Censored 2012 (38 page)

79
. Mulvihill, “Anger brews over government worker benefits.” Emphasis added.

80
. For a more thorough discussion of both sets of evidence on public worker benefits and compensation, see Jonathan Cohn, “Do Wisconsin’s Workers Make Too Much?”
New Republic
, February 21, 2011,
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/83884/wisconsin-walker-public-worker-salary-benefit
. Also see Keith Bender and John Heywood, “Out of Balance? Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation
Over 20 Years,” National Institute on Retirement Security, April 2010,
http://www.slge.org/vertical/Sites/%7BA260E1DF-5AEE-459D-84C4-876EFE1E4032%7D/uploads/%7B03E820E8-F0F9-472F-98E2-F0AE1166D116%7D.PDF
.

81
. Jeffrey Keefe, “Are Wisconsin Employees Overcompensated?” Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper 290, February 10, 2011,
http://epi.3cdn.net/9e237c56096a8e4904_rkm6b9hn1.pdf
.

82
. William Cronon, “Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere? (Hint: It Didn’t Start Here),”
Scholar as Citizen
, March 15, 2011,
http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/15/alec/
.

83
. William Cronon, “Wisconsin’s Radical Break,”
New York Times
, March 21, 2011,
www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/opinion/22cronon.html
.

84
. “History,”
American Legislative Exchange Council
.
http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
. For more information see SourceWatch,
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council
. Note that the Koch Brothers—who financed some of the Tea Party’s Astroturf efforts—are donors.

85
. William Cronon, “Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom,”
Scholar as Citizen
,
http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/24/open-records-attack-on-academic-freedom/
.

86
. Ken Braun, “The Public Purpose of Our ‘Professors’ Email’ FOIA Request,” Mackinac Center for Public Policy, April 4, 2011,
http://www.mackinac.org/14863
. Learn more about the Mackinac Center at SourceWatch,
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy
. Also, see Jason Deparle, “Right-of-Center Guru Goes Wide With the Gospel of Small Government,”
New York Times
, November 17, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/us/politics/17thinktank.html?ei=5090&en=3b6af3fbfa4ff01e&ex=1321419600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
.

87
. Paul Krugman, “American Thought Police,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28krugman.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB
.

88
. “Breitbart Announces His Next Big Move: ‘Go After the Teachers,’ ”
Media Matters
,
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201104180045
.

89
. Ned Resnikoff, “Breitbart Starts Big Push to ‘Go After Teachers’ With His Trademark Deception,”
Media Matters
, April 29, 2011,
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104290017
.

90
. Scott Jaschik, “The Shirley Sherrods of Academe,”
Inside Higher Education
, April 29, 2011,
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/04/29/fallout_from_videos_of_labor_course_at_university_of_missouri
.

91
. Ibid.

92
. “Bad Teacher” promotional website, Columbia Pictures,
http://areyouabadteacher.com/?hs308=BTR6186
.

93
. “Cribs: Teacher’s Edition,”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
, March 10, 2011,
http://www.thesddailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-10-2011/crisis-in-dairyland—-apocalypse-cow
.

94
. Frederick Hess, Martin West, and Michael Petrelli, “Pyrrhic Victories,”
Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research
11, no. 2 (2011):
http://educationnext.org/pyrrhic-victories/
.

95
.
Sonny Bunch, “Bright Lights, Bad Schoolhouses: Teachers’ Unions as Big Screen Villians,”
Weekly Standard
, July 26, 2010,
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/bright-lights-bad-schoolhouses
.

96
. John Anderson, “Review:
Waiting for Superman,” Variety
, January 23, 2010,
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941947?refcatid=2471
. See also Lloyd Grove, “
Superman’s
Villain Fights Back,”
Daily Beast
, September 17, 2010,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-17/waiting-for-superman-randi-weingarten-education-films-villain/#
.

97
. Matthew Ladner, “Randi Weingarten Endorses Florida K-12 Jebolution,”
Jay P. Greene’s Blog
, May 6, 2011,
http://jaypgreene.com/tag/randi-weingarten/
.

98
. Hess, “Pyrrhic Victories.”

99
. “President Obama Hosts ‘Waiting for Superman’ Children At The White House,”
The Huffington Post
, October 10, 2010,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/11/president-obama-hosts-waiting-for-superman-children_n_758549.html
.

100
. Roger Ebert, “Review:
Waiting for Superman,” Chicago Sun-Times
, September 29, 2010,
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100929/REVIEWS/100929981/1023
.

101
. On January 4, Alyssa Milano tweeted, “I’m watching ‘Waiting for Superman.’ Wow. Everyone should see this documentary,” with the link attached:
http://twitter.com/#!/alyssa_milano
.

102
. Diane Ravitch, “The Myth of Charter Schools,”
New York Review of Books
, November 11, 2010,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/
.

103
. Rick Hess, “Waiting for Superman: My Conversion Experience,”
Education Week
, September 22, 2010,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2010/09/waiting_for_superman_my_conversion_experience.html
.

104
. “The Shocking State of Our Schools,”
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, September 20, 2010,
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Shocking-State-of-Our-Schools
.

105
. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided Participant LLC a one-year grant of $2 million to “execute a social action campaign that will complement Paramount’s marketing campaign of Waiting for Superman.” See
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2010/Pages/Participant-Media-LLC-OPP1019819.aspx
.

106
. “Bill Gates: Excellence in Teaching is Measurable,”
NBC Nightly News
, September 28, 2010,
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=A98ABB66-CB5E-11DF-8853000C296BA163
.

107
. Adam Bessie, “The Myth of the Bad Teacher,”
Truthout
, October 10, 2010,
http://archive.truthout.org/the-myth-bad-teacher64223
.

