Charter Schools: Under New Management

In order for the corporations to take control of the education system, the way in which all schools are governed must be changed. Both the binding state education laws and legislative oversight of the public school system must be eliminated. In the language of the boiler plate charter school laws written for the various states (with help from RAND), charter schools are not bound by the state’s so-called burdensome education laws (except for civil rights and health laws).

For the corporate takeover of public schools to be complete, one more transition must occur––– removing the states’ legislative authority.

The Washington A+ Commission was set up in 1999 by legislative authority. This is the entity which will eventually hold the control over all Washington public schools, including charter schools. Mr. Jim Spady, now representing the Association of Washington Business [affiliated with the National Alliance of Business/NAB], is on the A+ Commission board; as are Mr. Bussey of the Washington Business Roundtable and two of his Roundtable associates.

The A+ Commission runs Washington state's Accountability System, which is steadily enlarging its list of “powers and duties” including: changing education laws, performing strategic interventions, and even implementing entire take-overs of school districts. The work of the A+ Commission is about the implementation of GOALS 2000 (achieving the completion of the Carnegie/Business Roundtable blueprint for education) under an accountability system “just beyond reach of public authority.” Mirror-images of the A+ Commission will some day create an interlocking network between the states.

After the charter ballot failed [1996], with only 33% of the voters supporting it, Jim Spady directed his enthusiastic supporters to contact the Washington Business Roundtable's Phil Bussey or Paul Hill [RAND/ Center for Reinventing Education at the University of Washington] to continue the work they had begun. Washington Business Roundtable’s Phil Bussey and Steve Mullin have worked on the GOALS 2000/ Washington 2000 issues from back in the early 90s. In 1997, Steve Mullin, representing the Business Roundtable, appeared at the legislative hearing along with Jeff Kemp [WA Families/Focus on the Family] and Paul Hill [RAND Corporation], to support charter school legislation. Bussey and Mullin set up the Partnership for Learning which is the very network Paul Hill of Rand Corporation envisioned, that is, “a national network of local business, civic and political leaders who are interested in changing the governance of their schools....”

Licking his wounds after the failure of his charter school initiative, Jim Spady issued a statement to his loyal followers:

I'm sorry to report to you that Washington's bid, to become the 30th state in the nation to pass a charter school law, died today in the Senate Ways & Means Committee…

The last-minute hope of charter school supporters was that Seattle Public School Superintendent John Stanford (a former Army General who last year stated that he wanted to “convert all of Seattle's 100 schools to charters”) would join the Governor in publicly supporting the bipartisan compromise….

Until then, we can still cheer on our friends in the 29 states that have already authorized charter schools. Knowing that almost 200,000 kids are living the charter school dream in other states helps everyone “keep the dream alive” in WA.

One alert Washington parent/education researcher picked up on Jim Spady’s statement; that the Seattle superintendent was favorable to the conversion of all Seattle public schools to charter schools. Her letter of response, which she sent to the WA legislators, well-explains how partnerships with NASDC and NARE [Tucker/Hornbeck] have been forged with local districts and in this way, how these partnerships are moving forward, by-passing legislative approval (with a wink and a nod), to implement the Carnegie/ National Business Roundtable plan for restructuring more than just education. [See The Carnegie Plan, below]

Will all Schools become Charter Schools?

…The only thing we are gaining with charters is that under this law, private entities (with no limiting provision on who this could be - like NASDC design teams or even SABIS International - a foreign corporation now operating schools in Minnesota and Massachusetts) now have access to public dollars and those same entities have no form of elected representation on their decision making/governing boards of directors. Couple this with the fact that they can waive state law and regulations and we have a recipe for disaster. Considering how much money the Boeing Company has thrown into education reform in this state alone (not to mention into NASDC), one has to wonder how long it will be before Boeing has their own charter schools… Charter schools will help accomplish the STW (School to Work) agenda and education reform agenda… Is this supposed be the idea behind free market?

