Ritz's Attacker and the School Privatizers

by Doug Martin

UPDATE: THIS JUST IN FROM THE INDY STAR: "Indiana was not one of the five states awarded a waiver extension Thursday from strict federal rules administered by the U.S. Department of Education....It is possible Indiana could lose its waiver or be placed on a "high risk" status, according to education policy experts." According to the IDOE, there are still 20 states awaiting word about the NCLB waiver, so no final decision has been made yet.

CECI front-woman Claire Fiddian-Green’s latest assault against Indiana supt. of public ed. Glenda Ritz was her response to the Associated Press recently concerning the “memo” CECI sent to Arne Duncan’s office. 

In the “memo,” CECI members criticize the IDOE’s “grammatical errors” and accuse IDOE of making policy changes without the state board of education’s approval while seeking the NCLB waiver for the state.

Obviously, Fiddian-Green is merely attempting to smear Glenda Ritz so that the powers-that-be running the school privatizing agenda in Indiana can continue to have their way.

And Fiddian-Green has mingled with many in the school privatizing movement in Indiana over the years and carried their bottled water.

THE HISTORY

Fiddian-Green begins her "career" with mega-drug giant and corporate school promoter Eli Lilly, where she was a senior analyst in Eli Lilly’s Corporate Finance Investment Banking group. 

The CECI front-woman then became a grant officer for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation which backed Indy Mayor Bart Peterson’s charter school movement and financed the Mind Trust with at least $4.6 million, where Fiddian-Green ended up working.

A former official for NCLB's front-man Evan Bayh, Bart Peterson now is an Eli Lilly honcho and helps the corporation buy lawmakers in DC.  Peterson, himself, has donated $2,000 to Anne Duncan's boss, Barack Obama. 

Claire Fiddian-Green has sat on the board of KIPP Indy, too, a for-profit dropout factory once visited by hedge fund operator and DFER’s Whitney Tilson.  

Tony Bennett finally picked Mind Trust's Fiddian-Green to run the Indiana Charter School Board, where she had a killer privatizing team with Todd Huston who now is at the College Board pumping Bill Gates' Common Core.

Huston saddled taxpayers with a $1.7 million bill when he left his job as Tony Bennett’s chief of staff to land a gig with Cisco Systems then turned around and sold Bennett video-conferencing equipment from Cisco which was never used, some of it never even delivered.  

In August 2012, Fiddian-Green handed over $250 to Tony Bennett’s unsuccessful and billionaire-loaded reelection campaign, so she was conniving against Ritz even before Ritz was elected by the people.

THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION FARCE

AP’s Tom LoBianco, in his piece on Fiddian-Green’s “memo” assault against Ritz, quotes from New America Foundation’s Anne Hyslop who says “I think this 28-page memo doesn’t help the state’s chances. It’s really demonstrating this dysfunction that Secretary Duncan was worried about 8 months ago.”

Hyslop didn’t point out that this “dysfunction” is NOT Glenda Ritz's fault.  And don’t expect Hyslop to.

The New America Foundation tries to pass itself off as left-leaning and is funded by Bill Gates and other major school privatizers. 

The group behind the Mitch Daniels/ALEC/Sallie Mae/Purdue/Gallup Poll hoax a while back, Indianapolis' Lumina Foundation, has actually given the New America Foundation over $1 million. 

The Annie Casey Foundation, deep in the Indiana school privatizing mud from the get-go (as I detail in Hoosier School Heist), has given New America money, too. 

Other New America Foundation funders involved either directly or indirectly in the Indiana school privatization movement include the Joyce Foundation and DFER hedge fund manager Boykin Curry.    

Before coming to the New America Foundation, Anne Hyslop worked for Bill Gates’ Education Sector, co-founded by none other than DFER’s past director, Andy Rotherham, who is a big player in Hoosier School Heist.  

A Clintonite, Rotherham funds Obama.  He also sits on the board of the Mind Trust, Fiddian-Green’s old stomping grounds.

The New America Foundation is also closely tied to Pete Peterson, an Evan Bayh friend who has been out to privatize Social Security for years.

MILKING IT LEFT AND RIGHT

Without having received one single vote from the Hoosier public, Claire-Fiddian Green is still milking school privatization for all it’s worth, making $120,000 in taxpayer money a year as the CECI's helmsperson, more than the democratically elected Ritz.

She doesn't work for the Indiana taxpayers.  She works for the rich.  Whether or not it's Mike Pence, Bart Peterson, Eli Lilly, Bill Gates, the Mind Trust, or Arne Duncan who you think is in charge, Fiddian-Green works for the rich.  And there are too many working in this state.