Wall Street's attack on public education: One of the main driving forces behind charter schools.

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Tue Oct-19-10 12:35 PM
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Wall Street's attack on public education: One of the main driving forces behind charter schools.

Education: follow the money
by Laura Clawson
October 17, 2010

The question of money is seeded through the debate over education, in several ways. This week I want to focus first on the way money most immediately factors in the current political debate; namely, where is the money behind the push for charter schools coming from?

Answer: To a significant extent, the money for charter schools is coming from Wall Street, and in particular from hedge fund managers. Consider:

Hedge Funds� Scholarly Investments
December 7, 2009

Mr. Petry, 38, and Mr. Greenblatt, 52, may spend their days poring over spreadsheets and overseeing trades, but their obsession � one shared with many other hedge funders � is creating charter schools, the tax-funded, independently run schools that they see as an entrepreneurial answer to the nation�s education woes. Charters have attracted benefactors from many fields. But it is impossible to ignore that in New York, hedge funds are at the movement�s epicenter.

�These guys get it,� said Eva S. Moskowitz, a former New York City Council member, whom Mr. Petry and Mr. Greenblatt hired in 2006 to run the Success Charter Network, for which they provide the financial muscle, including compensation for Ms. Moskowitz of $371,000 her first year. �They aren�t afraid of competition or upsetting the system. They thrive on that.�

Hedge fund managers may be better known for eight-figure incomes with which they scoop up the choicest Manhattan penthouses and Greenwich, Conn., waterfront estates. But they also dominate the boards of many of the city�s charters schools and support organizations. They include Whitney Tilson, who runs T2 Partners; David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital; Tony Davis of Anchorage Advisors; and Ravenel Boykin Curry IV of Eagle Capital Management.

The Tiger Foundation, started by the hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson, provides a large chunk of financing for several dozen charters across the city. Mr. Robertson�s son, Spencer, founded his own school last year, PAVE Academy in the Brooklyn, while his daughter-in-law, Sarah Robertson, is chairwoman of the Girls Preparatory Charter School on the Lower East Side.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/hedge-funds-scholarly-investments/

These are the people who ruined our economy, but suddenly we're supposed to think it's a good idea to turn them loose on our schools?

Or, moving away from Wall Street, consider the fact that one of the producers of the pro-charter movie Waiting for Superman is Philip Anschutz, owner of the Weekly Standard and funder of anti-gay campaigns and an intelligent design think tank. Again, are we to believe that his political projects are innocent?

.... education reform is a good cause. Experimentation is good -- and some of the best charter schools today have experimented in what could be valuable ways. But the push, coming from Wall Street and the extremely wealthy, for this specific form of charter schools, for this specific way of funding them, is part of both short-term and long-term drives for profit that will accrue to the wealthiest while weakening the middle class. The question is not whether we should back away from the cause of education, or the cause of education reform. The question is in whose interests it should be done and who should most strongly influence the outcomes.

Read the full article at:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/17/910960/-Education:-follow-the-money