This morning my former colleague Mike Petrilli at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute wrote a paean of praise in honor of billionaire Eli Broad. He began it by saying:
It wouldn’t be super-hard to poke fun at Eli Broad. (Diane Ravitch did a mean-spirited version of that when she called him and his peers “The Billionaire Boys Club.”) Here’s a man who made his fortune building tract housing in the ‘burbs, who micromanages grants down to the penny, a man who names more than a few things after himself (the Broad Prize, the Broad Fellows, and his latest museum project, simply The Broad). He’s the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the 1 percent, and not ashamed of it, either.
I was surprised to hear Mike say that it was “mean-spirited” of me to refer to him and Bill Gates and the Walton Family Foundation as members of “the Billionaire Boys’ Club.” They are billionaires and they are guys. So I wrote Mike and asked him if I had said anything that was inaccurate, and he said, no, nothing inaccurate, just mean-spirited.
I admit I didn’t realize that people as powerful as Eli Broad (“the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the 1 percent”) were so sensitive to criticism. If I offended him, I am truly sorry. I don’t aim to offend.
But I hope that he will give some thought to how his actions affect the lives of other people, people he will never meet. Certainly he is not sensitive to the pain that he causes parents and communities when he sends out graduates of his Broad Superintendents’ Academy to close down their neighborhood schools. No matter how much they cry, he doesn’t hear them.
And he doesn’t give a hoot when parents and educators complain that the people he trains have an unpleasant habit of taking control of the state or district political machinery and short-circuiting democratic control of public education. For a chilling reminder of the Broad methods, read this account of a letter from a former employee of the New Jersey Department of Education.
I wouldn’t want Eli Broad to think I was mean-spirited in describing him and his foundation. I didn’t intend to be mean at his expense. In turn, I wish he would be sensitive to the feelings of parents and educators who love their local public school and don’t want anyone to turn it into a charter run by outsiders. I know it is hard for extremely wealthy people (“the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the 1 percent”) to put themselves in the shoes of the “little people,” the people who are pulling down $40,000 or $50,000 or even $70,000 a year. It’s hard for a triple 1-percenter to imagine why such people care so much about their school or their job or their career or having a decent pension for their old age. But, Mr. Broad, if you should read this, please remember: They have feelings too.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As always your responses are right-on. As you pointed out Broad’s lack of concern for those affected by his methods I can point to similar damage done to my school courtesy of Bill Gates. I taught at the Bayard Rustin HS for the Humanities that was at one time a great school. Then Bill Gates decided that large high schools should be broken down into “small learning communities”(SLC’s) and gave NYC $50 million (as I recall) to help fund the program. The SLC program thoroughly destroyed the school. Regents passing rates dropped by about 50% across the board within 2 years (this while Regents exams were being dumbed down). Subject departments no longer existed. When we had subject departments teachers collaborated with each other and our social studies AP when ordering new text books and preparing for Regents exams. That ended with the SLC model. Results: no up-to-date textbooks and no coordinated planning for Regents exams, hence the poorer results. Bill Gates eventually acknowledged that the SLC idea was a failure. No harm done to him but plenty of harm done to the school. It’s being closed this June.
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I’m so glad that Mr. Petrilli is around to protect Eli Broad from us meanies. Eli’s feelings were really hurt back in ’09 when insensitive critics like myself kept pointing out his role in the AIG debacle that helped crash the entire global financial system.
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2009/03/broad-denies-any-responsibility.html
From there it was a easy move into the school reform business where short-selling public education pays big dividends.
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Diane,
Don’t feel bad. Mr. Petrilli has been on quite a kick going after heroes like you who carry a message to parents like me who demand our schools be returned to us. However, it’s not the opinion of we little people that compels him to attack people like you. It’s becasue of the danger you pose by adding critical thinking to the mix. The last thing the establshment status quo wants is a nation full of people who question and think for themselves. A couple of month’s ago Mr. Petrilli wrote a piece describing Alfie kohn as being half right and half insane (I’m not sure what standardized measure of santity and “being rightness” he was using to get his 50/50 data results). So, after reading the piece I just couldn’t resist, when I noticed the date of the article was the date it was as I was reading it, the urge to email Alfie and tattle on Petrilli. Mr. kohn replied with a thankful response and that seemed to be the end of it as I haven’t seen a rebuttle on his behalf as of yet. In any case keep up the great work you are doing and maybe one day Mr. Petrilli will come to our side once he sees the bigger picture that research paints very clearly for us to see.
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Diane:
It is becoming , as Mitt Romney said, severely or whatever, important that you proffer the truth. I am not sure if all educators have felt the disappointment, dismissal and dismal situations that we find ourselves in because of people like Broad and Gates who have enough money to buy our educational districts and states, one by one. We sit and lose our jobs to charters, which they fund, because our test scores are not high enough as determined by the testing agencies which they fund, yet the charter test scores would show no differences if the data that they fund were released without the spin which they fund. I am sure if Broad were offended by the truth, he did not consider it mean spirited because we the 99% don’t matter anyway, nor does the truth. Keep up the good work!
