Chicago School Closings And The Joyce Foundation: The Obama Connection

[Teamster Jeff]

http://www.mintpressnews.com/a-closer-look-at-the-joyce-foundation-shows-obamas-ties-to-chicago-school-privatizations/164972/

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The Windy City is undergoing a tumultuous historical moment, with the uprising of the Chicago Teachers Union occurring alongside the ongoing restructuring and privatization of the Chicago Public Schools system.

Most recently, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel oversaw the closing of 50 public schools, many of which will be replaced by charter schools. A bulk of the 550 laid-off teachers will be replaced by Teach for America contractors, many of whom teach in charter schools.

“Statewide enrollment in charter schools has surged from 6,152 students in 2000 to 54,054 this school year — with most of them in Chicago — according to the Illinois State Board of Education,” an April Chicago Tribune editorial explained. “The first charter school in Illinois opened in 1996. Now there are 132 campuses operating under 58 charters.”

A thus-far underreported story of the retooling of CPS concerns a foundation close the epicenter of it all: the Joyce Foundation.

Joyce is a major liberal foundation. President Barack Obama sat on its board of directors from 1994 to 2002, as did Valerie Jarrett, his former senior advisor and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement .

A look at major organizations dedicated to restructuring U.S. education turns up a slew of current and former upper-level Joyce staff and board members.

Between 1995 and 2012, the Joyce Foundation spent $135.58 million on education reform.

“They’re really in bed now with conservative elements nationwide,” said Mike Klonsky, a Chicago public schools activist and professor at DePaul University, in an interview with Mint Press News. “Anything that has to do with corporate-style school reform, you’ll probably see Joyce’s name in it.”

A Mint Press News investigation reveals the veracity of Klonsky’s statement — and then some.

In the sphere of school privatization, Joyce mirrors Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation, a key foundation of the Republican Party referred to by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as the “Bradley Empire” in a November 2011 investigation.

In his book, “The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy,” Kenneth Saltman, Klonsky’s colleague at DePaul, describes the activity of Joyce and allied foundations in the sphere of education reform as “venture philanthropy” — transforming a once-public education system into a for-profit market.

“Such a view carries significant implications for a society theoretically dedicated to public, democratic ideals,” Saltman explains in the book’s introduction. “This is no small matter in terms of how the public and civil roles of public schooling have become nearly overtaken by the … perspective [of] public schooling as principally a matter of producing workers and consumers for the economy and for global economic competition.”

With assets of over $900 million, Joyce has helped in applying “shock doctrine”-type “venture philanthropy” to CPS, with tight-knit ties to the highest levels of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.
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[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. The privatization of the school system will be very profitable for those harvesting public assets

that should go to finance public schools.

The phrase "Joyce is a major liberal foundation" is one that is a mantra frequently repeated by those who refer to the Joyce foundation. It was at one time. If anyone believes, in 2013 instead of 2008, that Obama is a liberal, then then can believe that the Joyce foundation, in 2013, is a liberal foundation. If anyone believes that Rahm Emanuel is a liberal, then they can believe that the Joyce foundation is a liberal foundation.

Harvesting public school assets for private gain does not seem to be very liberal.