#askU2 -Are you aware your @RED sponsor disaster capitalism'ed the New Orleans school system post #Katrina?
"[I]n the past decade New Orleans has been quite utterly transformed by the displacement of the largely impoverished African American population and by the privatization of the city’s social services. Prison corporations took over the city’s jails while charter school evangelists wrested control of education, making it the nation’s first all-charter school system."
"New Orleans has become a prime example of what happens when disaster relief is privatized and allowed to reshape cities without input from -and often to the exclusion of those most affected: the residents."
"Cowen went on to be a central player in the transformation of New Orleans into the first all-charter school district in the United States. While Cowen and others champion the results -including purportedly higher test scores and graduation rates -researchers at the University of Arizona have shown that even when one controls for race and class, New Orleans schools perform significantly worse on these metrics than Louisiana public schools as a whole, which already rank fourth worst in the nation."
"The Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, Cowen’s post-presidency lobbying group that aims to turn New Orleans into a giant experiment for charters, released a 2014 report lauding its success. However, the institute soon had to completely repudiate its own report for its flawed methodology. Despite well-funded charter industry “studies” claiming improved test scores, the nonpartisan Spencer Foundation and Public Agenda has found, “There is very little evidence that charter and traditional public schools differ meaningfully in their average impact on students’ standardized test performance.” On New Orleans schools specifically, the Investigative Fund has written, “seventy-nine percent of [New Orleans] charters are still rated D or F by the Louisiana Department of Education.” Moreover, it has chronicled how the emphasis on test scores and college preparation has led charter schools to eject low-performing students who would require additional help to overcome the tremendous class and race-based barriers that impede their educational success.
In other words, the real impact of privatization has been to destroy the middle-class jobs of teachers and to isolate low-performing students to protect schools’ reputations—not to raise educational standards or find miraculous ways of overcoming centuries of racism and poverty. And yet, despite abysmal metrics, such projects have received support from President Obama’s Department of Education, which has supported attacks on teachers unions and public schools around the nation. In particular, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan consistently pushed Cowen-style education reforms throughout the nation during his seven-year tenure in Obama’s cabinet, earning the ire of teachers unions. For example, Duncan repeatedly recommended tying teachers’ salaries to test scores, effectively creating a disincentive to teach in poor schools. The Department of Education has also given enormous grants to charter schools, despite its own reports on the poor performance of these schools."
Source: "Our Own Private Disaster" -Boston Review
"With parts of the city still underwater, 107 of New Orleans’ 128 public schools were suddenly in the hands of the all-charter Recovery School District (RSD)—a two-year-old district that previously contained only five schools."
"What they did have was the backing of the national “education reform” movement, which pushes charters and high-stakes testing. With the public-school bureaucracy out of the way, powerhouses in the reform movement, such as the Walton and Gates foundations, came calling. In a 2006 interview with Education Next magazine, Mayor Ray Nagin put it this way: “They said, ‘Look, you set up the right environment, we will fund, totally fund, brand-new schools for the city of New Orleans.’ ”
And they did.
“In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans’ school system took place with military speed and precision,” writes Naomi Klein in her landmark 2007 book The Shock Doctrine. She holds up the takeover as a prime example of “disaster capitalism”: “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities.”
Today, RSD oversees 70 percent of the public schools in New Orleans. OPSB still contains 16 schools, the majority of which are now charters."
"Other states have followed Louisiana’s lead. In 2012, after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder put Detroit under emergency management, the manager closed 16 city schools and handed 15 to the Education Achievement Authority, which received millions from the likes of the Kellogg and Gates foundations. In 2013, Tennessee created the Achievement School District to take over the state’s worst-performing schools; the district now runs 27 Memphis schools, 20 of them charters.
Others are sure to follow, as long as the narrative of charter success holds. Education Secretary Arne Duncan declared, in 2010, that Katrina was 'the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.'”
