By Stephanie Simon
Nov 27 (Reuters) – Soon after leaving office in 2007, former
Florida Governor Jeb Bush launched the Foundation for Excellence
in Education to “ignite a movement of reform, state by state.”
A close examination of the foundation’s work, including a
review of thousands of pages of email, shows the staff of two
dozen h a s worked aggressively – if not always with immediate
success – to shape public policy.
Last fall the foundation flew Education Commissioner Stephen
Bowen and other state schools chiefs to San Francisco for a
three-day policy summit on topics ranging from online learning
to teacher tenure.
When he returned, Bowen sought help from the foundation,
emailing the executive director, Patricia Levesque, to explain
that he had “no ‘political’ staff who I can work with to move
this stuff through the process.”
She promised the foundation’s full support. When he read her
email, Bowen later wrote, “it was all I could do not to jump for
joy.”
The foundation’s assistance takes many forms. The emails
show staff writing and editing legislation, choreographing
policy announcements and vetting a potential hire for a state
education secretary. Last year a senior fellow at the Bush
foundation even took a 10-month public contract to draft
education policy for the state of New Mexico, while remaining on
the foundation’s payroll.
If lawmakers balk at a Bush-backed bill, the foundation
seeks to help state officials find private donors who can move
the agenda forward.
In Maine, for instance, Commissioner Bowen emailed the Bush
foundation in January to report that a legislative committee had
“just killed off a digital learning bill we were working, so
we’re back to square one …”
He proposed finding private funding for a task force that
would draft a master plan to bring Bush’s online education
agenda to Maine.
“I will help you,” replied Fonda Anderson, chief fundraiser
for the Bush foundation. “Rock on.”
The funding never materialized, but Bowen did set up a
Digital Learning Advisory Group to work on the topic.
In another exchange, Executive Director Levesque sent Bowen
model language for a bill requiring every high school to offer
four Advanced Placement classes.
“I know the policy would have a great impact in Maine,” she
wrote, “especially if the requirement can be fulfilled through
online learning.” She volunteered to testify in favor of the
proposal and promised help as well from the College Board, which
runs the Advanced Placement tests.
Levesque is a registered lobbyist for the College Board.
Both she and Tom Rudin, a senior vice president for the College
Board, said they did not consider her dual roles a conflict of
interest because Bush’s foundation and the College Board share
the goal of promoting Advanced Placement classes to get students
ready for college.
Rudin said the College Board did not end up testifying in
Maine but has worked with Levesque to promote AP classes in
states including North Carolina, Wisconsin and Mississippi.
Maine has not put an AP mandate in place but has a task force
working on how to encourage more students to take the classes, a
spokesman for the education department said.
The emails to and from Bush foundation staff were among
hundreds obtained through public-records requests by In the
Public Interest, a nonprofit research group that opposes the
privatization of public assets such as schools, prisons and
libraries.
The group’s executive director, Donald Cohen, said he found
the foundation’s hands-on involvement in crafting state policy
alarming given its donor list, which includes companies that
create online curricula, host virtual classrooms and run public
cyber-schools, all for profit.
“Out of the public eye, private interests are moving
legislation that they will profit from. That’s no way to run a
state,” Cohen said.
The companies say they donate to the Bush foundation solely
to further discussion of education issues, just as they sponsor
many other groups, including the National Conference of State
Legislatures, the Education Writers Association and the National
Governors Association.
Education Commissioner Bowen said it’s “ludicrous” to think
that a corporate donor – or, for that matter, Jeb Bush – could
dictate state policy. He welcomes the foundation’s help and
connections to potential funders, Bowen said, but he won’t adopt
any agenda blindly; his litmus test for all ideas is whether
they will help Maine’s children learn.
“Whatever proposals I take forward, from Governor Bush or
anyone else, have to go through a public process,” Bowen said.
He wishes critics would be “a little less focused on where ideas
come from,” he said, and instead spend more time considering
whether it’s “the right policy for the state and the nation.”
