The school choice movement is not a conspiracy. It is an ordinary political effort that stems naturally from a fundamental question of mass education in a diverse society: How do you handle plural values, identities, and educational desires? But you would not know that from The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, which would have you believe that a handful of advocates, generously funded by an even tinier group of right-wing billionaires, has somehow foisted choice on an unwitting country.
The Privateers is authored by Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University education policy professor who has been in the school choice world since the early 2000s. Cowen has been an investigator on private choice program assessments, and he writes that what he has seen from the choice movement has increasingly alarmed him. So much so that “there must . . . be a reckoning” (12).
One big part of Cowen’s narrative is that a few wealthy people with names you have likely heard—DeVos and Koch—and others you likely have not, like the Bradley Foundation, have for decades funded advocacy work by choice advocates that masquerades as objective research. My own think tank, the Cato Institute, is among those identified, but more of Cowen’s attention is devoted to university denizens, especially Paul Peterson at Harvard, and his one-time students Patrick Wolf and Jay Greene, who moved on to the Walton family-funded Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and in the case of Greene, eventually to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?