# Updated Outline

1. What is Corporate Education Reform

  1. Regan-Trump

    1. In Texas, Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath

1. Who is behind the Corporate Education Reform movement in Texas

  1. Story of Mike Miles, Mike Morath, Mike Rawlings, Todd Williams, 

    1. Ken Barth: Creating the pipeline infrastructure of corporate reform minded astroturf Trustees to Dallas ISD Board (Leadership Dallas, DKF, Camp Fellowship)

    1. Teaching Trust - Pipeline of reform minded administrators

    1. Wendy Kopp - TFA and pipeline/network of reform minded “change agents”

1. What does the corporate education reform movement look like in Dallas?

1. Update impact of COVID-19 and implications across the state of Texas

Over the course of the past year, I have been trying to understand what the corporate education reform model is. I had heard the term “reformer” used loosely in many contexts. I hear defenders and apologists often say, “what’s wrong with being an education reformist? What’s wrong with wanting to reform the education system?” And they are right, there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve the education system. But this is not the problem. In common parlence of the last 30 years, “education reform” in the United States refers to a movement that applies free market principles to the public sector of education. The modern war against public education began after the Carter Administration’s establishment of the Department of Education, during Ronald Regan’s presidency when he declared the dire state of education in his address, A Nation at Risk. As a political agent, Regan wanted to dismantle what he saw as “big government interference in every citizens life”. It was here the model began: Cherry pick data to fabricate a problem, pass legislation that applies free market principles to solving said problem, subsidize new industries to solve problem. 

The initial problem that Regan identified was that US students were falling behind their peers in other developed countries. This conclusion, however, was incorrect, and based on incomplete data.

With the passage of civil rights legislation over the course of the 60s and 70s, more students in the United States were being educated than ever before. Historically disenfranchised groups were no longer being systematically denied their education. This fact was not taken into consideration when comparing U.S. students to students in far less ethnic and economically diverse students in European and East Asian countries. Taking this into consideration, U.S. schools were doing better than ever, supplying our society with great innovators and leaders.

However, because of this perception the Regan administration was able to carry out its attack on public education, pushing for school voutures, a system devised by Milton Friedman in the 1950s.

Over the course of the next three decades, Neoliberal and Neoconservatives alike joined in on the corporate education reform movement, passing legislation to apply free market principles to public education in attempt to address transform the education system. In the neoliberal corner, social justice warriors rally behind slogans such as “closing the achievement gap” to justify their reforms. On the neoconservative side, reformers justify their action by “increasing efficiency” and giving families “choice”, which in the capitalistic mindset, is seen as a good in itself.

Both sides latch on to key performance indicators like test scores as the calculus by which it is determined if reforms are working, and both sides share the common belief that the education system creates a product.

Quickly, I would like to address this logical fallacy. A child’s education is not a product. Students are not raw materials. And the 

The best way I can describe the Corporate Education Reform is the belief in applying free market principles to public education. This typically takes the form of passing some sort of legislation that creates a market “need”, then subsidizes that “need” with local. State. And federal tax revenues. This simple formula takes many forms, but a common thread is the belief that the education system makes a product, and that this product will improve if