CURMUDGUCATION: CT: Another Way To Privatize Education

CURMUDGUCATION: CT: Another Way To Privatize Education

CT: Another Way To Privatize Education

To read press accounts, one must conclude that Ray and Barbara Dalio are not exactly like other billionaire dabblers in education.

He is a successful hedge fund manager and the richest guy in Connecticut. She immigrated from Spain fifty-ish years ago and worked at the Whitney before settling into the mom-and-kids track. He has announced that capitalism is  not working, and that income gap is a huge national crisis. When she decided she was interested in working on education, she started visiting actual schools. After a start working with charters and Teach for America, she pulled away and started supporting public schools instead through her philanthropies and organizations like Connecticut RISE. Teachers, even union presidents, describe her as humble, a good listener, "truly a partner."

And yet, in some respects, they are exactly like other members of the wealthy philanthropist club. Ray Dalio thinks that the solution to dysfunctional capitalism and the wealth gap is that there "need to be powerful forces from the top of the country to proclaim the income/wealth/opportunity gap to be a national emergency and take on responsibility for reengineering the system so that it works better." In other words, the same old "empower a visionary CEO" model.

After giving some money here and some money there to public education in Connecticut, the Dalios decided last spring to up the ante, and offered $100 million to the public ed system. The money, they said, will be matched by the state and other philanthropists and "will be used to benefit students in under-resourced communities with a specific focus on communities where there is both a high poverty rate and a high concentration of young people who are showing signs of disengagement or disconnection from high school." The state teacher union president said, "I usually hate public-private partnerships, but this one looks okee CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: CT: Another Way To Privatize Education