The power brokers of neoliberalism: Philanthrocapitalists and public education

Although Reagan's and Thatcher's administrations have been credited with formally institutionalizing neoliberal policies, the transition to neoliberalism in the United States began in the late 1970s during the Carter administration, when the dramatic decline of profits worldwide, higher inflation rates, and larger unemployment became evident. Corporation dividends had been plunging, the stock market had collapsed, and in general the profitability of capital had radically diminished (Baltodano, 2009, 2012; Symcox, 2009). This structural crisis of capitalism was blamed on the previous Keynesian policies and welfare arrangements, which were unable to maintain the logic of capital accumulation (Campbell, 2005).

The patriotic sentiments embedded in the election of Ronald Reagan—appealing to the American public to keep American economic dominance in light of the global economic crisis—propelled his neoliberal agenda. Reaganomics was the term used to describe the actions, policies, and regulations enacted by this administration to reorganize capitalism based on the work of Friedrick von Hayek and Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Economics.

The Reagan administration intensified the policies initiated by Carter to deregulate businesses and continued the systematic attacks against unions. It granted generous tax breaks and permanent subsidies to corporations, while full employment was never achieved. It was during this administration that the state began relinquishing its role as a provider of social services and protector of civil society, and gradually began selling its public institutions to private corporations. Utilities were the first sectors to be privatized and this trend was later extended to public schools (Compton and Weiner, 2008). Gradually, the welfare society of the previous decades was dismantled and years of protectionism and civil rights achievements were abandoned to give priority to the hegemony of capital.

The 1980s was the time when the United States, along with other leading world economies, fully embraced the implementation of post-Fordist production and trade, and formally entered into a new global market. Unlike Fordism, this manufacturing model is characterized by high flexibility in the use of labor force, cost reductions, and high-tech production systems (Torres and Schugurensky, 2002; Wilms, 1996). Post-Fordism is credited with creating a highly hierarchical labor market in which a very small, highly paid, managerial class supervises a large pool of part-time and temporary workers, mostly immigrants, who are employed without job security or union protection.

Thus, faced with this new division of labor, business sectors demanded that schools and universities train a different kind of labor force: the one that the new economy required. Educational policies and expectations about the role of education centered on training a specialized cadre of managers with sophisticated technological knowledge, particularly in the fields of science, math, and engineering. The larger labor pool that was needed to support the increasing service industry did not need complex skills, only the basic knowledge and conformity to function in clerical and menial jobs.

This is exactly what happened in the late 1800s and early 1900s when American society underwent radical changes with the expansion of industrialism, changes that were aggravated by a deep economic recession and the arrival of 14 millions immigrants. The major debate of that time centered on the role of schools and their curriculum in order to “fix” America's crisis. The question was “what to teach America's children in school” (Kliebard, 2004: 4). Four major schools of thought emerged to try to control America's curriculum: the humanists—“the guardians of the ancient tradition” (Kliebard, 2004: 23); the developmentalists (child-centered education); the social meliorists, who saw schools as places to fight for change and social justice (among them Dewey); and the social efficiency movement (Taylorism), which was concerned with social control and precise standards that would prepare children for their jobs in their adult life (Kliebard, 2004). It was the latter one that held out the promise of social stability (Kliebard, 2004: 76). Taylorism, or the social efficiency movement, advocated for a curriculum that taught children real life skills and prepared them for the workforce. This movement saw schools and their curriculum as the most effective mechanism of social control in a time of social and economic crisis.

It has become evident that 21st century neoliberal educational reform has reinstated Taylorism and the social efficiency ideology as a way to support the market. The push for standardized testing, accountability, scripted curricula, privatization, and union busting represent the new version of the efficiency-factory model in the modern classroom (Gude, 2013; Hyatt et al., 2015; Rees, 2011; Vasallo, 2014). Advanced capitalism is once again the driving force behind the control of the curriculum and the direction of public education. As Brown (2003) points out, “all dimensions of human life are cast in terms of a market rationality” (4). Every single area of social, cultural, and political life is reduced to the simple economic principles of cost–benefit, production, and efficiency (9).

John Dewey's (1916) vision of schools as “little democracies” where generations of critical citizens are formed is being contested. Neoliberalism sees education not as a public good but as an institution at the service of the market where a compliant labor force is being trained, and a “homo oeconomicus” is being produced (Brown, 2003; Foucault, 1978/1979; Lemke, 2001). The new neoliberal citizen that schools are creating is the opposite of the public-minded individual: it is the individualistic entrepreneur and consumer preoccupied with the choices that the market offers (Brown, 2003: 6).

