Capitalizing on crisis: venture philanthropy’s colonial project to remake urban education

Abstract

This article focuses on the increased power of venture philanthropy to shape education in urban communities of color in the USA. The author situates venture philanthropy’s expanded influence in urban school districts in the nexus of urban disinvestment, neoliberal governance, wealth concentration, and economic crisis. The author argues that billionaire philanthropists are using the fiscal crisis of the state to shape education policy and governance, operating as part of the ‘shadow state’. Capitalizing on austerity politics and their philanthropies’ embeddedness in the state and advocacy organizations, venture capitalists deploy their enormous wealth and political influence to restructure urban school districts that predominantly serve low-income African American, Latino, and other students of color. The goal of their neoliberal agenda is to restructure education to serve economic competitiveness and to open up the public education sector to capital accumulation. The fusion of the state and capital, through the interrelation of venture philanthropy and government at all scales, to impose policies of disenfranchisement, public school closings, privatization, and appropriation of Black urban space, constitutes a new colonialism. The article illustrates this dynamic through case studies of Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago.