Fw: PFAW-PRESSLIST: The Privatization of Public Education
G. Konecky
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People For the American Way Foundation Press Release
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Wednesday, April 21, 1999--IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Nancy Coleman, David Elliot or Lela Shepard
at 202-467-4999
NEW REPORT DETAILS LINKS BETWEEN CHARITY & VESTED INTERESTS IN
CAMPAIGN AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Children's Scholarship Fund head urged
to target aid to public schools
A new report released by the People For the American Way
Foundation (PFAWF) gives the most detailed look to date into the
organizations, leaders, and strategies behind the nationwide push
for school privatization, a campaign at odds with efforts to
strengthen education for all our nation's children.
The report, "Privatization of Public Education: A Joint Venture of
Charity and Power," exposes the interlocking goals, leadership, and
strategies of allied organizations such as the Children's
Scholarship Fund (CSF), CEO America, and a network of statewide and
local groups, including shared CEO/CSF affiliates, to turn public
education money over to private schools and entrepreneurs. These
organizations' efforts to remove children from the public schools
dovetail with a goal long espoused by Religious Right leaders such
as Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and Jerry Falwell -- to eliminate the
public schools entirely.
This report, on the eve of CSF's highly publicized "lottery" to pick
the "winners" of 40,000 $600 to $1,600 scholarships, shows how this
alliance uses charity to promote privatization through publicly
funded vouchers that strip needed resources and support from the
public schools and funnel vast amounts of money to private
institutions, including pervasively sectarian ones.
"Whether the push toward private schools comes from CSF or from Gary
Bauer, the result weakens public schools -- and puts even more
children at risk," said Carole Shields, President of People For the
American Way Foundation.
The strategy parallels "bait and switch" tactics used in Wisconsin
to pressure the legislature for publicly funded private school
vouchers. There, a local organization called PAVE (Partners
Advancing Values in Education) -- CEO America's local affiliate --
pressured for expansion of the state's voucher law to include
sectarian schools by offering scholarships funded by the right-wing
Bradley Foundation. Wisconsin's voucher program, which operates only
in Milwaukee, drained away $22 million from the city's public
schools this year alone, a figure that could nearly triple when the
program reaches its full capacity.
"The question confronting us is how to give all our children get the
best education that we as a nation can deliver," said Shields, "but
the Children's Scholarship Fund's answer is limited in benefit and
sustainability. It is fraught with immediate consequences --
including decreasing the funds and community support so needed by
our public schools. Our money and work should focus on the public
schools and every child."
Citing evidence that vouchers undermine efforts to strengthen public
schools and produce little if any gains for students receiving them,
PFAWF also called on CSF to extend its philanthropy to public
schools, where their charity would help many more children.
In a letter to CSF co-chairman Ted Forstmann, PFAWF President Carole
Shields wrote, "To make a difference in children's education
requires us to put our money where the children are -- and for the
vast majority of children, that means the public schools. Schools
need community support and adequate funds to improve. It's being
done every day where support exists. Help us help our schools now.
Strengthening the public schools can make all children the winners."
Shields' letter noted that the indicators are on the upswing for
public schools -- with test scores up, dropouts down, and tougher
standards in place. "Great things are happening in our nation's
public schools -- much of it helped along by generous individuals and
organizations that are making additional resources available," she
wrote. "The challenge for all of us is to make all of our
children's public schools as good as the best public schools. Your
commitment to helping all the children could make all the
difference."
While the report acknowledges that many contributors to the
Children's Scholarship Fund are acting from a commendable desire to
help children, the report is critical of the organization's history
and of the seeming conflicts of interest its chief architects,
including Wal-Mart heir John Walton. Walton is a major investor in
private schools and in the political campaign to achieve wide-scale
publicly funded vouchers.
CHARITY -- OR A LOSS LEADER?
The report demonstrates how CSF's stated goal of helping poor
children is called into question by the history and interests of the
organization and its leaders. For example:
****Walton is a director of the TesseracT Group (formerly Education
Alternatives Inc.), a for-profit corporation that manages charter
and public schools. He is also the founder of School Futures
Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that manages charter
schools in California.
