Credit: Pixabay

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican

The Mind Trust is the proto-type urban school privatizing design. Working locally, it uses a combination of national money and local money to control teacher professional development, create political hegemony and accelerate charter school growth. The destroy public education (DPE) movement has identified The Mind Trust as a model for the nation.

A Little History

In 1999, Bart Peterson became the first Democrat to win the Indianapolis mayor’s race since 1967. Peterson campaigned on the promise to bring charter schools to Indianapolis. He claimed, “We are simply in an age where cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all, 1950s style education just doesn’t work for a lot of kids. The evidence is the dropout rate. The evidence is the number of at-risk kids who are failing at school.”

The new mayor joined with Republican state senator Teresa Lubbers to finally achieve her almost decade long effort of passing a charter school law in Indiana. In the new charter school law, Lubbers provided for the mayor of Indianapolis to be a charter school authorizer. Then Democratic governor, Frank O’Bannon, signed the legislation into law.

During his first run for office, Peterson invited David Harris a 27-year old lawyer with no education background to be his education guy. Harris became the director of the mayor’s new charter school office. By the 2006-2007 school year, the Peterson administration had authorized 16 charter schools.

In the summer of 2007 David Skinner reported for Education Next,

Peterson himself says, “I’m not interested in striking ideological notes,” but he has certainly struck a chord with education thinkers like Andy Rotherham, former education adviser to President Clinton and co-founder of Education Sector in Washington, D.C. Rotherham says Peterson’s example proves that school choice is perfectly compatible with the philosophy of the left.

And:

Andy Rotherham says when he heard the mayor’s office had been granted chartering authority, he wanted in. Then a policy analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute, he believed Indianapolis could be a “proof point,” demonstrating that the sky wouldn’t fall if mayors began authorizing charter schools.

A brief description of the Progressive Policy Institute from Source Watch says,

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) was established in 1989 “and after the 1992 election gained notoriety as ‘Bill Clinton‘s idea mill.’” and a proponent of the Third Way. PPI is the think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), founded in 1985 by PPI’s President, Will Marshall, and counts among its past chairs former President Bill Clinton, Congressman Richard Gephardt, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman.

These are the political theorists that gave us the “end of welfare as you know it,” the end of the Glass-Steagall banking regulations and the privatization of public schools.

By 2006, Peterson and Harris decided to start a non-profit organization to accelerate their charter school plans. David Harris left the Peterson administration and became a co-founder with Mayor Peterson of The Mind Trust.

The Money Came Flowing

Lately, The Mind Trust does not mention its funders, but in 2010 they almost gleefully shared the information. The Wayback Machine allows a peek at the December 2010 message about contributors:

The Mind Trust is very grateful to The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, which provided critical start-up funding for the organization and a subsequent grant to pay for core operational expenses through 2010. The Mind Trust would also like to recognize the following funders for their generous support of our programs and operations. Through 2010, they have contributed mightily to the $10,967,356 raised since our inception, and most importantly, their contributions to children are incalculable and stand as testament to the importance of the mission we are all undertaking together.

They also listed their contributors from 2006 to 2010.

• The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation
• Lilly Endowment
• The Cummins Foundation
• The Challenge Foundation
• Lumina Foundation for Education
• The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• The Joyce Foundation
• Ann M. and Chris Stack
• Ruth Lilly Philanthropic Foundation
• The Indianapolis Foundation, an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation
• The Lacy Foundation/LDI, Ltd.
• Bowen Engineering Corporation
• Carnegie Corporation of New York
• The David and Anne Knall Family
• Efroymson Family Fund, a CICF Fund
• Rollin Dick
• The Two Oaks Fund of the Indianapolis Foundation
• The W. C. Griffith Foundation
• The Ackerman Foundation
• Eli Lilly and Company Foundation
• Michael L. Smith and Susan L. Smith Family Fund
• The Ayres Foundation
• Blackwell Williams Fund, a fund of the Indianapolis Foundation
• Education Reform Now
• John and Sarah Lechleiter
• Myrta J. Pulliam Charitable Trust
• Arthur Jordan Foundation
• Moore Foundation
• Indianapolis Monumental Marathon
• City of Indianapolis, Community Crime Prevention Program

Their impressive board of directors in 2010 was a virtual who’s who of Indianapolis elites.

The Mind Trust Board of Directors in 2010

It is noteworthy that no school teachers or parent organization leaders are on this board which is dominated by corporate leaders and politicians. It is possible that one of the four school organization chief administrators taught at one time during their career but no one with recent classroom experience is represented.

By 2007, David Harris was being recognized as a rising star in the DPE movement. The Wayback Machine made available this 2007 news release by the NewSchools Venture Fund:

The Aspen Institute and NewSchools Venture Fund today launched the Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellowship Program with the announcement of its inaugural class of Fellows from across the country. The program is designed to recognize and support a new generation of entrepreneurial leaders prepared to address the crucial challenge of transforming public education.

