MY ACTIVITIES WITH REGARD TO A FOUNDATION ASSOCIATED WITH KATY ISD:

I had always been curious about Educational Foundations.  As a school board member, I was involved with looking at a plan to have a "foundation" created locally in the Katy school district in 1994.  It was not too hard for ME to see that the creation of such an organization undercut the authority of the board, and I did everything I could to stop our district from having one.

In my view, educational foundations are designed to circumvent Board authority so that the money raised in the name of  "public education" can be used for purposes that most school boards would not approve. (Funding of all types should be under the control of the elected school board.  Once funding becomes available OUTSIDE the purview of the Board, then it may be used for all sorts of things that may or may not be acceptable to the elected Board.  Taxpayers should be alarmed when funding occurs from outside sources, but the logical principles involved and the intent of the law seem to escape the public.)

I was successful in 1994 in stopping Katy ISD from having an educational foundation.

However, in the school board election in 2008, a candidate, Chris Crockett, who appears to me to be very liberal politically, stated at a forum, that one of her goals was to "bring an educational foundation to our school district." Now that she's an elected school board member, I suppose we will see her trying to create such a foundation. [And bring it she did! She had to wait and do it outside the board auspices and with the help of the liberal superintendent.]

I realize that these people never give up.

Combine that information with what we have been hearing about Obama's part in the Annenberg Foundation's meddling in the Chicago schools, and it doesn't take a genius to see the trend.

I have paid attention to foundations for many years. What I have seen with all of them is that they usurp the public will in favor of an agenda which sometimes is a hidden agenda.  

Just as I suspected when I first  heard of Obama's connection to Bill Ayers (education theorist and reportedly a communist revolutionary), there's a lot more to Obama's participation in school reform than was at first noted.

Obama appears to be the anointed deliverer of the final blow to public education. I'm guessing that he has been prepped by his involvement with the Annenberg Foundation.  He knows how to dole out money so as to control activities. These foundations have lots of money, but  foundations pay no taxes.  Foundations allow extremely wealthy people (who always seem to feel guilty about their wealth) to fund projects that suit them.  If they are leftists, then that philosophy is what gets supported with millions of their untaxed dollars. In my opinion not only are the rest of us cheated by their failure to pay taxes on their money as we all do, but we are also cheated because THEIR causes get funding that ours do not.

I think educational foundations are anathema to public schools and should be avoided at all costs--pun intended. If people want to donate funds to the school district, let them.  I certainly have donated things and money and time over many years.  The difference is that I never expected my donations to buy me anything including favors or influence, and I didn't use my donations to obtain tax deductions. 

That's the way it should be.