Archive | October, 2026

The Movement to Privatize Public Schools

27 Oct

By Thomas Ultican 10/27/2026

Kicked off by Ronald Reagan’s A Nation at Risk in 1983, a relentless billionaire financed privatization effort has menaced public education ever since. The introduction of charter schools and education vouchers in the 1990s and 2000s, which are often fueled by greed and ignorance, has undermined America’s great equalizer. In order to monetize education, deceptive slander of public schools became common place. People subjected to this slander still really liked their local schools but have become convinced schools in other areas are a disaster.

In January, Hubsociology published “Privatization of Education in America: A Sociological Analysis” making the point that public education in America has long been regarded as a cornerstone of our democratic society. They state, “Sociologically, privatization represents a shift from education as a public good to education as a market commodity.” The article shares a concern that this shift undermines “social cohesion and shared civic values.”

Education Privatization Enablers

In 2018, Vallerie Strauss was still reporting on education for the Washington Post. In June that year, she wrote about the educational views of our billionaire President, Donald Trump, and his billionaire education secretary, Betsy DeVos. Stauss noted that for both of them the top education priority was expanding “school choice.” DeVos claimed traditional public schools were “a dead end” and Trump called them part of “American carnage.” DeVos was motivated by her odd Christian background and Trump by his personal greed. Today, Trump has another billionaire secretary with no education background working to dismantle the federal department of education.

Besides Trump and DeVos other billionaires attacking public education include John Arnold, Reed Hastings, the Walton family (the richest family in the world), Bill Gates, Laurene Powell Jobs, and others. Additionally, money from several deceased billionaires is being spent to undermine public schools. These people are by no means a monolith but they all are spending liberally to privatize public schools.

As an example, I randomly selected the Walton Family Foundation 2022 IRS form 990-PF (13-3441466) to review their spending. These forms are extremely long so I just examined from A thru C on the 2022 form that alphabetically lists all “charitable donations.” In those few pages, I spotted more than $42,000,000 in spending to promote charter schools.

 

From Walton Family 2022 IRS Form 990-PF

Billionaire John Arnold, the Enron guy who didn’t go to prison, and billionaire Netflix founder and former California Charter Schools Association board member, Reed Hastings, teamed up in 2018 to create The City Fund (TCF). They purportedly put up $100 million each to seed the fund.

The stated TCF goal was implementing the portfolio school management model into 40 cities by 2028. In 2022, TCF was “serving” 14 cities: Oakland, Ca; Stockton, Ca; Denver, Co; Camden, NJ; Washington, DC: Memphis, Tenn; Nashville, Tenn; New Orleans, La; Indianapolis, Ind.; Atlanta, Ga; Fort Worth, Tx; San Antoino, Tx; Baton Rouge, La; and Newark, NJ.

The portfolio model directs closing schools that score in the bottom 5% on standardized testing and reopening them as charter schools or Innovation schools. In either case, the local community loses their right to hold elected leaders accountable, because the schools are removed from the school board’s portfolio. It is a plan that guarantees school churn in poor neighborhoods, venerates disruption and dismisses the value of stability and community history.

The portfolio model was created by Paul Hill at the center for reinventing public education CRPE then on the University of Washington campus. Hill’s paper was followed by a large stream of billionaire funding. Between 2012 and 2018, foundation tax records show that the Walton Family Foundation (EIN: 13-3441466) granted almost $4 million, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (EIN: 56-2618866) granted over $6 million, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (EIN: 26-3241764) granted more than $4.5 million and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (EIN: 36-4336415) gifted more than $1.3 million.

This kind of over-sized spending was also directed at individual communities. In 2020, tax records documented that just two foundations, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (EIN: 56-2618866) and the Walton Family Foundation (EIN: 13-3441466) spent more than $240,000,000 on privatization efforts in Oakland, California.

Billionaire Eli Broad spent enormous amounts of money to undermine public schools and promote privatization before dying in 2021. Some billionaire funds have been attacking public schools long after the founders have passed. Kansas City’s Ewing Marion Kaufmann had no idea when he died in 1993 that his billion-dollar foundation would spend heavily on public school privatization.