In addition to the launching of economic neoliberal policies during the 1980s, a parallel movement was waged by the corporate sector to discredit public education. Assisted by the federal government, local states, and think tanks, business groups engaged in a relentless campaign against teachers, schools, and universities for allegedly failing to prepare students to be competitive in the global market. This “manufactured crisis” in education (Berliner and Biddle, 1995) was crafted through the publication of a series of reports such as A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983) and others, which blamed schools for their failure to produce competitive workers for the global market. These publications contended that teaching and teacher education programs needed to be restructured in order to align the school curriculum to the emerging global economy (Soltis, 1987).

Unlike the managerial capitalism of past decades, which relied on the profile of influential business owners, the newer institutional capitalism that emerged under neoliberalism relies on powerful corporate networks facilitated by the existence of local and transnational corporations. Under this new arrangement, corporations position their leaders concurrently in social, cultural, and political areas of influence with the goal of infusing the ideology of neoliberalism into the public realm.

According to Torres and Schugurensky (2002: 435), institutional capitalism is characterized by “1) the consolidation of an alliance between business and culture; 2) the emergence of a relatively cohesive and organized corporate community; 3) the increasing political intervention and alliance of business and the state,” and 4) a newly developed corporate class identity that materializes in powerful networks that strategize, stage, and act upon the interest of the corporate world. The existence of these powerful networks has been fundamental not only for the launching of neoliberalism worldwide, but particularly in the United States, where it has facilitated the significant influence of business groups over education and civic life.

One of the most salient examples of these networks is found in the actions and policies of the US Business-Higher Education Forum (n.d.), which was established in 1978 to create partnership between corporations and universities to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education (STEM). Other groups proliferated later, including the Canadian Corporate-Higher Education Forum, the Philanthropy Roundtable, and the Business Roundtable consisting of the top 300 CEOs in the nation (Baltodano, 2012; Kumashiro, 2010; Slaughter, 1990; Torres and Schurgurensky, 2002). The Business Roundtable was responsible for organizing a powerful group of billionaires, philanthropists, and foundations with the purpose of implementing neoliberal reforms in public education (Kumashiro, 2010).

However, the three most powerful foundations shaping the future of public education in the United States are the Broad Foundations, the Walton Family Foundation (from the founder of Walmart), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The success of this triumvirate or “Big Three,” as Barkan (2011: 49) calls them, has depended on their wealth and the alliances they have established among themselves to concurrently invest in the same educational ventures and establish an ideological pipeline to advance the privatization of public education.

Venture philanthropy, or “philanthrocapitalism” (Barkan, 2013; Ravitch, 2011), are the terms that have been given to the work of these mega foundations because they practice the same business patterns that their parent corporations use to launch their entrepreneurial activities (Barkan, 2013; Klonsky and Klonsky, 2008; Kovacs, 2011; Ravitch, 2013; Saltman, 2009; Scott, 2009). The grants that these foundations give to reconstitute public education are considered investments, or strategic giving. Donors are called investors; impact is renamed social return, return on investment, or scalable models; grantee accountability becomes performance measurement; and the grant list becomes an investment portfolio (Barkan, 2013: 639; Ravitch, 2011; Saltman, 2009: 54; Scott, 2009: 116).

As 501 (c)3 non-profit organizations, these foundations receive tax subsidies while deeply influencing public policy, and it is estimated that the government loses several billion dollars in revenue. Through the funding of 501(c)4 organizations (which are permitted to participate in political campaign and elections like Teach for America (TFA)), these philanthrocapitalists are able to manipulate public opinion, endorse or attack candidates for election, “educate” legislators, help shut down public schools, and expand charter school franchises. All of this is conducted without any government interference or public accountability (Barkan, 2013; Reckhow and Snyder, 2014; Saltman, 2011).

According to Saltman (2011), the public subsidy of venture philanthropy allows these foundations to reach endless goals at three levels: economic, cultural, and political. At the economic level, these foundations are benefiting from implementing neoliberal reforms by using subsidized money in the form of tax-exempt capital, particularly by privatizing public schools and creating for-profit educational enterprises. They are getting profitable deals out of their investments that include the management and expansion of charter schools, establishment of online, for-profit educational endeavors, real estate schemes, and neighborhood gentrification (Lipman, 2011; Rich, 2013). They do all this while dismantling unions because they threaten the foundations' financial plans (Barkan, 2013: 637; Saltman, 2011: 8).