Imagine my astonishment when I read yesterday, in this Spady memo, that Seattle had already contemplated converting the entire district to Charter schools. Seattle school district is already working under contract with NASDC (New American Schools Development Corporation) and their Design Teams in an Alliance known as the Washington Alliance for Better Schools. This Alliance includes the University of Washington (in the charter bills colleges could grant charters - hmm…), Shoreline, Edmonds, Everett, Northshore and Seattle. This Alliance has been deeply involved with Marc Tucker and his particular design team, National Alliance for Restructuring Education/NARE. Washington state originally signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to restructure our school system [under the Tucker] model. OSPI [WA department of education] officials tell us that we got out of that contract at the state level, but MUCH work continues under this Alliance at district levels…

If Seattle School District had actually had the vehicle to convert all of its schools to Charters, Marc Tucker and NASDC would have realized a goal not possible without the aid of Charter legislation. We would have effectively allowed a private corporation, with no public accountability, to totally control a major portion of Washington’s schools. If the entire district did convert, how could any alternative possibly provide an avenue for this massive number of students if the public didn’t agree with the flavor, purpose and mission of these schools? How, without an elected board, would they ever have any say to change the district’s course? Should the entire population of Seattle School District do a walk out - vote with their feet? This is what charter advocates say - if you don't like the charter school, leave, competition will close it down. Guess we might have to close down the entire Seattle School District…

I would suggest that anyone who is NOT familiar with Marc Tucker [Carnegie Foundation] and his radical ideas of school restructuring stop NOW and find out who this individual is and how he and his advocates in this state have influenced education reform as a whole. He is the author of the now infamous “Dear Hillary Letter” and the “Human Resource Development Plan” [see excerpts below] both of which advocate turning our schools into human resource development centers; focused primarily on producing “human capital” for a global economy…

Charter schools are NOT the solution. They are, and will continue to be, the Trojan Horse which, if ever enacted in this state, will produce unwanted and disastrous results. Please remember the quote by John Chubb, “Public authority must be used to create a system that is almost beyond the reach of public authority.”

R. Sitler

Following are two documents written by Marc Tucker which lay out the Carnegie Plan:

A proposal to the Clinton administration [circa 1988] from the National Center on Education and the Economy [Marc Tucker].

Tucker is the co-Director with David Hornbeck [Senior Education Advisor to the National Business Roundtable] of the GOALS 2000/NARE design team.

The advent of the Clinton Administration creates a unique opportunity for the country to develop a truly national system for the development of its human resources, second to none on the globe. That National Center on Education and the Economy and its predecessor organization; the Carnegie Foundation on Education and the Economy, have been elaborating a national agenda in this arena over the last eight years. Here, we outline a set of recommendations to the incoming Clinton administration in the area of human resources development…This report is mainly the work of a small group of people with close ties to the National Center: includes …David Hornbeck…Lauren Resnick [New Standards Project (outcome-based assessments), director––partner in Tucker's GOALS 2000/NASDC design team NARE], David Rockefeller, Jr., …John Sculley [Apple Computer] and myself [Marc Tucker].

First a vision, of the kind of national––not federal––human resources development system the nation could have. This is interwoven with a new approach to governing that should inform that vision. What is essential is that we create a seamless web of opportunities to develop one's skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone––young and old, poor and rich, worker and full-time student.

Second, a proposed legislative agenda…to implement the vision. We propose four high-priority packages that will enable the federal government to move quickly:

1. …an apprenticeship system as the keystone of a strategy for putting a whole new postsecondary training system in place [aka School-to-Work (STW) or aka at the Hudson Institute as Workforce 2020] . It contains what we think is a powerful idea for rolling out and scaling up the whole new human resource system nationwide over the next four years, using the (renamed) apprenticeship idea as the entering wedge.

4. The fourth would enable the new administration to take advantage of legislation on which Congress has already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform agenda…[aka America 2000 under the G.H. Bush administration and GOALS 2000 under the Clinton administration]. [emphasis added]

From the National Center on Education and the Economy

Proposal Partners

National Alliance of Business [interfaces with the National Business Roundtable]

This partnership was in some cases a state's commitment to submit the entire state education system, or in other cases, the commitment of one city's public schools to the plan designed by Marc Tucker/ Carnegie Foundation and David Hornbeck/ National Business Roundtable.

States included then: Arkansas, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and San Diego California

The Origins of the Alliance

In April 1990, the National Center on Education and the Economy sent a proposal ot the Pew Charitable Trusts to initiate the work of the National Alliance for Restructuring Education. This proposal requests a three-year renewal of the grant made by Pew on July 6, 1990.

