Yesterday the New Orleans Times-Picayune revealed that I had “cut a check” for school board candidate Karran Royal Harper. It’s true. I flooded her campaign with a contribution of $100.
That was intended to offset the $110,000 that other out-of-state donors like Joel Klein of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp and Reed Hastings of Netflix and Boykin Curry of Wall Street had given to Sarah Usdin of TFA-New Schools for New Orleans and the New Teacher Project.
With the infusion of big checks like mine, Karran might have raised as much as $6,000 or so by now. Those are the kinds of numbers that scare the corporate reformers.
I also disclosed a huge gift of $100 to the No on 1240 campaign in Washington State, which should effectively counter the millions put up on the other side by Bill Gates, Alice Walton, the Bezos family of amazon.com, and other donors.
In the interest of full disclosure, I here admit a third massive contribution. I gave $100 to Marie Corfield’s campaign for the New Jersey legislature.
There. I have revealed all my political contributions in 2012.
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone else did the same? I’d like to know who is putting up the money to subsidize attacks on public education. I’d like to know who is promoting the privatization of this most basic of democratic institutions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We need the tens of thousands of parents and teachers and taxpayers who are beginning to realize that our public schools and educators are being slandered and sacrificed on the alter of privatization to DONATE a few dollars to organizations fighting hard to preserve one of the true democratic institutions of our nation. We need a massive “marketing” campaign of our own t.o tell people the true successes of our schools and our children WHO ARE NOT FAILURES! Find a group of your choice like Parents Across America, Save Our Schools March, Opt Out of Testing, Class Size Matters. . . To name just a few. But be careful that you know the source and don’t be fooled by the name.
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Hey Big Spender: I didn’t know they still had a real newspaper in New Orleans. Checks of $250 or less where the donor reveals the name is not a “big” check. It is the proper way for Americans to support candidates they support. Checks for $110,000 demonstrate big shots trying to buy an election. Great expression of your beliefs.
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New Orleans is flooded with slick Stand For Children mailers in anticipation of the election. No one knows who this organization is or why they descended on this victim city. They apparently arrived with with a moving van full of cash and boundless arrogance. Suddenly they present themselves as the voice of New Orleans children–who they never laid on eyes before nor lifted a finger for in seven years since Katrina.
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—— and wouldn’t it be wonderful to know which politicians and their family members and aides were investing in Pearson Publishing?? Insider trading?? I bet Martha Stewart would love to know.
Marge
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Congrats, Diane. You are not only making waves, but you are making the papers. Somebody is paying attention which means somebody fears your influence. I’m usually not so cynical that I would applaud anyone’s fear, but in the case of the heartless “reformers,” I am secretly delighted that they are showing their true colors. Why would they be picking on David if they weren’t the epitome of Goliath themselves?
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! 🙂
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Dear Diane,
I intend to send this letter to every newspaper I can, I just sent it to one of his campaign organizations. I swallowed hard on this vote, but I believe in public education with all my heart and every voice is important.
Dear President Obama,
I just voted for you. But I have one request, dump your advisers for Public Education policy and start listening to people with common sense! The policies and direction you propose have no foundation of research at all. There is no research to base your proposals on! What exists is evidence of (after several years of implementing these ideas) corruption, graft, profiteering, and deceit. Charters, the majority of them, perform lower than the average public schools yet they continue to thrive and increase despite the scandals (see list of states below), teachers in public schools are better prepared and do a better job yet this noble profession is under attack as never before (teachers are hard-working common people, not politicians running for office), charter schools are recreating segregation (and expanding it to social class) through discriminatory practices (see the attrition rates of the KIPP schools from 6th grade to 8th grade), and over-testing is doing nothing more than igniting and exasperating these issues. For god’s sake, read the work of Yong Zhao, particularly the lessons from China and their testing program. Never has this generation seen such an effort from the wealthy to destroy the future of the middle class.
Most importantly, OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT FOR SALE. Your policies are setting the stage for our children’s future to depend on the whims of wealthy investors: see New Orleans, Washington state, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, California, and now Texas (see San Antonio). There is not room for all the details in this short vent, but I would be more than happy to provide all the examples you could ever want, that is, unless you are in favor of mortgaging our children’s future. I believe your promises were for hope, I pray your intent is sincere, but these education policies provide a slow boil of despair.
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Hey Ben: put that up on Facebook so the rest of us can support your words.
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