Jeanne Allen's Campaign Funding

Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform recently won the Republican primary in Maryland's District 16 race. She'll take on Democrat Ariana Kelly, who already has the backing of the local union.

But Allen has her own backers - and a good number of them are involved in education reform.

Allen filed two campaign reports during the past two months. She reported $31,941 in donations, all from individuals. Imagine Schools' CEO Dennis Bakke ($1,000), Jeb Bush ($250), Chester Finn ($100), and KIPP's Mike Feinberg ($50) all gave to Allen's primary campaign. Katherine Bradley of Citybridge (and KIPP and TFA) chipped in as well ($2,000), as did two other wealthy reformers: Joel Greenberg ($4,000) and Eric Brooks ($2,500), both of Susquehanna International Group.

Greenberg is one of the three SIG investors that gave $1.5 million to a pro-charter/voucher candidate for PA Governor, Sen. Anthony Williams, through Democrats for Education Reform.

Allen served on the board of directors of Imagine Schools, Inc, the for-profit management organization, in 2004 and 2005. Her reform organization also recently received a $275k donation from the Gates Foundation to develop a tool to "analyze real time education news."