Andrea Gabor: How Big Philanthropy Captured Media Coverage of Their Education Investments | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: How Big Philanthropy Captured Media Coverage of Their Education Investments | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: How Big Philanthropy Captured Media Coverage of Their Education Investments

Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College, which is part of the City University of New York. Gabor has written insightful articles about education in the New York Times and at Bloomberg.com. She is the author of After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Education Reform.

The following is a summary of a chapter in her forthcoming book, MEDIA CAPTURE: HOW MONEY, DIGITAL PLATFORMS, AND GOVERNMENTS CONTROL THE NEWS, which will be published by Columbia University Press in June. She prepared this excerpt for this blog.

She writes:

For the past twenty years, American K-12 education has been on the receiving end of Big Philanthropy’s efforts to reengineer public schools based on free-market ideas, with foundation-funded private operators taking over large swaths of school districts in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans.

Between 2000 and 2005 alone, three foundations—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation—quadrupled their spending on K–12 education to $400 million. By 2010, the top 15 foundations had spent $844 million on public education.

Moreover, these Big Philanthropies coordinated their CONTINUE READING: Andrea Gabor: How Big Philanthropy Captured Media Coverage of Their Education Investments | Diane Ravitch's blog

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times

Introducing 8 to 3, a newsletter for parents about kids, school and education

A new chapter is opening for families of school-age children and teenagers. Campuses throughout California are finally opening after a year of coronavirus-forced closures — and for parents who have navigated distance learning alongside their children, their connection to education has been rewired.

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The shared frustrations, struggles, empathy and resilience between parent and child has reshaped engagement in schooling. With a new newsletter called 8 to 3, The Times aims to be a part of the back-in-school life of parents and guardians as we recover from a year like no other and move forward.

We begin this endeavor painfully aware of how the pandemic has upended education and exposed the depth of inequities families face. Our foremost mission is to help navigate new challenges with powerful storytelling, useful guides, vital data and personal stories — whether on campus in a classroom or in front of a laptop in the living room. The Times’ coverage of COVID-19-era schooling places considerable attention on systemic inequities, which we will continue to explore in depth.

The newsletter, sent every Monday evening, is written by Sonja Sharp and edited by Mitchell Landsberg, with support from Education Editor Stephanie Chavez and education reporters Nina Agrawal, Howard Blume, Paloma Esquivel, Melissa Gomez, Laura Newberry and Teresa Watanabe.

A veteran journalist, Sharp joined the education team during the pandemic to cover the crisis in early childhood education and day care. She will draw on her experience as a reporter, the mother of a 5-year-old and a kindergarten-through-UC-Berkeley graduate of California public schools to help readers navigate everything from daily struggles of parenting school-age children to coping with thorny policy issues.

The name of the newsletter refers to the traditional school day — but we know that education never really stops, and that parents, above all, are their children’s primary teachers. We are ready to answer your questions, aiming to give you insight into both emerging and ongoing issues while offering a forum for dialogue. And we will also point readers to the best stories in California education, both our own and those from other publications.

Schooling these days is already overwhelming, but we are here to help. We hope you will add 8 to 3 to your reading list. Sign up here or on our newsletters page.

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times