Reprinted from the NJEA Reporter, February 2004
(Sixth of a Series)
The New Jersey voucher movement is being funded by right-wing foundations and individuals
“Follow the money.”
That was the advice of then-Attorney General John Mitchell to the people investigating the Watergate break-in. It could just as easily apply to tracing the roots of the New Jersey voucher movement.
Ever since the emergence in 1999 of Excellent Education for Everyone (“E3”) in Newark, the state’s voucher movement has never been exactly what it appeared to be. E3 was launched by Moorestown businessman Peter Denton, then-Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, and then-Newark City Councilman Cory Booker, and all three have direct links to some of the most wealthy right-wing foundations and individuals in America.
Perhaps most noteworthy – given E3’s focus on selling vouchers to urban minority parents – its benefactors are generous supporters of anti-civil rights and anti-affirmative action legislation.
Bradley funds racist book
The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation paid $1 million to Charles Murray to write the controversial 1994 book, The Bell Curve, which argued African Americans were genetically incapable of learning at high levels. Bradley is also the chief funder of the American Civil Rights Institute, which led the fight to repeal affirmative action in California. Wal-Mart heir John Walton – a close Bradley ally – funds the American Education Reform Foundation, a notorious pro-voucher, anti-union organization.
When it comes to vouchers, all roads lead to Milwaukee, home of the nation’s first publicly funded voucher movement. That movement would not have been possible without the political and financial support of the Bradley Foundation, which donates millions of dollars to right-wing think tanks and voucher organizations.
Bradley, John Walton’s Walton Family Foundation, and Amway President Richard DeVos of Michigan are three of the major players in the voucher movement, and all are directly or indirectly involved in the New Jersey voucher movement.
Walton and DeVos (who spent $5 million on the 2000 Michigan voucher initiative that was rejected by voters) both support the GEO Foundation of Indianapolis, which has paid for numerous E3-sponsored trips to Milwaukee by New Jersey politicians, parents, and community leaders, where they get carefully scripted tours of voucher schools.
Meddling in New Jersey politics
They’re also involved heavily in New Jersey politics. Schundler spent $500,000 in Walton’s “private scholarship” money on political ads in his failed 2001 gubernatorial campaign, and both Walton and DeVos were contributors to Booker’s failed campaign for mayor of Newark in 2002. Vouchers were a main issue in both campaigns.
Bradley and Walton are central to the New Jersey voucher movement:
- Walton is E3’s primary benefactor, giving the organization $500,000 a year for operating expenses.
- The Manhattan Institute in New York ($2.3 million from Bradley) sent its pro-voucher researcher Jay Greene to speak at E3’s conference in October.
- The GEO Foundation ($175,000 from Walton) funds “fact-finding” trips to Milwaukee voucher schools for E3.
- The Black Alliance for Educational Options, launched in 1999 by Bradley ($2 million) and Walton ($900,000) money, has an active New Jersey chapter. It now gets $600,000 a year from the Bush Administration’s Department of Education to spread the gospel of “parental choice.”
- The D.C.-based Institute for Justice ($300,000 from Bradley) is the legal arm of the voucher movement; it argued the Cleveland voucher case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s the tip of the iceberg, but one thing is clear: the New Jersey voucher movement is part of something much larger. And it’s more about politics, money, and privatization than it is about education. Buyer, beware.
NEXT MONTH: – Vouchers and Public Opinion – what the public has to say about vouchers, and why the current strategy is to end-run the public.