At the cultural level these mega foundations keep reproducing the ideology of neoliberalism by successfully manipulating the public's understanding of school success. They have demonized public schools, their teachers, and their unions, and have praised the wonders of school choice and charter schools. Venture philanthropy popularized the use of standardized testing as a measure to evaluate students and teachers, and venture philanthropists have also championed causes such as teacher bonus pay and teacher-proof curricula (Saltman, 2011: 9; Sawchuk, 2012; Scott, 2009).

In terms of political gains, these foundations have become deeply entrenched into public policy by lobbying legislators and school districts to enact school choice friendly legislation and policies. In fact, Reckhow and Snyder (2014) concluded that the bulk of the grants from these mega foundations go to professional policy advocacy groups that have a paid staff in Washington, DC and regularly produce reports and policy recommendations, such the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings, which receive money from the Gates Foundation. Among the goals of these groups are the expansion of charter schools, expansion of vouchers for private education, creation of a consortium of charter management organizations (CMOs), and reforms in teacher education that bypass traditional university requirements (Saltman, 2011: 9; Sawchuk, 2012; Scott, 2009).

In sum, these foundations use public money to pursue their agenda to dismantle public education without any input or control by the voters who pay their subsidies, and without any accountability from the government. The central goal of these foundations is to replace public education in the United States with charter schools and other private ventures, and to offer alternative teacher certification and leadership preparation (Barkan, 2013; Ravitch, 2010; Reckhow and Snyder, 2014; Saltman, 2009: 54; Scott, 2009).

These mega foundations follow the basic strategy of institutional capitalism: they have created alliance among themselves, they invest in the same educational projects, and they position their leaders and directors concurrently in multiple grantors and grantee projects. Reckhow and Snyder (2014) call this a “pattern of convergence in grant-making” (191), where these foundations fund not only organizations with the same goals but also the same organizations. For example, by 2010 Teach for America had received grants from 13 of the 15 largest K-12 venture philanthropies for a total of US$44.5 million. The other three top grantees were the Charter School Growth Fund, which received a total of US$46 million from six funders; KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), which received US$24 million from nine funders; and New Schools Venture Fund, which received US$18 million from 10 funders (Blume, 2013; Reckhow and Snyder, 2014).

What follows is a brief description of the most visible power brokers of neoliberalism. They include the philanthrocapitalists Eli Broad, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the Walton Family Foundation. In addition, this article examines the work of some of the seed organizations, including the 501(c)4 groups that these mega foundations are supporting and who are responsible for reproducing the discourse of school choice. They include Teach for America, KIPP schools, and other different think tanks and pet projects these foundations finance to disseminate their ideology and influence public policy and cultural life.

Eli Broad is a recognized magnate in the city of Los Angeles, where he amassed his wealth by taking advantage of the financial and real estate boom that preceded the Wall Street debacle and deep recession of the past years. In the last few years, his recognition has surpassed his investments in educational projects by taking control of the board of directors of the most important museums in Los Angeles (Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)), by financing the arts and music in downtown Los Angeles, by building his own theater (the Broad Stage) in Santa Monica, and by building the new Broad Museum in Los Angeles, California. He has been recognized as one of the most influential people in education, along with Bill Gates, without having any educational experience or ever teaching in his life.

Saltman (2009) identifies the three main premises that drive the Broad Foundation's educational projects: (1) leadership is one of the problems facing public schools. Administrative problems are caused by bad management practices; (2) public schools, teacher preparation, and educational leadership preparation are another business, and as such, “improvement begins with top-down reforms;” (3) educational quality can be achieved through testing and scores-driven policies (Saltman, 2009: 56).

Some of the most important projects of the Broad Foundation are the Broad Superintendents Academy, the Broad Residency, New Leaders for New Schools, and KIPP's training program. The Broad Superintendents Academy trains executives from public and private sectors who, by 2012, have filled 88 superintendent positions and 106 senior executive roles in urban school districts (Broad Foundation Report, 2014).

