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William Penn launches a PR offensive against City Paper report with Inky assist
William Penn seems very unhappy with City Paper's investigative report. Today's Inquirer stories seem like a fairly transparent PR pushback.
William Penn launches a PR offensive against City Paper report with Inky assist
Today's Inquirer includes two articles (here and here) on the William Penn Foundation, including the big news that William Penn announced a $15 million grant to the pro-charter Philadelphia School Partnership―a scoop that we reported yesterday and that William Penn had refused to confirm.
Indeed, William Penn president Jeremy Nowak gave his Inquirer interview yesterday―after our story broke―making it seem pretty darn obvious William Penn spoke with the Inquirer as part of an effort to push back against a City Paper story they are very unhappy with.
And while the Inquirer cited our article, they did not report or follow up on its three most important scoops:
1) There is significant behind-the-scenes-collaboration between William Penn, the School Reform Commission, the Philadelphia School Partnership, and pro-charter groups (with ties to pro-voucher groups) to push school restructuring.
2) William Penn has indicated that it will cut funding to progressive organizations likely to oppose the school restructuring plan, such as the Philadelphia Student Union.
3) The Philadelphia School Partnership has a deep working relationship with conservative pro-school voucher organizations and donors.
“The rising influence of William Penn and the Philadelphia School Partnership and the Great Schools Compact is not universally admired,” the Inquirer concedes. “Some fear that the compact gives short shrift to the district schools.”
It's not that some “fear” this — the secret network that City Paper uncovers shows it.
Or how about this bit:
[Philadelphia School Partnership executive director Mark] Gleason said that when the coming announcement about more money for the Philadelphia School Partnership is made, some donors have asked to remain anonymous, but most will be named.
"The folks who are critical or wary of these sorts of donations are missing the point, because they're focusing on intentions or perceived intentions," Gleason said. "What we're trying to do here is get people focused on outcomes."
Well, CP did uncover who some of those secret donors are: Janine and Jeffrey Yass, the latter being a very conservative hedge-fund manger from Bala Cynwyd who has, along with Susquehanna International Group colleagues, spent millions to support pro-school voucher candidates. Why didn't the Inquirer mention this?
Today the city's paper of record behaved more like William Penn's PR team.
William Penn Foundation is no longer a disinterested player in Philadelphia school politics but rather a strong supporter of a well-heeled network that believes that the solutions to public education's problems lie in private management. That's a fair position to take — but readers have the right to know that they take it.
I'm glad to see this response. When I saw the Inky's article today, it was obvious that Jeremy Nowak & William Penn foundation (and no doubt SRC commissioner Ramos) went into full-on crisis control mode. They freaked out when the inner workings of their privatization machine was revealed to the public, and they called on the Inky to do damage control.
I used to respect Inky reporter Kristen Graham as a decent journalist, but she showed her true colors with today's article. She put the interests of William Penn & this network of corporate powerplayers ahead of the people's right to information.— mew82
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