E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials
Posted by Valerie Strauss on January 30, 2013 at 4:47 pm


A nonprofit group released thousands of e-mails today and said they show how a foundation begun by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and national education reform leader, is working with public officials in states to write education laws that could benefit some of its corporate funders.
A call to the foundation has not been returned.

The e-mails are between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a group Bush set up called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education commissioners who support Bush’s agenda of school reform, which includes school choice, online education, retention of third-graders who can’t read and school accountability systems based on standardized tests. That includes evaluating teachers based on student test scores and grading schools A-F based on test scores. John White of Louisiana is a current member, as is Tony Bennett, the new commissioner of Florida who got the job after Indiana voters rejected his Bush-style reforms last November and tossed him out of office.

Donald Cohen, chair of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and responsible for contracting in the public sector, said the e-mails show how education companies that have been known to contribute to the foundation are using the organization “to move an education agenda that may or not be in our interests but are in theirs.”

..................

The e-mails were obtained by Cohen’s group through public record requests and are available here, complete with a search function. They reveal — conclusively, he said — that foundation staff members worked to promote the interests of some of their funders in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Louisiana.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/30/e-mails-link-bush-foundation-corporations-and-education-officials/

[factsarenotfair]

1. I'm going to die of shock.

And I'm sure that lots of other DUers will, too.

[Kingofalldems]

2. Kick this one

[kitt6]

4. The Bushes are not our

friends or Obama's friends. Prosecute or die.

[kitt6]

5. This has been the case for sometime now.

Florida Real Estate as well!

[Katashi_itto]

6. K&R

[Beowulf]

7. The Education Industrial Complex

drives policy, just like the Prison Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Complex.

[SaveAmerica]

8. Trying to buy our country one school, one post office one Federal office

at a time

[eomer]

18. Not buy, steal.

It's our money they are after, they're not buying anything but rather stealing it.

[annabanana]

9. This goes way back to Texas

and their unhealthy control over the textbook industry.

[chuckstevens]

10. Repeal No Child Left Behind!

The Bush crime family wrote the No Child Left Behind law in a such a manner that no school in American will meet the mandatory goals. By 2014, 100 % of all American students are supposed to be performing at grade level. Never in the history of American education has that happened, but with none of the promised funding, it should happen or its the teacher's fault. Follow the logic: Public Schools are failing, so let's privatize schools so people like my idiot brothers Marvin and Jeb can make a profit. Only in America.......

By the way, all states have different testing standards to see if schools are performing up to NCLB standards. The ACT corporation was on the verge of bankruptcy when they signed a sweetheart deal with former convicted Illinois governor Rod Blogo in 2002 that all students in Illinois MUST take the ACT test. An aptitude test for college is now being used incorrectly as an exit test. Oh and by the way, Special Education and ESL students also have to take the ACT Test! Gee, why can't all kids get a 30 and go to an Ivy League school? I just don't understand! It must be those dam unionized teacher's fault.

[CranialRectaLoopback]

11. And our newly minted SoS has a financial stake in Keystone XL.

Color me shocked.

[maindawg]

12. This is SOP

Tyrants have always sought to control the population any way they can. They plant moles everywhere. Idealogues who consider themselves some kind of hero or warrior who is fighting for some superstition of misguided ideals such as black people are inferior or Muslims are terrorists. Tyrants are always scheming. They want to control the educational process and frighten children with eternal damnation.And they will always need faithful soldiers to fight their wars because black people are bad and muslims are terroists. We must never tire of fighting back.

[blaze]

13. Quelle Surprise!!! nt

[glinda]

14. K & R n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

15. Glad it's been exposed! n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

16. K&R

[Octafish]

17. FEE as in BFEE

Socialize the costs.

Privatize the profits.

Repeat generously.

[tanyev]

19. Neilsie still making money off these so-called reforms?

Or did his company that sold crappy educational software finally fold?

[pscot]

20. Wasn't that Marvin?

But I guess they're pretty much interchangeable.

[tanyev]

21. Nope, Marvin's the one who was a director at the company who had the security contract

for the World Trade Center. Neil is the CEO of Ignite Inc. He's also the one who was scheduled to have dinner with the brother of the guy who shot Reagan the next evening after the shooting. I'm sure they had to cancel their dinner plans.

[HiPointDem]

23. it goes way beyong neil's 'cow'. for example:

In February 2012, Patricia Levesque, using her Foundation for Excellence in Education e-mail address, urged state officials to introduce SendHub, a communications tool, into their state’s schools. News reports indicate that Levesque’s boss, Jeb Bush, was an investor in the start-up by the fall of 2012.

[HiPointDem]

22. kr. "strong connections between FEE and ALEC"

There are strong connections between FEE and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy:

Aptly named FEE, Bush’s group is backed by many of the same for-profit school corporations that have funded ALEC and vote as equals with its legislators on templates to change laws governing America’s public schools. FEE is also bankrolled by many of the same hard-right foundations bent on privatizing public schools that have funded ALEC. And, they have pushed many of the same changes to the law, which benefit their corporate benefactors and satisfy the free market fundamentalism of the billionaires whose tax-deductible charities underwrite the agenda of these two groups.

And look how the supposed far-right & liberal wings of corporatists are entangled:

FEE provides its donors — including for-profit digital education companies — access to the chiefs. A draft agenda for the Excellence in Action 2011 Summit blocked off two hours for “Chiefs for Change donor meetings.” Another draft agenda for the meeting allocated nearly three hours to “Chiefs for Change donor meetings.” The donors for the summit were the Walton Family Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Carnegie Corp., Susan and Bill Oberndorf, GlobalScholar, Target, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Microsoft, State Farm, IQity, McGraw-Hill Education, Doris and Donald Fisher Fund, Intel, Pearson Foundation, Apex Learning, ETS, Electronic Arts, Koret Foundation, SMART Technologies, K12, Morgridge Family Foundation, Charter Schools USA and Connections Academy. Demand for donor time was so high that Patricia Levesque wrote that she had to turn down opportunities for the chiefs to meet other representatives from companies.

[Berlum]

24. The BFEE (R) is once again out to steal money from the public till

so damn Republican, so damn low.