The Broad Residency recruits and trains career executives with private and civic sector experience into top-tier management in urban school districts, CMOs, and federal and state departments of education (Barkan, 2011). The foundation subsidizes the salaries of the residents during their first two years, thus maintaining control and influence over these professionals in their current positions. Thus, it is clear that both programs, the Broad Superintendents Academy and the Broad Residency, are not considered regular educational ventures but they are deemed pipelines. As Frederick Hess, director of the conservative Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, described:

Through these pipeline efforts, by 2012 250 Broad residents have been placed in public schools, federal government offices, philanthropy foundations, and KIPP schools. Currently, Broad dominates the leadership of school districts in Washington DC, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Detroit, Green Bay, Boston, Durham, Prince George's Country (Maryland), Providence, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, and Oakland, among many others (Klonsky, 2011; Maxwell, 2006).

In the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the nation, the Broad Foundation subsidized the Broad resident, who was in charge of overseeing the LAUSD's Public School Choice project, paying his salary of about US$160,000. Other “Broadies” alumni joined the staff at LAUSD, like the executive director of Innovation and Charter Division, the LAUSD budget director, the CEO of the Los Angeles Mayor's schools, and the LAUSD superintendent of instruction. So, it was not surprising that by 2010 a Broad Academy alumn, John Deasy, was hired to become LAUSD's superintendent until he was replaced by a more pro-public school educator in 2015 (Barkan, 2011: 51; Klonsky, 2011).

What these Broad educational programs have in common is that they envision educational leadership as corporate and military management and their newly trained leaders as CEOs of school districts that will eventually resemble educational corporations. Ultimately, the subliminal message is that schools need a “bullish brand of chief executive leadership” (Smith, 2008: 35) (sort of Donald Trump's style), and that military discipline is fundamental in educating poor Latinos and African American students in order to break their cycle of poverty and achievement gap.

A common trait of leadership programs financed by the Broad Foundations is the clear link they made between the discipline of the market and the harsh discipline of the military. For example, this is revealed in the recruitment of military leaders and personnel to become CEOs of school districts, such as in Washington DC and Seattle in the 1990s, and in the running of charter schools as military academies. In fact, some of the programs that have been more generously funded by the Broad Foundations, New Leaders for New Schools, and the KIPP schools and leadership preparation program are grounded in these militaristic and corporate principles (Goodman, 2013).

The KIPP project is a chain of charter schools founded by TFA alumni David Levin and Mike Feinberg under the principle that poverty is “no excuse” for not learning. As Goodman (2013) argues, a shared assumption is:

KIPP schools have been accused of harsh, punitive policies, and violations of state and federal laws. One such example is the campus at Fresno, California where students complained about teachers and administrators humiliating and isolating students for misbehaving (forcing a student to sit and bark like a dog), removing their eyeglasses and other personal belongings, withholding recess or lunch, and implementing social isolation policies to ostracize those students who dare to challenge the KIPP rigid compliance model of “coercive power, remunerative power, and normative power” (Horn, 2011: 95).

The KIPP leadership program, which functions under the same principles, is housed at the UC Berkeley School of Business, where candidates learn the ethos of the KIPP model along with the corporate principles of school management. Horn (2011) contends that “Today's behavioral and character training at KIPP is a thinly-veiled effort to impose a new variety of cultural eugenics by those who view the transmission of urban cultural traits as a threat to White middle-class values and economic prosperity” (93).

Another pet project of Eli Broad is the Broad Prize for Urban Education (US$1 million) that is given to urban districts for reducing the achievement gaps for low income and minority students (Broad Report, 2011–2012). The public media and even the former secretary of education Margaret Spelling have labeled this award the “Oscars” of urban education. The winners of the Broad Prize for Urban Education include some of the most diverse school districts in the nation, where large numbers of poor Latino, African American, and immigrant students attend school. As of 2015, this award has been put on hold because of “sluggish academic progress in urban schools” (Superville, 2015).

Not coincidently, the Broad Prize for Urban Education was the precedent to the Obama's administration decision to launch the Race to the Top competition. This initiative, which was designed in Secretary of State Arnie Duncan's office with the help of consultants from the Broad and Gate foundations (Ravitch, 2013: 28), aimed to emulate the Broad Foundation's philanthropic investments.

The connivance between the Obama administration and venture philanthropy has been evident since the appointment of Arnie Duncan, the “CEO of closing schools in Chicago,” as Obama's Secretary of Education. However, the recent appointment of Vice President Joe Biden's chief of state, Bruce Reed, as the president of the Broad Foundation for education, leaves no doubts about the transformation of the role of government in the neoliberal social order: to protect and nourish the market (Memoli and Song, 2013).