The Alliance is one of the largest, most complex and most expensive collaborative efforts to reinvent American education ever undertaken…the Alliance seeks to create a fully integrated web of new policy and practice for the development of the nation's human resources that extends from the state to the individual school and community. In the service of this goal, the Alliance is organized to redesign and rebuild all of the important features of the education system and the way in which that system relates to the health and human services systems

In our first proposal to Pew…We pointed out that the development of a fully integrated world economy means that the American standard of living will go into a free fall unless this country rebuilds its economic system on the foundation of a front-line labor force… To produce that result, we argued, requires rebuilding our public schools from the ground up…And it is not enough for these students to have the knowledge and cognitive capacities to function at a high level; they must also have the moral and ethical foundation required to use those abilities wisely and well.

Creation of the New Standards Project

Ed. Note: Elsewhere in a statement by Steve Farkas, Communications Director for the Public Agenda Foundation [partner to the Tucker/Hornbeck design team]:

Every Alliance partner is engaged in activities that are by themselves, enormous in conception and very complex. The New Standards Project is a $32 million program. (NSP is based at the Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh under the supervision of Lauren Resnick.) The Apple ACOT program is certainly one of the largest educational technology programs in the field…

…Conventional testing systems are based on the assumption that students will fill in multiple-choice tests forms that will be scored by computers. …But the New Standard Project will not work that way. Student work will be scored by teachers all over the country. The reliability of these test scores will be a function of the skills of these teachers.

Furthermore, the goal of the New Standards Project is not simply to provide valid and reliable measures of student accomplishments, but to improve their achievement.

To produce better scores on student portfolios , teachers must learn how to build their curricula around NSP-like tasks, creating settings where students can do work that will meet the standards. For all these reasons, the New Standards system will fail unless tens of thousands of teachers acquire new skills in developing tasks and rubrics, learn how to create effective classroom settings in which those tasks can come to life and score student work….the NSP budget for [1992-1995] is $32 million…

Community Services and Supports

All over the country, massive social service bureaucracies are waging a losing struggle to meet the needs of their clients…Funds cannot be moved from treating the problem once it has gotten out of control…before it emerges full blown.

Ed. Note: To illustrate the point – that schools will be the hub of social services at the expense of teaching & learning under the Tucker/Hornbeck plan… In the NARE design team proposal to New American Schools Development Corporation [NASDC, aka National Business Roundtable] we find that the Tucker/Hornbeck plan uses teachers facilitators between families and social services, leaving little time for instruction:

School and Community Component

• R. Carlos Carballada– Chancellor, New York State Board of Regents and President/CEO, First National Bank of Rochester

• David Rockefeller, Jr.– Chairman, Rockefeller Financial Services, Inc.

• Deborah Wadsworth–– Public Agenda Foundation (Cyrus Vance [CFR] and Daniel Yankelovich [CFR]) [see PAF below]

Chester Finn, Jr. of Hudson Institute and the Manhattan Institute is on PAF's Policy Review Board

Public Agenda maintains a nonpartisan balance in all of its work. Its materials have won praise for their credibility and fairness from elected officials from both political parties and experts and decision-makers across the political spectrum.

Funding for Public Agenda's research and citizen work comes from foundations, professional associations, coalitions and corporations. Recent funders include: AT&T, BellSouth, Annie E. Casey, Edna McConnell Clark, Danforth, Ford, Thomas B. Fordham, William Caspar Graustein, William & Flora Hewlett, IBM International, Henry J. Kaiser Family, W.K. Kellogg, Charles F. Kettering, John S. & James L. Knight, Markle, Charles Stewart Mott, Rockefeller, Surdna and UPS Foundations, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Advertising Council, The Business Roundtable, Fidelity Investments, GE Fund, The American Federation of Teachers and The National Education Association. [emphasis added]

The commission is composed of nine-members, one of whom is Jim Spady. We learn in his A+ Commission profile that Jim also serves on the Association of Washington Business [AWB] Board of Directors and on the AWB education task force. The AWB represents an interlock with the Washington Business Roundtable --the most influential WA corporations are members of both organizations. [Both the AWB and WA Business Roundtable worked with the National Business Roundtable to assure that GOALS 2000 would be implemented in Washington state.] Spady's A+ profile fails to mention his position on the board of Discovery Institute.

