Thursday, November 14, 2013

Conservatives Infiltrate Public Education to influence and collect paychecks from taxpaying Americans.

I've mentioned before how Republicans have in place an entire industry that creates thousands of jobs for flunky conservative losers with no real talent or training. Democrats, if you're reading this, I need some work as a liberal "fellow." Gosh that sounds neat.

Target Education: These conservative ideologues are now taking over our public, charters and private school systems. Slowly but surely they will influence and destroy public education from within, turning it into a highly ideologically conservative source of exploitation and profit taking.

Once, Republicans complained about public educations “bloated administrations,” and the need to dramatically cut wasteful spending. Not anymore, especially when it comes to taxpayer funded private schools. They’re training a new wave of conservative influenced "administrators" that will go pretty much unnoticed by all. From Edweek:
Applications to Education Pioneers, a nonprofit group that brings high-performing leaders—particularly those from outside education—into K-12 administrative internships, are rising steadily, putting the 10-year-old organization in line to follow in the footsteps of other nontraditional talent recruiters such as Teach For America. Despite that recent growth, however, Education Pioneers remains under the radar of many education leadership and management experts and organizations.

The Oakland, Calif.-based organization experienced a 70 percent increase in applications this past year alone. For the 450 fellowships available for 2013-14, the group received almost 7,000 applications.

 Education Pioneers places early-career professionals in paid noninstructional leadership and management internships—such as administrative, analytic, and operational positions—in a variety of education-related organizations, such as charter schools, educational technology companies, school districts, and support organizations. "Between the superintendent and the principal, there are a lot of people that are managing the finance and operations and human resources and professional development," said Julie Angilly, the vice president of external relations for Education Pioneers. "Those are roles that most people in the general public don't even know exist, but are just so critical when it comes to placing fellows in schools, the distribution is split fairly evenly between charter and district-run schools."

Some of the major funders include the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. (The Gates and Walton foundations also provide grant support for Education Week.) 
 And then there's this from the Progressive:
The Wisconsin report, by One Wisconsin Now, the creators of BradleyWatch.org, and the Center for Media and Democracy, creators of ALECExposed ... documents a two-decade-long assault on public education, including a propaganda campaign to push the idea that public schools are "failing," and legislation that "solves" this problem by shifting funding from public schools to unaccountable private education entities. "These Wisconsin groups pass themselves off as home grown research organizations commenting on the issues of the day." 

MacIver and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute benefit financially from the nation's pre-eminent anti-public education funding sources. Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, elaborated ... Some 63 groups that are part of the rightwing State Policy Network are "extraordinarily influential," Graves said. "They've been flying below the radar screen."

"The 'experts' of State Policy Network groups get quoted on TV, in the papers, or in the legislature as if they were nonpartisan, objective scholars on issues of public policy," said Graves. "But in reality, SPN is a front for corporate interests with an extreme national policy agenda tied to some of the most retrograde special interests in the country, including the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation, and the Coors family."

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