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October 22, 2006

Neil Bush Profiting from No Child Left Behind

Several companies wishing to have influence with the U.S. Government are buying up Neil Bush's educational products in the subjects of social studies, history and science and giving them freely to schools for use in the No Child Left Behind program, which is supposed to be focusing on math and reading.

The Washington Times Foundation, backed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has peppered classrooms throughout Virginia with Ignite's COWs [Curriculum on Wheels] under a $1-million grant.

Oil companies and Middle East interests with long political ties to the Bush family have made similar bequests. Aramco Services Co., an arm of the Saudi-owned oil company, has donated COWs to schools, as have Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co.

Neil Bush has also rounded up some interesting investors for his company:

By 2003, the records show, Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong, the head of a Chinese computer firm.

Most recently he signed up Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Reading about the purple cow teachers wheel from room to room under Neil Bush's program to teach students a curriculum that negates teachers having to prepare for class themselves, as well as his recent program changes, from an individualized approach to a one-size-fits-all approach, has left me feeling less-than-enthusiastic about the program. It seems to me teachers ought to be rather insulted that the President's brother seems to think they can be replaced by a purple cow.

We all should be insulted at the underhanded tactics he has used to profit from a program put into place under his brother's leadership and at the expense of true quality education.

Posted by Becky at October 22, 2006 02:44 PM