Duncan cooling his political heels at DreamBox, Inc.

Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin' to sell
-- Bob Dylan

His billionaire patrons don't really know what to do with Arne Duncan. He left Obama's Dept. of Education in a mess. His snarky comments about the white suburban opt-out moms may have helped Trump win the election. His ill-conceived Race To The Top "reforms", underwritten by Bill Gates, were a flop by all measures of reform. And before resigning, Duncan feathered his nest by sending millions of dollars in federal funds to Chicago charter school operators.

When Duncan did arrive back in town, the city's elite immediately began a Duncan clean-up and rebranding operation to lay the groundwork for a Duncan run for political office. There was even talk of him running for mayor in place of Rahm Emanuel.

He was given a cushy, high-paying job at the Emerson Collective by heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Apple founder, Steve Jobs. There, he got help writing his requisite book, “How Schools Work,” in which he claims that public schools are "run on lies".

But as a one reviewer noted:

"Duncan spends hardly any pages embedded in schools or talking to teachers, principals or students...Duncan heads off to high-end addresses in the Loop, and later D.C., determined to roll out reforms that hold a mirror of truth to the broken system. But what, then? We don't learn how the surgical decisions being made at high altitudes end up impacting classrooms in cities like Chicago, Baltimore or Detroit...

As all around us swirls the fever for school choice, we don't learn much about the outcomes of pushing for options beyond traditional schools, such as charters, which Duncan championed when he ran Chicago's school system. And we don't learn how some schools in high-poverty neighborhoods beat such odds and send their Calvins to college — stories that really illustrate how good public schools work in the era of limited resources and vast income inequality.

As things have turned out so far, Duncan's return came too late for a run for governor and as you may have noticed, Rahm is still running for mayor. He hasn't dropped out to make room for Arne as was rumored only a month ago.

So where to next? The answer came this week when Duncan was named to the Board of Directors of Dreambox Learning, Inc.

According to Edweek's Marketplace K-12,

The digital math company DreamBox Learning has picked up a massive infusion of capital—$130 million—from an investment group, and it has added a big name to its board of directors: Arne Duncan.

DreamBox announced Tuesday that it is the recipient of that substantial monetary infusion from The Rise Fund, a global investment company that seeks financial returns from its support for social and environmental causes.

The $130M from Rise is its largest-ever education investment and allows it to take a majority position in DreamBox. The Rise Fund counts Jobs, Netflix founder and right-wing school privatizer, Reed Hastings, and Duncan's long-time Chicago ed-business mentor, John Rogers (Ariel Investments) among its investors.

As you might have guessed, DreamBox is Apple (IOS)-based, not PC.

So Duncan will have to cool his political heels at DreamBox, using his DOE connections to sell another bullshit math program to schools and districts that don't want it or need it and making sure his patrons get a good return on their investment.

It's kind of a flashback to the days when Pres. Bush's brother Neil used his connections to sell his Cow (Curriculum on Wheels) to public school districts.

Charter billionaires invade WA to attack supreme court justice

Chief Justice Barbara Madsen

In September, WA's state supreme court ruled that charter schools are unconstitutional because they are governed by appointed — rather than elected — boards and therefore are not “common schools” eligible for state education funds. The chief justice, Barbara Madsen, wrote that “money that is dedicated to common schools is unconstitutionally diverted to charter schools.”

Now, charter supporters, including billionaires like Eli Broad, Paul Allen, Connie Ballmer, Ken Fisher and Alice and Jim Walton, are backing a campaign to oust Madsen.

Much of the money is flowing in from outside the state. The political arm of an organization called Stand for Children is backing Madsen's pro-charter opponent, with some $116,000 in July alone.

Most of the cash is coming from Connie Ballmer, a philanthropist married to former Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, who gave $500,000. Others include Vulcan Inc. and Netflix founder and Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings.

Fisher funded a new political action committee called Judicial Integrity Washington. In recent weeks, the PAC has spent $100,000 on radio ads for Madsen's pro-charter opponent, Greg Zempel.

In 2011, Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman, co-founder and chief executive officer, was caught on video, bragging about how he manipulated people to get reform legislation passed in Illinois.

Power Philanthropy -- The NRA of WA charter schools

Billionaire charter school power-philanthropists Bill Gates, Reed Hastings (left), Alice Walton, Paul Allen.

Joanne Barkan's power-structure research has been cited on the pages of this blog on several occasions. Now she's written another scathing expose of power philanthropy, "Charitable Plutocracy: Bill Gates, Washington State, and the Nuisance of Democracy" in NPQ,

Barkan takes a deeper look in how Gates and fellow philanthro-billionaires leveraged their tax-exempt foundation money to force privately-run charters down the throats of Washingtonians after the leadership of both houses of the WA legislature opposed the 2012 charter bill. When it died in committee, the activist billionaires stepped in, with Gates in the lead, to finance yet another charter school ballot initiative—the state’s fourth.

According to the Washington Times, their lobbying campaign to save Washington’s charters spent nearly $1.9 million to influence the public and state lawmakers.

Writes Barkan:

Call it charitable plutocracy—a peculiarly American phenomenon, increasingly problematic and in need of greater scrutiny. Like all forms of plutocracy, this one conflicts with democracy, and exactly how these philanthropists coordinate tax-exempt grantmaking with political funding for maximum effect remains largely obscure. 

The Washington charter saga highlights the workings of charitable plutocracy. Multibillionaire philanthropists use their personal wealth, their tax-exempt private foundations, and their high-profile identities as philanthropists to mold public policy to a degree not possible for other citizens.