Lynde and Harry Bradley were both dead by 1965 but their relatively small foundation continued. In 1985, Rockwell International Corporation purchased the remainder of the Bradley business holdings and $293,000,000 of that income went into the foundation. At the same time the Olin foundation which spent a lot of money undermining public schools but was ending due to the wishes of its deceased founder. The Bradley board needed new leadership for their now large foundation and hired the former Olin leader, Michael S. Joyce, to be the new president.

Chester Finn wrote a memorial for Joyce in 2006:

“Michael Joyce, who died earlier this week at the too-young age of 63, was one of the most influential, if least visible, figures in education philanthropy and reform during the last quarter of the twentieth century. As head of the John M. Olin Foundation (1979-1985), then president of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (1985-2000), he steered hugely consequential (though often modest-sized) grants to organizations, projects, and individuals who played key roles in both the “excellence movement” that midwifed what we now call “standards-based reform,” and the school choice movement, nationally and (especially) in Milwaukee.”

My point is that the founders of these massive foundations had no idea that after they died right-wing conservatives would use their money to undermine free public education.

Curriculum Control was a Goal

Andrew Rotherham, the founder of Bellwether was a domestic policy adviser during the Clinton administration and like many Democrats of that era, he bought into the Republican ideology that claimed private business is always superior to any government enterprise.

Rotherham has served on many boards including The Mind Trust in Indianapolis and ‘The 74’. He is or was advisor to several companies looking to profit from education spending including Whiteboard Advisors; Upbeat, a data analytics company focused on teacher engagement and retention; ClearForce, a security and threat prevention company; and several nonprofit organizations.

Joining Rotherham’s Bellwether to write the “Math Crisis” report is K12 Coalition. The Coalition is one of more than 80 companies owned by the Private Equity firm Quad-C. K12 Coalition recently acquired Keys to Literacy and Professional Development Institute to add to its other organizations like Teaching Channel and Lavinia Group Instructional Support.

In 2014, Ed Hirsch founded EdReports which from 2014-2017 had less than $50,000 is in revenue (TIN 47-1171149). Then in 2018, they took in more the $15 million in contributions and Hirsch personally made more than $300,000.

EdReports claims it is “funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Gates Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.”

The 2018 donations included giving by Carnegie (TIN 13-1628151) $200,000, Overdeck (TIN 26-4377643) $390,000, Gates (TIN 56-2618866) $1,500,000 and Schusterman (TIN 73-1312965) $5,689,700.

EdReports rates curricula for their alignment to Common Core and science of reading. In 2021, they gave both Lucy Calkins’s Units of Study and Fountas and Pinnell’s reading curricula, which were the most widely used reading curricula in America, its lowest ratings.

Final Comment

The material above is just a taste of the billionaire spending to end public schools. This year Senator Bernie Sanders as a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee published a minority staff report, “The Federal Privatization of K-12 Education.”

Among many things the report notes, “Tuition prices are often out of reach for working-class families, even with the assistance of a private school voucher, meaning that the vouchers could effectively function as a subsidy to the rich who can already afford to pay for private education.”

The report also states how unpopular voucher are with the public. It discloses, “Since 1967, all 18 state ballot initiatives creating or expanding private school vouchers have been rejected by voters.”

If this was a democracy driven agenda and not the work of anti-democratic billionaires, there would be no privatization attack on America’s public schools. There would be no charter schools or education vouchers.

Ohio GOP Attacking Public Schools

13 Oct

By Thomas Ultican 10/13/2026

At NPE Houston, a woman from Ohio gave me the book Right Down the Drain. It is a product of the Department of Education graduate school at Miami University Oxford, Ohio. In 2023, the state created the EdChoice Expansion Voucher Program which takes more than $1 billion a year away from public education with no audits. I have visited Ohio a few times and really liked what I saw but do not believe it is immune to corruption. Having no oversight for a billion dollars of taxpayer money is bizarre. As Education Professor Thomas Poetter wrote, “… the EdChoice Expansion Voucher Program feels to us like throwing Public money right down the drain?” (Right Down the Drain [RDTD] page 13)

President Ulysses S. Grant saw the Common Schools as a tool to enhance democracy. In his 1875 address to the Army of Tennessee, He stated, “Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated for their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school.” He concluded:

“Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep the Church and State forever separate. With these safeguards I believe that battles which create us ‘The Army of Tennessee,’ will not have been fought in vain.”