****Walton, a regular speaker on the pro-voucher circuit, spent a
quarter of a million dollars on voucher initiatives in
California.
****Seeing teachers' unions as an obstacle to vouchers, Walton
contributed $360,000 of his own money and another $50,000 from
his American Education Reform Foundation to California's anti-
union Proposition 226, the so-called "paycheck protection"
initiative. Other voucher proponents including James Leininger,
J. Patrick Rooney, David Brennan, Howard Ahmanson, and Richard
DeVos (via his Amway Corp.) also contributed substantial amounts
to the initiative.
****Forstmann donated $10,000 to help secure passage of California's
anti-affirmative action Proposition 209.
****Forstmann's leveraged buyout firm attempted to acquire one-third
ownership in Whittle Communications, the creator of the
controversial Channel One television program that has injected
commercials into the classroom and of the Edison Project, a
national chain of private schools.
****James Leininger, co-founder of CEO San Antonio and Director of
CEO America, is also a funder of religious right organizations
including the American Family Association, Family Research
Council, and Focus on the Family. His A+ PAC for Parental School
Choice supports the campaigns of state and local pro-voucher
candidates in Texas.
****The Walton Family Foundation and the foundation of Ohio voucher
proponent David Brennan contributed half a million dollars for
Brennan to set up two private for-profit voucher schools in
Cleveland immediately after the legislature enacted vouchers.
****California venture capitalist Tim Draper, who is pushing for a
voucher initiative on the March 2000 ballot, is investing heavily
in education-related companies.
****Michael Milken has moved from junk bonds to education, with
investments of $500 million in education-related companies.
"The involvement of so many high rollers with vested interests in
'profitized' education raises questions about whether, for at least
some individuals, a contribution to CSF is a loss leader rather than
just charity," said Shields.
VOUCHERS ARE NO ANSWER
A white paper also issued today, "Grand Illusions: A look at
who backs school vouchers, who profits -- and vouchers' dismal
performance to date," documents the poor performance and damaging
impact of the nation's two current private school voucher
experiments in Milwaukee and Cleveland. It provides a review of
current research showing that educational quality has made no
appreciable gains and, in some cases, has actually declined for
students participating in these voucher programs.
"Grand Illusions" refutes voucher supporters' claims for their
programs, for example:
****In Wisconsin, where a special class-size reduction program called
SAGE (Student Achievement Guarantee in Education) has brought
about impressive improvements in learning, Milwaukee students who
would be eligible to participate if they lived anywhere else in
the state are being denied access to this program. This inequity
could be eliminated if the money now flowing out to private
school vouchers were instead invested to bring SAGE into all
eligible schools in Milwaukee.
****Researchers who have looked into the impact of vouchers in
Milwaukee and Cleveland have found little if any improvements for
students in private voucher schools. In some areas, public
school students did better than their voucher school
counterparts.
****In Cleveland, scores for students at the two Hope Academies, for-
profit voucher schools set up by voucher advocate David Brennan
with support from the Walton Family Foundation, trailed far
behind students who stayed in the public schools.
****In San Antonio, TX, the already struggling and underfunded
Edgewood school district was further impoverished when CEO
America pulled several hundred students out of the district with
"scholarships" that caused a 7% drop in funding for the school
because of the enrollment drop. Ironically, the school had been
well on the road to improvement before this catastrophe,
establishing an early childhood program that has become a model
for elementary education, bringing up all low performing schools
up to state standards, dramatically reducing dropout rates, and
raising SAT scores by over 130 points.
"If we want to help all children, we should all take a lesson from
Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Jordan, and Walter Annenberg -- and all the
others who are using their money and their generosity to make a
difference in the public schools," said Shields.
You can read the full text of the reports, as well as
related supporting documents, on the PFAW website:
http://www.pfaw.org/issues/education/CSF-report.shtml
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