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People For the American Way Foundation today released a report that gives the most detailed look to date into the organizations, leaders and strategies behind the nationwide push for school privatization, a campaign at odds with efforts to strengthen education for all our nation's children.

The report, "Privatization of Public Education: A Joint Venture of Charity and Power," exposes the interlocking goals, leadership and strategies of allied organizations such as the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF), CEO America and a network of statewide and local groups, including shared CEO/CSF affiliates, to turn public education money over to private schools and entrepreneurs.

These organizations' efforts to remove children from the public schools dovetail with a goal long espoused by Religious Right leaders such as Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell - to eliminate public schools entirely.

This report, on the eve of CSF's highly publicized "lottery" to pick the "winners" of 40,000 $600 to $1,600 scholarships, shows how this alliance uses charity to promote privatization through publicly funded vouchers that strip needed resources and support from the public schools and funnel vast amounts of money to private institutions, including pervasively sectarian ones.

A white paper also issued today, "Grand Illusions: A Look at Who Backs School Vouchers, Who Profits - and Vouchers' Dismal Performance to Date," documents the poor performance and damaging impact of the nation's two current private school voucher experiments in Milwaukee and Cleveland.

It provides a review of current research showing that educational quality has made no appreciable gains and, in some cases, has actually declined for students participating in these voucher programs.

The reports noted below are available here

*Privatization of Public Education: A Joint Venture of Charity and Power

*Grand Illusions: A Look at Who Backs School Vouchers, Who Profits - and Vouchers' Dismal Performance to Date

*The Children's Scholarship Fund's Target Markets

*The Best Way to Help Children: Corporate and Private Philanthropy to Support Public Schools

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People For the American Way Foundation 202 467 4999 phone 2000 M Street NW Suite 400 202 293 2672 fax Washington DC 20036 pfaw@pfaw.org http://www.pfaw.org