Sitting with Mr. Spady on the A+ Commission we find the usual education representatives, but let's focus on the others:

s Patrick Patrick - retired President and CEO of Prudential Bancorporation, Mariner Savings, and Metropolitan Bancorporation.

s José E. Gaitán (Vice-chair) of Seattle is Managing Member of the Gaitán Group, a Seattle law firm with a national practice…[and] currently sits on the

s Margaret Bates - from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Northwest Regional Liaison [a GOALS 2000- initiated program]

s Dave Fisher - …the Washington Site Manager for Intel Corporation*…and was a Program Manager at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

See Intel's involvement in education in the GOALS 2000 Technology Component Report–– UNDER CONSTRUCTION

s Patricia Lines - Yes, the same Patricia Lines who appeared at Chester Finn's National Conference on School Choice, Seattle, WA …

Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. In a former position, she served as a Research Associate at the National Institute on Student Achievement,

Curriculum and Assessment, at the U.S. Department of Education, where she directed the department's research program on charter schools…

Pat Lines’s profile on the Discovery Institute web page states: “…In this capacity (as a senior research analyst [for the] U.S. Department of Education/ED) she

initiated and managed ED's charter school research program from its inception in 1995 until late 1999…” [emphasis added]

On the sub-committees we find Phil Bussey and Steve Mullin from the Washington Business Roundtable. Another commission member, Bill Porter, represents the Partnership for Learning which Bussey and Mullin founded. See Partnership For Learning Membership, below.

Ed. Note: This LINK offers information on Accountability Systems in other states. In the end all states will share the same educational template; the WA A+ Commission gives us insights into the national accountability model; the WA A+ Commission will perhaps serve as the model for all states.

In order to raise public awareness for GOALS 2000 the experts and stakeholders wrote/write articles for publication in education journals covering every aspect of the planned change for American schools—the new performance assessments, multiple intelligences, the design teams, charter schools, schools for profit, the need for technology in the schools, world class standards, etc.

Education Week 1993

About EPE

Editorial Projects in Education Inc. (EPE) is the non-profit publisher founded 35 years ago that now publishes Education Week and Teacher Magazine. In the past, the company has created a number of other publications, most notable of which is The Chronicle of Higher Education, now privately published.

More than 30 foundations concerned with the future of American education have supported EPE. Their gifts gave life to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, and Teacher Magazine. Those who have helped finance EPE projects are:

The Atlantic Richfield Foundation, The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation; The Boston Foundation; The Buhl Foundation; The Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Cleveland Foundation; The Denver Foundation; The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company; The Exxon Education Foundation; The Ford Foundation; The Frost Foundation; The George Gund Foundation; The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; The Ittleson Foundation; and the Kettering Family Fund.

The Esther A. Joseph Klingenstein Foundation; The Lilly Endowment; The John and Katherine D. MacArthur Foundation; The Faye MacBeath Foundation; The William Penn Foundation; The Pew Charitable Trusts; Rockefeller Brothers Trusts; The Rockefeller Foundation; The Rhode Island Foundation; The San Francisco Foundation; Shell Companies Foundation; Standard Oil Company Foundation; The Tinker Foundation; The Sid W. Richardson Foundation; and The United States-Japan Foundation

The National Business Roundtable's requirements for education––NBR Essential Components [1992]–– envisions rewards and penalties for school performance based on student achievement [the GOALS 2000 tests]:

The Essential Components of a Successful Education System: Putting Policy into Practice

…Essential Component #4 –– A successful system rewards schools for success, helps schools in trouble, and penalizes schools for persistent or dramatic failure.

