Education Reform's Deep Blue Hue: Are School Reformers Right-Wingers or Centrists--or Neither?

This new analysis, which examines the political campaign contributions from those most active in education reform, finds that the movement is populated by individuals who support Democratic candidates for public office. The bottom line: The leading participants in the school-reform "wars" are mostly engaged in an intramural brawl, one between union-allied Democrats and a strand of progressive Democrats more intent on changing school systems. Depictions of school reform have become remarkably detached from the reality of who populates the education-reform world. To gauge the partisan composition of the reform movement, researchers examined the political campaign contributions of a large sample of individuals working in education-reform organizations. A list of Bill and Melinda Gates and Walton Family Foundation grantees was compiled for the sample. In total, researchers found 2,625 political campaign contributions from the staff of Gates grantees. Of those contributions, 99 percent supported the Democratic Party of Democratic candidates. Researchers found that 87 percent of contributions from employees from organizations that receive support from the Walton Family Foundation went to Democrats. 74 percent of the funds in total contributions went to Democrats. Although school reform is routinely portrayed as a right-wing enterprise and the education-reform community defends itself as bipartisan, school reformers are decidedly left-leaning. Political giving by school reformers and reform-minded scholars is about as one-sided as that in other liberal precincts, such as Hollywood and public-employee unions, which suggests that education reformers are far more left-leaning than the nation's educators are. The lopsided political makeup of education reform risks creating an echo chamber, hinders reform efforts in red and purple states, and can create challenges when anticipating and addressing the concerns of right-leaning constituencies.