Source: "10 Years After Katrina, New Orleans’ All-Charter School System Has Proven a Failure" -In These Times
"Shock Doctrine: A Look at the Mass Privatization of NOLA Schools in Storm's Wake & Its Effects Today" - DemocracyNow
"Foundations and nonprofits have notched other wins during the last decade. Among them is the overhaul of New Orleans’s once failing K-12 public education system. Roughly 90 percent of New Orleans students are now enrolled in nonprofit charter schools. Since the flooding, high-school graduation rates have climbed from 54 percent to 73 percent.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone spent $21.3 million on K-12 education in Louisiana in the last decade."
Source: "A Decade Later, New Orleans Nonprofits Cite Gains, Yet Worry Over the Future" - The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Where were U2 during all this? Well, The Edge was doing "Music Rising" and "Music Cares" in New Orleans. Which was probably all you heard about. (Just in case you're still clueless how philanthrowashing also happens to work.)
You noticed it was the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation that teamed up to charter school the entire school system of New Orleans, -right? Good. Now note the Gates Foundation spends more on Charters than the Waltons do:
"Since its founding, WFF has given more than $1.3 billion to K-12 education, according to its own recent calculations, an amount that is surpassed only by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation."
Source: "The ‘Walmartization’ of public education" - The Washington Post
You noticed Obama's appointment for Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, right? Arne Duncan's first appointment under him was from the Gates Foundation.
Who Controls Our Schools? How Billionaire-sponsored Privatization is Destroying Democracy and Enriching the Charter School Industry - Alternet
"Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools" - The Washington Post
"‘The Teacher Shortage’ Is No Accident—It’s the Result of Corporate Education Reform Policies" - In These Times
Are you aware who Gates Foundation also teamed up with the Charter-ize the entire New Orleans School system? -The Bushes. Where did George Bush show up to commemorate the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina ten years later? The Charter School raised on the carcass of a 100 year old school, re-dubbed the Warren Easton Charter High School, created with funds from Laura Bush's foundation.
"'Isn't it amazing?' Bush said, which it was, but in ways he couldn't begin to comprehend. 'The storm nearly destroyed New Orleans and yet, now, New Orleans is the beacon for school reform.'"
He had the nerve to even show up after how he'd handled FEMA. Who else was in on the reconstruction? The Clinton-Bush Sr. fund.
Source: "Picking the Wings off Butterflies: Bush Returns to New Orleans" - CommonDreams
The Gates Foundation and the Bushes also teamed up to launch Common Core in Florida. It helped cost Jeb Bush his presidential run (and it bloody should have, given the sort of nepotism involved).
"No Bush Left Behind: When You're Barred From Banking, Why Not Bank on Education?" - Democracy Now
But somehow Bill Gates remains teflon. (Quelle Fucking Surprise.)
"Bush's Common Core Problem Strikes at the Heart of his Foundation" - Tampa Bay Times
"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pumped more than $150 million into organizations developing Common Core, has given at least $5.1 million to Bush's foundation, including $2 million in October 2013 'to support Common Core implementation,' according to the Gates' website. That followed $1.5 million Gates gave in August 2013 for 'general operating support.'"
"Jeb Bush's embrace of Common Core is a campaign lightning rod" - Los Angeles Times
Bill Gates Spent More Than $200 Million to Promote Common Core. Here’s Where it Went. - MotherJones
Netflix Founder Drops $100 Million to Join Billionaire Crusade to Privatize Our Public Schools - Alternet
The gold mine: "Obscure laws can have a very big impact on social policy, including obscure changes in the United States federal tax code. The 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, included provisions from the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000. The law provided tax incentives for seven years to businesses that locate and hire residents in economically depressed urban and rural areas. The tax credits were reauthorized for 2008-2009, 2010-2011, and 2012-2013.
As a result of this change to the tax code, banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit. They are permitted to combine this tax credit with other tax breaks while they also collect interest on any money they lend out. According to one analyst, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years. Another interesting side note is that foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in charter school companies are eligible to purchase immigration visas for themselves and family members under a federal program called EB-5." - Adam Singer, quote from:
Why Hedge Funds Love Charter Schools - The Washington Post
Some articles on Common Core:
"A New Kind of Problem: The Common Core Math Standards" - The Atlantic
"Growing Backlash Among Teachers Against Common Core" - Diane Ravitch
"The Common Core’s Pedagogical Tomfoolery" - Library of Law and Liberty
The Very Persistent Delusions of Billionaire-Edureformers - the becoming radical (Bill Gates appears at Tillman University)
Who else is in on this? Oh, Rupert Murdoch, now perfectly positioned to insert not just Amplify into the US educational system but now use National Geographic content as well. (Win-Win! -Thrilled.)
