Pence Funded by Oregon’s Charter School Libertarian

By Doug Martin, Author of Hoosier School Heist

(Doug Martin is up for the Best Local Political Activist of the Year Award.  Please go to NUVO and vote for him today and every day until August 21.) 

The school privatizers are tossing money at Mike Pence right and left.  The governor cashed in on a $25,000 contribution on June 4 from John D. Bryan in Lake Oswego, OR.

As I reveal in my book Hoosier School Heist, Bryan is the millionaire charter school/voucher champion who helped finance Walmart-Amway’s American Federation for Children in 2010 and 2011, a front-group which has funneled millions of dollars into Indiana and other states to buy Republicans to pass anti-public school laws.  Last year, Bryan gave $50,000 to the Walmart-Amway backed Hoosiers for Quality Education. 

Not only is Bryan pro-charter school, as former director of the Georgia Gulf Corporation, a plastics and petrochemical maker now operating under the name Axiall, he is also an anti-climate change promoter.  

A past leadership board member of the Koch Brothers-affiliated Club for Growth and a Scott Walker donor, Bryan has handed at least $201,000 to the Indiana Republican Campaign Committee since 2006.  Over the years, Bryan has gifted Pence $145,000.  

The Challenge Foundation has given money to at least 182 charter schools nationwide, as of my book’s writing. I have a whole section in Hoosier School Heist on Bryan’s Challenge Foundation and the Avondale Meadows School in Indianapolis, when it went by the name Challenge Foundation Academy.  Charter schools headed by the Challenge Foundation are rampant across the country, at least one with serious religious Right leanings.  

Bryan has brilliantly combined the Religious Right with the Corporate Right.  He has funded the the Black Alliance for Educational Options and is fond of the national anthem.  He likes former Indianapolis’ Democratic mayor Bart Peterson, too, who first allowed him into Indiana in the first place.  

(Doug Martin is up for the Best Local Political Activist of the Year Award.  Please go to NUVO and vote for him today and every day until August 21.)