September-October 2005

Corporations earn an 'F' on education

By Melissa Townsend

Inez Killingsworth leads NPA education visit to home of State Board member. (Left) NPA wants State Farm to be a good neighbor by promoting policies that improve pubic schools, instead of simply siphoning off resources. State Farm CEO Ed Rust has been a leader in the drive for corporate profits off of public education and NPA wants Rust to hear community concerns about how his "solutions" are hurting public school students. NPA wants real solutions.

On a hot night in August, Jeff Turner, superintendent of schools in Coppell, Texas, facilitated a meeting with a packed room of over 100 people. They were not students or parents or faculty and staff. They were real estate agents. Parents had been calling local real estate companies to talk about selling their homes in fear that their value would drop significantly because the local school district had recently been labeled “failing.” 

The ironic thing is that Coppell students actually scored higher on the standardized tests, but because of national standards, the school was still labeled failing. Turner needed to assure real estate agents that area schools were high quality. He needed to assure parents that their schools were some of the best in the county – though they were “failing.”

To students, schools are social activity centers. They can be safe havens with caring adults or prisons with armed guards. To parents, school is a resource to get children equipped for a successful future. To teachers and staff, school is a mission, a vocation or a job. 

To local home owners and businesses, schools are economic engines that keep towns alive, keep families moving in, and keep shops open. CNN reports what real estate agents are saying “…student-to-teacher ratios and test scores are as essential as square footage and closet space. In fact, parents seem as determined as ever to get their kids in the best schools, and they’re willing to pay a premium to do so.”

To corporate America, schools represent a $400 billion cash cow. That’s the amount governments – local state and federal – spend on public education every year and corporate big shots want a piece of the pie.

When President George W. Bush took the helm in 2001, the Business Roundtable took the opportunity to spearhead efforts to put corporations in the drivers’ seat of public education. The roundtable represents the interests of America’s biggest corporations. It lobbied hard and pushed passage of “No Child Left Behind” legislation, which began a campaign of good old fashioned panic pedaling. 

State Farm and McGraw-Hill took the lead in making sure that over half of the schools in the country serving working families were labeled failing. They knew parents would want to take their children out of “failing” public schools and provided an option. Children could move from public schools to special schools – creating a market for for-profit charter school companies.  

“Of course working families want to know if their schools are doing a poor job. Of course we want to send our children to better schools. But the schools we get to choose from are not better. This is a scam. This is a shell game. If they’re not putting more resources into my school, they are not doing their job,” said Inez Killingsworth, NPA co-chair and a leader on national education work.

NPA, the BRT and State Farm

In April, National People’s Action took 1,000 people to the Business Roundtable (BRT) offices in Washington, D.C., and shut them down.  Community leaders told BRT employees that their lobbying efforts on school policy were hurting children. Students were being robbed of a decent education so the BRT’s corporate members could make more and more profits, said leaders. On behalf of the BRT, State Farm Insurance Agency stepped forward saying it was responsible for this pro-business policy wreaking havoc on neighborhoods across the nation. 

NPA paid a visit to the home of State Farm board member Paul Stecko as part of a campaign to make State Farm's CEO, a leader in the effort to make money off of public education, meet with neighborhood leaders on improving education.

In August, NPA leaders hosted a meeting with State Farm officials to discuss the issue and propose a solution. NPA leaders laid out a plan to create a partnership to counteract reigning bad national policy and focus efforts and resources on the real problems schools face every day. Those real problems are a need for resources – enough qualified personnel to meet student needs, classes to build student skills in language, math and science, buildings that aren’t falling down, parent programs that help parents understand how to encourage and support their children academically. Not having these things gets in the way of children achieving great things in school, said NPA leaders. 

In response, State Farm exec Clayton Adams said, “You have really touched my heart here today, but you are not the experts when it comes to what is needed to fix schools.”  Adams advised the leadership team to do more research, talk with more experts and leave the Business Roundtable and State Farm out of it.   

“I refuse to be a statistic in your briefcase. You cannot tell me to go home and leave the solutions to the ‘experts’ in offices far away from the communities that live with these schools every day,” responded Jeanneta Green, a leader from Hope Street Youth Development in Wichita, Kan. “You cannot tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I will be at the table, hammering out what needs to be done,” she said.

“I am disappointed with your lack of commitment and earnestness. We want to partner with State Farm so that your work on education can be geared to what is really going on in our schools. You are out of touch. You need to see what we see,” added school superintendent Bill Kuester from Royal, Neb.

Under questioning from Killingsworth, who chaired the meeting, Adams told the group he would respond to NPA demands in 10 days. In a letter days later, he restated his position and declined to work further to build a relationship with NPA leadership. 

NPA followed up with phone calls to State Farm local offices targeting Adams and State Farm CEO Ed Rust, who has pushed for profit-driven corporate involvement in public education. Almost 20 groups in 11 states made several hundred calls, sent emails and faxes to State Farm offices demanding that Rust come to the table and negotiate with NPA. “Our children are too important for you to ignore. You need to get in touch with what’s really happening in our schools. This is a wake up call,” said the faxes, e-mails and phone messages.

State Farm responded. Willie Brown, who works for the State Farm board of directors, called NPA to discuss the problem. He talked with the education issue coordinator. “It looks like we just have a difference of opinion here,” said Brown. The ed coordinator replied, “The fact is that this policy is not solving the huge problems in our schools that rob our students of their education. Your opinion is not helping our schools.” 

Unsatisfied with the response from Brown, leaders visited the home of State Farm Board member Paul Stecko in September. They demanded that Stecko call CEO Rust and tell him to meet with NPA. On his front steps, Stecko spoke with the leadership team about their concerns. Leaders followed up the “visit” with Stecko by calling, faxing and emailing other State Farm board members. NPA leaders are continuing the fight to bring Rust to the table to forge a community-corporate partnership and engage real solutions that improve community-based public schools.