The faces that dominate the education reform debate today'where "education reform" means increased reliance on standardized tests, the results of which are then used to determine the fates of teachers whose job security has been weakened'are people like former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and Harlem Children's Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada. They are, or can be packaged as, dynamic and visionary, educators who are passionate about kids. But lots of teachers could fit that bill, so why is someone like Michelle Rhee, who has spent very little time in the classroom, so prominent while the average teacher faces cutbacks and scapegoating? The answer, as in so many things, involves money. Not just any money. Billionaire money. Hedge fund money. Goldman Sachs money. Bill Gates money and Walton money. Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada are prominent because they embody a set of ideas attractive to major philanthropists working to remake public education into their own vision of how the world works.
The Walton Family Foundation is just one of the "philanthropies" advancing a highly politicized visionfor public education through big donations. (Education Week)
When Bill Gates, or the Walmart Waltons, or former SunAmerica CEO Eli Broad, pour millions of tax-deductible dollars through their charitable foundations into education, they don't suddenly cease to be people who inherited or made billions of dollars in the corporate world and magically become noble, pure-hearted philanthropists completely divorced from politics with only the non-politicized good of humanity in mind. They remain people who inherited or made billions of dollars in the corporate world. Their political beliefs, left or right, remain intact, and their philanthropic giving typically supports those beliefs.
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