(schoolsmatter.blogspot.com, April 24, 2011, Parents and Other Citizens' Guide to the Broadies (rhymes with Toadies))

This article talked about the problem of how The Broad Foundation uses its money and influence to change education into "a top-down, corporate-style business model on our public schools." The blog talked about how three major foundations; The Gates Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have been influencing what is taught in schools. Although the Broad Foundation is the least wealthy of the three, it has still spent 400 million on transforming schools into training grounds for the corporations.
Basically, the Broad Foundation trains superintendents with little to no education background in their philosophy of how schools should teach, then offers to pay part of their salary if they receive the job. This appeals to poor districts because in their view they are getting trained staff for free or reduced cost. In this way, individuals that follow their philosophy of education are placed into central positions that allow them to extend their influence. They also use their money to fund studies in order to see the effects of teacher pay for performance and rewarding students for good test scores. However, according to the post, they have had no positive results. The blog also went into other ways that the Broad Foundation has been attempting to spread its philosophy, such as through the media and lobby groups aiming to increase the number of charter schools. At the conclusion of the article, the author talked about how one individual, Eli Broad, has an enormous amount of influence in our schools and that we the public need to be more aware of it.
This blog relates to class because of our discussion about "Globalization From Above." Eli Broad is attempting to make our schools follow a "From Above" philosophy in order to help his own agenda. By giving him control of our education system through individuals trained in his philosophy we have created an undemocratic system. I agree with the author that we need to be wary of Eli and his attempts to change our schools. I believe that we need people in charge of curriculum who are actually involved in the community and know what the children of the area need to be learning in order to be successful in the community. This will not happen if we let Eli Broad's "croanies" take over schools across America. I believe that the author comes from a student-centered approach. He clearly supports a "From Below" approach to globalization, rather than a corporate-designed curriculum. He advocates a democratic view of education and curriculum as well as a community-designed curriculum.