Think Tanks and education. Part 2.

How do interest groups and “think tanks” operate ? Part 2.

“ Interest groups supported by the Kochs spew out a steady stream of position papers, congressional testimony , and public pronouncements about public policies that are detrimental to the middle class.  They back unrestricted free trade and oppose even the slightest government action that might be interpreted as protectionist, a position that helped to destroy millions of domestic manufacturing jobs. “

Bartlett and Steele. The Betrayal of the Middle Class. 2012.

And, in public education ?

Good for Business; Kids Not So Much

While most education reform advocates cloak their goals in the rhetoric of "putting children first," the conceit was less evident at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, earlier this year.

Standing at the lectern of Arizona State University's SkySong conference center in April, investment banker Michael Moe exuded confidence as he kicked off his second annual confab of education startup companies and venture capitalists. A press packet cited reports that rapid changes in education could unlock "immense potential for entrepreneurs." "This education issue," Moe declared, "there's not a bigger problem or bigger opportunity in my estimation."

Moe has worked for almost fifteen years at converting the K-12 education system into a cash cow for Wall Street. A veteran of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, he now leads an investment group that specializes in raising money for businesses looking to tap into more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent annually on primary education. His consortium of wealth management and consulting firms, called Global Silicon Valley Partners, helped K12 Inc. go public and has advised a number of other education companies in finding capital.

"think tanks" How they work .

Top Obamacare Critic's Op-Eds Drafted by PR Firm That Reps Drug, Health Care Clients

Ed. Note. This is how top PR firms work while calling themselves research institutes.  Note below how the Broad Foundation and Michelle Rhee perform parallel  services.

  

The Drum Report. Mother Jones.

Meet the magic PR elves fueling Sally Pipes' prolific anti-health-care-reform punditry.

Last Tuesday, a week after the Supreme Court's ruling upholding Obamacare, Sally Pipes appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to enumerate the evils of the law. The president of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based free-market think tank, Pipes warned members of Congress that if they didn't act quickly Americans would soon suffer the rationed care and long waits supposedly plaguing her native Canada. The country's health care system, she insisted, had killed her mother by refusing to test her for colon cancer, which she later died from.

Pipes' appearance on Capitol Hill, days before the House voted for the 33rd time to repeal Obamacare, capped a busy two weeks for the prominent critic of the president's health reform law. In just the 24 hours following the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision, Pipes churned out thousands of words of outraged copy, publishing columns in the National Review Online, the Orange County Register, the Daily Caller, Human Events, and elsewhere—all while running her small think tank and keeping up her typically frenetic schedule of media interviews. All of this cemented her status as a leading voice of Obamacare opposition. Along with a constant stream of op-eds and TV appearances in recent years, she has also authored three books since 2008 lambasting health care reform.

If Pipes seems supernaturally prolific, there's a good reason. To assist with her written output, PRI employs a DC-based ghostwriting and PR firm with drug and health care industry clients. That firm, Keybridge Communications, researches, drafts, and edits much of Pipes' published work in an arrangement that's unusual for someone at a supposedly independent think tank.

Several former PRI staffers tell Mother Jones it was well known within the organization that Pipes relied heavily on Keybridge, particularly for her books, and did far from all of her own writing. (Pipes thanks Keybridge and specific staffers there in her last three books.) In recent years, PRI has spent large amounts of money on Keybridge's services. Between 2008 and 2010, the think tank paid Keybridge nearly $1 million—$400,000 alone in 2010.