Caz
Last Chance Saloon
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 836
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 Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:06 am Post subject: Ark's Deceit |
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Posted by Caz: Wed Jan 09, 2008 5:56 am
Compare the following:
1) Attachment from page printed from ARK Schools Website 4/9/07: ARK states 'Ark schools has no religious affiliation and is committed to non-selective education.' This has now been modified on the ARK Schools website. ( http://www.arkschools.org/pages/ark-schools/what-are-academies.php )
2) Attachment for job advertising 'Inclusion Coach': Under the Burlington Danes Academy Schools coat of arms: 'A Church of England School'.
ARK either lies, or is confused, about their identity. Either way, they are not suitable for controlling your, my, or anyone else's, children or schools.
But they do.
Now note the following, issued by the Brent Teachers Association and especially note the comments re 25% Christian selection. Ark's deceit suggest that the Brent Teachers Association is correct.
| Quote: | IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR COUNCILLORS
Things that Officers and the DfES won’t tell you about ARK
Now the tax-exile Rosenfeld, repeatedly supported and promoted by Officers as suitable, has pulled out Brent Officers are desperately seeking a replacement and have proposed ARK to be the ‘sponsor’.
Contrary to spin, there is only one academy sponsored by ARK currently functioning. It is Burlington Danes Academy in White City, opened in September 2006. Already they have changed the key selection criteria from the original 10% Christian to 25% Christian for this September’s intake.
The charity was set up by and is chaired by multi-millionaire City trader Arpad “Arki” Busson. Arpad Busson is senior partner of EIM fund management company (with assets reported as ranging from £5 billion to £10 billion). He describes education as “in crisis” and “the biggest issue government face today” and argues that “charities must treat donors as if they were shareholders” (Observer, 29 May 2005). The charity has appointed Jay Altman as director of education. Mr Altman was the founding principal of the New Orleans charter middle schools in Louisiana. The source of some of ARK’s funds is believed to be the City hedge fund business in which some of its donors work. ARK’s website provides details of ARK’s management team and trustees. It also provides details of ARK executives. As well as Busson, other Ark ‘trustees’ include multi-millionaire Paul Marshall, one half of the fund managers Marshall Wace.
Paul Marshall is the largest individual contributor in the country to the funds of the Liberal Democats. Mr Marshall is a director of six companies, three belonging to the ARK empire and one being the Liberal Democrat Business Forum. Marshall Wace Asset Management, which he jointly owns with his fellow director Ian Wace, paid its directors £17.6M in 2005 with the highest paid receiving £5.6M.
ARK, as the sole proposed sponsor, is proposing a specialism in maths. It has been revealed that one proposal considered by ARK is to develop a maths curriculum and sell it to others. The other specialism proposed is citizenship. According to Elle Macpherson, his ex partner, Busson is so devout a Catholic he decided that he couldn’t marry a divorcee, despite having two children with her out of wedlock and despite Macpherson herself being a Catholic.
Paul Dunning of HSBC is a director and trustee of ARK. HSBC scandals include bank charges which the Office of Fair Trading found to be unlawful, excessive and disproportionate, charging excessive insurance on loans and the latest one, only talking to rich customers at a local bank.
Among ARK millionaire trustees is Jennifer Moses. Jennifer Moses was until recently a senior director of the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which was recently fined $110 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for being involved in “the worst financial scandal for a generation”.
Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, twice arrested in the ‘cash for honours’ scandal and subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, introduced Andrew Rosenfeld to Brent. He also supports ARK and at one of their fund raising events he auctioned a tennis match with Tony Blair.
ARK withdrew from proposals to sponsor an Academy in Islington after a strong campaign by the NUT, parents and teachers.
When ARK visited the Islington school this was the impression they gave. Peter Hyman, key strategist to Tony Blair for more than 6 years, wrote in his book ‘1 out of 10’ that when former Goldman Sachs director Ron Beller (Ben) and a group from ARK visited the Islington Green school ‘the culture clash was immediate. Ben was loudly finishing a conversation on his mobile as he entered Trevor’s (the Head’s) office. Janice and Robyn, Trevor’s PAs, found this rude and disconcerting’. And so would we all. Ron Beller’s high regard for Islington Green’s then current employees was also manifest in his view that ‘Trevor could and should get rid of most of the staff and start again’! He is ‘a businessman in a hurry’ whose ‘every sentence’ is ‘laden with frustration that people weren’t moving fast enough to satisfy his needs’. Ron and his ARK friends would have been in charge of the school. However, they withdrew.
In conclusion, ARK is an American and British educational charity sponsored and run by a group of millionaire merchant bankers and currency speculators. There website claims they have a ‘wealth of experience’. What they do have is an experience of wealth. Last year, when they were senior directors at investment bank Goldman Sachs, Ron Beller and his wife Jennifer Moses were robbed of £2 million by their secretary Joyti DeLaurey - without noticing it was missing! Beller’s yearly wine bill, according to the Guardian, amounts to £18,000. To repeat, Goldman Sachs itself was recently fined $110 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for being involved in ‘the worst financial scandal for a generation’. They were also the bank which allowed Robert Maxwell to fleece the Mirror pension fund in the early 1990s. First on the list of ARK corporate sponsors is Aspect Capital. Aspect Funds are (according to their website) ‘organised as exempted companies incorporated with limited liability in the Cayman Islands, the investment activities of the Funds are not regulated or otherwise overseen by the Caymans Islands’ government or any other financial regulator’.
Information provided by Labour Research Department, National Union of Teachers Academies and Privatisation Unit, and Islington Teachers Association.
Printed and Published by Brent Teachers Association |
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