That would be "Stand for Children" -- one of the parties that brought you "Waiting for Superman".
Stand for Children is based out of Portland Ore & has affiliates in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Washington.
One of their things is to pack state & local governments with pro-deform people -- just like the radical Christian right, aka fascists did in their "long march on the institutions":
It’s not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that’s just what happened on Oct. 7 when Stand for Children Illinois PAC handed over that gigantic check to Republican Ryan Higgins, who is vying to replace retiring state Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg).http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-7903-whorss-behind-stand-for-children.html.Since 1999, Stand members in Oregon have won 75 state and local victories that accomplished key education reforms...http://www.stand.org/Page.aspx?pid=1477Another of their activities is training the local shills they find in how to more effectively shill to privatize education -- in their own special Leadership Academy:
http://www.standleadershipcenter.org/Page.aspx?pid=1582Heiress Emma recently married a hedge fund analyst (don't all the daughters of rich politicos?).
Here's the lovely couple dressed as vampires (how appropriate) on Panache Privée,
"the world's leading interactive network of affluent and influential people" -- because Facebook is sooooo declasse:
Emma (whose first job was in her father's office, daddy got the rules on nepotism relaxed since of course she didn't need the salary) is on the Board of "SFC" representing the "Robin Hood Foundation," another phony hedge funders' social-political manipulation group disguised as a charity.
http://www.robinhood.org/leaders-and-staff/board.aspx(Golly these rich people spend a lot of money "fighting poverty". You'd think 150 years after the first (Peabody) "foundation" was established they'd have it whipped. Takes a long time to wipe out poverty I guess.)
More of Emma's board:
http://www.stand.org/Page.aspx?pid=1339And if you check out the state people, you will learn much you didn't know about the covert war on ed via institution packing, more networks of phony or co-opted grassroots orgs, & legislation in your state.
In Washington, for example, the Board of SFC is dominated by Bill Gates employees & their spouses: Steve Ballmer's wife heads its board:
http://www.stand.org/Page.aspx?pid=1509Wissner-Slivak is a former MS employee "who left to spend more time with her family," Vranek is an "education consultant" who worked with Gates, Kurtz is another.
Laura Kohn is a former Gates "advisor" who heads up this Seattle astroturf org:
http://newschoolfoundation.org/about-inspireed/staff-and-board-of-directors/Two lawyers & two "community volunteers" (actually Bushnell is an 18-year Seattle School Board member, highly connected, & Dressel is "Group Manager, Venture Capital at Microsoft Corporation"
http://www.spoke.com/info/pTKSl6/TonyaDresselYou may as well call it "Microsoft Employees for Education Deform, paid for by Bill Gates"
http://bluemassgroup.com/diary/19352/stand-for-childrens-stands"The Stand for Children 2008 annual report lists the major donors to the charitable arm (p.10).The list of donors of a quarter of a million dollars or above reads as follows:
Joshua and Anita Bekenstein
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
New Profit, Inc...."
"New Profit" -- how telling!
"We are a national venture philanthropy fund that seeks to harness America's spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to help solve our country's biggest social problems."
And if you look into them, you will find the afore-mentioned Josh Bekenstein is also "New Profit," as "Bain Capital," which is Mitt Romney's private equity firm.
http://www.newprofit.com/cgi-bin/iowa/about/10.htmlThey just bought "Gymboree".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_CapitalDig into this crap & you'll find rich people redividing the world.
Fuck them all.