Billionaire Eli Broad decided long ago that one of his missions in life would be to privatize public schools, even though he and his wife are graduates of Michigan public schools. He has never explained his passion to stamp out the institution that educated him. He has spent years funding organizations committed to diverting public dollars to private hands. I once was invited to meet him in his glamorous penthouse apartment in New York City, and he explained that he didn’t know anything about education, but he knew management. He believes that non-educators should run education, especially if they surround themselves with people who have degrees in business and business experience. When I was on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, he funded a “manifesto” declaring that principals should be managers, not educators. He started a Superintendents Academy to train urban superintendents in his philosophy. A startling number…