Among the biggest funders of the WA charter school push were, Gates ($1 million), Alice Walton (from Arkansas, $600,000), Mike and Jackie Bezos (parents of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, $500,000), venture capitalist Nicolas Hanauer ($450,000), Katherine Binder (chair of EMFCO Holdings, $200,000), Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. ($100,000), and Reed Hastings, from California (Netflix cofounder and KIPP charter schools board member, $100,000).

These guys are not "do-gooders".

Charter billionaires buy L.A. school board election

Charter billionaires Walton, Hastings, Bloomberg & Broad buy school board election in L.A. 

"We've sunk to a level where there is no viable discourse and no moral conscience when it comes to public education and control of the school board." -- LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer

It's happened again. A PAC of billionaire charter patrons spent millions and virtually bought a school board election. This time in L.A. According to the L.A. Times,

Contributors to PACs that took part in the campaigns on behalf of charter supporters included Netflix founder Reed Hastings, $1.5million (to the charter group only); former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, $550,000; Walmart heir Jim Walton, $375,000; and philanthropist Eli Broad, $205,000.

The victory of charter school co-founder Ref Rodriguez over progressive Bennett Kayser, gave charter privateers the seat they needed to open up the district to what they hope will be unfettered charter expansion. Rodriquez also had the backing of anti-union groups like Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst. His endorsement list includes the operators of charters that L.A. Unified tried to close because of low test scores and other problems. The charters appealed to other agencies and were able to remain open. No district in the nation has more charters, or more students enrolled in them, than L.A.

But despite spending millions on L.A. board campaign, they fell short of a clean sweep. In the west San Fernando Valley, incumbent Tamar Galatzan, who had been a close ally of disgraced former Supt. John Deasy and had the support of charter advocates and other well-funded groups, lost to challenger Scott Schmerelson, an ally of the teachers union.

Reed Hastings drops another $2M on his favorite charter

Netflix billionaire Scott Hastings, the teacher union hater who brought us the Vergara decision, announced he is giving $2M to a privately-run, Palo Alto-based charter school network.

According to SeattlePI.com:

The $2 million will jumpstart a $17 million fundraising campaign that Rocketship is launching in order to open new schools over the next three years to serve thousands more “Rocketeers,” as the non-profit refers to its students.

Rocketship is a low-budget charter operation that relies on young and inexperienced teachers rather than more veteran and expensive faculty, reduces its curriculum to a near-exclusive focus on reading and math, and that replaces teachers with online learning and digital applications for a significant portion of the day. What supposedly set Rocketship apart from other charters was a financial model that allowed it to operate on government payments without continual infusions of cash from private donors. Most charters require additional funds to cover the costs of a longer school day, intensive tutoring and other expenses.

But facing a drop in student enrollment, the company recently announced it had scaled back its ambitions of rapidly enrolling 1 million students in 50 cities and went begging to their billionaire patrons like Hastings. Rocketship has been around for eight years and was celebrated early on for its ability to produce high test scores from a predominantly minority and immigrant student-base, but test scores have fallen in recent years. CEO and Co-Founder Preston Smith indicated that this was one of the reasons for slowed expansion.

Rocketship is organized as a 501C3, with a separate land holder, Launchpad LLC. The company suffered through a leadership transition after the exit last year of co-founder John Danner, who began a firm to supply software to schools. In the business world, it's called vertical integration.

"What happens when you have a relatively secretive organization that has an unelected board and has large growth plans?" asked Brett Bymaster, of San Jose, who organized his Tamien neighborhood to oppose a proposed Rocketship school there, filed a successful land-use lawsuit that has slowed the charter network and now runs a "Stop Rocketship" website that has attracted a local and national following.

Hastings is a powerful philanthropist for charter schools, currently serving on the board of the California Charter Schools Association and KIPP. He has also leveraged his power and money to push anti-immigrant legislation, including more English language testing on non-English-speaking students.

Ownership Society gathering at the Phoenician

At the Phoenician

Thanks to Gary Stager for the heads-up on the upcoming GSV Education Innovation summit, which he describes as a corporate takeover of public education being plotted in the open, is held at The Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale.

Stager writes:

The Phoenician is a monument to its builder, Charles Keating, a criminal who helped destroy the United States economy during the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1990s. Surrendering the future of public education to Jeb Bush and the greedy cynics partying with him in Arizona is as vulgar and misguided as trusting Charles Keating with government backed banks.

The sponsors list reads like an Ownership Society who's who list, including Gates, Pearson, Kaplan, McGraw... Well, you get the picture.

Speakers include: Jeb Bush, Chris Cerf, Reed Hastings, Penny Pritzker, Cami Anderson, Margaret Spellings, Tom VanderArk... Yuck!  Kind of a rogues gallery of privateers, charter hustlers, union busters and Bush bureaucrats.

Spears must be checked at the door.

Netflix education: Favoring markets over democracy

What's the No. 1 problem afflicting schools? According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, it's elected school boards...Fickle voters create too much churn. You know, the darn democracy thing. So uncontrollable.-- San Jose Mercury News

Thanks to Diane Ravitch for calling out Netflix founder and CEO Rod Hastings as a major player in corporate-style school reform. Hastings, says Ravitch, is on the board of various charter schools and charter chains, including Rocketship and KIPP.

Hasting's goal is to get government out of schooling, get rid of publicly elected school boards, and turn schools over to private operators.

Ravitch writes:

ALEC has pushed the idea of a state charter panel, appointed by the governor (and sometimes the legislature), whose decisions override local control. The problem with school boards is that the local populace can replace them by vote. In other words, as Chubb and Moe argued 25 years ago in their book advocating for vouchers, Politics, Markets, and Schools, markets are better than democracy.

Here it is, right from the horse's [Hasting's] mouth.