Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Bloomberg Philanthropies Backs Campbell Brown's Nonpartisan Education Website
Is it news, or is it advocacy? In the case of the Seventy Four, a new news site focused on education, the answer appears to be yes.
The site, co-founded and edited by former CNN and NBC anchor Campbell Brown, bills itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan online newsroom aimed at driving a much-needed conversation about reforming America’s education system.” The name refers to the 74 million children in the United States under age 18.
As it happens, Brown raised the funds for the Seventy Four from some of the biggest and wealthiest advocates of the restructuring that the Seventy Four appears to be espousing. The funders include the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, all of which have opposed teachers unions and supported various school-privatization initiatives. (Her co-founder, Romy Drucker, was an education adviser to billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg....)