Unlike Eli Broad, who made his fortune by taking advantage of the rampant financial speculation of Wall Street and the housing prices bubble, Bill Gates made his fortune by using intellectual property laws to control the digital and hardware information he produced. Microsoft's growth was the product of years of public subsidy to develop the computer industry and the internet (Saltman, 2011). By monopolizing information that prevented any other company from making any related profit, Gates was able to amass one of the record fortunes of this century. In fact, the US district attorney indicted Microsoft several times for violating monopoly laws. However, in an ironic twist, the federal attorney who led the court case against Bill Gates, Joel Klein, is now a Broad fellow and former chancellor of New York City public schools, which were restructured with more than US$100 million from the Gates and Broad Foundations (Klonsky, 2011: 23).

Gates' control of educational reform in the United States has a long history, beginning with his attempts to regulate the small school movement, which was later defunded and consequently failed. Later the foundation diverted that money to initiatives aimed at closing down public schools and replacing them with school choice options (Klonsky, 2011). The Gates Foundation has financed the development of KIPP schools (as well as the Broad Foundations), injected money into restructuring New York City public schools, funded the reconstitution of urban high schools across America, and given seed money to support the proliferation of CMOs and for-profit educational ventures (Dillon, 2011). More recently, the Gates Foundation has supported the creation, evaluation, and promotion of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and it has contracted with Pearson, the British publisher, to develop an online curriculum for teaching the CCSS (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Report, 2014; Ravitch, 2013: 23).

The Gates Foundation manages about US$66 billion, assisted by a US$31 billion gift from investor Warren Buffett, which made the Gates Foundation the largest philanthropic organization in history. Bill Gates personally directs the foundation and has a powerful influence in both political parties in the United States, making him a commanding figure in the government. For example, Margot Rogers, Arnie Duncan's former chief of staff (Duncan has stepped down recently), is also the special assistant to the Gates Foundation education director. Another public official working in that office, James Shelton, came from the Gates Foundation ranks, where he served as one of the education program directors. Shelton, while working for the government, also keeps official appointments with organizations such as New Schools Venture Fund and LearnNow, which work to facilitate the control of public education (Klonsky, 2011: 22). These two examples showcase how deeply implicated venture philanthropy is in the running of public policy.

In addition, the Gates Foundation actively participates in the manufacturing of the “school failure” and the “shifting of the common sense” regarding what works in public schools through the massive funding of think tanks like the Education Trust, Education Sector, the Aspen Institute's Commission on NCLB, and Edin08/ Strong American Schools. Kovacs and Christie (2011) argue that these four organizations are propagandists and engage in what is considered political science abuse “by rigging the process and controlling the input of data in a policy debate by either packing a panel with scientists who are like-minded or by airing one side of the story” (153). These four think tanks were identified as groups that hide errors and misrepresent facts, make false claims, and distort data, or simply oversimplify issues. Among these falsehoods are: “1) other countries are outperforming America, endangering its place in the global economy; 2) jobs of the future require a highly skilled workforce [that the present educational system is unable to provide]; and 3) The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is working” (155). Kovacs and Christie (2011) refute each of those claims and contend that these think tanks engage in a systematic campaign to discredit public education and reproduce fallacies about the failure of public education.

The Gates Foundation deliberately engages in what is considered one of the most powerful roles of venture philanthropy: to subvert the notion of public education. As Brown (2003) contends, as a form of governmentality, neoliberalism corrodes the institutions, values, and processes of liberal democracies. It seeks to eliminate the notion of education as “a common and public good in the public interest” (Luke, 2005: 161).

In 1987 the owners of Walmart established the Walton Family Foundation, the most conservative foundation of all the venture philanthropies. The foundation has become the largest donor to initiatives privatizing K-12 education, and it has given up to US$30 million each year for vouchers and tax credit organizations. The Walton Family Foundation has focused on supporting projects and organizations that persuade parents and the public about the benefits of school choices, teacher performance-based increases, teacher accountability based on students' test scores, and ending teacher tenure (Woodall, 2013). In addition, this foundation keeps pouring millions of dollars into short-term teacher training and is one of the largest donors to KIPP schools and Teach for America (Miner, 2010; Walton Family Foundation, 2014).

