There are three types of people who work for or enthusiastically support well-funded, national political organizations:
(1) Primitives--people driven exclusively by self-interest, greed, powerlust and glory in it. I'm thinking of the Gordon Geckos and Marc Antonys of the world. Primitives don't do well in bureaucracies, but many do well as entrepreneurs. And there are places, for instance in the more buccaneering precincts of Wall Street, the energy industry, in the military and police, and in the entertainment industry where this type can find a niche and thrive. The film industry loves to glorify this type because they are uninhibited adrenal personalities, and adrenaline sells tickets. Their agenda might coincide with that of the hacks below, but hacks are sneakier, more calculating, and more into gamesmanship. Primitives are all about the open, unihibited use of power to get what they want.
(2) Hacks--people who are more at home in bureaucracies and big organizations who know that a cynical game is being played, but play their part knowingly because, one, they love the game and winning at it; two, they're paid well to do their part. When winning the game, when private interest and expediency trump basic decency, then you have a hack. When you have people who justify their deception as a noble lie in the Leo Strauss sense you have a hack. Many, if not most people who rise to positions of leadership in large corporate, foundation, and governmental bureaucracies fit this description. The Grand Inquisitor was a hack, and so was Paul Wolfowitz--although a lot of the neocons are Fools--see below. The key characteristic of a hack is fully conscious dishonesty in all its many variations.
(3) Naifs--people, usually young idealists, who innocently believe the dishonest cover story prepared by the hacks. I think a lot of kids in our military fit this description. Good kids, nobly motivated, but who are being manipulated to put their lives on the line by hacks. Many naifs become cynical when they find out the game was rigged; others become mensches (see below). The cynic comes to see his ideals as delusional; the mensch retains his ideals and noble sense of purpose, but reframes them realistically, and comes to see himself in resistance to the hacks.
(4) Fools--idealistic naifs who have been presented with evidence that the game is being played cynically, but who refuse to believe it for whatever reason: cognitive dissonance, personal loyalties, group or ideological value affinities, inconvenience, fear, confusion, wanting to believe in the best in people, etc. A lot of people who work as staff for large corporate, foundation, and governmental bureaucracies are naifs if they truly don't know what their organization is doing; they become fools when they are confronted with bubble bursting evidence, but continue to think as they did before the bubble burst. Ideologues--people who have pre-fab answers for every question no matter what the evidence--are always fools. I'm not sure if Obama is a hack or a fool. Romney is clearly and unambiguously a hack. Hannity is a fool, and Limbaugh is a hack.
(5) Mensches--Is it possible to be part of a political organization or movement with your head screwed on right, and your heart where it should be? Is it possible for people with common sense and common decency to become part of a political movement? I think it's rare, but it happens. I think the American Civil Rights movement had plenty of people in it that fit this description, but I don't see many on our current political landscape, at least any that have any stature. And certainly not anywhere in corporate education reform. MLK and Mandela are mensches. Diane Ravitch in the educational sphere is a naif who later in life became a mensch. Stewart and Colbert also qualify. A mensch isn't without his flaws, but a basic honesty and decency prevails in the way he or she lives and thinks.
Let's take Teach for America (TFA), for instance. TFA, while it presents itself in idealistic terms, as a kind of Peace Corp for America's poorly served urban schools, is one of the pillars of the American branch of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). For some background on TFA if you're unfamiliar with it, read "Looking Past the Spin: Teach for America". As the article points out, many of the kids who join TFA, the ones who aren't in it primarily to pad their resumes, are in the third category, the naifs. I could see myself as a 22 year old being attracted to it as the naif I was at the time. But it's hard for me to see how anyone could stay with the organization after a couple of years without migrating into the hack or fool categories. There are exceptions; there always are.
Corporate education reform is a cynical game being played by hacks. The evidence to support that assertion is pretty overwhelming, but that doesn't mean that a lot of the people who promote it aren't inhabitants of categories 3 and 4. But the naifs and fools are not running the show, and you don't get to run any show unless you are in category 1, 2, or 5, and nobody in category 5 would be associated with this particular show.