Emails Show Bush-Led Organization’s ALEC-Like Role in State Policymaking - In the Public Interest

Foundation for Excellence in Education and Chiefs for Change Records Requests - In the Public Interest

Foundation for Excellence in Education and Chiefs for Change Records Requests

Emails Show Bush-Led Organization’s ALEC-Like Role in State Policymaking

Emails between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), founded and chaired by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and state education officials show that the foundation is writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders. The emails, obtained through public records requests, reveal that the organization, sometimes working through its Chiefs For Change affiliate, wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders, often in ways that improved profit opportunities for the organization’s financial backers.

“Testing companies and for-profit online schools see education as big business,” said In the Public Interest Executive Director Donald Cohen. “For-profit companies are hiding behind FEE and other business lobby organizations they fund to write laws and promote policies that enrich the companies.”

The emails conclusively reveal that FEE staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities, and demonstrate the dangerous role that corporate money plays in shaping our education policy. Correspondence in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Louisiana paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy.

Correspondence files and summaries for individual state findings are available at the links below:

Florida

Louisiana

Maine

New Mexico

Oklahoma

Rhode Island

Foundation for Excellence in Education and Chiefs for Change Records Requests - In the Public Interest

‘School choice’ is a dog whistle for resegregation

‘School choice’ is a dog whistle for resegregation

‘School choice’ is a dog whistle for resegregation

Congratulations to Cindy Marten. San Diego Unified School District’s superintendent has been tapped to become the next deputy U.S. education secretary.

Under Marten, San Diego Unified was one of two large urban districts nationwide in 2019 to outperform average test scores for fourth- and eighth-graders. The district’s Black and Latino students also graduated at higher rates than the state average.

Meanwhile, Iowa is headed in the other direction. Like, really far in the other direction.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds has proposed a bevy of so-called “school choice” reforms to the state’s education system.

What you’d expect is included. Private school vouchers. More funding for privately operated charter schools.

But most striking is a change that would allow students to transfer out of schools that have a voluntary or court-ordered diversity plan.

Higher-income families (read: well-to-do white families) would be able to remove their kids from schools that educate predominantly lower-income students (read: Black and immigrant families in cities like Des Moines).

In other words, the resegregation of public schools.

No wonder so many right-wing politicians and pundits are gung-ho about vouchers and charter schools. As historian Steve Suitts has documented, “school choice” rhetoric and policies harken back to the racist segregationists of the mid-twentieth century.

Like former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who coordinated with the Ku Klux Klan while cloaking his CONTINUE READING: ‘School choice’ is a dog whistle for resegregation

In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos Lives On | Diane Ravitch's blog

In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos Lives On | Diane Ravitch's blog

In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos Lives On

The nonpartisan, independent organization called “In the Public Interest” reports on efforts to privatize public services. Its education newsletter is called “Cashing In on Kids.”

Here is its latest updates on the DeVos education agenda:

Welcome to Cashing in on Kids, an email newsletter for people fed up with the privatization of America’s public schools—produced by In the Public Interest.

Not a subscriber? Sign up. And make sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Sure, Betsy DeVos resigned. But, as Marianna Islam, director of programs and advocacy for the Schott Foundation, says, “Betsy Devos has not really left until all of her harmful policies are overturned and policies that advance racial equity are put into place.” Retweet this

And now other news…

Which federal agency has funded more charter school facilities than any other? The U.S. Department of Agriculture. At least according to Chicago-based Wert-Berater, LLC, the self-described “leading” company in CONTINUE READING: In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos Lives On | Diane Ravitch's blog

In the Public Interest: Some Good News from the 2020 Elections | Diane Ravitch's blog

In the Public Interest: Some Good News from the 2020 Elections | Diane Ravitch's blog

In the Public Interest: Some Good News from the 2020 Elections

“In the Public Interest” is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates on behalf of the common good, an increasingly scarce resource these past four years.

Here is the good news that ITPI has gathered. Add to it by contacting them directly.

Even in defeat, Trump is doing it again—sucking up all the attention with aimless lawsuits and absurd tweets about voter fraud and the “Fake News Media.”

But there’s plenty of good news coming out of last week.

Voters passed a host of ballot measures in states and localities that make government work for all of us, not the wealthy few who rig the rules in their favor. They voted to raise revenue for education, transit, and libraries; expand family leave; reject the failed war on drugs; give workers a raise; and much more.

• Florida voters passed Amendment 2, which will raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026. The Florida Policy Institute estimates this will lift pay for 5 million Floridians.
• In Colorado, voters approved Proposition 118, providing workers in the state 12 weeks of paid family leave and 16 weeks for the birth CONTINUE READING: In the Public Interest: Some Good News from the 2020 Elections | Diane Ravitch's blog