108
. NBC Education Nation Press Release, September 13, 2010.

109
. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=8579D07E-6A91-11E0-B646000C296BA16
.

110
. Andrew Rotherham, “ ‘Waiting for Superman’: Education Reform Isn’t Easy,”
Time
, October 7, 2010,
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023953,00.html
. Also, see Rotherham’s blog,
Eduwonk
, which “is funded by support provided, in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the purpose of creating an educational forum for sharing research, ideas, and opinions regarding issues related to P-20 education systems … the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation take[s] no positions regarding any legislation discussed in the Blog,”
http://www.eduwonk.com/2004/04/about-eduwonk.html
.

111
.
Paul Thomas has written a number of essays on this topic over the last year, which will be collected in the forthcoming book
Ignoring Poverty in the US: The Corporate Takeover of Public Education
(North Carolina: Information Age Press, 2011).

112
. Thomas, “The Education Celebrity Tour: Legend of the Fall, Part II,”
Daily Censored
, December 2, 2010,
http://dailycensored.com/2010/12/02/the-education-celebrity-tour-legend-of-the-fall-pt-ii/
.

113
. Thomas, “Celebrity ‘Common Sense’ Reform for Education: Legend of the Fall, Part VI,”
Daily Censored
, February 27, 2011,
http://dailycensored.com/2011/02/27/celebrity-common-sense-reform-for-education-legend-of-the-fall-pt-vi/
.

114
. Rick Hess, “Waiting For Superman: My Conversion Experience,”
Education Week
,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2010/09/waiting_for_superman_my_conversion_experience.html
.

115
. Valerie Strauss, “Film critic Ebert rescinds positive ‘Superman’ Review,”
Washington Post
, January 28, 2011,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/film-critic-ebert-rescinds-pos.html
.

116
. Arne Duncan, “The New Normal: Doing More With Less,” presented at the American Enterprise Institute panel “Bang for the Buck in Schooling,” November 17, 2010,
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20101117-Arne-Duncan-Remarks.pdf
.

117
. Hess, “Pyrrhic Victories.”

118
. Paul Thomas, “The corporate takeover of American schools,”
Guardian
, November 16, 2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/education-schools
.

119
. Scholar and
Daily Censored
blogger Danny Weil has researched and written extensively on efforts to privatize public education. In “Charter school capital projects: cashing in on kids”
(Daily Censored
, June 12, 2011). Weil shows how the trend extends far beyond the “Big Three”: even tennis great Andre Agassi has invested “hundreds of millions” in the privatization of public education:
http://dailycensored.com/2011/06/12/charter-school-capital-projects-canyon-capital-realty-advisors-intel-citigroup-and-other-venture-wall-street-capitalists-team-up-with-andre-agassi-to-cash-in-on-kids/
.

120
. Fred Hiatt, “How Bill Gates Would Repair Our Schools,”
Washington Post
, March 30, 2009,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032901353.html
. For further commentary, see Diane Ravitch,
The Death and Life of the Great American School System
(New York: Basic Books, 2010), 219.

121
. Joanne Barkan, “Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools,”
Dissent Magazine
, Winter 2011,
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
.

122
. Ibid.

123
. Ravitch,
Death and Life
, 221.

124
. Barkan. “Got Dough?”

125
. Paul E. Peterson, Marci Kanstoroom, and Chester E. Finn, Jr., “A Battle Begun, Not Won,”
Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research
11, no. 2 (2011):
http://educationnext.org/a-battle-begun-not-won/
.

126
. Barkan, “Got Dough?”

127
. Erik Robelen, “Gates Learns to Think Big,”
Education Week
, October 10, 2006. See also Ravitch,
Death and Life
, 210.

128
. Sam Dillon, “Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates,”
New York Times
, May 21, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?page-wanted=all
.

129
. “Impact,”
Teach Plus
,
http://www.teachplus.org/page/policy-13.html
.

130
.
For more information on Teach Plus financing from the Gates Foundation grant page see
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2009/Pages/Teach-Plus-Incorporated-OPP1003735.aspx
.

131
. Dillon, “Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy.”

132
. Barkan. “Got Dough?” For the original source, see Frederick Hess, ed.,
With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy is Reshaping K-12 Education
(Massachusetts: Harvard Educational Publication Group, 2005).

133
. Ravitch,
Death and Life
, 201.

134
. Barkan, “Got Dough?”

135
. Ravitch,
Death and Life
, 201.

136
. Jonathan Alter, “Don’t Believe Critics: Education Reform Works,” Bloomberg, Opinion, June 3, 2011,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/don-t-believe-critics-education-reform-works-jonathan-alter.html
.

137
. Ravitch, “The Business Model in New York City,” 69–92.

138
. Ibid., 1.

139
. Ibid., 10.

140
. Anthony Cody, “Diane Ravitch: Organized, We Will Be Heard,” Living in Dialogue at Education Week,
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/03/when_i_first_heard_about.html
.

141
. Ravitch, “The Business Model,” 3.

142
. Anthony Cody, “An Unlikely Hero Breaks Through the Blackout: Diane Ravitch,” Living in Dialogue at Education Week, February 27, 2011,
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/02/an_unlikely_hero_for_teachers.html
.

143
. NBC Education Nation Press Release.

144
. Diane Ravitch, e-mail message to Adam Bessie, January 22, 2011.

145
. Diane Ravitch, e-mail message to Adam Bessie, June 1, 2011.

146
. “Op-Ed: Rage Simmering Among American Teachers,” NPR’s
Talk of the Nation
,
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/28/134134735/Op-Ed-Rage-Simmering-Among-American-Teachers
.

147
. Diane Ravitch, “Waiting for the Miracle School,”
New York Times
, May 3, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01ravitch.html
.