Taken from: A publication of the Education Task Force of the Business Roundtable, chaired by Joseph T. Gorman, Chairman and CEO TRW Inc

As Washington state, as all other states, changed to the GOALS 2000 outcome-based education model [mid-90s], citizens were told that a revolutionary and costly testing system would need to be developed and instituted. The result was a series of performance tests to be given at various grade levels [4^th, 8^th and 10^th] each year, now known as the Washington Assessment of Student Learning or WASL. The WA state-level commission, which developed the tests, included two paid members from Marc Tucker/ David Hornbeck's New Standards Project

We recall in an earlier statement: “…[the New Standards Project] is a partnership of 20 states and six urban school districts that collectively enroll more than half of the students in the United States.” Source: Effective Public Engagement, New Standards Project ©1993 –– Steve Farkas, Communications Director for the Public Agenda Foundation [partner to the Tucker/Hornbeck design team]

The WASL is in reality the Tucker/Hornbeck [Carnegie] “high stakes” test which will funnel students into the Tucker/Hornbeck School-to-Work [workforce] scenario. The A+ Commission was set up to monitor the test results. The well-positioned WA Business Roundtable lobbyists on the A+ Commission–– Mr. Bussey and Mr. Mullin–– along with their friendly Association of Washington Business representative and long-time charter school proponent, Mr. Spady, is insurance that the Carnegie/National Business Roundtable education agenda will be adopted.

The A+ Commission represents a methodical shifting of school governance away from the purview of legislative oversight and into the hands of the National Business Roundtable and the National Association of Business through their WA state affiliates –– a corporate takeover of the schools and of students’ futures.

Excerpts highlighted below show the A+ Commission's wish list of “powers and duties”:

In the most egregious situations, closing and reconstituting the school, which could include replacing the existing principal and some or all of the staff and/or contracting out the management of the school. [page 20]

The commission may also revise any goals adopted in RCW28A.630.887 [WA statutes]… [in order for the legislature] to take statutory action (i.e., change the laws in accordance with the A+ Commission's recommendations)… [page 34]

Identify school and school districts in which state intervention measures will be needed and a range of appropriate intervention strategies…and after the legislature has authorized a set of intervention strategies…, at the request of the commission, the superintendent shall intervene in the school or school district and take corrective actions. [page 35]

The strategies shall be formulated in accordance with the assumption that continued low performance, despite school district efforts, shall trigger an evaluation by the commission. The evaluation is intended to identify the next steps needed to improve student performance. In its evaluation, the commission shall use multiple sources of information that may include, but not be limited to: (i) The result of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning [WASL]… [page 36]

Two bills presently before the WA legislature [one issuing from the House of Representatives' education committee and the other from the Senate's education committee] both carry identical language giving further insight into the sweeping "powers and duties" the A+ Commission hopes to possess: “Removal of particular schools from the school district jurisdiction and establishment of alternative arrangements for the public governance and supervision of such [failing] schools…”

If the majority of students in a certain school were to fail the GOALS 2000 WASL tests — WA Assessments of Student Learning — feasibly the A+ Commission could use its authority to convert the school into a charter school; an entire district’s schools could be converted into charter schools. Conceivably the A+ would have the power to donate the school to a charter school corporation, such as the for-profit Edison Schools [previously the Edison Project]. Founding members of the Edison Project partners included: Chester Finn of Manhattan Institute and Hudson Institute, John Chubb of the Brookings Institution, Benno C. Schmidt of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and Sylvia Peters on the board of directors of the Character Education Partnership. Billionaire Paul Allen, formerly a CEO of Microsoft is an Edison Schools multi-million dollar investor. [See: Paul Allen Bankrolls Charter Schools Initiative]

More about the Edison Schools in a forthcoming report on the GOALS 2000 Technology Component–– UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

1996 National Education Summit Participants

This entity would later become ACHIEVE.

Boeing Commitment to Public Education Improvement

In 1993, Washington state adopted a historic school improvement law [GOALS 2000] designed to establish high academic standards…Under the auspices of the Washington [Business] Roundtable, Washington Business leaders were instrumental in crafting this law and winning its passage… roundtable leaders are aggressively pursuing the full implementation of this law in all Washington public schools by the year 2000…[The Boeing] philosophy is deeply rooted in the National Business Roundtable's nine essential components for achieving a successful education system. The National Business Roundtable's national agenda includes choice, i.e. charter schools.