As in all the cases of venture philanthropy, the Walton family acquired its wealth from controversial business practices. In this case, the main source of this fortune comes from Walmart, which is known for its anti-union practices, unfair labor compensation to its employees, and exploitation of cheap labor forces abroad (Ravitch, 2010). As Saltman KJ (2010) argues, Walmart has “made billions by diminishing the wealth and standards of living of citizens” (48) and its owners, the Walton family, want to replicate that experiment in public education by pouring publicly subsidized, tax-free money into neoliberal educational enterprises.

Wendy Kopp conceived the idea of Teach for America as an undergraduate at Princeton University in 1989. Her vision of a replica of the Peace Corps for urban education ignited the neoliberal field and delighted venture philanthropists, who saw in this project the possibility of restructuring public education. The concept appealed to masses of upper and middle class, idealistic, young graduates from Ivy League universities who volunteered to teach in urban schools for two years in exchange for experience, free degrees, and free credentials (Ravitch, 2013).

Kopp successfully launched the concept that a teacher did not need university coursework or internship but just a few weeks of training to become an educator and teach urban kids that being poor, brown, or black was not an excuse for not learning. In a matter of a few years, and after a successful marketing effort, TFA developed from being the darling beneficiary of neoliberal reforms to becoming one of the most powerful forces targeting the privatization of public education.

TFA leads the nation in the quest to create alternative teacher certification; it supports the dismantling and restructuring of public schools in urban communities; it provides a constant supply of new TFA recruits to replace fired teachers at urban schools; and it actively participates in the creation of new charter schools or alternative neoliberal educational projects.

Some of the major donors to TFA are the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundations, and the Walton Family Foundation. In 2010, the latter contributed US$49.5 million to TFA, which is the single largest contribution to this organization. Also, other important donors include corporations responsible for the market speculation and the Wall Street debacle of the last years, among them Wachovia, Goldman Sachs, Visa, the biotechnology firm Amgen, and the golfing tournament Quail Hollow Championship (Miner, 2010: 30).

In 2010, the US Department of Education awarded TFA US$50 million for winning the most innovative program in education. Another US$50 million was awarded to KIPP, which is headed by Wendy Kopp's husband, Richard Barth. In addition, the government provides TFA with about US$20 million annually in congressional earmarks (Ravitch, 2013: 136).

According to Miner (2010: 28), “TFA spends significant organizational time, energy, and money on its alumni, who are arguably the source of the organization's true political power.” The most famous alumni are Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the Washington DC public schools, and Mike Feinberg and David Levin, founders of the KIPP Schools. TFA alumni are everywhere as they are the preferred choice of venture philanthropists when filling out leadership positions for their multiple neoliberal projects across the nation. For example, John White, a TFA graduate and Broad fellow, is the state superintendent of education in Louisiana. Kevin Huffman was appointed by the Tennessee republican governor to oversee the evaluation of teachers based on test scores. In Colorado, Michael Johnston became a state legislator and wrote legislation to make students' test scores count as 50% of teachers' evaluations (Ravitch, 2013: 139); and in New Orleans, most of the charter schools, for-profit schools, and newly developed neoliberal educational enterprises are led and implemented by TFA alumni.

However, it is Michelle Rhee, the “face of the corporate reform movement” (Ravitch, 2013: 145), who has become the powerhouse of the neoliberal rationality. Rhee became the chancellor of the District of Columbia's public school after being a TFA teacher for three years, and after running the New Teachers Project in Chicago, which produced the Chicago Teaching Fellows Program, another replica of the TFA alternative certification program. At 37 years old, Rhee had no other significant experience before being appointed chancellor of the DC public schools. During her tenure, Rhee fired and replaced half of all the teachers in the district and about one third of its principals (Ravitch, 2013; Whitmire, 2011). She dismissed the notion of collaboration: “I think if there is one thing I have learned over the last 15 months, it's that cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated” (Strauss, 2010, cited in Ravitch, 2013: 147). Rhee resigned her position after her mentor, the mayor of DC, lost the elections in part due to Rhee's policies in the district.

TFA's popularity and the power of its alumni have made the organization one of the most critical players of neoliberalism. It is concerning that the celebrity status of this organization precludes the public from understanding TFA's authoritative role in the demise of public education (Blume, 2013).

Venture philanthropy follows the tradition of the philanthropy of the past two centuries. White wealthy men (the “billionaires boy club,” Ravitch, 2010, 2013) continue dictating what they deem “appropriate” educational policies for poor people of color. An examination of the educational agendas of the power brokers of neoliberalism indicates that they are dismantling public schools in working class communities of color, and are replacing them with private school choices and charter schools that follow a managerial and military model. In fact, a review of the schools, teacher preparation programs, and leadership academies that are funded by venture philanthropy shows that they all have in common a classic military and corporative style that is translated into fierce discipline, zero tolerance policies, a strict uniform code, a back to basics curriculum, rigid academic standards, longer academic years, and rigorous contracts with students and their parents (Saltman, 2009, 2010).

