CURMUDGUCATION: CAP Wants The Feds To Boost Charters

CURMUDGUCATION: CAP Wants The Feds To Boost Charters

CAP Wants The Feds To Boost Charters

The Center for American Progress is supposedly a left-tilted thinky tank, but when it comes to education, they really love corporate reform. Here on this blog, I literally ran out of ways to title sa post "CAP is still working hard to push common core" (seriously-- just use the search bar in that upper left corner).

CAP became a little rudderless when Hillary Clinton's candidacy failed; till then it had served as a holding tank for Clinton staffers. But they're still plugging away to throw their weight behind neoliberal corporate education reform disruption.

Take this recent piece from Neil Campbell. He's a "Director, Innovation" whose expertise is K-12 education. His focus is personalized [sic] learning, charter schools and "effective use of student data." Campbell came from Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education (2years) because A) all the best progressives come from the Bush camp and B) in the last decade, roughly three people have become new figures in the corporate reformster movement--everyone else just keeps cycling between the various groups. Campbell also worked at USED under Arne Duncan (3 years), did some consulting free lancing, and further back we find him as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He studied economics, political science, and business administration--oh, and he interned at Lowes. So the basis for his "expertise" in K-12 is... a mystery. Actually, the big mystery is how Duncan hired him with nothing but the BCG gig, the Lowe's internship, and two years as manager at something call (r)evolution under his belt. I'm betting there's a story there.

His role at CAP involves some fancy juggling. On the one hand, he has written some pieces with strong opposition to the Trump/DeVos administration. On the other hand, he's been pushing charters since he arrived at CAP, mostly claiming they'll be the great equalizer.

So here he is last week, sticking up for the federal Charter Schools Program. You may remember the CSP as a long-standing federal program used to give entrepreneurs start-up money to get into CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: CAP Wants The Feds To Boost Charters