Who Rules St. Paul's School?--Part 2

As the 2004 book by Michael Kranish, Brian Mooney and Nina Easton, “John F. Kerry”, observed about U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (who has recently been acting more like a “U.S. Secretary of War” in 2013):

“To his critics, Kerry is an aloof politicians who lacks a core…As a boy, he was shipped off for a 7-year odyssey at boarding schools in Switzerland and New England…The boy who was educated at patrician prep schools…married wealthy wives whose net worth dwarfed his own…Kerry…went to St. Paul’s…on the generosity of his great-aunt Clara Winthrop…She owned an estate in Manchester-by-the-Sea…Winthrop offered to pay for much of John’s prep school education… Kerry began at St. Paul’s in the eighth grade and stayed for a total of 5 years, through graduation…”

Coincidentally, John “Skull and Bones” Kerry’s step-son, Christopher Heinz, has also been a member of the St. Paul’s prep school’s board of trustees and co-chair of the St. Paul School's Investment Committee in recent years. St. Paul’s Trustee Heinz is described in the following way on the Heinz-Kerry dynasty’s Heinz Endowments website:

“Christopher Heinz is a founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a New York-based, private-equity investment company. Prior to Rosemont, Mr. Heinz worked as a senior advisor for the John Kerry for President 2004 campaign. Before joining the campaign, Mr. Heinz worked as an associate and principal at Jacobson Partners in New York City. The private-equity group focuses on small to medium-sized companies that have enterprise values between $20 million and $150 million, and are in turnaround or restructuring situations.

“From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Heinz was employed by Cambridge Associates, a Boston-based investment advisor for investors classified as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. During his tenure at Cambridge, Mr. Heinz focused on private-equity and venture-capital partnership evaluation and portfolio construction. Mr. Heinz currently serves on the board of St. Paul's School and on the Board of Visitors of the Carnegie Mellon School of Public Policy…”

Coincidentally, according to the St. Paul’s School’s Form 990 financial filing for the year beginning July 1, 2011 and ending June 30, 2012,  the Cambridge Associates LLC investment advisor that employed St. Paul’s School Trustee Heinz between 1996 to 1999 was paid $261,317 by the tax-exempt St. Paul’s prep school between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012 for “investment consulting.”

The "New York Times" (2/11/07) also reported in 2007 that St. Paul’s Trustee Heinz also married the daughter of “the chairman of Devon Value Advisers, a financial consulting and investment banking firm in New York” in 2007. And as the Muckety blog noted in a May 24, 2011 post:

“Two easily recognized names head Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment firm founded in June 2009, with offices in New York and Washington.

“The company is co-chaired by R. Hunter Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden; and Christopher Heinz, son of the late Sen. H. John Heinz III and stepson of Sen. John Kerry.

"The Heinz-Biden alliance opens doors across the political spectrum. While John Kerry and Joe Biden are Democrats, John Heinz was a Republican….Heinz is founding partner of another investment firm, Rosemont Solebury Capital Management."

“As the great-great-grandson of the founder of H.J. Heinz Co., he would have had access to wealth even without the political connections of his father and stepfather…”

And, coincidentally, both the St. Paul's prep school and the Kerry-Biden administration in Washington, D.C. seem more interested in training young people to serve the special corporate interests of Wall Street investors and "the 1 %" (whose foreign investments overseas the U.S. war machine is being used to protect) than in educating young people to create an egalitarian, democratic society in the United States that serves the class interests of U.S. public school graduates and "the 99 %."

Who Rules St. Paul's School?--Part 1

One of the most exclusive prep schools in the militaristic U.S. power elite's private school system is located in Concord, New Hampshire and operates under the name of "St. Paul's School." As St. Paul's School prep school graduate and Columbia University Professor of Sociology Shamus Rahman Khan observed in his 2011 book "Privilege: The Making of An Adolescent Elite At St. Paul's School::"

"...St. Paul's...had long been home to the social elite of the nation. Here were members of a national upper class...Children with multiple homes who chartered planes for weekend international trips, came from family dynasties, and inherited unimaginable advantages met me on the school's brick paths...

"...A cursory look at St. Paul's leaves no doubt that the school is a place where already privileged youth spend their adolescent years; two-thirds come from families who can afford over $40,000 per year for high schools. The colleges that students from St. Paul's are most likely to attend is Harvard followed by Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell, Princeton and Stanford. The acceptance rates to these institutions are well above three times the national average. In recent years, 30 percent of graduating classes attended an Ivy League institution and around 80 percent attended one of the top 30 colleges and universities in the nation. The school's annual per-pupil expenditure of over $80,000 for each student is approximately 20 times what most high schools spend. St. Paul's also has one of the largest endowments of any educational institution in the country (nearly $1 million per pupil)...

