Several people sent me a video of Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report skewering Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, and Howard Fuller of Black Alliance for Educational Options as sell-outs for a rightwing agenda. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPACwRgw04
I must say there was nothing in the video that surprised me. Back in the late 1990s, when I was involved in three different conservative organizations, there was a concerted effort to find and promote black advocates for choice. The leaders on the right wanted to promote charters as a boon to minorities and the poor. The pitch was, “We are saving poor kids from failing schools.” After all, they couldn’t very well go to state capitols and say, “Please pass charter legislation so that we can get government off our backs.” Or, “please pass charter legislation because we can’t get vouchers.”
So the strategists on the right devised a clever campaign that was irresistible to liberals and conservatives alike: Create privately-managed schools to save poor black and Hispanic kids. Republicans would like the privatization aspect and liberals would fall for the “save poor minorities” part.
It worked.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It says the link is broken to the video
Link did not work for me. This it?
Two words about Diane’s blogs–Terse & incisive. Thank you!
A history lesson for everyone.
Yes, it has worked brilliantly – the “civil rights issue of our time.” No matter that the achievement gap is bigger than ever. Nothing has changed for poor minority children. The difference is now corporations are raking in millions of dollars and politicians like Cory Booker are bankrolled while praising Wall St. and trashing unions. There is no Democratic Party anymore.
I listened to every word of Glen Ford’s video. He has nailed part of the political right, but he now must deal with what is considered the political left (CFR). Most of the political right belong to The Council for National Policy (CNP) that is a secret membership organization consisting of members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heritage Foundation (that goes under different names in different states). The political left and right have joined in mid-stream to destroy the people’s schools along with private and home-schools. The Faith Based Act hooked some greedy religious schools into the federal government’s ugly controlling plan. Not just Black children but all children connected to religious schools and organizations.
Glen Ford identified some of the right foundations, and there are many- both right and left dumping billions of dollars into the school restructuring movement. Most, through their business connections stand to reep the rewards of the billions of dollars that unassuming American citizens pay into what they think are their schools. Glen Ford was correct, unless American’s stand together, united and strong, we can kiss our public (and yes) private educational system goodby.
President Obama was connected with the Annenberg Foundation in Chicago. Walter H Annenberg, Publisher, Diplomat and Founder of The Annenberg Foundation poured mega dollars into the restructuring movement. He was on the Board of Directors for the New American Schools Development Corporation. He was a personal friend of President Ronald Reagin. Check this out on the web. Mr. Ford, as far as I can ascertain, put President Obama in the proper catagory with a few other Black citizens who joined with the money hungry, greedy right and left to take the citizens children and schools. The purpose of the School-to-Work Act was and is to train children for the global projected workforce. Read it! It made me sick! There is no upward mobility with this type of system. The purpose of the above mentioned design teams is to place children in charter schools etc to train according to whatever the businesses determine. Education is not, and has never been the goal in this diabolical plan. More important, one must remember that this plan has been laid out for many years.
The government’s educational, experimental programs were/and probably still, published in a book titled “Educational Program that Work”. Well, many do not work for education, and most have preyed on our poor and minority student to get their foot under the door to let the camel in. The camel is Charter/Choice/Voucher schools. I sincerely doubt that American citizens have enough collective money, to turn this travesty around, but all I can suggest is we must. As our chidren are educated so goes our nation. Thomas Jefferson said (paraphrase) A nation can not remain free and ignorant in a state of civilization. ? Something along that line.
I can only thank people who continue to post on the webs and keep up the good fight.
Mr. Ford is mistaken in that he thinks the unions, AFT and NEA at the national level are at loss to know what to do. They have been in on this destruction from the very beginning. The leadership sold out the teachers and, the most tragic part, our children and our democratic nation years ago. Mr. Ford gave us an important message that all Americans regardless of creed, race or political belief should remember!!! We are Americans.
I agree with your final comment that the national union leadership has sold us out. AFT President Randi Weingarten, for example, has been affiliated with the major privatizer The Broad Foundation for ten years. Here is what they say about her and the AFT in the 2009 mission statement:
Click to access 101-2009.10%20annual%20report.pdf
From the Broad Foundation Mission Statement of 2009
Page 11
Teacher unions have always been a formidable voice in public
education. We decided at the onset of our work to invest in
smart, progressive labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, head of
the United Federation of Teachers in New York City for more
than a decade and now president of the American Federation
of Teachers (AFT). We partnered with Weingarten to fund two
union-run charter schools in Brooklyn and to fund New York
City’s first incentive-based compensation program for schools,
as well as the AFT’s Innovation Fund. We had previously
helped advance pay for performance programs in Denver and
Houston, but we were particularly encouraged to see New York
City embrace the plan.
Page 16
The Broad Foundation invests $2 million in the
Teachers Union Reform Network (TURN), a network of
National Education Association and American Federation
of Teachers locals.
Page 20
In 2005 the Broad Foundation makes a $1 million grant to
the United Federation of Teachers in New York City to open
two union-run charter schools in Brooklyn, the first such
schools in the country.
Page 21
Caption to a picture of “Randi Weingarten getting a hug from Joel Klein, then Chancellor of New York City Schools
Left to right in picture: Eli Broad, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten celebrate at the announcement of the winner of the 2007 Broad Prize.”
Page 23
With the support of the United Federation of
Teachers, the New York City Department of Education implements
a school-wide bonus program in 200 of its most
challenged schools. The Broad Foundation invests $5 million
to help fund the bonuses.
How do we get the real mesage out that the country’s solution for failing schools is unacceptable.Time is running out and the children are suffering.Diane I Love U because you are so real..
Well, it worked to sabotage public schools.
Poor kids? Most of them got stuck in “failing schools” that were worse off because money was taken away for charters, and a few got into the charters, where the achievement is generally no better, and often far worse, than public schools (oddly, here in Texas the Harmony Schools, the Turkish religious group-operated system, works pretty well for some kids; but Texans fear Jihad, and unfair hiring practices may sink the system).
It didn’t work for the poor kids.