 Grant Ignored in Ohio

Curiously, Grant was a Republican born in Ohio. Strikingly, the Ohio GOP of today completely rejects Grant’s admonition. In 1995, Republicans in Ohio’s legislature passed the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program. A coalition of parents and teachers sued to stop the program because among other reasons it allowed for taxpayer money going to religious institutions. This turned into a protracted legal struggle that saw victories for both sides. Finally, on June 27, 2002, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision declared that vouchers were constitutional. This opened the door for sectarian institutions to receive taxpayer money.

2023 saw Matt Huffman, one of the most powerful politician in Ohio, push through the billion dollar a year EdChoice Expansion Voucher Program. Huffman comes from the small isolated and shrinking old city of Lima, Ohio. An illustration of his political power is for the first time since the 19th century this politician was able to serve first as president of the Ohio senate and then became speaker of the house with no interruption between positions. The change was forced on him by term limits.

EdChoice’s adoption is an example of authoritarian government in action. Ohio is deeply gerrymandered and even though vouchers are very unpopular, residents will never be given the opportunity to vote against them.

The top 100 schools receiving the most cash for vouchers in Ohio are religious institutions. (RDTD page 51) In fact, 90% of Ohio voucher money is going to religious schools. (RDTD page 75) Even if Ohioans are not Catholic or Hindu, they are sending tax dollars to those institutions. So, the modern Ohio GOP supports sectarian schools and is unconcerned with the separation of church and state.

Maybe we should send taxpayer funds to religious schools but shouldn’t the public have some say in this?

What is the GOP Motive?

In 1955, economist Milton Friedman wrote an essay calling for the creation of a voucher system in America. The political establishment including President Eisenhower, the GOP and Democrats ignored what they perceived as a crackpot. It was Ronald Reagan who gave Friedman credibility in the 1980s which for the first time gave the voucher movement legs. In the early 2000’s, Friedman told the American Legislative Exchange Council that parents should pay for educating of their own children. Today, voucher zealots following Friedman’s lead are working to end taxpayer supported public education. (RDTD page 67) This appears to be the Ohio GOP motive.

Vouchers are a state-designed mechanism for channeling public dollars to private education providers. For the GOP, it is important that this money is provided without state oversight. For example, in June, Democrats put forward the Take the Dough, We Gotta Know Act that calls for state audits and monitoring enrollment, capacity, student demographics, tuition, services offered, and accreditation. This bill is probably already dead because House Speaker Huffman has contended that the fact parents enroll their kids in private schools constitutes accountability, and he is concerned that the bill might infringe on a private business. (RDTD page 77)

A Privatization Outcome

In their essay, Elijah L. Fenwick-Sanders and Anthony W. Rose state:

“When large amounts of public money are permitted to flow through private systems with limited transparency, the risk of corruption increases.”

“Public trust requires more than good intentions. It requires rules, records, audits, transparency and consequences.” (RDTD pages 84 and 85)

If a school does not want public audits, public reporting, nondiscrimination requirements, academic transparency or fiscal oversight it can opt not to accept public funds. That is a reasonable choice.

Support or opposition to vouchers is not a Left-Right situation. Many conservatives support public schools and some liberals support privatization. Emma Errgang, who grew up in traditionally conservative Kentucky, bolstered this point in her essay when writing about the 2024 constitutional amendment vote that would have allowed school privatization in her state:

“The coalition against Amendment 2 was not liberal or conservative, nor was it Democrat or Republican. It included progressive voters like me and conservative voters like my father, who believe that choosing private education is a right but not something that should be funded at the expense of public education.” ( page 128)

Conclusion

I side with President Grant when he advised, “Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated for their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school.” I would go a step farther and say that all private schools, not just those from religious institutions, be on their own and receive no taxpayer funding. Of course, the public has the right to support private schools if it desires, but that choice has the potential to undermine public schools and that would be a tragedy.

Reagan’s fraudulent A Nation at Risk report claimed, “We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” SAT scores were cited to defend this statement. Seven years later, the Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico found that using proper statistical techniques all groups disaggregated by race and gender showed improved scores in 1983. This is where the ongoing attack on public schools began in earnest and it was based on a fraud.

In America, public education has been a great bulwark for democracy. It is a shared democratic obligation that must be defended from greedy entrepreneurs and misguided social theorists.

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