"...If St. Paul's was a meritocratic place--if you got there because of your hard work and your own personal excellence--then why was the school made up of mostly very wealthy students?...Why were many students the children of parents who went to boarding school, particularly St. Paul's?...The school is not, in reality, a meritocracy...If you believe that the children of alumni should not have a far better chance of attending the school than childrn who are not `legacies,' then the school is not a meritocracy...

"...Just like at other elite schools, at St. Paul's receiving an A is closer to average performance than it is exceptional work...Today as in the past, elite colleges still listen to elite high schools...It is not just the quality of the students that gets them into college, but the quality of the relationship between elite high schools and colleges...St. Paul's refuses to rank its students...It is only a slight overstatement to say that I rarely saw a student reading...at St. Paul's...If we think back to the history of how elite colleges accept high school students, we can recall how they deemphasized academic excellence in favor of other factors (`character') so as to advantage students from already established backgrounds...

"...There are more rich kids at top schools than there were 25 years ago and fewer poor ones...Rich people have more money than poor peoople. And they use that money to buy advantages for themselves and their children. One of the places they do so is St. Paul's School..."

Coincidentally, the former preppie 2004 Democratic Party presidential candidate and current preppie U.S. Secretary of State who's been pushing for the U.S. war machine to be used in 2013 for a cruise missile attack on people in Syria recently--John "Skull and Bones" Kerry--is a graduate of St. Paul's School. And apparently the stepson of U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, Christopher Heinz, has also, coincidentally, been sitting on the St. Paul's School board of trustees in recent years.

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 9

The 1999 book by Harlow Unger, "How To Pick A Perfect Private School" indicated how the elite private prep schools of the U.S. power elite's private prep school system contradict democratic and egalitarian values and provide their mainly wealthy students with a different educational experience than what most U.S. public schools provide most students who graduate from U.S. public schools:

"If your child is accepted by, and enrolls in, private school, both your child and you...will enter a new educational and social world unknown to (indeed unimagined by) the vast majority of Americans whose children routinely attend public schools. Most have never seen or even heard of America's most prestigious private schools. Most respond with blank stares at the mention of such names as Exeter, Hotchkiss or even Collegiate...Attending private school...is a privilege...

"...Enrollment in a private school will mean your child will join a private club. Some of these `clubs' can often ease entry into the most selective colleges and universities and into the halls of power and leadership in business, industry, government and the profession. Membership in such clubs often lasts a lifetime, and can produce...associations that last equally long.

"Flagrant violation of private-school rules, however, can mean swift expulsion from that club...Many private schools...are the way they are because those who own them...want their schools to be that way...Again, they are private! So if you disagree witih the way a school is run, don't enroll your child!"

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 8

The admissions offices of most U.S. elite universities, in an undemocratic way, generally grant preferential treatment to student applicants who have graduated from one of the U.S. power elite's private prep schools--and not from a U.S. public high school. As Harlow Unger's 1999 book "How To Pick A Perfect Private School" observed:

""...About a dozen of the most selective boarding schools of the Northeast, which...limit admissions.., send a disproportionately high number of their students to the most selective colleges and universities...Phillips Academy...has a physical plant that is larger and more extensive than many colleges...More than one-fourth of the typical graduating class goes to Ivy League colleges...Andover [Phillips Academy] and Exeter [Phillips Exeter Academy] along with...boarding schools as Groton, Hotchkiss, St. Paul's and Deerfield and...New York City day schools as Collegiate, Dalton and Horace Mann, place disproportionately large numbers of their graduating seniors in the most selective colleges and universities..."

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 7

In his 1998 book, "How To Pick A Perfect Private School," Harlow Unger indicated how Catholic parochial/private schools differ from U.S. public school system schools and the elite prep schools of the U.S. power elite's private school system by writing the following:

"...Catholic schools, like most private schools, refuse to admit...disruptive children...Children who don't obey the rules are expelled. Public schools must by law deal with all children, and, therefore, incur far higher costs handling disruptive, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped or learning-disabled children...

"...The academic quality of most Catholic schools--especially parochial schools--is far below that of most selective independent schools...Only 44 percent of 8th-grade students in Catholic schools achive the highest level of reading proficiency..."

Hawaii's `Non-Profit' Punahou School Assets Increased By $28 Million After Obama's Inauguration

In 2009 funding for the public school system in Hawaii was decreased by around $468 million. Yet between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011 the total net assets of the “non-profit” and tax-exempt elite, private prep school in Hawaii from which Democratic President Obama graduated in 1979--the Punahou School--increased from over $288 million to over $316 million, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2011.

