Secret policymaking on school reform is on the rise
BY VALERIE STRAUSS December 12, 2013 at 5:00 am
Excerpt:
"Education reform policy around the country is increasingly being made in secret or without public input — and with a lot of private philanthropic money.Read the whole story here.
A number of recent stories reveal the extent to which policy makers and school reformers are going to push their reform agenda to expand charter schools and vouchers in an effort to step up the privatization of public education. These stories include:
* The Kansas City Star reported in this story about a secret plan by Missouri’s education commissioner and a state-hired consultant to develop “a statewide district to gather poor-performing schools under new leadership, with an office for innovation and charter school expansion.” E-mails obtained by the paper ”exposed a rushed bidding process, now criticized, that ultimately landed Indianapolis-based CEE-Trust a $385,000 contract to develop a long-range overhaul for the district’s failing schools.” The Kansas City schools superintendent, Steve Green, was quoted as saying: “It suggests a conspiracy against our success.”
