First, Russo is more of a social gadfly and namedropper than a punch thrower. Second, you are right. The venture philanthropists did kill the goose. The golden egg was the early small schools and charter schools movement. It was killed when the VPs shifted support to the CMOs and made it impossible for that original small schools movement to compete. The new CMOs ripped the heart from the charter school movement. Now you have new schools in New York, funded by the least socially conscious VPs, that openly discriminate against ELLs and special ed kids. Who would have thunk it?