“While the bulk of Boeing’s education efforts focus on Washington and other states where the company has operations, Boeing is involved in the larger effort…through involvement in the New American Schools Development Corporation [NASDC]… Frank Shrontz [Boeing Chairman and CEO] is a member of the education task force and policy committee of the Business Roundtable; is vice chairman of the New American Schools Development Corporation; is on the education committee of the Washington Business Roundtable; and is chairman of the Partnership for Learning, a non-profit organization supported by Washington businesses to raise public awareness about the urgency of school improvements. Shrontz also served in 1991-1993 on the Governor's Council on Education Reform and Funding in Washington state [GOALS 2000]…” emphasis added

The Washington Business Roundtable [Phil Bussey], the Partnership for Learning [founder Phil Bussey, director Steve Nielsen/federal GOALS 2000 oversight panel member] and the Seattle Alliance for Education [Phil Bussey on the executive board]–– represent how business uses high-profile partnerships to leverage the corporate agenda for education reform. An example of this leveraging would be how the media is used. If the Seattle Times' CEO were to hold membership in one of the above interlocking organizations, a constant barrage of favorable media attention could be [and is] generated for the many aspects of the education reform plan; perhaps a human interest article covering the Spady’s dedication to charter schools and how they have invested over $200,000 of their own money or a piece on Jack Kemp visiting a private school in Seattle, touching on his love for the charter school concept. And in other ways; a CEO might visit his school district's school board meeting as a “parent” to comment on some aspect of GOALS 2000 restructuring under consideration by the board. In the city's local paper, that parent's ideas might-well appear in the local press the next week; maybe on the front page! And the schools board may take this CEO's idea and adopt it as a major direction for the whole district. Of course all this has happened many times over.

The Issaquah School District is NEA-strong [National Education Association/ WEA/teachers’ union.] Parents serving on committees in this district are generally powerless; an invitation to a parent to serve on a district committee is merely a token gesture. However, in the early ‘90s, an unprecedented arrangement was struck between Issaquah’s education stakeholders and the Washington Business Roundtable.

Any one visiting Issaquah’s Restructuring Advisory Committee meetings would make an amazing discovery. The sole parent-member of the committee––Phil Bussey––was also the Chairman of the Restructuring Committee. This was indeed a very unusual circumstance. Add to this that Mr. Bussey was/is the WA Business Roundtable's President and the Roundtable’s lead education policy man for all of Washington State––registered as the paid Business Roundtable lobbyist to the legislators of Washington state. He was hardly just a concerned parent. The Issaquah Restructuring Committee was part of Bussey’s full-time job! This is how GOALS 2000 is being introduced at the community level; the federal plan is being integrated at the local level by the National Business Roundtable's state representatives. Shadow Mr. Bussey and you have a window on GOALS 2000 for Washington state. If you were to travel to another other states, find their Business Roundtable rep./lobbyist, the pattern would be repeated many times over.

Another Issaquah community stakeholder is Mr. Elbridge ‘Bridge’ Stuart. More about Bridge in a forthcoming report, Faith-Based Welfare Reform: All That Glitters is Not God. Suffice it to say, Mr. Stuart hails from a very aristocratic family with its private foundation -- Stuart Foundation -- located in San Francisco, CA. -- which targets California and Washington State with the foundation’s strategic giving on social programs, which includes GOALS 2000 programs.

The following organizational membership listings–– for the Washington Business Roundtable [Phil Bussey], the Partnership for Learning [founder Phil Bussey, director Steve Nielsen/federal GOALS 2000 oversight panel member] and the Seattle Alliance for Education [Phil Bussey on the executive board]–– are representive of they way in which business uses high-profile partnerships to leverage the corporate agenda for education. Examples of this leveraging would use of the media… If the Seattle Times CEO were to hold membership in one of the above interlocking organizations, a constant barrage of favorable media attention could be [and is] generated for the many aspects of the education reform plan; perhaps a human interest article covering the Spady's dedication to charter schools or a piece on Jack Kemp visiting a private school in Seattle, touching on his love for the charter school concept. And in other ways: a CEO might visit his school district's school board meeting as a “parent” to comment on some aspect of GOALS 2000 restructuring under consideration by the board. In the city's local paper, that parent’s ideas might even appear in the local press the next week, maybe on the front page! And the school’s board may take this CEO’s idea and adopt it as a major direction for the whole district. Of course these scenarios have already happened many times over.

