadership of the foundation.
Who supports his foundation? The 2015 list (see below) represents many of the big foundations and companies who support corporate school reform, including Pearson and the Walton and Broad foundations. The College Board donated in 2015, and the Educational Testing Service has donated in past years.
One interesting donor is the foundation of Bill Gates, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and promote the Common Core State Standards. Bush himself has been a strong supporter of the Core and has been the target of criticism by other Republican candidates for his strong support of the Core.
A look at the past donors of the foundation finds that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began donating to Bush’s foundation in 2010, shortly after the Core was first announced. Here is how much Gates has given to the Bush foundation by year, according to the Foundation for Education Excellence website:
2015: Greater than $1 million PLUS a separate donation from the Gates-founded Microsoft in the amount of Who donates to Jeb Bush’s education foundation? Here’s the somewhat surprising list. - The Washington Post: