Back to the 50's: Businessmen try to capture Houston school baord

Enron may have fallen, and the Bush/Cheney administration has left Washington in a hurry, but one group of second-generation Houston business titans are flexing their muscle on their own homegrown, seeking to reshape local public education in their own image.

These fortunate sons have been pouring money into two charter-school networks for years, and are now hoping to shift 10,000 public school students into the KIPP and YES PREP charter schools.

The KIPP funding-political coalition includes a surprising number of second-generation business leaders, sons of men who are or were powerful figures in the business community: Leo Linbeck III, Shawn Hurwitz, Jeff Hines, and Harvin More IV.

Hines Interest is an international real estate firm controlling assets valued at approximately $25.8 billion. Jeff Hines has pledged $10 million to KIPP.

Shawn Hurwitz is President of Maxxam, Inc. His annual compensation is nearly $1 million a year. His father is Charles Hurwitz, CEO and Chairman of the Board for the company. His 2008 salary was $1,638,020. Shaun Hurwitz in a collaborator with Mike Feinberg in KIPP's expansion.

Mr. Linbeck is CEO of the Aquinas Corporation which has annual revenue over $500 million. He is the “Chief Growth Architect” of the KIPP growth plan.  His father has been one of Houston's prominent businessmen and a regular contributor to conservative causes.

Mr. Harvin Moore IV was a founding executive board member of KIPP-Houston and serves as an HISD school board member. His father, Harvin Moore III, was once a prominent savings and loan operator in Houston and is currently a Deloitte & Touche executive.

Another contributor is John Arnold, a former Enron trader who is worth a reported $2.7 billion, who along with his wife Laura have a foundation, the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, which has contributed $10 million to the expansion effort.

Two corporate funded  Houston foundations, the Brown Foundation and Houston Endowment, have lined up behind the charter networks. The Brown Foundation has made charter schools its first priority. The Houston Endowment has promised $10 million for YES Prep.

In challenging the public schools, Mr. Linbeck has asked: “At what point does the district react and say they have to compete?”

Mr. Linbeck may be seeking to answer his own question--NEVER, because he and other affluent charter supporters are financing three candidates for the Houston Independent School District, in addition to the two candidates they have already helped place on the board.

In District 1, on Houston's predominately Hispanic northside, they are putting two candidates forward: Linda Toyota, a Republican,  and Anna Eastman, a Democrat. Their goal apparently is to force popular Hispanic Alma Lara, a retired teacher and principal, into a runoff, when turnout among Hispanic and low-income voters is relatively low.

It is not clear why charter school advocates want influence over the school board, since the charters they support are independent of the school district, but it is assumed they want the district to facilitate the transfer of their students to these alternative venues.

The nine-member school board already has two board members either closely associated with the KIPP and YES PREP networks, or whose campaigns were financed by their sponsors. The Houston Chronicle, which often follows the lead of the business community, endorsed Ms. Eastman for post.

The school board power grab harkens back to the days in Houston before civil rights, when a few white corporate leaders worked as a unofficial senate making all the important decisions regarding local public policy regardless of who held elected office.

It is likely few people in Houston know of the role charter sponsors have played in this school board campaign, as it has been overlooked by the official local press.