While we were celebrating Steve Zimmer’s thrilling win over Kate Anderson in the Los Angeles school board race, the corporate reform crowd had to figure out how to spin this embarrassing defeat.
Here it is, fresh from Twitter: Deasey kept his school board majority! Monica Garcia was re-elected! Big money saves Deasey!
Inconvenient facts: The billionaires put together about $5 million to beat Steve Zimmer, who is a member of the school board in his first term. Steve is an independent thinker who dared to propose oversight for charters and a moratorium on new charters until the board had established some means of holding them accountable. Steve is also a TFA alum who remained as a public school teacher for 17 years. To the billionaires who own the charter movement, he had to be punished.
Monica Garcia, the board president, had about $1 million of the billionaire fund and four opponents. The man who came in second–Robert Skeels– raised about $20,000.
So now the corporate reformers are exulting that they helped Garcia beat back Skeels.
Really, they are pathetic.
Spare a little sympathy for those who just suffered a huge loss and are trying to salvage something from the wreckage.
Tears for Goliath.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
I think it’s probably important to point out how much the UTLA (and others) put in to Zimmer’s race. It wasn’t nearly as one-sided as you indicate:
Sub-district four is shaping up to be the most contentious as Kate Anderson challenges incumbent Steve Zimmer. $879,385 has been spent to support Anderson while $438,933 has been spent to oppose her. Zimmer‘s campaign reports $616,353 and $319,512 in outside spending in support and opposition, respectively.
Here’s the link to the story: http://ivn.us/2013/03/05/spending-records-topped-in-lausd-board-election-before-primary/
Best,
Gideon
Gideon. UTLA’s contribution was a drop in the bucket (and was for mailers, not TV commercials) compared to the oligarchs 5 million – including Murdoch’s last minute donation. And the lies/distortions of Anderson and Garcia’s campaigns were disgusting – saying teachers/unions protect pedophiles, etc. I’m looking forward to Garcia crossing the line even further, now that she’s emboldened, and wipes out. Ethics count in this world.
Carrie,
Not sure how you can call UTLA’s contributions to Zimmer a drop in the bucket. According to public filings, Zimmer received more than $1mm in direct and indirect support.
-Gideon
The “reformers” have had some laughable propaganda soundbites in that race.
Naturally, the amount of outside billionaire/corporate/”reform” money flowing in got attention even from the mainstream media. One of their responses was to claim that donations from teachers’ unions were equally “outsider,” though of course the unions represent the teachers in the district. The MSM sometimes fell for this one.
A more off-the-wall response was that actually INSIDER money, from within the community, is corrupt, because people in the community have a stake in the outcome. Think about that notion and its logical extension (eliminating democracy) for a while!
They’ve already started on the “low voter turnout” damage control, too. Look for misleading claims that ignore the increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots.
In a recent election, California education “reform” goddess Gloria Romero made the ultimate outrageous comment on that. Romero was the public face of California’s failed, Koch-funded union-busting Prop. 32. After it failed, she wrote an op-ed for the far-right Orange County Register claiming that low voter turnout corrupted the election. However, she ignored the high percentage of vote by mail ballots and thus gave entirely inaccurate information. Here’s her commentary with a rebuttal at the end giving the accurate information.
http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2012/11/gloria-romero-gets-it-wrong-half.html
And for comic relief, check out the L.A. Times’ endorsement of the one really successful “reform” candidate, who ran for re-election against three or four way underfunded challengers: “We consider Garcia a poor choice for the school board, and we always have. In her last reelection bid, we endorsed her only because there were no candidates running against her. … a divisive and sometimes careless force on the board who lacks grace and thoughtfulness as its leader … Her positions seem less considered than reactive. … her response when challenged … is simply unacceptable. … a dismissiveness and lack of basic understanding that is truly disturbing.” Yes, this is an ENDORSEMENT.
As to your Goliath metaphor:
A message to corporate reform: Forget $5 million. All it takes is one well-placed pebble.
Diane,
Why do you delete my posts? I was merely pointing out that UTLA spent a ton of money supporting Zimmer and opposing Kate Anderson. Why aren’t you comfortable telling the rest if the story?
Gideon
—
Gideon Stein
Are you posting that nugget again and again, Gideon? Why? Do you expect people to adopt it as a wall paper pattern? If you’ve already said it once, you aren’t being censored.
Thanks you, Diane, for filtering out some noise.
Chemtchr, for some reason, my comments significantly lag others in gaining “approval” and have been deleted by the moderator in the past. Sorry for the repetition, but I imagine you’re capable of quickly scanning and moving on…
-Gideon
As every parent and teacher trained in child development knows, children many times have a problem with the truth. If they don’t want a certain outcome to an event or want to coverup a truth that does not reflect well on them, they will dissemble and spin the truth to make things appear the way they want it.
This is how the corporate reformers must be viewed, not just in this spin of the LA election, but their whole agenda. Their worship of “the data” is part of this spin. They cherry pick data they want and suppress information that does not reflect well on their agenda.
In the build up of the War in Iraq, on October 17, 2004, a top official (later attributed to Karl Rove) was quoted in The New York Times Magazine saying the following,
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
http://tinyurl.com/az2lxtt
The corporate education deformers should study how this kind of thinking worked out in Iraq!
They have no problem with the truth — the just ignore it.
I’m confused — yes, it looks like Steve Zimmer will win, but Monica Garcia will win big and in the third race it will likely go to a run off. This is what I got from Reuters:
“With over 90 percent of precincts reporting, school board President Monica Garcia, who is fighting to keep her seat against four candidates backed by the teachers’ union, led with 55.9 percent of the vote. Her closest competitor, Robert Skeels, stood at 15.2 percent.
“In another race, incumbent school board member Steve Zimmer, who describes himself as a moderate and faced a candidate backed by the reform groups, was ahead with 52.6 percent of the early vote totals. His rival Kate Anderson had 47.4 percent.
“And in a four-way race for the third school board seat up for grabs, the reform group-backed Antonio Sanchez was leading with 42.9 percent of the vote. His closest rival Monica Ratliff, who is endorsed by the teachers’ union, stood at 34.1 percent.”
Also, this is the spin, at least in the headline:
Two reform candidates leading in Los Angeles school board race
note that ‘reform,’ with all its positive connotations, is not in quotes
(How, again, did they usurp and monopolize the word ‘reform’?)
Two reform candidates leading in Los Angeles school board race
The most encouraging message, I think, is to others in Zimmer’s position, who once were promoted by the deep-pocket corporatists, but now want to exercise their own judgement and independence.
The billionaires were in a panic to teach him a lesson, but instead he taught them one.
Monica didn’t beat back any specific candidate – she beat back the status quo with the support of the community
I think Monica was helped by getting $1 million or so from the billionaires. Or do you consider Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch to be members of “the community”?
Slightly late, but thanks 😉