The Punahou School claims to be a private educational institution that is run on a “non-profit” basis. Yet between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011, the total revenues earned by the Punahou School exceeded its total expenses by over $16 million. In addition to collecting over $73 million in tuition and fees from the parents of its preppie students, the Punahou School also collected over $9.5 million in investment income from its endowment funds’ and Ltd. Partnership stock portfolio between 2010 and 2011, as well as over $17 million from the tax-deductible contributions and gifts which it received.

And, coincidentally, the annual salaries received by officials in the “non-profit” Punahou School private prep school administration since Obama’s inauguration were significantly higher than the annual salaries received by most U.S. public school teachers between 2009 and 2012. Punahou School President James Scott was paid an annual salary of $433,00, the Punahou vice-president and treasurer was paid an annual salary of $276,00 and the principal of the Punahou School’s Academy division was paid an annual salary of $298,000 between July 2010 and June 30, 2011.

Obama's Hawaiian Punahou Prep School Connection

 “Hawaii's public schools are in crisis.

“Simply put, there isn't enough money to keep them open full-time. With…a $468 million budget cut to Hawaii's Department of Education, in September the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) voted to accept a two-year contract that includes 17 furlough days for both the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years….The cuts have been scheduled for regular school days, reducing Hawaii's public instruction from 180 days to 163, the fewest in the nation and ten days less than the state second from the bottom, North Dakota….

“There is no shortage of frustration to go around, particularly among parents of public school children. One such parent is Jack Yatsko,…the father of fifth and eighth grade daughters on the island of Kauai….Of the 34 furlough days planned this year and next, Yatsko said, `this is educational neglect.’…

“…The latest two-year contract…reduces their pay by nearly 8 percent as it slashes instructional days for students…Governor Lingle… imposed 14 percent budget cuts on the Department of Education…Hawaii's fourth and eighth graders' test scores lag behind in National Assessment of Educational Progress rankings.

“Hawaii's state employee furloughs haven't been limited to educators and school employees. One furloughed state employee is Raymond Catania...Catania, who has two teenage daughters, one a sophomore at Kauai High School, pulls no punches.

"`By forcing teachers to take furloughs, it hits our children. Rich families can send their kids to Punahou (where Obama studied) or other private schools, but the working class can't afford that so our kids get cheated.’ …Catania said that with Hawaii's huge military presence, it is painful to see military expenditures increase, while the host state suffers what he considers disproportionate cuts to education and human services….

On Oahu, Kyle Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee…sees the current economic crisis as a pretext to cut programs for political or ideological reasons….

"I have to question why the defense budget keeps going up and up and schools keep getting cut. It's unconscionable." Citing the National Priorities Project, Kajihiro points out that since 2001 Hawaii residents have paid a $3 billion share of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For that same money, Hawaii could have funded 54,718 elementary school teachers for a year," he said. Hawaii has around 13,000 public school teachers.”

--from a November 6, 2009 Truthout article by Jon Letman

 “Aloha! My name is Jim Scott, president of Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Punahou School…is the largest single-campus private school in America with 3,750 students. All of our students go on to college, with over 90 percent coming to the mainland for college…I personally benefited from financial aid as a former Punahou student; so did President Obama, Punahou Class of ’79, who attended Punahou from fifth through twelfth grades…Today 40 percent of the children in Honolulu attend a private school…”

from Punahou Prep School President James Scott’s Sept. 28, 2011 speech at the Office of Non-public Education’s Private School Leadership Conference

Obama’s Hawaiian Punahou Prep School Connection

Most working-class people in the United States attend or graduated from underfunded U.S. public school system schools—like the public schools of Hawaii. But some U.S. public officials, like Barack Obama, are preppie jocks who graduated from exclusive private schools like Hawaii’s Punahou School—which currently undemocratically requires the parents of most of its students in Hawaii to cough up over $17,000 to have their kids sit in a Punahou School classroom. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Democratic Obama administration failed to produce much change in the United States that created more affluence and more qualilty education for U.S. working-class families and public school students between 2009 and 2012? As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter noted in his 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“…Some black Chicagoans found Obama too `bourgeois’ for their tastes—too middle-class…The rap that Obama lacked a common touch reappeared in…[the 2008] campaign…The…reason Hillary Clinton hung on so long in the [2008] primaries was Obama’s weakness among white working-class voters…Obama…reminds them that a class of…elites had left them behind…As one of the…kids at the elite Punahou School in Honolulu, he [Obama] was a…jock…”