"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, January 18, 2014

A Few More Dots: Corporate School Indiana Update

By Doug Martin

Since I’m busy preparing my book Hoosier School Heist for the printers, I've decided to note a few things not in the book and several recent happening in the corporate school movement in the Hoosier state. 

1. The Friedman Foundation, which gave out free t-shirts of Milton to anyone who left comments on its site responding to Diane Ravitch's take on the group's new "research," has flung its corporate school tentacles wider in Indianapolis.  Ben Hunter’s wife Keri Jo is now employed by the group.  Ben is District 21’s representative to the Indianapolis City-County Council.
2. On the other side of the political spectator sport aisle, Mary Ann Sullivan, the hedge fund-supported Democrat, for several years now has been working for the Bill Gates-supported CELL, the school privatizing academic opportunist group at the University of Indianapolis. 

3.  GEO Foundation's Kevin Teasley funded Indiana Republicans when he was weaseling his way into Indiana and Colorado with $2.1 million from the Bush administration, but has kept his taxpayer-money to himself now.  In 2011-2012, he was raking in around $200,000 from running charter schools in Indiana and Colorado.  His recent piece in the Indianapolis Business Journal about "accountability" is a complete joke, since I detail in my book the various antics Teasley and his charter school people have pulled off over the years without serious consequences.

4.  Somehow I overlooked, while writing the big section on Gülen charter schools in my book, that Gülenist Mehmet Dunbar slid money to the Indiana Senate Democrats, too, in 2010, and the Greater Indianapolis Republican Finance Committee.  My book, though, does point out that US representative Democrat Andre Carson has received a lot of money from the Turkish group and that Gülenists funded Mike Pence in March 2012, as well. 

If you don't know Gülen, the FBI does. But that doesn't mean the FBI is going to do anything about them.  Too many politicians in DC and across the country are in bed with this group of Muslims which runs more charter schools in America (and across the world) than any other outfit.  

   

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:30 AM

    This video on The Real News shows that Fethullah Gülen, head of the Gulen charter school chain in the U.S., is a major political figure in the rightwing in Turkey.

    http://tinyurl.com/kazvv7n

    ReplyDelete