"Keep Fox News out of the classroom! Rupert Murdoch, Common Core and the dangerous rise of for-profit public education" - Salon
"Inside [Rupert Murdoch's] News Corp's $540 Million Bet on American Classrooms" - Mashable
"Common Core is Where the Money is At" - Truth in American Education -oh. You didn't know it involved student data mining (and likely selling that data to post-secondary-?)
Who else wrote about getting subject to this? Our first experience.
Who else is in on the Charter school launch? Oh, Mark Zuckerberg and Cory Booker. Zuckerberg gave Cory Booker $100 million to try and do the same thing to Newark NJ that Bill Gates did to New Orleans.
"The fate of Zuckerberg’s “gift” to Newark schools" - wsws.org
"Assessing The $100 Million Upheaval Of Newark's Public Schools" - NPR
"Mishandling The Prize" - The Atlantic
Who else is Cory Booker in with? Oh, Betsy Devos (not to mention big Pharma):
"Betsy DeVos became the chairwoman of several nonprofits that were consolidated to become the national powerhouse behind the movement: the American Federation for Children. Along with its tax affiliate, the Alliance for School Choice, the organization published glossy brochures featuring pictures of smiling children of every race, with endorsements from African-American and Democratic politicians, including Sen. Cory Booker, then an upstart city councilman from Newark, New Jersey, who joined the board of Alliance for School Choice in 2002."
"Betsy DeVos' Holy War" - The RollingStone
Who else is Betsy DeVos in with? The Koch Brothers. Who else are they in with? The Aspen Institute. Who funded Aspen Institute for the sake of Common Core? The Gates Foundation. You'll notice someone from the Aspen Institute was Arne Duncan's third choice.
And of course, what Gates Foundation and co tried to do to New Orleans is what Betsy DeVos tried to do to Detroit, charter school the whole district. Hers turned out so bad philanthropic organizations wouldn't touch Detroit because it basically deep-sixed their arguments for school choice, whereas those in New Orleans purportedly perform better because the state resumed a measure of control.
"The Privatization of Childhood" - Jacobin
Do you need any more testament that this is bipartisan on its face, orchestrated by billionaires?
Mark Zuckerberg Is Trying to Transform Education. This Town Fought Back. - NYMag -the program, Summit, automatically shared the student information it gathered in the program with 19 other corporations, including Amazon and Microsoft. Gates Foundation kicked in $12 million in funding for this initiative.
Inside Chan Zuckerberg’s $300 million push to reshape schools - the CT Mirror
The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded - MotherJones
How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party - The Baffler
Oh yes and: school privatization is part of the Gates Foundation's campaign for Africa, currently being carried out in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and Liberia. I have decided to add this information to the questionaire's Africa page.
No education crisis wasted: On Bridge’s “business model” in Africa - Africa is a country
Education in Africa profits billionaire bleeding hearts -Africa is a country
Why is Liberia’s Government rushing to sell its public schools to U.S. for-profits? Africa is a country
-More Gates Foundation Media partnerships come up dealing in education including LA Times, CBS and ABC, in the form of "Education Partnerships". (I'd check the Boston Globe.) -Starting at 16:10... "if I google 'charter school statistics' -and you're welcome to try this at home, twenty nine of the top 30 results will originate from Foundations that are funded by Bill Gates" -"so there's a privatization of not just education, but the way we talk about education" -also Viacom is a Gates Foundation media partner, and became one just before acquiring Gates Foundation funded "Waiting for Superman".
As if the other list wasn't enough! -You have to wonder under the different Gates Foundation policy thrusts just how many media partners there are under different umbrellas.