“The Washington Roundtable is composed of thirty-five chief executive officers and five citizen members. It was formed in 1983 to study and make recommendations on the state’s critical public policy issues. The Washington Roundtable is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization and its work is supported by its corporate members.”

Partnership for Learning is a non-profit organization supported by more than 45 businesses and community foundations around the [WA] state. The Partnership helps parents, educators, and business and community leaders learn more about Washington's school improvement effort [GOALS 2000], why it is important, and what concrete steps they can take to help. Our website is designed to be a resource to keep you up-to-date on Washington's new standards, tests, and accountability system [GOALS 2000], as well as give you specific ideas for how you can help ensure the success of Washington's efforts to raise academic standards.

Founded in 1994, Partnership for Learning is a business coalition with a unique and single-minded mission: to build greater understanding and involvement in the statewide effort to raise academic standards in schools. Its work is based on the recognition that broad-based public awareness and long-term support are crucial components to the success of this school improvement effort. Partnership for Learning's efforts--backed by the unified and strong support of state business and community leaders--is helping to ensure the success of Washington's efforts to raise academic standards. Partnership for Learning's outreach efforts include explanatory materials, reports, guides for parents and employers, targeted advertising, community meetings, public opinion research, grassroots support, and a statewide speakers bureau. Its activities are targeted at those who have the greatest influence in schools: parents, community leaders, and educators.

Partnership for Learning is supported by Washington businesses and community leaders who share a common interest in raising academic standards and seeing the school improvement effort succeed. [emphasis added]

Chairman - Kerry Killinger Chairman, President and CEO, Washington Mutual President - John Warner, Senior Vice President and CAO, The Boeing Company

Nielsen was education policy personnel on loan from the WA Business Roundtable/ U.S. West* who directed the blue ribbon Governor's Commission on Education Reform and Funding/GCERF during the early 90s. GCERF was advised by several of the national GOALS 2000 strategists “at the invitation of the Washington Business Roundtable” -- Marc Tucker, David Hornbeck, Terry Moe of Brookings/Hoover and others. Nielsen serves on the GOALS 2000 National Goals Panel –– School Completion Resource Group. U.S. West is now Qwest Corporation.

Stuart Foundation Grants to Partnership for Learning

Stuart Foundation Board of Advisors

D. L. Stuart, Jr.

E. Hadley Stuart, Jr.

Bruce F. Stuart

Elbridge H. Stuart, III, CFO [Resident of Issaquah, WA mid-1990s]

Criteria for grants:

· Develop and help establish state policies to promote and sustain excellence in teaching

PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING

PARTNERSHIP FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING (PET) - Seattle, WA

$130,000

To complete and disseminate an analysis and recommendations on the status of teaching in Washington. Working in partnership with the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, PET convened education leaders in Washington state to study and develop recommendations on what policies and practices must be carried out to ensure that every student has a well-qualified teacher.

PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING

PARTNERSHIP FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING (PET) - Seattle, WA

$7,500

To finish disseminating an analysis and recommendations on the status of teaching in Washington.

Criteria for grants:

Public Policy Improve the public policy environment for excellence in education

* Provide information to parents and the general public

PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING - SEATTLE, WA

$5,000

To support a workshop (April of ’00) that will provide information and context for Washington grantmakers to address the best ways to support schools in meeting higher academic standards. The conference will help community partners to understand and leverage support for the most effective policies, programs and school-based strategies to help students and schools reach higher standards.

PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING - Seattle, WA

$126,000 (year 2 of $206,000 over 2 years)

To research and disseminate findings about common strategies utilized by Washington schools that are rapidly improving and helping greater numbers of students meet higher academic standards. The findings demonstrate that schools in all situations can take proactive steps that help more students learn to standards and help parents, educators, and community members learn more about strategies that make a difference in school improvement. This research builds upon earlier efforts and was expanded to include more schools and to study fourth, seventh, and tenth grade performance.

The Alliance for Education is led by a Board of Directors…The Board's membership includes the chief executives of major Seattle area businesses, the Mayor, the Superintendent of Schools, the School Board President, and other community leaders.

The Board's membership includes the chief executives of major Seattle area businesses…

Pseudo Grassroots Organizations Front