Schools Portal

A guide to the companies, lobbyists and think tanks involved in the privatisation of schools

What is happening to our schools? The opening up of schools to private companies has been described as ‘the largest market opportunity’ since healthcare was privatised. 'Let's all go forth. Let's all make hay,' as one private equity investor said at a 2015 UK education investment conference. A vast education industry now exists to profit from schools. It includes: education publishers, global technology firms, privately-managed school chains, and financial sector investors. Our profiles of these and other players on the Schools Portal aim to show which companies are leading the reforms; the networks of lobbyists working for them across continents; the politicians aiding them; the messages being used to sell these changes and more. This portal is part of Powerbase—your guide to networks of power, lobbying and deceptive PR. Powerbase has a policy of strict referencing and is overseen by a managing editor.

Who are the education refom lobbyists? CLICK FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF PROFILED EDUCATON REFORMERS. They include the following: EdTech companies Pearson Google Knewton K12 Promethean Education investors GSV Capital Sovereign Capital Learn Capital NewSchools Venture Fund 500 Startups Education reformers Michael Gove Michael Barber James Tooley James O'Shaughnessy UK reform lobby groups Nesta Education Foundation Innovation Unit Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education New Schools Network Education Reform Articles & Resources George Joseph, Teach for America Has Gone Global, and Its Board Has Strange Ideas About What Poor Kids Need, The Nation, 1 July 2016 Back to ALEC, Back to (Private) School, PR Watch, 31 August 2015 Jonathan Kozol, The Big Enchilada, Harper's Magazine, August 2007

Latest articles What’s more inconvenient – a teachers’ strike or Nicky Morgan’s plan?, Left Foot Forward, 6 July 2016 Fun ways to stop corporations taking over schools, Open Democracy, 27 April 2016 It’s not just English schools that the government wants to see in private hands, Left Foot Forward, 14 April 2016 The final frontier for privatisation: schools, Open Democracy, 31 March 2016 This article is part of the Spinwatch privatisation of Schools Portal project. Getting Started Looking for somewhere to start? To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit Powerbase:About, Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, A quick guide to editing or experiment in the sandbox. Or contribute a new article: go to Quick Guide to Getting Started. Research and Writing Tips How to research front groups | Resources for studying propaganda | Research using the web Can you help? Powerbase can be made more effective if more people join the project. If you have research or writing skills or just spare time, you can help. If you are unsure where to start, you could expand some of the recently created but currently very brief articles. (If you look at the recent changes page you will see some noted as being 'stubs' - articles that may just be a line or two and needing to be fleshed out). So if you would like to add to some of those you would be most welcome. There is an automatically updated page which includes the pages which have been signalled by Powerbase users as most wanted. In addition there is a page which includes a list of Things you can do to help. Or if you would like some other suggestions closer to your interests you could drop Powerbase editor, David Miller an email. His address is editor AT Powerbase.info Start Here View The Latest Articles View Articles By Category View The Most Popular Articles Create An Account Or Log In Change Your Preferences Write a new Article Powerbase history Powerbase is a collaborative venture initiated by Spinwatch in collaboration with Lobbywatch, GM Watch Red Star Research and Corporate Watch, but put into effect by a wide variety of volunteers and independent researchers. Contributors are now working on 19,486 articles. Disclaimer: Powerbase is an encyclopedia of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda. It is a project of the Spinwatch—email editor AT Powerbase.info. Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on Powerbase are written with AT in place of the usual symbol, and we have removed "mail to" links. Replace AT with the correct symbol to get a valid address. We regret the inconvenience this entails. Campaign for more effective antispam regulations. Read the full disclaimer References