It does not appear to be a coincidence that the educational experience that these reconstituted schools and these teacher and leadership preparation programs are promoting is the formation of an obedient and uncritical labor pool necessary to support the ever-growing service industry under neoliberalism. As Goodman (2013: 93) asserts, “the quiet, orderly, nonviolent environment of the CMOs suggests that students accept the rules and for the most part conform; they have been successfully conditioned.”

For many decades, venture philanthropies have arduously been shaping social perception about public education. They have been convincing the American public that schools, teachers, and their unions are compromising the success of the economy, and that market-based reforms are the solution to the social and economic crisis. In fact, one of the primary goals of neoliberalism is the “shifting of common sense” (Brown, 2003), which these foundations have manufactured at several levels. For example, in addition to the investment in advocacy pro-market groups, these venture philanthropies have significant control of important media outlets, TV programs, newspapers, and films. Movies such as Waiting for Superman, The Loteria, and The Cartel, which have been financed by these philanthropies, capitalize on popular culture to demonize public schools. Television programs financed by the Gates and the Broad Foundation, such as NBC News Education Nation, which has been retransmitted in Nightly News and Today, and on the MSNBC, CNBC, and Telemundo networks, further contribute to this goal (Barkan, 2011).

In fact, in 2009, the Gates Foundation and Viatcom (one of the largest media conglomerates) made a deal to let the Gates Foundation be directly involved in the writing and producing of programs through a new nonprofit called Get Schooled Foundation. In addition, the Gates Foundation gives grants to other media outlets, such as Education Week, and public radios and TV stations that report on educational policies (Dillon, 2011). As Fuller (2011) said, “it's Orwellian in the sense that through this vast funding [these foundations] control even how we tacitly think about the problems facing public education” (cited in Dillon, 2011).

If this is not enough, the connivance between the federal government and this triumvirate of foundations is creating more confusion in the American public. The sharing of officers between the Obama administration and these philanthrocapitalists leaves no doubt that the role of the government under neoliberalism has become to protect the market. Particularly, during Arnie Duncan's tenure as US secretary of education, the revolving door of staff has been impressive. As mentioned before, Duncan's first chief of staff, Margot Rogers, came from the Gates Foundation, and her later replacement, Joanne Weiss, came from the New School Venture Fund. The assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Russlyn Ali, came from the Broad Foundation and Education Trust. General counsel Charles Rose came from Advance Illinois (another Gates grantee), the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, James Shelton, has worked for both Gates and the New Schools Venture Fund, and Arnie Duncan was on the board of the Broad Foundation (education division) until 2009.

The Gates Foundation also gives money to elected officials through their national associations such as the National Governors Association, Center for Best Practices, National Conference of State Legislatures, United States Conference of Mayors, National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund, and National Association of State Boards of Education (Barkan, 2011: 56).

Thus, it has become more difficult for the American public to identify the boundaries between public spheres and neoliberal, privatizing endeavors. Venture philanthropies have become the new powerbrokers of neoliberalism, and through their generous donations they have been able to penetrate most realms of civil society, convincing Americans that public education has failed.

The traditional American liberal education, as envisioned by Dewey (1916), does not work for the global market. The diminishing public spheres and decline of critical citizenship is one of the outcomes of the implementation of neoliberalism as a political rationality. Venture philanthropies, propelled by their immense wealth, which has been strategically channeled into social networks and ideological pipelines to advance their vision, have become the new powerbrokers of neoliberalism. These philanthrocapitalists, assisted by the government, exert a powerful influence over educational policies and cultural spaces in the United States.

There are some recommendations to prevent the further dismantling of public education and the reduction of civic life. Saltman (2011) proposes to eliminate tax breaks for these venture philanthropies and nationalize their wealth to allocate it to public education. Others (Baltodano, 2009) propose the creation of political alliances among educators, parents, and unions, and the appropriation of the language of public choice. Regardless of these suggestions, what is clear now is that educators have a civic duty to create political awareness and to mobilize the public before is too late. The engulfing dynamic of the neoliberalism project is endangering the few democratic spaces left in public schools.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.