Arise, Sir Chris Whittle?
First he foists that hermaphroditic poster child for ineptitude and bogus religiosity, Ruth Kelly, on the education of British children, but that’s not enough for Mr. Tony Blair, oh no.
The Independent reports that Blair wants the US corporate education giant, Edison ( most notorious for the infamous ‘Channel One’ school tv enterprise), and its rapacious ‘entrepreneur’ owner, Chris Whittle, to push even further into taking over Britain’s hard-pressed schools.
All this privatisation is consequent to Blair’s and the UK’s capitulation to GATT and the compulsion to privatise public services, regardless of local democratic accountability. The market is to rule, in education as in everything else, and training cubicle jockeys for the future must have priority.
Edison is being championed by the chair of the specialist schools trust, Sir Cyril Taylor, despite the company having been investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and having been subject to many complaints by school boards, teachers and parents.
Working For Change, 2002:
In a report for Corp Watch, Woodward wrote that “Edison is still reeling from a three-month inquiry into the company’s finances by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investigators determined that the company consistently misreported revenues, providing an unduly rosy picture to investors. For example, Edison reported $375.8 million in revenue in fiscal 2001. According to the SEC’s May 14 order, $154 million of that never passed through the company: it was spent by school districts on salaries for teachers and other staff at schools run by Edison. The SEC also found that Edison does not have an adequate system of internal accounting controls in place.”
Despite the SEC’s findings, only minor sanctions were imposed. Overall, things looked relatively promising as Edison prepared to enter the new school year with its heftiest contract — managing 20 “low-performing” schools in Philadelphia — under its belt. .)
Ah yes, just the model of honesty and integrity we were looking for. Edison sounds ideal to entrust the future of our children to, don’t you think? WFC goes on:
Many public school advocates and opponents of privatization have watched Edison closely and conclude that the company relentlessly toots its own horn, but rarely meets the claims it trumpets. While some schools run by Edison have shown some improvement in test scores, the American Federation of Teachers says that like the company’s financials, these numbers are often illusory. (For an AFT report on Edison titled “Student Achievement in Edison Schools: Mixed Results in an Ongoing Experiment,” see (http://www.aft.org/research/edisonproject/summary.htm).
None of this dissuaded the Blair government from its ideological rush to bring Edison and its profit-driven methods to the UK:
A United States education company aiming to run state-funded schools has won its first contract in Britain.
Edison Schools has been asked to provide a package of curriculum development, home-school partnerships and teacher training for Colbayns High School in Clacton, Essex.
And the company is negotiating with Essex County Council to provide services to another four schools, centred on a drive for “continuous improvement” by both pupils and teacher.
And now this: The Independent, Jan 2005:
Edison’s chief executive, Chris Whittle, flew to London earlier this week for talks with Sir Cyril Taylor, the Government’s chief adviser on the academies programme, about its possible involvement with the scheme. Mr Whittle said: “At the moment, we don’t have any whole school management involvement in the UK but we’re very interested in that. We find the academies programme very interesting and would like to engage in that in the future. I also actually find the whole idea of the trust movement inspired and would like to get involved in that.”
Sir Cyril, who is chief executive of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, said he was planning a visit soon to two of Edison’s schools in Washington.
Sir Cyril, a huge US-ophile, has served during the past 17 years both as adviser to nine successive Secretaries of State for Education (5 Conservative and 4 Labour) and as Chair of the Specialist Schools Trust. During this time, 2,200 specialist secondary schools and city technology colleges have been established, most with a lot of sponsorship for the private sector. Many of those sponsors have been knighted, just like Sir Cyril. . .
Millionaire donors to Tony Blair’s flagship city academy programme may expect to receive honours, knighthoods and peerages in return for their money.
In an undercover newspaper investigation, a Government adviser told a reporter posing as the assistant of a potential sponsor that donations to one or two academies might win an OBE, a CBE or a knighthood, while a peerage would be “a certainty” for giving to five schools.
Six millionaire donors to the controversial academy programme have been honoured under Labour since it was launched in 2001. Academies are state-funded directly from Whitehall, and are independent from local education authority control.
Sponsors can have influence over the running of an academy in return for gifts usually amounting to about ?2m towards building costs.
The Sunday Times reported that Des Smith, a London headteacher and an adviser to the chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, Sir Cyril Taylor, told an undercover journalist that “the Prime Minister’s office would recommend someone like [the donor] for an OBE, a CBE or a knighthood”
For a donation of ?10m, “you could go to the House of Lords”, he said.
However, when confronted by the paper, Mr Smith insisted that it was “not possible” to acquire an honour in return for donations.
Sir Cyril said: “In no way is giving money to the academy linked to the award of an honour,” he said.
Riiiight….and I’m Marie of Rumania. Something about this whole set-up whiffs ( even leaving aside profit in education as an ideological issue). It’s all too damn cosy for democratic comfort.