David Harris was included in that list of education entrepreneurial leaders along with:

• Russlynn Ali, Vice President, The Education Trust, Executive Director, The Education Trust – West
• Chris Barbic, Founder & Head of Schools, YES Prep Public Schools
• Richard Barth, CEO, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP)
• Michael Bennet, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools
• Larry Berger, CEO, Wireless Generation
• Phoebe Boyer, Executive Director, Tiger Foundation
• Susan Colby, Partner & Head of San Francisco Office, The Bridgespan Group
• Gretchen Crosby-Sims, Education Program Manager, Joyce Foundation
• John Deasy, CEO, Prince George’s County Public Schools
• Lauren Dutton, Formerly of City Year, Edison Schools and NewSchools Venture Fund
• James Forman, Jr., Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board, Maya Angelou Public Charter School
• David Harris, President & CEO, The Mind Trust
• Kaya Henderson, Vice President for Strategic Partnerships, The New Teacher Project
• Hosanna Mahaley Johnson, President, Atlanta Local Education Fund, Former Executive Officer for the Office of New Schools, Chicago Public Schools
• Kristen Kane, COO, New York City Department of Education
• Dan Katzir, Managing Director, The Broad Foundation
• Janet Murguía, President & CEO, National Council of La Raza
• Jeremy Nowak, President, The Reinvestment Fund
• Tony Recasner, CEO, Middle School Advocates, Head of School, New Orleans Charter Middle School, Head of School, Samuel J. Green Charter School
• Ref Rodriguez, Founder & Co-CEO, Partnerships to Uplift Communities
• Jon Schnur, CEO & Co-Founder, New Leaders for New Schools
• Jim Shelton, Program Director, Education Division, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Elisa Villaneuva Beard, COO, Teach For America
• Joanne Weiss, Partner & COO, NewSchools Venture Fund

Now that is a motley crew of education “deformers.”

Lately the money has really been flowing. Five principals at The Mind Trust are “earning” more than $150,000 per year and David Harris is making double that. It might not be Eva Moskowitz money but in Indianapolis or anywhere else it is pretty good.

The big foundations are continuing to send big money:

The large contributions have allowed The Mind Trust to accelerate spending. The chart below details income and spending reported on the 2014, 2015 and 2016 tax forms, the last years for which data is available.

Data taken for tax form 990 years 2014, 2015, and 2016

The Work of Privatizing Public Education

December 2016 the not so Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) published a lengthy piece lauding privatization and choice in public schools. They held Indianapolis up as being a leader in developing 21^st century schools and The Mind Trust as the catalyst. The paper stated:

A key reason is The Mind Trust, founded in 2006 by Mayor Peterson and David Harris as a kind of venture capital outfit for the charter sector, to raise money and recruit talent. The Mind Trust convinced Teach For America (TFA), The New Teacher Project (now TNTP), and Stand for Children to come to Indianapolis, in part by raising money for them. Since then TFA has brought in more than 500 teachers and 39 school leaders (the latter through its Indianapolis Principal Fellowship); TNTP’s Indianapolis Teaching Fellows Program has trained 498 teachers; and Stand for Children has worked to engage the community, to educate parents about school reform, and to spearhead fundraising for school board candidates. The Mind Trust has also raised millions of dollars and offered start-up space, grants, and other help to eight nonprofit organizations and 17 new schools, with more to come.

The PPI claims that bringing in 500 teachers who commit for just two years and have only five weeks of teacher training improves education. This is supposedly better than bringing in experienced teachers or newly minted teachers who are committed to a career in education and have between one and two years of teacher training at a university.

They are also saying that having Stand for Children invade Indianapolis with their dark money and undermine local democratic processes is desirable.

Instead of raising millions of dollars to improve public schools, The Mind Trust is using that money in a way that undermines the education of two-thirds of the students in Indianapolis who attend those public schools.

PPI does admit that not everyone in Indianapolis likes what The Mind Trust is doing. I recently wrote about three scholars who are raising awareness of the resulting damage to Indianapolis schools. PPI tries to minimize their effect stating,

There are a few headwinds, however. The local branch of the NAACP has long been anti-charter. Though it doesn’t have much of a following, its leaders, plus one outgoing school board member who opposes the innovation network and two local professors, staged a series of forums this fall, called ‘Rise Up Indy Against The Mind Trust.

In an opinion piece for Campbell Browns 74-million, David Harris stated,

Consider Ohio, which has had a charter school law on the books for nearly two decades. For years, communities there lacked long-term strategies to build strong charter schools and also lacked local agents pushing for change. As a result, charters in the Buckeye State have been mostly a disappointment, with gains among charter students lagging peers in traditional public schools.

Doug Martin is an expert on the corporate and theocratic assault against public education. He is also the author of Hoosier School Heist, the book which exposes the corruption, scandals, and campaign financing behind so-called school reform in Indiana and elsewhere. In a post carried on Professor Jim Horn’s Schools Matters Blog, Martin suggests the motivation for Harris’s opinion piece. He notes,

Besides having the Mind Trust’s David Harris and Earl Martin Phalen and corporate school grandfather Howard Fuller (a BAEO/Edison connected operative who played a role in school privatization in Indiana and Philly) as board members, the Mind Trust spin-off Education Cities is being funded by well-known school privatization billionaire organizations like the Walton Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, and the foundation started by Eli Broad, the Broad Foundation.

In other words, Harris is ready to expand his empire and he is explaining why Cincinnati and other cities need what he is selling.

Conclusions

Lubienski and Lubienski conducted a large scale research of education data and came to the surprising conclusion that public schools outperform privatized schools. They also saw that most of the “studies” that claimed otherwise were paid for by advocates and not peer reviewed. The claims of success by The Mind Trust seem to fit this description like print to wood block.

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Thomas Ultican

Thomas Ultican taught high school physics and mathematics in a school with more the 50 percent English Language and 75 percent Title 1 students. He said, “In 1999, I got tired of doing research in Silicon Valley and decided to teach. It is the hardest job I ever had and I liked it!”

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