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Not at all! Just truthful! But, as you know, they don’t want the truth to be told.
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I can’t believe that these billionaires are so sensitive to truthful criticism. They use their money to destroy public education and pay lobbyists buckets of bucks to do their bidding in congress so that the Republicans can favor the charter schools while depriving the public schools of necessary funding. If these overly sensitive “billionaire” boys can’t handle the truth, they can definitely buy Siberia and live their lives in seclusion. Let’s continue to make them cry by definitely offending them with facts and the hurtful “truth”. Thank you Diane.
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Well isn’t the rage to mock and disparage Diane Ravitch? The thing is, it may get the reformers or chuckle, but the parents and citizens are not happy with Bloomberg’s education policies–many of which are funded by the Broad Academy. The principals–or so-called educators–who graduate have no concept of what it’s like to be part of a professional community because “community” is not in their vocabulary.
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This is all part of the spin. We will probably hear that you are mean-spirited over and over again on Fox news. It’s like saying the job creators instead of corporations, or that teachers are the privilege elite,or some other totally ridiculous rhetoric that someone dreamed up to brainwash americans so they can do what ever they need to do to make more money.
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I would take a Diane Ravitch on her worst behavior than swallow anything proffered by the Billionaire Boys no matter how politely they requested it. If the worst that can be said about Diane is that she was mean then lets see what happens when she gets really mean. Forth right, articulate and passionate about seeing clearly about education issues coupled with the ability to self reflect; wow. Not anything that I associate with any member of the Billionaire Boys Club. It seemed an apt expression- succinct and conjures up the correct level of misguided playfulness that these monied elite seem to have around public school education.
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Diane, I am baffled by the number of folks who tip-toe around the billionaires as if to ignore the catastrophic impact of their inane (putting it mildly) policies on public education. I am all for academic debate, and try as hard as possible to stick to the facts. But there comes a time when you must call the bullies out.
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Thank you, Ms. Ravitch, for bringing together and publishing the news about the “Ed Reformers” and what they do. I’m a retired school librarian and have read about many of the things you publish in a variety of places. You bring it together and summarize it so well. I taught my students to consider authority and bias when using Internet resources for research. You have the authority and your bias (and we all have a bias), is not shaped by funding. There is one point about Eli Broad I would add. Didn’t he use the toxic, Chinese drywall in his tract housing? I think that is something we should consider when we look at him as a philanthropist.
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Many people don’t understand what the word “mean” means. My student teachers feel like correcting a student is “mean.” Your former colleague says that your telling an unflattering truth is “mean.” Little kids think that anger is “mean.” People wanting to hurt others’ feelings call them “mean.” I read that chapter. It’s tough, but it’s not mean. There is a lot of political rhetoric that is mean, though, and I appreciate whenever a writer takes the high road and avoids the mean low road. Thank you for speaking out.
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Petrilli keeps trying to present himself as a centrist, just trying to tone down the rhetoric. That’s a strategy to deflect discourse away from the content we urgently need to address. Nobody is concerned for Broad’s feelings, what you need to tweet is this:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/06/new-jerseys-cerfdom-brings-treasure-to.html
Broad “graduate” Chris Cerf is moving to consolidate total budgetary control of New Jersey education from the top. Here is somebody from inside the state DOE trying to blow the whistle on the data manipulation and institutional cronyism Broad sponsors.
Help them by finding investigative reporters who will get the story out.
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As a parent of three New Jersey public school students, here’s my request to you, Diane: BE MEANER. It outrages me that people like Eli Broad are interfering in my kids’ schools and demeaning their teachers, dedicated people who are improving the lives of hundreds of kids each and every day. It outrages me that Broad sends us people like Chris Cerf to beat up on public schools and then privatize them. It outrages me that the Broadies lie about what is “proven” to work and what “doesn’t matter.” It outrages me that they treat community schools like pawns to be sacrificed in a crazy game of reformy chess rather than like crucial institutions that bind communities and bring neighbors together. Broad has appointed himself the Emperor of Education Reform based on nothing but money, and we’re supposed to worry that criticism hurts his feelings? Please, Diane, say whatever it takes to convince people that we must not hand over our precious public schools to people like Eli Broad. I can think of far worse things to call him and his friends than the Billionaire Boys Club.
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The people with all of the money and power aren’t so delicate, Diane. I wish they would channel some of that self-pity to American children, who are suffering greatly while they line their pockets.
No, I don’t think I was being too harsh, just honest. Because if we don’t call a spade a spade, how on earth will we ever be able to deal with the problem?
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